Yep. Yep, you did good, my friend you did. And for those of you coming in what we're talking about is inside the learning rebels community, we have a special. We have a learning rebels library within the community. And part of that library is playlists, Spotify playlists, and Jason is part of our community. And he put together a playlist that was about Groundhog Day based on a challenge from somebody else in the community. And nailed it. That's all I can say. Nailed it. All right, how is everybody doing? How's everyone doing? You can let me know in the chat or you can come off mic and, you know, share how you're doing today on this? It's a great Friday here. I don't know how it is where you're at.
It's sunny for a change today. Here.
Is it? Oh, that's good. was
pouring yesterday.
Yes, in DC. And by the way, Shannon? I wanted to say hello. And I figure let's jump in. Why not?
Rob, how are you? I haven't seen you in a while. I know you're working in a new you've had a new gig or not? Well, not like new as in yesterday, new but still got
data got a new gig. Yeah. Well, I want to I want to chat with you about it, you know, later on. But actually, it's got to do with a good topic of conversation for what we're doing today, which I believe is networking. You know, that's new job has definitely expanded my reach within the industry, you know, by being in front of by being in an office put it that way. That part, I don't really like that much. To be honest with you. I spend my friends I spend normally is a 45 minute drive right? Yesterday from gunnery County, Maryland, all the way to Arlington, Virginia, right inside the city. That normally takes me about 45 minutes. Well, I spend three hours yesterday. And literally two and a half hours was from a mile away from where I was going to be two and a half hours to move about a mile. It was horrible. So that's why I'm saying I don't really like the commute that much. But I don't blame you. One of the stages is to flip a coin in the DC area, you flip a coin and it can be smooth. Or it can be horrible. Most of the time is horrible, honestly. Yeah.
I hear Yeah. That's going into downtown here too. You know, that's why Usually I take the train going in. And
now I know honestly, now I know. Because in my last 20 years, I've been working out of the house and traveling. Well, you know, now I really understand why people don't want to go back to the office, I guess. Right, right. Yeah, I I get it is just so stressful. It just takes your life away. I was like, Oh my God, how can people do this? Well, they can they don't want to write
it. That's it. Oh, all right. Well, welcome everybody to this. This Friday's Coffee Chat, which is all about virtual networking and getting yourself out there. And I'm so happy to see Brenda in the room. Hi, Brenda. You know, Brenda's doing our Learn something new event later this month, which is all about career resilience. And networking, I'm sure is part of that conversation. For sure. Yeah. So super happy to have you here. Brenda. Welcome. Awesome. Well, thank you. Happy to be here. Awesome. And I'm looking through the list here. I'm not sure I see anybody new all these names look very familiar to me. But if you are new and I'm missing yet, go ahead and let me know in the chat if this is your first time to a learning rebels coffee chat and we can be sure to give you the warm welcome that you deserve. And thank everybody for your time today. This Friday also in here I'm let's see. Yeah, a number of people actually a number of people that I haven't seen in a while so good. It's good to see you like Liliana. Good. Glad to see you here. Although Liliana you used to come with like really interesting glasses so no glasses for us today. These are my real glasses. They are brand new. Okay, I like them. I like them. All right in the chat. Just so you know in the chat. I put the link to the virtual networking planner that I put together for you guys in My last email that went together with the hacking virtual networking blog post, that I dusted off and updated a little bit for everybody. I'll put that in the chat here. Thank you, Connie. You know, the whole key here is to how can we have tools that will help us achieve the goals that we want to achieve. And hopefully, this checklist helps give you reminders to, to do the things that you need to do in order to be better, and to develop that habit of reaching out to people. And here's, here's where I'd like to start now. Brent, and I, as you guys may know, or may not know is that we've started, I've started another podcast. So now there's two. And the second one is our lnd Happy Hour podcast, where Brett and I are discussing, you know, it's our hot takes of some l&d topics. And I'll be sure to send you guys the link to that, because the first episode is already out. And we're super excited about it. Part of our conversation was what's happening to LinkedIn. You know, it's not the same as it used to be, you know, so moons ago, when LinkedIn was just LinkedIn, and it wasn't LinkedIn learning and all the other things that it is today, it truly was an area where you could reach out and connect and network and do the whole, the whole thing of getting to know somebody different and getting to know people within your industry. And not to say that it's not that way, today it is, but it's a little bit more time consuming, I guess is the way that I'd like to put it. It's more almost more marketing focused than it is networking focused. And what that means to me in this context, is that we need to be better, almost better at marketing ourselves. You know, and I know that that can feel uncomfortable. And I know that it can feel somewhat icky. You know, because you're like, I just don't want to talk about myself. I'm not good at it. You know, I don't know what to say. I don't know if what I'm sharing has value. And so I don't know how to approach it. And I'm curious as to how they're limiting connections for free accounts. I did not know that I have a paid account. So I haven't. I haven't noticed that. Oh, okay, that's new. So I'm curious if anybody wants to come off, Mike, and talk to me a little bit about your feelings around LinkedIn right now. Or you can go ahead and you can put it into the chat.
I can chat. All right. How about it, Amy. I love LinkedIn.
I've been on LinkedIn for years and years. And, you know, they're making a lot of changes, some of them have been positive. But as I've mentioned, in chat, for the free accounts, I get 10 connections I can make a month. And we'll send some currently in job transition and doing a lot of networking. It's important for me to be able to connect and stay connected. So in some cases, I have to ask the person I'm networking with, if they're willing to send me a connection, so that, you know, I can have more connections that way. But that's one thing that I've noticed, that's been a little concerning. A good thing is I'm noticing that more people are not just you know, they have their jobs in the job area, but they're also posting them right on like my feet. So that and some of them are learning and development, HR, you know, so that may go out and follow them. Because they're seeing jobs I'm not seeing which is very helpful. A lot of them are fully remote, which is not what I want necessarily, but you know, I'll look at look at fully remote depending on what it is so but yeah, limiting. I actually wrote them a note and said, you know, this has been such a huge tool for many people for many reasons. But for jobseekers, it's so helpful, and they can't necessarily afford to do the premium. So please reconsider putting, you know, a limit on it and they responded uh, well consider it which I now means, you know, yeah,
we deleted your email, deleted your email, but you While I'm, I'm happy you took the time to write to them, because maybe if more people did that, yeah, maybe it maybe it's not that they won't stop that particular policy, but maybe they'll up the limit tends not a lot. No, you know, you know, so maybe 20 Can you give me 20? Right. Yeah. That seems to be fair. Yeah.
So if anybody feels like writing the LinkedIn and complaining on my behalf, where you're being of the more, you know, people they listen to people complain, right? So, right. Suggestions, right? Yes. offer suggestions. Sure. And I like the way that you phrase that, you know, when you've got people who are in
transition, and the budgets tight, then you've got to think about those sorts of things. Right. Thank you. All right. Yep. Anybody else want to? Give me some insight as to? How are you currently using LinkedIn? Let's talk about that. You know, how are you currently using it? So
I'll, I'll buy. And I promise not to talk too much. Because I get to talk to a whole bunch of different tech. You know, one thing that I do certainly when I'm in career transition, is I proactively connect with people, I think, for me, the pandemic and I, my previous policy was that I would meet somebody in person or I worked with them, or I had a friend of a friend before I would connect. And during the pandemic, I realized, I'm never going to meet your buddy knew, if I do that, I'm going to be talking to my same network. So I think that's where it came to one of these is just looking for opportunities to talk to other people in learning and development and just share some different ideas. Because I was, I think, like a lot of us, I was missing that personal connection. I also try to make an effort to always make a few new connections each week. I think it's, it's hard. And my whole thing I've been laid off seven times. So I know the career transition part of this. And I also know the value of proactively building your network so that should you find yourself in that position, you hopefully have a little bit of a head starts. I'm also a fan of personalizing invites whenever I can. Just because even if it's as simple as hey, Shannon, it looks like we're both in learning and development. It looks like we have a lot in common, let's connect. Or hey, Victoria, I saw that article that you posted. And that was awesome. I'd love to I'm learning about that, too. But I think anytime you can make that personal connection with people, and just learn from one another, and then later on, should you find yourself in a position where you're looking for advice on something or you're like, hey, it looks like you know, a person who I'd like to know, are you trying to make connections for networking for for job search, it's just good to have that network there. So I'm always trying to build my network, knowing that it's a mutually beneficial relationship we can all have and I love just putting that out there and creating that network where we can all help one another.
In for that, absolutely. Building that personal or adding that personal note really does mean a lot. Kristen, what would you like to contribute?
Then, great to be here. This guy's a little under the weather. So not Camera, camera, a little camera shy today. i My apologies. Um, so I am actually consulting I've been consulting for for some time now. So this wasn't really fruitful finding the right thing. And so I'm constantly networking. I consider myself somewhat of an expert now on on LinkedIn, and was really thrilled to see your checklist and one of the items on the checklist around writing an article each week. And I really highly advocate that. I mean, LinkedIn is all about algorithms, as you said, it's really a big marketing tool, a branding tool, and really thinking about one what is your brand? And really thinking really carefully when you post anything when you like anything? How is that supporting your brand or going against your brand? Because people are really looking at that recruiters are looking at your LinkedIn profile that is your image to them. That is their first impression of you. And, you know, I've been cautioning some folks that I coach, you know, really think this is not Facebook. This is not Twitter. This is not that forum for you. Right? You you express your political views and complain about this and talk about ghosting recruiters and all that kind of stuff. That all creates an impression and probably not the impression that is aligned with the brand that you want out there. So I'm always you know, trying to caution people and I do it myself like constantly doing myself like, hey, I want to support my friend, but when they're posting about young people and age, and this is that really something that I really want to associate with, with no, I don't. So. So, one, take a look at your brand, to when you are posting, and you're liking something like it and add a comment, that's eight words or more. So eight words is, is what LinkedIn uses to really kind of increase your visibility and, and you know, it's all about the algorithms, so you get more play, the higher, the higher your score, the higher the chances of you being visible to more and more people. And I think that's what a lot of people a lot of us want. The other thing is the writing of the articles. And this is something I've been trying to do, you know, once a week or so the Tuesdays and Wednesdays still seem to be the days where they say, the most recruiters are on, the more, the more most people are on looking at looking at things. So those are two really great posting days. And writing an article is so easy now. Especially if you have I have premium LinkedIn premium, it's 2999. And it's so worth it to me, I mean, you get access to so much more than if you have the free version. And you know, I can justify a lot of things that I don't need, I don't need it or whatever. 2999 you have access to all of these learning opportunities through LinkedIn learning, you get, you know, to really stalk people and honestly check them out. You know, there's there's just so much that you that you don't have when you're not on the premium version. and and just writing the article is huge. The one last thing is think about influencers. So there's there's a couple of folks that that are I guess they're really off LinkedIn influencers and actually usually says it right on the profile. So Francis Frey, for example from Harvard, is just an amazing professor. And, you know, it was crazy. When I liked and commented and had a substantial or substantive comments. And I reposted one of her lessons. He actually was the first one to like, get as an insight, and actually write a nice substantive comment thanking me. And my views my impressions went from, I think it was 50 to over 1000 With now within 30 minutes. So you know, so you know, thinking about, you know, following, you know, people like Francis Frey and people like that in the learning fields or, or whatever fields you're in, really, really can help, especially if they then kind of love what you wrote. It just, and my scores have just been high ever since. And I do that with some other folks as well.
Great tips. I love that. There's a lot that I loved about your about your comment there. There. I do have one follow up question regarding the eight words or more. Where did you find that out? Where did you find that particular piece of information?
Yes. So the first time I heard it was, there's a woman who is amazing. She is a LinkedIn expert, who's actually wrote a really great book about kind of maximizing your profile on LinkedIn. She does a whole bunch of free and paid workshops, etc. Her name is Brenda Miller and E LL. E are highly recommend following her if you're interested in this topic, but she's the one who first talked about it. And then there's been so many other LinkedIn experts that I've spoken to as well who have kind of unveiled the secrets of the LinkedIn algorithm and that's one of them. Interesting.
Brenda, I saw you nodding Are you familiar with Brenda Miller?
Miller? Yeah, I went to one of her sessions. You know, I'm it's always interesting to see what people bring to the conversation. Cuz Yeah, she had a lot of good tips and tricks and yeah, there you go. Yep. Think that Brenda had a or Brenda will call her. Yeah, no, I always like to listen to different people and just see what they have to say. And I think there's always some tried and true things, which is connecting with people posting, reacting to others comments, but it's always nice to get those few other tips and tricks. I know, one thing that I'd read goodness knows where it recently was, as far as reacting to posts, sometimes it's more beneficial instead of liking things to use the other reactions to help. So it's just And it's funny, because it's kind of a moving target. So, but yeah, it, it makes sense that if you'd have a more robust comment, that's going to get more attention. I also think that yeah, having, oh, I had a thought, oh, when you tag somebody, and they responds, I know, that boosts your engagement, too. So yeah, I think it's always nice to know those different tricks,
right? Well, I think you just can't go wrong in general, with commenting, I've said this forever, is that I get a lot of people who like, like a blog post, so I'll post that up on LinkedIn, and like people will like it, but it's like, helped me out? What was it that resonated with you? Why did you like it? You know, are you just giving me a light just because that's great, thank you for that. But if you had, you know, a thought, then please share that. And I think you're always going to register higher in the algorithm, if you do take the time to put a little something there. Right, Eric, I see your hand.
Good morning. Thank you, Shannon. Um, you know, I've done career development now for over 12 years, both as an internal job coach and developer for at risk populations and a couple of different nonprofit for profits. And then I went ahead, and I do career coaching externally. And I would say that the, I think the thing to keep in mind, and of course, this will be considered an opinion. And so opinions are like, you know, bomb polls, and everyone has one. But it's, I think, to the point that you were kind of talking about Shannon, do do engagement, because you want to engage, and do the engagement that you resonate with, if the engagement is coming maybe solely from a place about trying to, you know, game, the algorithm? I'm not saying that you can't, what I'm saying is, is you may lose excitement, you may lose interest. And so, you know, like you said, Shannon, if it's something and it's hard, because there is a lot of content that comes at us. And if we appreciate the things that say, as Shannon is saying, or or Brent is saying and and the other individuals who were following. It's, you know, we all have to sort of sit on that teeter totter and teeter totter between do I want to throw out a little quick reaction, because it's something that at least I'm letting them know that their article was like, you know, a pass by my eyes. But if I'm not actually doing any active engagement, then just understand and respect that. That reaction, like you just said, Shannon doesn't really necessarily give the poster a lot of information or context. And so if you really want to have a dialogue, then that's like, Oh, this one I really like to dialogue on, I'd really like to maybe let the poster know what I did find fascinating, or I see that there's a comment that somebody made, I'd like to let them know, gosh, you know, I resonated with that comment. And so, because social media is a component of social networking, but it is an of itself, not social networking, we all have to then make those decisions about where does social media fit within our lives? And how do we want to have that relationship with it, when we're considering it as a part of our overall negotiating strategy?
Thank you for that and great comments. And to connect this with what was what was previously said it's, it is about understanding who you are. You know, and being true to that authentic self. So if you want to say that's on brand or not, you know, however you want to phrase it, then I think if you are just true to who you are. People realize that but I also do agree that it. There's always been this Facebook occasion, you know, LinkedIn lately. And one of the things that we talked about that Brent and I talked about on the podcast was sometimes when you go through, when you go through LinkedIn, it's almost like Doom scrolling, right? It's so easy to feel less than. Because it because there are people on LinkedIn and call it true or untrue. But it seems as though that you've got the you've got these people out there who say, in order to be successful, you have to wake up at 330 in the morning, read a book, run a marathon, write, you know, write 8000 words, and then start your day in order to be successful. And it's like, oh, my gosh, am I not doing enough? Am I not saying the right things? And am I not putting myself out there. So it's super easy to get down on yourself and to beat up on yourself? Just because you think that you're not doing what some of these other people say? That they are doing? We don't know if they really are doing those things are they doing? Are they saying what they're saying for clicks? Right? You know, so a lot of this is take it with a grain of salt, but you have to be you. And I think that's the biggest part of virtual networking or virtual connections, you know, that is really going to make a difference, Brenda?
Just a comment. It's so hard when you you know, if you're somebody who reads things and tries to learn, it's so hard to just start. Because I think the more you read, you're like, I'm gonna screw this all up. And it's like, you know, what, go out and just follow some people who you think are interesting, which I know, that was one suggestion that came up that Amy might have brought up, go follow them, see what they have to say, add some useful insights. And there you go, you're starting. And then one of the things that I usually encourage people to do just as like a baby step, it's like, what's your area of expertise, go find an article that resonates with you that says something that's meaningful to you, whether it's either Shannon's got an article and working with subject matter experts that I like that I post on a fairly regular basis, there's another one from the Bob pipe group. That's all these reasons why you don't need training. So those are two of my ones that I post a fair amount, that part of that is, hey, I'm Brian, I work in organizational development and learning and development. And, and by the way, here's some things that I know, and let me share this information with you. And so it's not about making the perfect post or making the perfect connection or doing it well. It's like just doing it some, I mean, it's like exercise, you're not gonna get up this morning and go, No, I'm in shape and run a marathon, you're gonna get up and hopefully walk around the block. And maybe you're winded, but you did it. And now you you work up from there. So I think it's that don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And just start,
right, just start. And that's what the checklist is for, is to help you start that habit. Because being in LinkedIn, or any social media, you know, wherever you feel your network gathers is, is a habit that requires nurturing. It requires practice, you know, it, you just don't fall into this. And even, you know, to put myself out there, it's, there are times where it goes off my radar because I get involved in doing things for you know, the coffee chat or, or writing a blog or what have you. And sometimes that whole LinkedIn stream falls off my radar, and then it's like, Oh, dang it. My last post was two weeks ago. Ah, I gotta you know, so you, you have to make yourself a note, make yourself a calendar, you know, prompt that says Wednesday mornings, I'm going to go check out, I'm going to go check out Brenda Peterson and see what she's posted about career resilience lately, you know, so those sorts of things, to make yourself a note, just to remind you, just first to be present. You know, be present in the moment while you're there. I think that makes a really big difference. Now, let me ask you, what else gets in the way. So when you think about networking, successfully, now that's successfully live. So let's just say just networking in general, just getting out there. What gets in the way with you? Put that into the chat and if somebody wants to come off mic and talk to me a little bit about what gets in the way. I'd love to hear it.
As I'm looking at the chats here,
So, Victoria, you struggle with making posts? Right? Yeah, I think again, it's that imposter syndrome that sort of gets in the way. Right. So I don't know, do you want to come and share a little bit about that? Victoria? Yeah,
when I was also thinking that we were pivoting back a little bit to just LinkedIn, I was almost feeling like it was kind of starting to take on a Facebook vibe. And and were you, you do start to crave that validation. And it's like, when I've put things out there. It's like, I got two likes or nothing. And then it's like, well, why should I bother? Because I'm not putting anything of value out there. And then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. And then you just, it's like, well, I just don't want to put myself out there. Because it's, it's not having any sort of an impact. I had another thought. And I think it went away. Maybe it'll come back.
That's okay. I, you're you're right. You're right. And it's I think it's about First off recognizing that, regardless of the amount of likes or comments, that it's a practice forum for you, you know, to practice sharing information, to practice curating information. Also, just to practice commenting on other people's posts. So consider it an exercise in reflection, rather than an exercise in networking. And so perhaps that's the baby step that we all need to lean into. You know, so it's a, it's a mindset shift. In that particular case, it's because you're right, it's so easy to feel deflated. You know, and you think, well, maybe I'm not making a difference, but maybe you are, and maybe somebody just hasn't acknowledged it. We know, so, so there's there is that as well, you know, it's, yeah, you're right, Brenda, I'm looking at your comments, it's easier not to start when you're not sure where you need to begin. And that's why I think I'm going to go back to treating it as a different exercise. But this goes to the, if I go back to the checklist, is understanding your why. You know, and a lot of you have been around me for a long time. And you know, that many of the things that we do usually start with understanding the why, why is it that we want to do this? Why is it that we feel that this is important, right? And so when you think about your virtual networking checklist here, I have I've asked you, you know, what is your purpose? What is your why? And in this case, it might be, I want to, I want to practice writing more, I want to practice putting myself out there more, I want to find a new gig, I want to find a different gig, everybody's going to have a different reason as to how and why they're using LinkedIn, or networking in general. Right. So based on that, let's let's talk about let's talk about the why. So what are some of your why's you know, for using LinkedIn or for virtual networking or for networking in general what are your why's right now? So I know Amy Amy says she's looking for that might be a what there might be a secondary why there for Amy that we don't know about but let's put it into the chat. What is it What's your
oh come on
well, I like that bread host as a normal person searching for answers. Yeah. So Amy to learn from people to build relationships. Hearing about them, I want to learn about you know, the whys. I want to learn about different work deeper work. Right? You want to enhance your knowledge to find your next gig. Exactly. You know, and for me, I love connecting with other people and reading what other people are doing, you know, so I can learn more. But also there's let's be honest, there's there's this Side message here for me, it's, I've got to find that next client, who's the next person who's going to be in my pipeline. So there's two reasons here. I do want to learn from you guys. I want to learn from other people. I want to keep myself fresh and grow. But I also need to be able to find somebody who's going to connect with me, that really feels that my work has value. So it's okay to have two purposes. Yes. Hi, Dr. Bob.
Hey, how about you just want to share that too?
Right? You just want to give back?
Exactly. Yeah. And there, there may or may not be anything coming from it. But I certainly understand using postings as an attempt to make myself better known and get another gig or two. But, you know, ours is a giving profession. Yeah, at least that's how I kind of see it. I just sharing and say, hey, here, here you go.
Yeah, I'm with you. I totally agree with that.
And Brenda does, too.
Yeah, we all do. We all do. And I think it's it really is just about, you know, as learning and development people we we do want to learn. And we also want to give you know, and I think that's just part of the professions DNA. Yeah, that's, that's the positive thing about what we do. And I like people who are just willing to give and share.
Oh, what a cool statement. Our professions DNA. Ooh, I never thought of it that way. Oh,
thank you. You. Let's, let's have a session on that. Oh, sure. Um, let's see. And Jennifer here to stay apprised of ex colleagues whereabouts? Yeah, so there is that. So there is that because we make these connections as we work, or when you're in groups like this, right. So maybe you guys want to stay in touch with each other after calls like this conclude, you know, so we do have friends there, you know, you have work relationships, that are friends, and you want to keep that connection alive. And I think that that's, that's great. Also, it's Oh, and Kristin Demis, demonstrating the skills that you possess, I there's a lot to that, too. You know, LinkedIn can become your quasi portfolio. You know, because if I don't know, if you take full advantage of the profile features, where you can feature your articles where you can feature your publications, you know, and where, where it says publications, I'm going to be I'm not sure if I have that vocabulary, right. But where you go to feature your publications, it also allows you to place links to other things. So if you have a YouTube video out there, you can link to that. Right? And so then, a lot of times people say, well, I need a website for my portfolio. Yes, that's smart. But you can also use LinkedIn as like a mini portfolio. So you can tell people go to my port, go to my profile, and look at what I've published. Look at the, put a link to your, if you do ELearning Development, you can put a link to whatever you've created, in whatever spot it is that it sits and say, go here, click that and you'll see my latest work, right? So there is always something there where you can say, hey, this is me. This is what I'm all about. This is what I do. Right? Okay. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. That's right, Brent. That's it. That's it. It's like poke poke, poke. And here I am. Poke, poke, poke your amp. But it also goes to what I think we talked about in regards to social media often is give give, give been an ask, give, give, give, and then ask. You know,
that's what the books all about.
Give give given yet. Yeah, that's exactly what the book is all about.
But let me tell you what we're talking about.
It's in the Oh, is that the title of the book? Brent. That's not the title of the book. Yes, that is the title of the book. Yep. Okay. And I like his writing. Now, I found I am cleaning out my house right now. And I found like a cube of discussion starters. You know, it was a game, but it had some thoughtful discussion starters. And then I also found like this, I found these little cards up there called thoughtful cards that somebody gave me as a gift. We'll see if you can see that. There they are. Okay, so somebody gave me these cards as a gift, and it was very thoughtful. And in behind it is our questions that are thoughtful in nature. So questions that you can ask yourself, so this one that I just first pulled out? How can I make more space in my life for the things that I love? Great question. Now, what if you repurpose to that question, put it on LinkedIn. So you can have these discussion starter questions. And also tip here is that you can schedule these these questions in advance. I don't know if that's just a paid feature for free. Bree has that as well. Okay, Brenda's nodding free has that as well. Okay, cool. And so you can schedule these things out? Don't be afraid to do that. So you can have these discussion questions, and you can post them out when goes out on, you know, every Monday, you're asking on Monday type of question, and then maybe a thoughtful question such as these goes out on Wednesdays, maybe people answer, maybe they don't. But the more that you get into the habit of posting this, then people see you. And then eventually they'll start answering. But they could be also work related. So it could be, you know, what's your favorite storyline interaction? You know, what's your best way to use? You're the best different way to use rise? You know, so you can ask work related questions like that, and start building responses and comments, and then you start feeling more comfortable about the things that you post? Yeah. Oh, yes. And thank you for that, Victoria. So one of the things on on our checklist is about writing a recommendation. That's under the bonus, write a recommendation for somebody in your network. Or on your team, it is shockingly hard to get people to write recommendations.
I think it's also a nice way to ask them to do one for you, too. Yeah. I've always been reluctant to ask, but I'm like, if somebody asked me, I'm like, I would be happy to do that. Would you be willing to do one for me?
There you go. There you go.
One thing that that somebody did to me, I did a presentation for like a TD or for for local group that I was in. And somebody who I'd met like in passing, wrote me a recommendation saying, Hey, Brian, it was a really good speaker and presenter and I'm like, Oh, my goodness, that's the best idea ever. Because it was like, because that's valuable, too, just to be like, Hey, I heard you speak and I thought you did well. And I think that I'm like, that's such a great idea. So note to self, just a presenter that you saw. That's kind of a nice little icebreaker too. And way to show appreciation and, and give them some kudos, that'll definitely help them in the future, too. So anyway, love that one to pass that on. Thank
you, Jason.
Go back to a couple of things that you said about posting a question. Rather than and it hit me it's like, well, that's what we do in l&d when we're teaching the classes, we ask the question and get the class to answer it. And I've never thought of it that way to say, Hey, why am I trying to provide all the answers when I can just ask the question and get, you know, my network to respond, and then that gets the conversation going? Yep,
absolutely. Well, that's another part of what we do. Right. We're all we're great question askers. So let's just put it out into the universe and see what comes back. And Eric, I see about having 500 connections. That's yeah, I remember first joining LinkedIn. And that was like, the litmus test is that you had to have 500 connections or more in order to start that algorithm kicking into gear. So I don't know if that number is still true. Or not. I,
I recently looked at that, and it does not look like that they have changed that as a threshold. So there's like, I'm sorry, there are, I believe, seven components of your LinkedIn profile that are a part of being able to be optimized back in the day they call that all star status. And then there's also particular portions of your LinkedIn profile that are SEO optimized and so you know when you are aware of that's like your headline, and your About You section and that In your position, the information, I think it's in the body of each of the positions that you hold in your experience. Those are really great places to be strategic and putting in, you know, keywords that you want to be searched for. So here's another way that in thinking about keywords, you know, all of us provide a different brand of help or a different kind of help, we may all be l&d professionals and experts. But we're not all going to do the job the same way. And so I always liken it to, you know, what's your brand of help, Shannon is going to help differently, then Jason's going to help and I'm going to help differently than friends, that's going to help. So when you think about what you want to have on your profile, also, again, like you're mentioning, Shannon, be authentic, authentic or true, or just own what it is that you think that you're also really good at, and what might be that good search word or couple of search words, words that are well aligned to you. So don't try to be like a master of all and try to get every single LED keyword in there, because it will technically kind of muddy the water for you. I think it makes it more difficult for us then to understand, well, what is it that I really thrive on? What is it that I really love to do? You know, like, if you hate technical writing, don't put technical writing in, in your profile. Don't be frightened of that. Because you're gonna like, Oh, my God, can I please just roll over and die five times because I hate doing this. So also, you know, lean into the things that thrill you inspire you, you know, give you a sense of accomplishment. There, I suggest you know, the leaning into your, your strengths, don't feel like oh my gosh, I have to put in all these weaknesses. Because I want the employers to know that I can do everything. Because let's not get back to the whole, you know, unicorn syndrome in position descriptions that are written, and they want us to then also be able to be carpenters. And then while we're at it, could we you know, unclog the toilet. That's, you know, employers are not reasonable when they write position descriptions. Keep that in mind. They're always going to ask for more than they can get. So you hang on to what you do best. And that's how you position your brand of help. Yeah,
thank you. Great advice. Great advice. It is about just when we write training, let me just back this up some put this into context that we all understand is that when we're developing learning solutions, we always try to do that needs analysis, right? So who is the target audience for this learning program? The same thing goes for when you're trying to figure out what you want to do on LinkedIn. Think about your needs analysis. Who is the target audience for whatever it is I'm sharing? Right? And what is it that they might need to know in order to make their jobs or lives better, you know, so do your own sort of needs analysis on yourself when it comes to you know, your LinkedIn exchanges or postings, but just to keep it simple, and not to overthink this, because if you're anything like me, you're gonna overthink it. And I find myself in Victoria's world a lot. I really do. And I wrote a post about this. I wrote a blog post about this not too long ago, about my experience with impostor syndrome. And so I find myself there a lot. My advice is, when you find something in the wild, that is interesting to you. When you go to file it away, just share it. Right, just get the URL, head over to LinkedIn, put the URL in, write a quick sentence or two about why you found it interesting and let it go. And don't don't try to run it through chat GPT or whatever, you know, just put in your true thoughts. What in the link and send it so anytime you find something that was interesting to you put it out there because somebody else is going to find it interesting. You are not one of a billion people that found this one article interesting. Other people are going to find it interesting too. You know, so just make it simple for yourself. Right? Because Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, overthinking? I'm glad I'm not alone on this in I had just had to get over it. As far as posting stuff. It's just like, I found it interesting. Other people are gonna find it interesting too. If not, then there it is. You know? And so let me ask you when we also just FYI, in the chat, I placed the link to Brenda's learn something new. So Brent has learned something new. I can't believe it's already February What the heck? That's,
that's I should vote that doesn't seem right.
Now, it doesn't seem right. Yesterday, it was Christmas. And it seems like tomorrow is closer to Valentine's Day. There's something not right in that. But anyway, so Brenda, like I said, is doing our February learn something new on career resilience, where she's going to be talking about all of these things. So I highly recommend that. Put this as an investment in yourself, and especially those of you who might be looking, you know, to change your gig or to change the direction of your career, this is the one you want to go to, you know, so so find some room, you know, in the budget to be able to attend it, because I think you'll find it of high value. All right, so that little commercial break. And now, our next, our next Coffee Chat, I believe, goes along with everything that we've been talking about over the last in January. And up until now is as you know, I wanted these first couple of months to be focused on us. Before we break out and start tackling the world of l&d. I wanted us to take a couple of segments just to hone in on what we're doing. And so the next Coffee Chat is all about strategies for sustained self motivation. How can we help keep ourselves motivated? In, in a world where distractions are everywhere, you know, work creeps up, life creeps up. And then the next thing you know, you don't feel motivated to learn something new because you're tired or what have you. Because the world has creeped up on us. So what I really want to talk about is how are we together, creating moments to help us push forward. So that's what our next Coffee Chat is about. Not next Friday, but the Friday afterwards. So hopefully, I'll see you guys there. But I'm also starting to post I cannot believe I'm about to say this. I'm already posting up the march cough. Chad's March. Oh my god. Okay. And so now to pull this back real quick, because we're almost at the top of the hour is when you think about the the checklist. If you think about the checklist, and just real quick, I'll put it into the chat again, just in case. There it is. What can you start doing right now? What seems easy for you
Liliane, you're on mute if you were trying to say something. Oh, no, she's, she's reading. Okay. What seems like Yes. Go ahead, Amy.
So one of the things that I speak on job search since I've been in job search many times, and one of the things I encourage people to do is set goals. And so what I did was I went out to your, your worksheet, and I wrote down some of them that I want to actually set out as goals, like, reach out to how many contacts each week, you know, ask a question, maybe once a month, or, you know, so I'm gonna put some numbers to those. I also have how many networking calls and networking events, I will always have that, but I'm gonna add some of these that will continue to get me more visibility.
Excellent. Excellent. what else what else resonates with you? What can you do? What seems easy on here? You know, everybody's gonna look at this and go, not me, but there might be something
What's the easy one for you to tackle? Cuz, you know, I'm going to ask you to make a commitment to do it
why it seems easy. Let me give you also another piece of advice. Now, early on in the chat I saw I think it was might have been Amy. It might have been Oh, I can't find it now, but it was using AI to create articles, which is great, you can go ahead and do that. Don't forget to just put them into your tone, because sometimes it's in their tone. But I've been playing a little bit, I've been playing around with the different sorts of GPUs that are out there. And I find that Bard is better than chat GPT for creating somebody else more human sounding. Now, there are other ways that I like using chat GPT more than I like bar. But for Bard, I find, if I asked him a question, it's going to give me more of a human sounding response. So if you're looking for 500 words, or 250 words on on a thought, so if you want to say what, what are some tips, a beginner elearning developer might want? Give me five tips. And they'll give you those five tips. You're like, oh, I can take one of those tips. And I can write something about that, or find an article about that. And you can you can make use of it that way. And Bart, of course, is free. If you are a Google person. There you go. All right, what do we got? The Bat bee hag worksheet. Yes. So if you have the bee hag worksheet, there you go. And I'm going to be sending something out. So for those of you who are part of the be hag, Coffee Chat, I'm going to be sending something out here this week, next week, you know, as a follow up for your B hags to help us all stay accountable for what we had planned to do throughout the year. Okay. All right. So here we are, we are at the top of the hour. Now hopefully, what you guys do is you take this checklist and you put it into action. So you'll notice that it's got Sunday, Sunday through Saturday, you know, so you can make texts, you can say, I'm going to follow one person. On Monday, I'm going to share an article on Tuesday, I'm going to send a message to a contact on Thursday. So you can create this checklist for yourself by the week and say I'm going to do a certain thing every week, Wednesday is going to be my question asking day, right? So you can put it you can put it along those lines, you can really make a plan for yourself. Because it goes back to what I said in the beginning. This is about generating a habit. Right, being on LinkedIn, or connecting with your network at that's all about habit. If you are part of a LinkedIn group, it's all about habit. So you you only get as good as you give. So if you post once, and nobody says anything, and nobody comes to you and you give up. Don't keep trying. You'll keep putting yourself out there. Because it is about the feeling of I just feel good sharing, just like Dr. Bob said, I just feel good sharing. And that's what I want to do. So create that habit. Right. And I think that we all have it in us to do it. And so on that note, and he plans for the weekend. Before so we can before Super Bowl. Isn't it Super Bowls next weekend.
I'm gonna celebrate one of my granddaughter's birthday.
Oh, that's sweet. That how old?
I love and I believe. Oh, I like that. That sounds yeah, there's gonna be 12 of us getting together. Her her family, my other daughter and her family.
Excellent. Excellent. And
we're going to do it outside. In St. Petersburg. The temperature is about 74 today.
You just love making me jealous with that. I know you do. And yeah, what is it? Let me check. Let me check. It's 39 degrees outside. Oh, not terrible. It's not terrible. It's actually warmer than usual. No, that's all right. I'll take it. It's like 10 degrees warmer than usual this time of year. So I will take the small wins. Well, everybody a 50 in Omaha. Nice. Take that too. Well, I hope that you all have a great weekend. Thank you, Brenda for joining me today. It was great. So you
know, it was awesome. I love these sessions. They're always good opportunity to connect and share ideas. So yeah, yeah,
very cool. tremendous, tremendous. It was good seeing everybody, everyone have a great weekend. I look forward to seeing you at our next Coffee Chat, where we're talking about self motivation. And let's let's let's motivate ourselves to keep our plans moving forward throughout the year. Let's do it. And good luck to you. i i hope i hear from you. Or you can tell me what you You've accomplished off of this checklist Be sure to share with me let me know how it's going and I'll see you next time around bye for now bye everybody thank you
