“Success in the Relationship Economy!”

Nice slideshow by John Bartos, courtesy of Beeshields.

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Something about being near planes helps government organizations "get it."

A while back we discovered that the Transportation Safety Administration had started what appeared to be a public relations campaign that included -- believe it or not -- a blog. Evolution of Security has become quite an interactive (and frequently updated) place to get the inside scoop on the TSA and a variety of customer service issues.

It's pretty impressive, and continues to evolve.

Well, this morning we discovered that another government organization appears to understand The Relationship Economy -- the United States Air Force!

In DoD approves new social networking Web site, the Air Force Times reports,

A new social networking Web site has been approved by Pentagon officials to help service members and their families and friends stay in touch. The network is secure, password-protected and requires little bandwidth. Last year, when officials blocked access to some popular social networking sites like MySpace and YouTube on Defense Department computers, they cited the need to guarantee bandwidth availability for mission-critical functions. Family members who qualify for the free sites include parents and siblings of single troops, as well as spouses, kids and other relatives of married members.

OK, well they almost get it . . .

I don't really buy the guarantee of bandwidth availability excuse, I think it's more like guarantee security, but notice the observation that this is for 1) service members, 2) their families, and 3) their friends, but only family signup information is identified. I suspect that's 'cause no one has figured out how to streamline the friend verification process on yet another social networking site unless they are going to allow the upload or import of an address book from somewhere else.

I think that in concept this is a great idea, but the pattern reminds me of the walled garden social networks we already have -- MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn, with lip service paid to simplicity while the reality remains a closed-off destination that serves as little more than a bulletin board with file-sharing.

The site explains that they are accepting applications from Active-duty service men or women interested in a website for their family, and immediate family members of active-duty service men or women who are interested in applying for a website on their behalf, and that they reserve the right to discontinue the hosting of any website determined to be set up by a person who is NOT a member of the Armed Forces. Their mission is to provide safe, interactive websites for deployed military heroes to stay connected with their families, funded by the generous sponsorships of the American public.

Bravo, but I wonder what happens after the service member is no longer deployed, and whether all that cool stuff that took hours to upload and arrange can be exported upon departure from the military.

I think not.

My intention was not to do a review, but since that's essentially what just happened, I'll give it 3.5 stars. I question the logic of limiting communications to family, as the service members that I know have many non-military friends. It's commendable that we are trying to combine security with accessibility, but the limitations are too reminiscent of the visiting room at a state prison.

What do you think?

For Recruiting on the Social Web - add some innovation! (updated)

This post has a twist. It's not so much about advise for recruiters, 'cause I'm not a recruiter. It's about engaging in relationships with others and letting our personal connections (and how we treat them) be the lifeblood of our business. It's crazy, I know . . .

The text below may appear disjointed . . . it's meant to accompany the video that should have popped up when you hit this page (at least for the first few days). If you didn't get it, click here (or scroll down to see it by topic and choose from the menu on the link above). ReadWriteWeb continues to claim (as do others) that video is the hot media now, and we support those claims!

Note that the video of our talk is in bite-sized chunks, not like your normal video, more like chapters in a book . . . you can watch for a couple minutes, put a bookmark in, and return later to watch the next part. Each of the sections has a title, also, to let you know whether it would be interesting to you. This technology was made possible by www.GoYoDeo.com. It's free, so if you like what you see, find a way to put it to good use (it's worth much more than you pay for it)!

Here's an outline of the videos if you want to view them a la carte:

Part 1
1 How Web 2.0 are you now?
2 Advertising positions and making friends and contacts
3 Placing recruiting ads on the social web (and better ways to spend your time)
4 Connection strategies on LinkedIn and Facebook
Part 2
5 Social networking on the clock (it better be work-related)
6 Using video for recruiting and job seeking
7 Selected recruiting blogs
8 Engaging others on the social web (conversations)
9 Ideas for Using LinkedIn answers for Recruiting
Part 3
10 What about a virtual career fair?
11 What Web 2.0 job seekers use
12 Southwest Airlines 2.0 (social media recruiting) and jobs in pods
13 Krishna De on LinkedIn and Facebook
14 Robert Scoble on PR
15 Wrap-up and reading suggestions

To choose from the above, click here and hit the stop button on the video, then scroll to your choice!

In our previous post entitled How do you find the right people? Recruiting Socialutions, we talked about finding opportunities to improve how we do what we do. We suggested that professional recruiters shouldn't offer people employment, they should just make friends with them.

Before we get too much into that, though . . . here's a couple of preliminary questions:

Do you have a blog (or read blogs regularly)?

Are you on an email list other than one for work?

That's basic social web stuff. Do you have a profile on Facebook? How about MySpace? On LinkedIn?

Perhaps Bebo, Hi5, Orkut, one I am missing?

On Facebook and LinkedIn, there are hundreds of results with a search for "recruiter." I doubt that's the way to go.

Here are some links:

Recruiting Fly is a site dedicated to bringing visitors the best in employment-related content. From news to features to videos and more, Recruiting Fly is your destination for all things recruiting, HR and jobs. They have a virtual jobfair, too.

In the interest of offering more than one option, we are working with a company called Business 3.0 that has established a Virtual Exhibit Hall, where your organization could easily set up their own perpetual job fair and host events as you wish. Check back soon for a preview.

Alltop (the vision of Guy Kawasaki) has a huge collection of links to career-related blogs.

Find a few blogs that interest you, and subscribe to them (or check them regularly). ReadWriteWeb has some great suggestions on how to engage bloggers and their readers in meaningful conversation.

Jason Alba, co-author of I'm on LinkedIn, now what?, and I'm on Facenook, now what?, has the JibberJobber site blog. Take a look at his articles and then check out his site to see how some folks are and will be getting to you.

And Jobs in Pods had a recent post on Southwest Airlines 2.0. He answered the question, "So who does recruiting well on the social web?" - see Nuts About Southwest.

Krishna De says LinkedIn is used by people in leadership roles in business and those people actively managing their career as it’s a little more discriminating in terms of connections. She considers her connections on LinkedIn network as people she would happily recommend and refer as she knows their work. She observed that Facebook is far more relaxed and is like a group of eclectic friends with perhaps business or social interests in common. She found people who are world wide experts are really happy to connect on Facebook which is exciting and seems to level the playing field.

In the social web, there are some serious players (they understand it and live in it). One of them, Robert Scoble (former Microsofter), says PR now stands for “Professional Relationships.”
So what's HR stand for?

For more on The Emergence of The Relationship Economy, check out the blog of my partners, Jay Deragon (especially his recent post on the changing rules of the game) , and Scott Allen's The Virtual Handshake Blog, and mine - Kicking and SCREAMING.

What do you think?

Socialutions Broadcast 1 - check this out!

Socialutions Broadcast is a news and commentary program covering trends, events and thought leaders creating the virtual future.Today's broadcast includes conversations with guest commentators discussing Comcast's acquisition of Plaxo.

See the Socialutions station's first post here.

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