Alex Priest » networking

2011. No Big Deal.

Alex Priest — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 04:30:10 +0000

2011 is a big year for me.

I used to think 2007 was the most pivotal year of my life. In that year I graduated from high school, traveled to Europe, spent six weeks in Japan, and then moved to Washington, D.C. for college. Quite the radical change from the tiny little town of Leitchfield, Kentucky.

Then, of course, 2009 rolled around and I spent my first summer in D.C., started tweeting, then studied abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark for four months. I came back with a completely different perspective on the world. Then finally we made it to 2010.

I didn’t expect it this time last year, but 2010 ended up being possibly one of the most important years of my life. My perspectives on work, school, friendships and relationships all changed. I moved into a new apartment with a new roommate—my best friend—and got a cat. I started networking in D.C. and built an incredible network of friends that have absolutely changed my life in amazing, amazing ways.

So now, picking out a “most pivotal year” seems just silly. Every year of my life has been pivotal, especially the last few. I’m confident 2011 will be no different. I’m already kicking off this year with a trip to Las Vegas for the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show. In January and February I’ll be giving workshops, guest lecturing in classes at my school, and even presenting at several exciting events. I’m starting my own independent consulting work, and in May, I’ll graduate with my B.S.B.A. in Marketing and B.A. in Public Communication from American University. Then, of course, off to the “real world”, and who knows what incredible experiences I’ll encounter there.

I’m starting 2011 with great friends, an exciting professional future, a fantastic city, incredible opportunities ahead, and God-only-knows what surprises. I’m excited.

Becoming a Networker

Alex Priest — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:32:14 +0000

Around this time last year, I was a fairly timid yet ambitious rising college junior, finally venturing out to my first real networking event. It was a Mashable-hosted tweetup on Capitol Hill, and I wandered in feeling totally overwhelmed. I’d just begun to get into social media and finally feeling like a real adult, but I’d never been to a networking event outside of American University.

Oh my how times have changed.

Tonight is Mashable’s DC “Summermash” event. That means this is also the one-year anniversary of my becoming a networker. Networking has changed my life–I’ve realized opportunities I could’ve never before imagined, and I’ve made some of my best friends in the world through online social networks. In honor of the occasion, I figured I’d offer a few tips on how I’ve managed to get where I am and how you can be well on your way, too.

Get social. This should be just about the most obvious of all the tips on this list–especially coming from me–but I simply can’t stress it enough. If you aren’t active on social media, you’re behind. Get on Twitter, get on LinkedIn, and stay active on Facebook. Collect those business cards, look people up, research the people who will be at events before you go–all simple things you can do to connect with great people online and be one step ahead of the game. Need examples? Check me out on Twitter (@alexpriest), LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Get real. This is equally important, and far too often overlooked. Connecting online isn’t enough–meeting face-to-face is more important than ever in today’s networking world. I connect with thousands of people on Twitter, but the ones I remember, trust, and am likely to pass on opportunities to are the ones I’ve met and know IRL (in real life). Find those events (see my sidebar for some upcoming ones) and get out and meet your online connections in the flesh.

Be a brand. I hate the term “personal brand” but if it walks like a brand, talks like a brand, and acts like a brand… it’s a brand. You should be one. Sell yourself. Design some custom business cards (I recommend Moo.com), build yourself a website (I recommend WordPress), and be consistent with how you present yourself and communicate both online and off. It’s more important than you think.

Stay connected. Sure, nobody likes being tethered to your phone, but oftentimes speed and responsiveness counts. I do my best to respond to every Twitter DM within five minutes, every text message within one hour, and every personal e-mail and phone call within 24 hours. Simply being on top of your game when it comes to communicating with your personal network can make you stand out more than you realize.

Don’t be timid. Yea, it’s awkward walking into a room and not knowing anyone. Sure, it’s a little uncomfortable trying to break into a conversation with a group of people you don’t know. Do it anyway. You’ll never meet people if you don’t get over your fears and jump in. Chances are, that group conversation you just butted into only got started because someone did the same thing only moments before.

Provide value. Don’t be “just a connection.” Be a news source, and opportunity archive, and a content provider. Write often, pass on interesting links, and reach out to people you haven’t talked to in a while from time to time, just to let them know you’re thinking about them. Don’t be dead weight and blabber on someone’s Twitter feed about your relationship issues, unless you’re a relationship blogger. It’s fine to be casual, and I’d say as much as 10-15% of your social network communications can be pretty mindless, but you have to be providing some value there somewhere.

Be everywhere. Don’t settle for just going to one networking event a month. Don’t settle for just being on Twitter and LinkedIn. Don’t settle for just one organization or group of friends. Get out and go to new events weekly. Set a personal goal to find and experience a new organization’s events at least once a month (if you’re in a city, trust me, this isn’t hard to do). Meet new people every day. Is it tiring? Sure. Does it keep you busy? Of course. Is it better than sitting home on the couch and watching TV? Hell yes.

Don’t underestimate yourself. I have problems with this one sometimes. The thoughts run through my mind pretty regularly, actually: I’m just a student. They won’t take me seriously. I’m just “the intern.” Well snap out of it. I slap myself on basically a weekly basis to avoid this mindset, because it’s absolute nonsense. It doesn’t matter if you are 16 or 61, a student, an intern, or a corporate vice president. I don’t care if you’re in a different industry, a different city, or a different planet. I don’t care if you’re straight or gay, black or white, loud or quiet. You are who you are and you have every bit of potential to provide value to someone’s network as anyone else. Don’t forget that.

And literally, that’s just a few of the things that have popped in my head as I sat down to write this. Follow these tips. Get out there. Have fun. Be a networker.

Is “Student” a Dirty Word?

Alex Priest — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:46:53 +0000

I started thinking about this just this morning when one of my professional friends, who I greatly admire, respect, and trust, was explaining to me how I don’t necessarily need to emphasize my inexperience when talking about my skills. In other words, my bio doesn’t need start out with “Alex Priest is a senior at American University…” and all my “first time” experiences don’t necessarily need to be labeled as such.

I agree, for the most part, but it got me wondering… is “student” a dirty word in today’s world of professionalism and networking?

I think that it kind of is, but I don’t think it necessarily should be.

I’ve been lucky. Despite my labels–”student,” “intern,” “young”–I’ve still been, for the most part, treating with the same respect and courtesy as my colleagues and fellow professionals. This could be partly because of the crowd I hang out with, who are generally fairly young (although not always) and very progressive (but again, not always). It could also be because of the field I’m in, marketing and communications, which is a field in which young people are pioneering in ways the veterans have simply not.

That said, I do wonder–do the people who follow me on Twitter interpret my tweets differently because I am still a student? Do the people who read this blog take my advice and my thoughts with a grain of salt, because I lack the experience many other professionals have? To what extent should “experience” determine an audience’s expectation of quality?

Now I realize I’m throwing out more questions than answers here, but I sincerely hope this isn’t the case, especially in the fields of social media and marketing. I would hope that, given the nature of the industry, someone would see the label “student” and expect to learn more. I would hope they would jump at the opportunity to learn from someone with such a different and new perspective than the vast majority of their colleagues. And I would hope that my own, youthful and new experiences could be just as much a learning opportunity for those in my network as they are for me.

As I move into the “real world” it will be an interesting shift away from this. I wonder how people will view me differently, or how the opportunities offered to me will change. Will people reach out to me more because they know I have a title with two degrees? Or will they reach out to me less because they think opportunities are already there, and they’d have to pay me more to do work for them?

“Student” is a unique label. It’s one that defines experience, age, maturity, location, and professionalism. But I’ve never been a fan of labels. So what if we started considering “student” a title instead of a label? What if we started looking at the word “student” like we do “communicator” or “marketer”? What if we began to look at the unique benefits that title implies, instead of the often incorrect assumptions associated with it?

What if we made sure “student” was never mistaken for a dirty word again?

Creating a Culture of “Need to Share” in Government

Alex Priest — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:26:02 +0000

This past Thursday I had the privilege of attending Gibraltar Associates first annual “Social Media Resolutions” event, held here in Washington, D.C. Although I could only stay for the first half of the event, what I witnessed was probably one of the best panels I’ve seen. Not only did I learn far more than I realized I would, but I gained some incredible insight into how our government is (surprisingly) acting very progressively to get a hold on social media.

Panelists were:

Brent Colburn, Director of External Affairs for the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
Roxie Merritt, Director of New Media at the U.S. Department of Defense
Richard Boly, Director of eDipomacy at the U.S. Department of State

It’s difficult to sum up over an hour of panel conversation. Throughout the course of the presentation, much of the discussion focused on challenges the government is facing to get into social media and take advantage of it in order to perform better in their respective functions as government agencies. So I’ll focus on that here, as well. Here’s, from what I heard, the three biggest challenges for government right now and how their working to overcome them.

1. Getting over the bureaucratic “hump”

One of the first and most memorable quotes of the morning came from Brent Colburn, at FEMA.

“Government needs to realize it’s not always the smartest person in the room,” he said. He said that sometimes the most innovative person in government is being the one to make a memo teaching everyone else how to understand things coming from the private sector–like social media.

Later on, he spoke about how, although it’s easier at a smaller agency like FEMA, the public needs to continue to push government for interaction. Roxie Merritt, at DoD, concurred, as did Richard Boly. Merritt said the first task is to convince the leadership, something that, surprisingly, has gone particularly well for DoD and State.

At DoD, Merritt said that Secretary Gates has made communications a priority. Looking at things like social media from a tactical standpoint, they’re being used by the enemy in the Middle East, and all over the world. If we don’t have a handle on it, we’re losing. Boly spoke about the priority Secretary Clinton has placed on new media with the Department of State. Failures in communication such as the Christmas Day underwear bomber obviously indicate they aren’t quite there yet, but they’re making progress.

2. Convincing the “middle”

The leadership is on board with social media. The new people coming into these agencies are already tech-savvy naturals with Facebook, Twitter, etc. So what’s the problem?

According to the panelists, it’s in the middle. Middle managers have been there the longest–even longer than the leadership, obviously. They’ve got the most at stake, and they’re typically the most reluctant and resistant to change. They see this technology, and they’re skeptics.

The trick is how to convince them of its value. As Richard Boly said, “[Social media] is not a passing fad, it’s crucial to the way we do business and we avoid it at our peril.”

State has already gone a long way towards convincing its employers. With the creation of an internal “e-suggestion box”, they’re already showing employees the power of crowdsourcing and social media. They’re made the suggestion system a true two-way conversation and used it effectively to enact some worthwhile changes at the department.

Take, for example, their bike-lending program, which came out of a suggestion from the e-suggestion box. After complaints that it took too long to travel the city via taxi, public transit, and personal vehicles, employees suggested bikes as a quick, easy and healthy means to get from place to place. The State Department took it to heart and started a program, even putting in showers for employees to use.

“What used to be water cooler discussion,” said Boly, “has become the crowdsourcing of solutions.” In one fell swoop, the e-suggestion box helped improve employees work atmosphere, empowered them as forces for change within the organization, and shown them the power of social media. Merritt suggested emphasizing communications tools in training courses for employees, to start them out with this mindset.

And for those afraid of social media? The Department of Defense has come up with a clever solution for that.

Many have feared the technology for national security concerns, and due to the fact that it’s often difficult to tell a legitimate source from an illegitimate one. At the Department of Defense they’ve created a registration system that registers all official DoD Web sites, accounts and social media presences. If it’s not on the list, it’s not cleared by DoD.

Colburn, at FEMA, made a good point about the issue, too. The old media isn’t dead, their role is just changing a little. He said it’s essential to maintain a good relationship and balance between old and new media, particularly for maintaining legitimacy. The “watchdog role” the old media play still applies, and like it or not they still serve as a credible source of information. By maintaining a good relationship with the old media, they can act as a legitimizing force.

Finally, Richard Boly at State had a great point to make, too. Part of credibility is about the relationships you already have. If you get followed, linked to, or re-tweeted by someone else influential, particularly in the technology and Web community, you gain credibility that way. It’s “credibility by association,” he said.

3. Creating a two-way conversation

The final challenge is, without a doubt, the largest. It’s a problem not just for government but for all users of social media–private corporations, individual people and government departments alike. How do you create that two-way flow of information? What if your reputation becomes tarnished by comments on your Facebook feed? How do you monitor it? How do you convince people you are real? Isn’t it easy to be overwhelmed?

All valid questions. But also, solvable ones.

Colburn said he didn’t have a lot of answers for those kinds of questions yet, but then he went on to prove that he actually has some pretty good ideas. He talked about social media presences having to pass the “smell test”–they have to prove they’re human. He said that expectation of ghost-twitterers and ghost-bloggers for important people has to be overcome. It’s all about the two-way interaction, he said, that will help build the trust.

Providing employees with the right tools is part of it. Colburn talked about how, on the ground in Haiti, the only form of communication FEMA employees had at first was texting via AT&T’s network. By having as many tools for communication as possible at their disposal–whether it’s texting, social media, or something else–they can do their job better. They can also be more actively present on social media and in the conversation.

Roxie Merritt at Defense said they’ve actually already had huge success reaching out to bloggers. Communications people at DoD have even started considering some bloggers part of the mainstream media! By reaching out to “chronic posters,” as she called them (people who reach out constantly and act as a force multiplier for spreading information), they’ve been successful at spreading word and creating a conversation.

The feedback to their social media presence is huge, said Merritt. She spoke of how there’s more tolerance for “less perfect” being built into the culture–I see it as a humanizing effect. It breaks down those traditional psychological barriers between “normal people” and important leaders.

As for concerns about comments, re-tweets, etc., Merritt was blunt: “You have to be pretty hard-skulled,” she admitted. They pretty much take it all. She said the screen on a limited extent, for sensitive information and possible national security threats, but for the most part they just try to respond to as much as possible. They take criticism and run with it, trying to improve as much as they can.

Moving from need-to-know to need-to-share

Overall, I obviously came away extremely impressed by the panelists. Not only did they know their stuff, but they had concrete accomplishments to show for their efforts. Many of these things I’d never even heard of, but they’re clearly having an effect.

One of the things that truly stuck with me from the panel discussion came from Richard Boly, at the State Department. He talked about how, during the Cold War, everything was on a need-to-know basis. Everyone was so paranoid and afraid of leaks and security issues that communication was absolutely kept to a minimum.

We’re living in very different times. No longer is it need-to-know, Boly said. We’re moving on to a “need-to-share” phase of government.

There are a lot of pros to this. Empowered employees, increased collaboration, greater openness and transparency, increased interaction with the public, bridging the divide between private industry innovation and government advances–the list could go on and on.

I’m excited to see what they come up with next.

Thanks so much to Gibraltar Associates and especially James Davis for inviting me to the event. Already looking forward to the next one!

Student, Twitterer… GMA Whipping Boy?

Alex Priest — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:13:45 +0000

Yesterday was an amazing day. I’ll give you a little bit better recap of the trip later, but first I wanted to post this story about my experience at Good Morning America this morning.

Our first site visit–to ABC’s Times Square studio and a live broadcast of Good Morning America–ended up being a lot more than I had bargained for. After waking up at 4:30am, arriving at Times Square around 5:45am and meeting my classmates (finally) around 6:30am, I had already spent a considerable amount of time on Twitter. No surprise there.

One of my tweets early on in the morning was to @GMA, Good Morning America’s official Twitter account, just explaining that we would be visiting and were excited for the opportunity. Much to my surprise, around 6:30am, they tweeted back! Not only did they extend a warm welcome to @AmericanU, but to me specifically as well! Evidently, one of the @GMA twitterers is an AU alum!

But wait there’s more. Once being welcomed into the studio by our super-friendly and hilarious “audience coordinator”, we made ourselves at home, watched the first part of the show that was being broadcast from a different studio on the second floor of the building, and waited for the hosts to come down for the second half of the show. While waiting, one of the cameramen was evidently browsing Twitter because he found a picture that I had tweeted of the studio shortly after I arrived, and he was in it! He proceeded to inform our audience coordinator about it and she, naturally, called me out of the audience and up in front.

After that, I became the go-to guy for our coordinator. I introduced our group to the rest of the audience and crew that was in the studio we were waiting in. I was the subject of photos by all the members of the audience–not just the AU folks. And I even “got” to take each and every audience members’ picture by the Good Morning America logo on one of the television screens on the wall–my little service to the program. It was hysterical, and a blast.

In return, I received a Good Morning America umbrella (much appreciated, thanks Good Morning America!) and, of course, a memory that will last me a lifetime. And that’s not even to mention our fantastic alum working at Good Morning America who brought us in, showed us the studios and spoke to us about her work and opportunities with the program. I can’t wait to go back next year.

It’s All About Who You Know

Alex Priest — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:03:32 +0000

Networking. Theoretically, that’s why I’m in New York City today, tomorrow and Thursday. But I like to think of it as making new friends… who just so happen to be working in fields and for companies that I think are absolutely fascinating.

Each year (now in its 8th), the American University Career Center, School of Communications, and Kogod School of Business host a three-day networking and site visit trip in New York City. The program, specifically geared towards communications and marketing students, consists of one opening event, one evening networking reception, and six site visits to companies in the city, most with AU alumni.

It’s a fantastic event. And I’ve been lucky enough to attend every single year of my college career so far.

It’s also a fantastic learning experience. My freshman year, I was completely overwhelmed. To be honest, I was absolutely terrified. I was (I believe) the only freshman to attend the trip that year, and I’m glad I did, but boy was I chicken. At the orientation I thought I’d be ok. I was obviously the youngest one attending (and probably the only one not really looking for a job or internship–hell, at that point I didn’t even know what I wanted to major in) but I got along OK with the other attendees and I figured I’d be brave enough when the time came.

Not really. I talked a bit at the opening dinner event, but at the networking reception I pretty much stuck to myself in a corner, halfway-accidentally-wandered into a few drunken conversations, and ducked out early. Huge wasted opportunity, as I quickly found out last year.

Last year, I was quite a bit braver. I put myself out there. I still wasn’t looking for a job or internship, really, but I’d come to realize the value in knowing people and making new, professional friends and contacts in my chosen fields of interest. I passed out business cards, I took down names and e-mail addresses, I followed up–I did all the things you’re supposed to do with these sorts of things. And I loved it. I discovered that deep down I kind of have a passion for networking–perhaps that’s why I’ve taken so eagerly to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the like.

This year I’m really ready to step it up. I feel like I’ve truly evolved as a networker in the past two years. Also, I’m really excited about my site visits, as well, which include:

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum - at this famous museum we’ll get an hour to wander and explore the exhibits and then witness a presentation and discussion regarding all the internship and job opportunities at the Guggenheim.
Mediavest - this marketing agency site visit will consist of “a panel of employees from across the agency and in-depth media-related Q&A”. Can’t wait!
MS&L Worldwide - at this “leading communications firm” (soon to be my new employer for a semester internship–more on that next week) we’ll get a look at the MS&L workplace and information on job and internship opportunities.
ABC - specifically, we’ll be attending a live broadcast of “Good Morning America” as well as getting a quick tour and information session in ABC’s New York studio. Look for us on TV, we’ll be up bright and early at 6:30 for the visit!
GroupM - a “leading global media investment management operation”, we’ll see how the firm works and be able to discuss entry-level opportunities with them.
The New York Times - here at one of the world’s largest media companies, we’ll hear a panel discussion and I’ll be able to indulge my not-so-secret interest in journalism (as evidenced here by my blog and my upcoming bimonthly column to appear in The Eagle, our university newspaper).

Getting here today was a bit of an interesting experience. I left my apartment at 7:00am sharp, expecting to arrive at Union Station around 7:45 (allowing for the usually-inevitable delays with the bus and metro). Much to my surprise, I arrived at around 7:30, way early for my 8:35 train. Especially since the train ended up delayed and we really didn’t depart until closer to 9:00am.

Everything was going smoothly until we hit Baltimore, and tragedy struck. A 14-year-old girl was struck and killed just 11 miles north of Baltimore’s Penn Station by a southbound train headed to D.C. from New York. You can see my updates from the train in this Twitter search.

We ended up sitting at Baltimore for almost three hours before our journey could continue. Naturally, that wasn’t the only delay we’d face for the day. We had an additional 20 minute delay in Trenton, NJ after the train just ahead of us broke down and all passengers were transferred to ours.

But in the end we (my bestie Jacquie and myself) arrived around 3:00pm. I checked into my hotel, Jacquie dropped off her luggage at her friend’s apartment building and we made it to the opening event for the NYC trip just in the nick of time. And it worked out, I used all the spare time to get over 100 pages into my newest book of choice, Bill Byron’s Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language of the United States (my review of that to come in a couple weeks, or whenever I finish).

The opening event tonight was a pleasant surprise. Although no AU alumni or networking contacts attended the event, we had an absolutely incredible opening speaker: Lindsey Pollak, “Gen Y Career and Workplace Expert”, also a spokeswoman and national campus representative for LinkedIn. She gave us five great tips for networking out of her book, Getting from College to Career: 90 Things to Do Before You Join the Real World, and even postponed her own dinner to answer more questions from us while we ate. I even had the chance to chat briefly with her after her talk about social media and we agreed to mutually follow each other on Twitter! Check out her blog and her Twitter account to read more from her–I know I’m following!

Anyway, keep an eye on my Twitter for updates on my site visits tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll have time to give yall a quick update, but I make no guarantees.