Over-50

Bob Dilenschneider, 76 - In the Era of The Social Brand as Everything (and when Google is your homepage)

How is your social media branding doing?

Likely if it's serving your professional needs well, it probably doesn't include a book you published recently.

In digital, "real" books are an anachronism, with some exceptions.

Sure, though, knock out some free e-ones as a download on your website. But, since Google is your new homepage, that website per se has less and less ROI.

Now and then, Google will pick up some content from your website. But the game is actually about what makes it onto search engines about you. Add onto that reality this: Google is currently a major part of your resume. Employers review your social branding. 

And, just as important, in the era of Amazon - as public relations player Bob Dilenschneider should have known - publishing a book is a risk. If it doesn't get traction in Amazon rankings, that book puts the author in what could be called The Amazon Corridor of Shame."

Here's an interesting tidbit in the annals of branding. There's a lesson here. 

On December 31, 2019, scheduled to help folks with their own decisions in 2020, Dilenschneider published the book "Decisions."

Since then, it never did catch fire.

Right now, at 6:00P.M. ET, its Amazon ranking is 700,749.

The number of customers who had reviewed: six.

No Big Brandname has given it gush. After all, both the long-time business celebrities on Dilenschneider's network - Roger Ailes and Jack Welch - have died.

The composite social brand is what counts, not being the author of a book, at least not one which isn't a best-seller or a juicy expose.

The elephant in the room is: Could "Decisions" or, by extension, any book had done okay had there been no coronavirus? A judge on the bench assessing who's in and who's out would rule that issue speculative and irrelevant. All that matters is what's getting attention for and enhancing the social brand in the now. 

Those in the trenches of executive communications in the Fortune 100 and in marketing for BigLaw, for instance, have to embrace that development. That is, if they want to generate results for their clients.

In addition, they are probably struggling to hold onto their jobs during the latest Stalin-like purge of white-collar workers. As The New York Times reports, once they are knocked out the 2020 sandbox, they wind up in suspended animation. Too many do not understand how to grab onto work in a very different phase of the American labor market. They may never land comparable jobs. 

Place your paid sponsored content on this blog. Here are 6 tips for search engine optimization (SEO) in 2020. Contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Late Blooming: Google Selected Ok, Boomer's Post on Ambtion as Featured Snippet

The thrill.

The honor.

The professional leap forward (and, "at my age").

My post on Law and More about the death of BigLaw partner Peter Munson analyzed the dynamics of ambition.

Google selected it as a Featured Snippet. 

In this article on search engine optimization (SEO) I explain the key role played out by Featured Snippets on Google rankings as well as overall influence. 

Thank you, Google. And thank you readers who are linking to that Featured Snippet. 

Place your paid sponsored content on this blog. Here are 6 tips for search engine optimization (SEO) in 2020. Contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

It's Becoming Okay Again Not to Be Wealthy

Once golden, publishing empire Conde Nast has become a symbol of what are now labeled Un-American values - or of values which should be Un-American.

In this case, it's the ethos of exclusion.

To consider oneself a member of the Conde Nast "tribe" you had to enjoy elite tastes. Yes, you read Bon Appetit. You looked to Anna Wintour for guidance on fashion. You were probably even invited to the Vanity Fair Academy Awards party.

Slowly and currently very very rapidly the culture of inclusion is replacing that sense of specialness. The New York Times asks if Conde Nast can survive the new order.

However, it isn't only in the values sandbox that Conde Nast struggles. Like so many with a print legacy it can't get its footing in a digital world. In 2017, it lost $120 million and financially things haven't gotten much better since. Folio calls it "Paradise Publishing Lost."

Meanwhile, Wintour personally keeps taking it on the chin for not being a kind human being. During another era of upheaval - the Industrial Age - novelist Charles Dickens declared it was only the Milk of Human Kindness which could get society through all that. It seems America is taking that to heart. Even help-wanted ads are specifying that only nice people apply. 

It's unlikely that Conde Nast and its leadership such as Wintour can retrofit themselves, at least not fast enough, to be relevant in the new order.

Influence has shifted to social networks such as LinkedIn Updates, Twitter, and Instagram. And those, instead of being controlled by publishers and editors as at Conde Nast, are totally open.

Some of us who were on the front lines of the early 1970s counterculture see myriad parallels between 2020 and then. Society broke open.

The Boston Women's Health Book Collective let us know that we females were all beautiful. Its manifesto had been the publication "Our Bodies, Ourselves." Finally, women could love themselves in the body they were born with.  

In the emerging culture of inclusion we can love ourselves even if we're not wealthy. In some circles minimalism is catching on. That contentment with what one has is replacing the hunger for more. 

Be a Post COVID-19 winner. Exactly the right positioning and packaging for your messaging. Complimentary consultation for what you need for strategy, research, ghostwriting, and editing janegenova374@gmail.com.

OK, Boomers - The Career Edge We Got from Our Part-time Jobs

At prominent law firm Pryor Cashman, the Executive Committee is reviewing the allegations about furloughed associate Colinford Mattis.

But, already, his profile has been taken down from the Pryor Cashman's website. Things don't look good, do they? On his own LinkedIn profile, Mattis still lists that law firm as his employer, though. 

Mattis' situation is out of the ordinary, of course. He has been accused of being in the loop of tossing a Molotov Cocktail during a George Floyd protest. But, the reality is that it takes a lot less for employees in the private sector to be terminated from their jobs for how they behave on their own time. In a legal sense, they are always tethered to the jobs, at least in the private sector.

MarketWatch reports:

"Private employers are well within their rights to terminate workers for their off-duty conduct ..."

Underlying this is the concept of employment at will. With the exception of Montana, MarketWatch points out, employers can end the employment of any worker for any reason.

In the private sector, there are no First Amendment rights. Workers can not only be "held back" in their careers by what they say off-duty. They can be fired.

Not that employers like to fire. They tend to not want to end how someone makes a living. 

However, in this era of public relations - every organization is a brand - employers are pushed to protect their reputation.

If an employee's off-duty behavior is throwing a shade on that, then employers might terminate. Consider the recent termination by Franklin Templeton of Amy Cooper. Her alleged actions in Central Park could send the message that the company condones racism. It didn't take long for the investment firm to ax her. One day the media reported it was reviewing the whatever. The next day the media announced it was a done deal and she had been fired.

That employees should be cautious about how they comport themselves in public, including on social networks and in social media, when off the job is hardly new.

Ever since youth embraced Facebook (they have long fled to Instagram, then TikTok) career experts have warned them about how they positioned and packaged themselves out there. The typical warning was not to post photos from an Animal House kind of party. Also on the list was not to threaten violence. Employers could interpret a metaphorical expression of rage literally.

That is a reality too many highly educated don't get.

Here's the deal: Going to work is a game onto itself, with its own formal and informal rules. That's why in a more simple time, parents encouraged their teenage children to work part-time. That experience socialized those who weren't quite adults yet  on how to conduct themselves in that unique context.

Unfortunately, when parents began to push their children to excel academically, there has been less opportunity for that kind of socialization. Part-time work is perceived as interfering with scholastic obligations.

By time all that education is completed it can be very difficult for the now-adults to adjust to what it takes to be paid for work. That old-line rite of passage from a student mindset to a professional identity has become increasingly complex.

As a result, there are too many new-hire interactional mistakes. Those errors can impede a career significantly. The classic example have been the associates who didn't connect the dots on how to navigate the power structure of a law firm. Within a year, they could be out. With that "on their record," good luck landing another plum job.

Incidentally, the old adage keeps playing out: In college, the "C" students become the bosses of the "A" students. One reason why is that the "C" students develop a deep understanding of how the world really operates. Meanwhile, the "A" students are booking it, oblivious to what it really takes to succeed in contexts beyond academia.    

Place your paid sponsored content on this blog. Here are 6 tips for search engine optimization (SEO) in 2020. Contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

One Way of Launching Job Search After Losing a Job: Two Men Go Social (Colin Levy, Rich Jackson)

On Twitter, reports Law.com, Colin Levy announced that he had been terminated from his job.

That could be the new smart job-search tactic.

Recently, Rich Jackson discussed his termination on a blog he launched - Homeless Editor.

Both displaced professionals could land plum jobs in a challenging labor market.

Levy has been the top lawyer at Massachusetts based Salary.com since July 2018. Before that he had worked at educational corporation Pearson. 

On social he didn't provide many details about the job loss, only focusing on that he experienced it as brutal. He will miss being able to help in the ways he had.

His edge is the ability to bridge technology and business. He discusses that on his LinkedIn Profile. Given the embrace of remote and the need to leverage technology for cost-control, Levy is very marketable.

Now onto Jackson. He had been the top editor at the Herald-Times. When he lost that job in the downsizing world of journalism he also lost the apartment that went with it. So, he was not only jobless but also homeless. Currently he is bunking at Motel 6. His blog caught fire. He knew keywords about job loss and homelessness would be clickbait. And he was right. 

Jackson indicated that he would prefer for his next job to be in journalism. However, given his proven skills in digital his options are broader than that. 

On his LinkedIn profile, Jackson specifies that his edge is that nothing throws him. Since this is an era of high volatility and non-stop uncertainties, that ability is priceless.

Another option for both, of course, is self-employment.

After I was sacked in a major reduction in force from a Fortune 100, I used the severance to experiment. I gave myself two years to find out if I was entrepreneurial. I was. That meant that never again would I would be laid off.

This blogs wishes the blessings of imagination and drive for those tossed into joblessness. 

Smart global ghostwriting, with SEO and social networking know-how. Emergencies welcome. Complimentary consultation (pressure-free) janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

 

 

Few Die With Their Power Intact

Some people are born with power.

Some have power thrust upon them.

And, there are those who struggle to acquire power.

But it is the rare human being who dies with power.

Along the way most lose it.

Yesterday it was announced that at NBC Universal, the News Group's Andy Lack has lost his. He will be gone by the end of the month. 

And on the way to a power outage seems to be Vogue's long time leader Anna Wintour. The gossipy and influential New York Post describes in details signs of the end of her absolute reign. 

Even before COVID-19 made much of fashion seem irrelevant (like, who is interested in the new spring line), it was obvious that Vogue no longer had the control it once did.

A college student with a good eye and a talent with social networking could establish and scale plenty of influence in fashion per se or a niche like shoes. Also, designers didn't need Vogue so much if they could make the contracts to dress the celebrities. 

In addition, Conde Nast, parent of Vogue, can't get its footing in a digital era. Its spiritual legacy in glossy print such as Vanity Fair and glam excess seems to be keeping it stuck. 

My hunch is that former favorite of Wintour, until their falling out, Andre Leon Talley wouldn't have dared publish memoir "The Chiffron Trenches" had he not sensed it wouldn't be career suicide.

Yes, it is critical of Wintour.

His take resonates so much that Wintour is observed to be trying to soften her image. But it may be too late. The barbarians are no longer at the gate. They have gotten in.

Although not due out until May 19th, "The Chiffron Trenches" ranks 1,603 on Amazon. Here, it can be ordered.

Those from the days when there were still a lot of English majors will recall that famous line from Shakespeare's "Henry IV" - Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown."

In marketing timing is everything. Complimentary consultation on your marketing communications in COVID-19 time. janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Rick Jackson Probably Won't Be Jobless or Homeless for Long

The story isn't that Rick Jackson, who's in his 50s, had recently been THE top editor at The Herald-Times and is now homeless.

That's an all-too-familiar downward trajectory in the era of COVID-19.

That story is, as DNYUZ reports, that he has leveraged that trauma into his site The Homeless Editor.

In terms of traffic to the blog, Jackson is crushing it. He knew the keywords "homeless" and "editor" would function as clickbait magnets. 

And, of course, that high visibility is a wonderful platform for the search for his next job. 

Since he has demonstrated his ability to grab attention in a digital world, there will be another job. Maybe not, though, in traditional journalism. Instead, it could be at an out of the box news site, much like Abovethelaw.com in the legal sector but only for more general topics.

Back in 2004, I had lost my business, nest egg, and mind.

One Sunday, I had read in The New York Times Magazine how Ana Marie Cox was blogging at Gawker as The Wonkette. Hmmm, I thought, I can blog too. And that I did. At that time I was an early adopter.

My first major assignment was to cover on my blog a four-month court trial. Then I added on two more blogs. Today, all three are syndicated and I am a paid influencer. In addition, repurposing the blog content on LinkedIn Updates brings in new business for my communications boutique.

Takeway: Blogs are a mature medium. But if you have in intuitive feel for what gets the right attention, they can still earn you a good living. Attention is the currency of 2020.

In marketing timing is everything. Complimentary consultation on your marketing communications in COVID-19 time. janegenova374@gmail.com.

The Influence Game Keeps Changing: No, Don't Invest in Publishing a Book for Your Marketing Outreach

Publishing a book is the price of entry.

Public relations representatives, agents, and mentors hammered those in professional services with that ought.

That was then.

Now, publishing a book can be an extreme liability in a career.

Recent examples of that might range from lawyer Alan Dershowitz to public affairs Manhattan firm owner Bob Dilenschneider.

Both helped shape their brandnames and enhanced their marketing outreach through publishing lots of books. 

Timing is everything. That had been the smart strategy for their times.

Then came social media, social networking, and streaming.

Books? How 20th century. The market says: You are asking me to actually pony up money for your book when the competition for my time is so much more fun out here. Most of it is free or lots less expensive than a book. And more often than not interactive. 

Also, Amazon can prove to be the corridor of shame. If the book doesn't rank high and sustain that ranking, as with Peter Thiel's "Zero to One," the authors' enemies lock and load with derision.

"Guilt by Accusation" by Dershowitz ranks only at 46,849 on Amazon.

"Decisions" by Dilenschneider ranks at a dismal 515,114.

There's more.

The choice of subject can put the authors on the defensive.

Dershowitz published his book in response to his legal problems as a defendant in sexual misconduct allegations. Putting out a book on this can create the messaging undertow of the-lady-doth-protest-too-much.

And we ask why does Dilenschneider put out there something on decisions? He's not a neuroscience or a psychologist. What he should have published was how to win, hold, and scale influence through social.

Of course, there are still many who assume that they have to publish a book. As a ghostwriter and strategist in marketing communications, I warn them of the risk. If they master the influence game on, for example, professional network LinkedIn they can get as much or much more of the right attention. The model for that is lawyer Norm Pattis. 

In marketing timing is everything. Complimentary consultation on your marketing communications in COVID-19 time. janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

The Big Business of Controversy - Jane Genova's Analysis is LinkedIn's Editor's Selection

LinkedIn is the most influential and powerful professional platform - at least which is open to Everyman and Everywoman. It's leveled the playing field in networking. 

I'm thrilled to share with those following my social media that for the second time recently LinkedIn has chosen my analysis of the Sussex Royal issue as the Editor's Selection.

Here is that original content.

I thank those of you who invested the time to read the content and respond. Time is money. You have created a kind of "gold mine" for me. 

Language, Law, and Marketing - Meghan and Harry Contend No One Owns Word "Royal"

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Ok, Boomer's Analysis of Uber Made LinkedIn Editor's Selection

LinkedIn chose my post on Uber from my syndicated site Law and More for its Editor's Selections.

Here is that post.

Essentially, the Law and More post analyses the court's rejection of Uber's (along with Postmates') request for a temporary injunction in complying with California AB 5.The bill became law on January 1, 2020.

The law, with some exceptions, mandates employers reclassify gig workers as employees.

However, Uber's lawsuit, filed along with Postmates, in late December, could still go forward. That complaint contends the law is unconstitutional. So, Uber lost a battle. But it could win the war. 

As of 11 A.M. ET, here is a snapshot of the response on LinkedIn to my commentary:

Uber, Postmates - Judge Rules Against Temporary Injunction on Enforcement if CA AB 5

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Smart global ghostwriting, with SEO and social networking know-how. Emergencies welcome. Complimentary consultation (pressure-free) janegenova374@gmail.com.