The Evolving Rules of Social Media

How often should you update your social media profiles?  I just did a walk through our offices and reminded all the employees that they need to go to LinkedIn and update their profiles.  Several looked at me blankly, one even said to me, “Am I supposed to have a profile?” I nodded patiently and said in my normal, playfully acerbic tone, “Yes, you need to have a LinkedIn profile.” She looked at the others around the room as if I had chopped her head off.

It is easy for me to forget that not everyone has had a profile for five years.  Not everyone thinks regular updates and profile maintenance are necessary.  I do and my co-workers know that I do.  In a busy, growing company, LinkedIn and other professional networks have served as a great help in my efforts to recruit for or promote my company and understand everyone’s position and how I can help them, how they can help me.

LinkedIn is the ultimate professional networking tool, even with its constant updates and changes.  I also have a profile on Plaxo – which I like to describe as a cross-breed of Facebook and LinkedIn with some pretty cool tools built in – like their birthday calendar.  I love sending eCards to professional connections; it is a great way to let someone know you are thinking of them and another way to maintain inactive or passive relationships.  You never know when an inactive relationship will blossom into a full-blown active one.

And there are other online networking profiles floating around out there.  My personal social media philosophy has always been:  There are an awful lot of details available about you on the internet- take control of your online persona and have what YOU control be the dominating sources, the highest ranked listings in a Google search about you. I cannot stress enough the importance of knowing what is out there about you.  Go to pipl.com, type your name into the search bar and see what comes up about you.  The listings of personal information are all available on line.  Next go to Google and type in your name in the search bar, but search in “images.”  Other surprises await you.  Information you put out about yourself online is all cached somewhere and is retrievable.

Be careful and be in control.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I have always been a huge proponent of having an open Facebook.  I use it for business and professional networking, so I want people to be able to find me and feel free to contact me.  But I also like feeling secure and until recently, I have always felt secure online.  That was no longer true after a few harassing emails and messages through Facebook and other networks.  I changed my privacy settings on Facebook and now avidly block followers on Twitter.  I have also closed my Facebook chat function.   Why? Because I want to continue to use social media in my work and just like any other tool, there are evolving rules regarding its use.

I choose to evolve with the rules.

by rayannethorn

Over the Rainbow

Josie: Are you happy?

Wyatt: Well, I don’t know.  I’m as happy as the next man, I guess. I don’t laugh all day like an idiot, if that’s what you mean.

–A scene from one of my favorite movies, Tombstone.    It’s a simple enough question, but how would we really answer?  Truly answer. We spend a considerable amount of time trying to cover up guilt, disregard regret, deny jealousy and resolve contempt that I think we forget our main pursuit (or what should be our main pursuit):  happiness.

Happiness. A worthy pursuit, certainly.  But somehow, most of us fail.  And in our failure, of what do we miss out?  Does it affect our families and friends?  Our work?  Our lives?  Of course, but do we even notice?  I think we get so caught up in living that we don’t even realize or even care when we are unhappy.  And then we don’t even recognize when we are happy.  Sometimes, the simplest things can make us happy or alter our attitude and mood enough to allow a little bit of joy to creep in.

Like grabbing the brass ring, it is easy to miss.  Life goes whizzing by so fast that we can’t even see the joy we have found or slow down enough to embrace it and feel the difference between happiness and a droning existence or what we think we should be doing, how we think we should be feeling — what the world, our own little world, expects of us.

We dream of the other side of the rainbow, we chase the bluebird of happiness – when all along it was right in our own backyard.  But because the answer was and is so simple, we simply didn’t and don’t see it.  Or we are lucky enough and we do. Don’t close your eyes to it or to the possibility.  It is a very real feeling, emotion, state of being and it is obtainable.  Happiness is NOT overrated.

“There is no duty that we so underrate as the duty of being happy. ” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Mr. Stevenson died over a hundred years ago, but the concept of which he spoke is not old-fashioned.  It has just been sadly misplaced, misunderstood and made to be far more complicated than it needs to be.  Those with nothing seem to reside in greater happiness and peace than those with everything.  What is the secret? Individually, it will be something different.  I suppose it is for each of us to find out for ourselves.  For me? It was forgiveness.  Pretty simple really.  Forgiving others, yes – but mostly forgiving myself of guilt, regret, jealousy, and contempt – four walls that most assuredly keep happiness away.  And then, seizing happiness, even the smallest spark of it, when it comes into view.

If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow,
Why, oh why can’t I?

You can.

by rayannethorn

 

My Cousin Angie – a story of survival

When I was a senior in High School, I worked at the local mall – about eight stores total, in La Porte, IN.   I worked for a little dress shop called Stuart’s.  It would be comparable to a Forever 21 today. I loved it. Every paycheck bought me new clothes from the store where I worked for $3.75 an hour. I did get a 30% discount off anything I bought, but still – I wasn’t the best as saving, obviously. I had the world by the tail and was loving life.

One evening, when I was working the 5-9 shift, I received a phone call from my mom. Pre-mobile phone days, so she had called on the store land line. Pretty much a no-no – NO personal calls, right? I took the call while my boss stared me down. My mom proceeded to tell me that my cousin Angela had been in a terrible car accident.   I started to shake and I feared the worst. She was still alive, but it was very, very bad. I cannot emphasize how bad. It was as bad as it could get without it being the worst. My boss watched the unfolding of Rayanne right before her and she knew I was devastated. She withheld the “no personal call” scolding and sent me home.

Angela and I had grown up living close to each other, our families spending one or two Sundays a month together, and many weekend nights at each other’s house. My cousin Angie was a style icon to me… I loved the way she dressed and how easily she was put together.   I can remember like it was yesterday, standing in her bathroom giggling and brushing our teeth as we prepared for an all night gab fest – she turned to me and said, “You know you can put toothpaste on zits and it will clear them up?”  Angie was always a wealth of just such information. She was an entrepreneur at a very young age. When her family moved to UT after spending all of her life in California, Angela found a way to stay in tough with her contacts and friends on the West Coast. She got into cross-state merchandising at the ripe old age of 17. She purchased items in UT and then drove into California and sold them for a profit. But one such trip brought the afore-mentioned tragedy.

Angie had a terribly long recovery. She was in, what was termed, a “walking coma.” And when she awoke, she had a rebirth. She started her life over – literally.   Angela,then and now, is one of the most loving people you could ever meet. I had been thinking about her a bit when my Aunt sent over an email with news about The Waifs, an Australian band that my cousin’s (Angie’s younger brother, Mat) wife is part of. Vikki Thorn, Mat’s wife and mother of his two children (one more on the way!)  has a haunting voice and so captured the essence of Angela in a song of that title that I had to share it here. Please visit The Waif’s site for their new album, Temptation and have a free listen to “Angela.” (click on the golden arrow next to “Angela”)

I love you Angie.  I love you, Aunt Joanne and Uncle Chuck.  Life is not always easy but the rewards are sweet and sure for those who joyfully endure.

If you are lucky enough to have an incredible life of health, love, and peace – you are lucky enough. Enjoy!

by rayannethorn

The Phoenix Thinks, Part 8

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

-Calvin Coolidge

Leaders are born. Leaders are developed. Leaders are necessary. Leaders are different than managers. Leaders provide a vision and direction necessary for companies, teams, departments, individuals to move forward. Hundreds of books are written every years regarding leadership in business. We hear about thought leaders, we refer to them, we listen to them, we engage with them, we ask them to speak at conferences and we often disagree with them.

The purpose of a thought leader may be just that- to inspire thought, to drive discussion, and controversy. It is through debate, it is through argument that change takes place or we work better or relationships become stronger. I have spoken to so many individuals over the last couple of years that have clearly stated how they do not want to be referred to as a thought leader. A Thought Leader versus a Doer – can be controversial in itself.

In our industry, there are certainly thought leaders and influencers that step out on limbs all the time with the goal to start conversations, to keep the industry evolving or innovating. And are they really taken seriously? And is the information dispersed even valid when the disperser is a thought leader, not a doer? Experts and Gurus abound. What is it exactly that creates these experts, is it merely because they are followed, that their words are retweeted, that the halls are packed during their presentations? Is it because they had lengthy, successful careers in the fields we reside? Is it because they can write or say pretty words?

Is it because they are persistent? Does persistence truly pay off? Is it because they are talented or a genius? Is it because they have the alphabet soup after their names that denote years residing in academia or is their determination alone the catalyst that propels them into thought leadership?

I think that thought leaders, more than thinking, like to share, to educate, to write, to talk. They inspire thought. Successful people think before they do. There may be the random, recorded successes that occurred following a gut response or instant decision but was it really instant? Gut responses are developed as a result of experience and education . So, somewhere, at some point, thought took place. What thought leaders pass along actually transmits motivation to do work better, smarter.

And the Phoenix still flies.

© by rayannethorn

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Tags: @Ray_anne, doer, leader, phoenix, rayanne thorn, thought leader
Categories : Leadership, The Phoenix Infection, Thoughtful