Power of social media: Using LinkedIn to find a job

I started my LinkedIn job push at the beginning of December. I'm taking bets I will have a job offer in one of my targeted fields by the end of January. And, even though I'm sending out job applications through more conventional routes such as Monster.com, I'm doubling down with anyone who wants to bet against me finding a job through my LinkedIn campaign. /whitehouse.gov image


Check out this powerful approach to using LinkedIn to wage a successful social media-driven job search. In less than two weeks: I've generated three great job opportunities, one of which I'm interviewing for next week; I've generated a dozen good job-hunting tips such as specialized job-listing Web sites that are not swamped with job applicants; I've generated several encouraging, even beautiful, comments from complete strangers in the fields that interest me; I've generated a productive, out-of-the-blue phone conversation with Senior VP at one of the companies I've targeted; and I've generated more than 15 people who have pledged to play an active networking and job-post-hunting role in my job search.

Easy seven-step program

1. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is set up with all the information potential employers would want to see in a resume.
2. Think fit: Target the field or fields that best fit your education and career background, as well as the geographic area where you want to work.
3. Targeting your desired geographic area as well as your field or fields of interest, boost your Connections to at least 200 people using the "People You Many Know" tool. This step will take at least a couple weeks, but bigger truly is better in this case.
4. Draft at least a couple versions of mini-cover letters to send to your Contacts via LinkedIn's email. I have had four versions of my mini-cover letter to target three fields. Tweak your versions to help avoid a form-letter vibe: personalize the versions sent to friends as well as current and former colleagues, and add some reference to a specialty of any employers that appeal to you strongly or that you know well. (The fields I'm targeting are journalism as well as health care and academic communications.)
5. Keep track of the Contacts you send mini-cover letters. I tracked each Contact query with name, employer and the mini-cover letter they received using a legal pad. But a spreadsheet such as Excel would have been more efficient. Update this list with the Contacts who reply to your mini-cover letters. Flag any responses that have generated job opportunities or job-hunting tips that require action such as sending out an application and resume.
6. Look for opportunities to broaden your social media job campaign. For example, within two minutes of this blog post going live on Blogger, it was also posted on Facebook, twitter and google+ to extend its reach to at least hundreds and potentially millions of people.
7. Then just work the market, sending out applications and resumes as a steady stream of job openings fall into your lap. Also seize any networking opportunities as they arise.

Newtown: Loving dogs comfort the grieving

Want to well up watching a story about the Newtown mass shooting because its about the power of compassion to break the grip of despair?

Golden retrievers, a breed of dog remarkable for loving humans, and pretty much all other living things, are bringing solace to a community suffering one of humanity's worst nightmares.

Daniel Inouye, a great American, dies at 88

In 1987, U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, served as chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaragua Opposition, which became widely known as the Iran-Contra hearings. Inouye's committee documented a secret U.S. government plot to sell advanced weaponry to Iran then use the proceeds to fund anti-government rebels in Nicaragua.


It's hard to think of anyone who loved his country more than Medal of Honor recipient Daniel Inouye.

Back when I was much younger and much more idealistic, Daniel Inouye led a congressional investigation of U.S. government dirty tricks that had helped prop up Iran during its long war with Iraq and supported the Nicaraguan Contra rebels, who President Reagan had dubbed "freedom fighters" for trying to overthrow the Central American country's socialist government. While following the hearings on TV and National Public Radio, I was mesmerized not only by the cabal in the White House that had hatched and orchestrated a blatently illegal plot but also by Inouye, who had a knack for blending senatorial courtesy with a fearless commitment to protecting democratic institutions and the rule of law.

While most of the Iran Contra scandal perpetrators escaped justice, Inouye made sure their "shadowy government" was exposed and dismantled.

During World War II, Inouye was among a select few Japanese-American patriots who were allowed to served in the U.S. military; most were assigned to the Army's the 442nd Infantry Regiment. Thousands of other Japanese-Americans from the West Coast were detained in prison camps. Inouye's regiment, considered one of the most decorated combat units in U.S. Army history, was shipped to Europe to fight the Germans and Italians ... Japanese-Americans had been deemed untrustworthy to fight against Japan.

Second Lt. Daniel Inouye was awarded the Medal of Honor for "extraordinary heroism in action" in April 1945 near San Terenzo, Italy. According to the presidential citation awarding Inouye the Medal of Honor:

"While attacking a defended ridge guarding an important road junction, Second Lieutenant Inouye skillfully directed his platoon through a hail of automatic weapon and small arms fire, in a swift enveloping movement that resulted in the capture of an artillery and mortar post and brought his men to within 40 yards of the hostile force. Emplaced in bunkers and rock formations, the enemy halted the advance with crossfire from three machine guns. With complete disregard for his personal safety, Second Lieutenant Inouye crawled up the treacherous slope to within five yards of the nearest machine gun and hurled two grenades, destroying the emplacement. Before the enemy could retaliate, he stood up and neutralized a second machine gun nest. Although wounded by a sniper’s bullet, he continued to engage other hostile positions at close range until an exploding grenade shattered his right arm. Despite the intense pain, he refused evacuation and continued to direct his platoon until enemy resistance was broken and his men were again deployed in defensive positions."

Daniel Inouye loved his native Hawaii as much as he loved his country. According to a statement on his Senate website, the last word he spoke was "Aloha."

U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye died Monday, Dec. 17, 2012. He was 88. In addition to the Medal of Honor, he earned 15 medals and citations for his service in the U.S. Army during World War II, including the Disinguished Service Cross, the Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart. /Image via www.inouye.senate.gov

Newtown: Reaction of gun rights advocates

Resident MSNBC conservative Joe Scarborough bears his change of heart over gun regulation during the broadcast of "Morning Joe" on Monday, Dec. 17, 2012. /MSNBC


For those of us curious about whether the massacre of 20 first-graders will jolt the United States into effective action against gun violence in general and assault weapon shooting sprees in particular, it's interesting to gauge the reaction to Newtown's torment among staunch gun advocates.

At least two gun rights advocates, former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, are calling for meaningful reforms to blunt easy access to military-style firearms. Scarborough and Manchin's willingness to embrace "reasonable" solutions to the country's gun violence problem is a welcome change to the stiff, ideologically driven opposition to any efforts in Washington or statehouses to come to grips with the thousands of annual U.S. homicides involving guns.

But if you're waiting for the National Rifle Association, the premier U.S. gun rights organization with a powerful lobbying machine at the national, state and local level, to be part of the solution, don't hold your breath.

It's been three days since the Newtown shootings, and the NRA has made no public comment on the incident. There's not a word to be found on the NRA website about Newtown. According to techcrunch.com, the NRA has hidden its Facebook page from public viewing to avoid "flaming" against the group and its members. And The Daily Beast reported that the NRA's National Firearms Museum at its headquarters in northern Virginia was "silent and somber" the day after the Newtown shootings.

Some of the solutions to U.S. gun violence, such as the secure storage of firearms in American homes, are largely out of lawmakers' reach. But many necessary steps, such as restricting or banning access to assault weapons, will require new laws and the cooperation of the NRA, which not only has lobbying clout but also tremendous influence over a wide swath of American voters.

Does the horrific violence unleashed in Newtown represent a tipping point for American gun culture? Or will the ineffectual pattern of the past, mourning and revulsion followed by a return to the status quo, persist?

Adam Lanza used a Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle similar to this model in his attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The Bushmaster is a direct descendent of the fully automatic M-16 rifle used for decades by the U.S. military. Fully automatic guns have a rapid rate of fire commonly associated with machine guns. Semi-automatic guns have a slower rate of fire than machine guns but can fire one bullet at a time in quick succession. /Image via motherjones.com

Newtown: Second Amendment challenge

Children are led from Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., after a gunman killed 20 first-graders. /Image via AP

 

 

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

 

It's a monstrous leap from a well-regulated militia to a disturbed young man shooting 20 first-graders multiple times with an assault rifle. Since the 1999 Columbine High School attacks, U.S. school shootings have claimed the lives of more than 80 students in two dozen incidents from coast to coast. At what point will Americans be shocked into action?

 

Twenty first-graders dead.

 

Keeping guns, particularly assault weapons, out of the hands of young children and the mentally ill through gun safety, regulation and law enforcement could and should pass constitutional muster. 

 

 

Newtown: Hidden cost in U.S. mental health system

Jared Loughner was diagnosed with schizophrenia during his trial in the 2011 Tucson shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the head; six others were killed and 12 wounded. /Image via CNN


Jared Loughner, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Cho Seung-Hui, James Holmes, now a disturbed Connecticut 20-year-old gunning down first-graders. All of them, and many other infamous U.S. mass killers, mentally ill and armed.

Americans can and will argue the merits of gun regulation ad infinitum after the slaughter of innocents in Newtown. But the time to argue the merits of improving mental health care in the United States has passed. The Mental Health Parity Act of 2008 called on doctors and insurance companies to treat mental health and medical health conditions on equal grounds. As many individuals and families who seek mental health services discover every day, getting good, affordable mental health care remains even harder than getting good, affordable medical health care.

We pay across the board for undervaluing mental health. Dozens of families paid the dearest prices at Sandy Hook Elementary.

News analysis of North Korean missile test

The three-stage rocket tested by North Korea this week could be capable of delivering a warhead to Alaska or the West Coast. /Image via AP

I still would love to live in Northern California, despite the earthquakes, firestorms, mud slides and mushroom clouds:
ABC Analysis
CNN Analysis

North Korea: Close to Nuclear Club full membership

North Korea successfully launched its first three-stage rocket this week, placing a satellite into orbit, the BBC reported. The image above shows South Korean sailors recovering the first stage of the rocket. /Image via AFP 

There goes the orbital, and intercontinental ballistic, neighborhood. As soon as the North Koreans develop a nuclear missile warhead, which Pyongyang has been seeking for at least a decade, they will be capable of continental reach with atomic weapons.

U.S. unions reach tipping point

At the State Capitol in Lansing, Mich., protesters rally Tuesday against the state's new right-to-work law. /Image via npr.org

The time has come to debate whether unions should continue to play a meaningful role in the U.S. economy.

Those who believe unions play a key role in checking corporate power and protecting worker rights should take notice of what is happening in Michigan, a U.S. union stronghold for nearly a century. If union clout can be whittled down in Michigan, it can happen anywhere in the country.

The percentage of U.S. workers who are union members has slumped to a 70-year low, falling under 12 percent last year. Union membership peaked at about 35 percent of the work force in the 1950s, when the modern industrialized U.S. economy was at its zenith in terms of growth and global competitiveness. As union ranks have thinned, the income and net wealth gap has widened between the rich and everyone else in American society, with the process accelerating over the past two decades.

I worked in a unionized workplace for six years. For the past seven years, I've had a handful of conversations with coworkers where a union-related subject has arisen. The line of discourse has varied (there was never even nascent talk about forming a union) but the reaction has been universal. To one degree or another, my coworkers have been uncomfortable to even discuss the topic of unions in general and union organizing in particular. You know the I-don't-want-to-get-in-trouble vibe. It's one of the first things we learn in elementary school.

Try it in your workplace. If a union-related topic comes up in conversation, watch how the level of discomfort and even fear increases the longer the conversation continues. If workers don't feel comfortable even talking about unions, then there will be no unions.

For those who feel unions have outlived their usefulness, it's time to make your case for union extinction. Make the case that unions were needed for creating the weekend, abolishing child labor and correcting other corporate and government excesses, but they now do more harm than good.

Hundreds of thousands of children work in the agricultural sector of the U.S. economy. It is considered the most hazardous work open to U.S. children, with 12 reported killed on farms in 2010, according to Human Rights Watch. /Image via Wesleying.org

Mermaid makeover

 Animal Planet's "Mermaids: The Body Found" presents an evolutionary scenario for a marine primate species. /See more video at animal.discovery.com

This Animal Planet production goes out on a precarious limb of the primate family tree. The full-length version of "Mermaids: The Body Found" is intriguing.

Ever wonder about the widespread reports of dolphins chasing sharks away from humans swimming in the open ocean? ("Dolphin rescues swimmer" yields 1.5 million Google search results.) One of the more interesting lines of speculation in "Mermaids: The Body Found" contends that mermaid-like marine primates hunt fish in cooperation with dolphins, which would explain why they have been observed repeatedly helping Homo sapiens.

But just as there's probably no Santa Claus, there's probably no mermaids. The science and conspiracy theory drama in "Mermaids" has drawn howling criticism.

On a deadly serious note, "Mermaids" makes a powerful environmental case against U.S. Navy tests of new sonar technology apparently capable of use as a sonic weapon. Chasing mermaids may have dented their credibility, but "Mermaids" is far from alone in linking Navy sonar tests to mass strandings of marine mammals including dolphins and whales.

More than 30 pilot whales were among marine mammals stranded alive on North Carolina beaches in January 2005 at the same time Navy vessels were conducting sonar tests in the area. NOAA's report on the strandings, which were investigated as an Unusual Mortality Event, concluded the sonar tests were a likely cause of the strandings. /U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service photo

12/12/2012: Planet killer visits Earth

NASA pegged asteroid 4179 Toutatis' closest approach to Earth today at "18 times farther than the moon." Toutatis passes by the Earth every four years. At 3 miles across, it is comparable in size to the asteroid that most scientists believe killed the dinosaurs and about two-thirds of the other species on the planet 60 million years ago. /NASA image


An odd coincidence?

Tons of ink have been spilled and megabytes of server space consumed over the 12/21/2012 prediction of doom in the Mayan calendar. Given the Mayans' sophisticated understanding of astronomy, could they have predicted for today a devastating collision of asteroid 4179 Toutatis and Earth?

Mayan math may have been off a few million miles, but the potential for a cataclysmic asteroid strike on Earth deserves more attention than it gets. Ironically, as various and sundry prognostications of Armageddon spark periodic media frenzies, the search for killer asteroids, from city busters to planet-scorching mountains of spaceborne rock and ice, goes on in the darkness outside the media spotlight.

Understanding the impact of asteroids on the evolution of Earth is a relatively fresh area of science. Speculation over the cause of the Moon's craters raged well into the middle of the 20th century, when geologist Gene Shoemaker solved the mystery at Meteor Crater in Arizona. In the 1950s, Shoemaker proved that the mile-wide, 550-feet-deep gash in the Arizona desert was the result of a meteor strike about 50,000 years ago. Subsequent research, including the Apollo missions to the Moon's surface, proved asteroid strikes have been a feature of planetary evolution in our solar system for billions of years.

Scientists are now studying the possible role of asteroids bringing water and even life to Earth. Where there's life, there's death, and killer asteroids can apparently generate a lot of death.