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Saturday, June 27, 2015

New Age networking: 3 strategies more effective than asking someone to coffee

IMAGE: KEVIN KOZICKI/CORBIS

SARA MCCORD for The Muse

1 day ago

Before those who read this title think I've abandoned everything I stand for: Don't worry, I still love coffee. I am the stereotypical remote worker who seeks refuge from writer's block in a coffee shop. I drink nearly as much as Lorelai Gilmore, and whenever I want to catch up with a friend I suggest we meet for coffee.

However, I'll admit that this isn't always an effective networking strategy. As the writer Deborah Copaken Kogan includes on her contact page "but please refrain from asking her to…go on a coffee date…it's hard enough to find an hour to have coffee with a friend."

Therein lies the problem in asking networking contacts to meet for coffee: There's a good chance they'll respond that they're "too pressed for time." And, it's no doubt true. (Seriously, look no further than here, here, and here). So, if you're hoping to connect with someone new or particularly busy, try moving your requests online. You'll get the same results (new connections!) without all those the back-and-forth "when and where" emails.

1. Use Twitter to share your work

As the resident Twitter evangelist on The Daily Muse team Lily Herman writes, "...Twitter is one of the best networking tools (if not the best) out there...Without exerting too much energy, you can put a plan in place and start to see your networking connections — and professional opportunities — rack up."

Herman goes on to explain how you can

use hashtags, questions, and your current network to foster connections over Twitter.

use hashtags, questions, and your current network to foster connections over Twitter. The idea here is that while someone may be hard-pressed to find 30 minutes (or more!) to meet for coffee, he or she probably has time to tweet you back. And, if you tweet with someone more regularly — and she's responding — you'll start to build a relationship. Once someone follows you, you can then DM him or her to continue the conversation over email.

Need proof this approach works? Just last week, someone tweeted me that he scored a 100% on the Grammar Quiz I shared. He then asked if that was worth me reviewing his infographic. I was impressed — with the score and the tweet — and asked him to DM me a link to it. If he'd asked me for coffee to discuss the possibility of collaborating, I would've said no — but this 10-second request was easy to say yes to.

2. Use LinkedIn to share your resume

Some people just aren't into Twitter, so no matter how strategically you tweet at them, they won't respond because they rarely log in. Next stop: LinkedIn.

Before you say, "Duh, everyone's resume is on LinkedIn," remember that there's a difference between a person clicking on your page just to see if you share a past employer or alma mater, and someone actually reading your professional history.

I still remember when Muse career expert Lily Zhang reached out to me over LinkedIn. Not only did she send me a personal note, but as soon as I accepted her request, she went to my profile and endorsed me for some of the skills she had mentioned in the message. This demonstrated to me that she really had read my articles, and naturally, I immediately went to her profile to endorse the skills I knew she had. And while I was there, I read her profile.

This method could work for anyone, and it's a much more strategic — and likely — way to get a contact to view your summary and resume than asking to meet for coffee so that you may discuss your career aspirations.

3. Use Instagram to be in touch

One of the secrets to really connecting over social media is to figure out your contact's preferred platform.

One of the secrets to really connecting over social media is to figure out your contact's preferred platform. While you may think that Instagram is just for personal photos, people now use it in all sorts of ways. From sharing industry-related quotes to using it as another profile to share their work, many people do utilize it for professional purposes — making it a great way to reach them.

As with Twitter, just following someone isn't enough to build a connection. You'll want to interact with the person you'd like to be in touch with. Of course, there are a few things to keep in mind. I shy away from requesting private Instagram profiles unless it's someone I already know. (Because if someone's account is private, odds are this is not a platform he uses to network with new people.)

Also, it's important not to act like you know someone you've never met. Sure if someone posts a photo of a beautiful place or of themselves all dressed up or of a cute child, it's pretty standard for followers to like and comment accordingly. But if you tell a stranger that you notice her husband always poses on her right side or that she has worn her hair the same way to every fancy event lately (a.k.a., things only a BFF or her aunt would say), you're crossing over into creepy territory.

Instead, comment on professional posts — pictures of the office, of that person traveling for work, or of events he or she has attended. A comment that you "also loved the keynote at [ABC event] especially when she mentioned [this cool thing]" is a much better way to go than the comment above. While an influencer might not have time to meet with you for coffee to discuss a recent speaking engagement, through Instagram, you can get on her radar.

You still can ask to meet people for coffee (I know I do). But if you find that you're having troublegetting a "yes" to your networking request, try one of the strategies above. Then, buy yourself that cup of coffee for victory's sake when you hear back from someone you've been dying to connect with.

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6 tech companies whose gay marriage policies were way ahead of the Supreme Court

Balloons spell out the word "love" over the Supreme Court in Washington, Friday June 26, 2015, after the court declared that same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the US.

IMAGE: JACQUELYN MARTIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

BY SETH FIEGERMAN1 DAY AGO

Few technology companies needed to wait for the Supreme Court to approve gay marriage to put policies in place that are friendly to gay employees.

In California, one of the most progressive states, gay partnerships are so long-standing that major tech companies even created affectionate nicknames for their gay employee affinity groups, like "Squeers" at Square and "Gayglers" at Google.

For all the criticisms one might direct at Silicon Valley — startups skirting regulations, pushing the limits of user privacy and showing lackluster results on employee diversity — many of these businesses have been early and decisive in providing fair benefits to LGBT workers, setting a precedent for other corporations.

"The technology sector has always been pretty advanced, in large part because of geography," says Todd Solomon, a partner at the law firm McDermott Will & Emery, who works with public and private businesses on employee benefit programs.

These tech companies have had LGBT policies in place for a long time.

Apple began offering health insurance benefits to same sex domestic partners more than two decades ago, making it one of the earliest companies to do so at a time when the political and social climate was largely against gay rights. Microsoft, too, was one of the first companies to prohibit discrimination of workers based on sexual orientation.

Google, Twitter, Airbnb and other prominent technology businesses have follow in this tradition, by promoting the rights of LGBT Americans inside and outside their companies. Some continue to operate at the "cutting edge," according to Solomon, by introducing policies like covering the surgical costs for transgender employees to transition from male to female, or vice versa.

Here are some of the companies that didn't need federal permission to give gay employees equal rights.

Google

Google is one of the trendsetters in LGBT-friendly policies for workers.

In 2011, Google became one of the first businesses to cover the cost of gender reassignment surgery for transgender employees. The Internet giant also gives employees 12 weeks of parental leave, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

"Google supports our LGBT employees in a number of ways — in taking a stand on matters of policy, putting programs in place that support Gayglers and their families, and hosting events around the world to continue the discussion on equality," a spokesperson for Google said in a statement provided to Mashable.

And yes, you read that statement right: "Gayglers" is a group for LGBT employees at Google, which participates in Pride marches, helps to brainstorm and inform workplace policies and ultimately moves Google closer toward its goal of addressing unconscious bias and building a more inclusive community.

The group's influence has won kudos from its members, including Shwetha Pai, who told a magazine, "Before all this, I could never have imagined speaking to senior management about LGBT issues or how important it is for managers to be sensitive and inclusive. I’ve also been able to come out beyond the office. I write a weekly column and my colleagues and I have begun to speak to the media about some of the challenges we face as LGBT individuals."

Screen Shot 2015-06-26 at 6.07.48 PM — The Gaygler logo

Twitter

Like Google, Twitter covers the cost of gender reassignment surgery for employees. The social networking company also provides equivalent medical benefits for same and different sex partners of employees.

Back in 2006, the year Twitter launched, it created a group for LGBT employees called Twitter Open. The group, which has a bustling, activist Twitter feed, became an official employee resource group within Twitter earlier this year. It promotes LGBT issues, screens important films, and supports events like an AIDS walk.

Square

The payment startup provides domestic partners with the same benefits — health insurance, vision and dental coverage — as married full-time employees. All employees are eligible for as much as four months of paid parental leave, regardless of whether it's their biological child or an adopted or foster child.

Square employees have also organized a monthly meetup group called Squeers — not to be confused with Gayglers.

Apple

Apple has long offered equal benefits to same sex partners of employees, including perks like six weeks of parental leave after the delivery of a new child.

"This is a momentous step forward for equality and fundamental human rights in the United States," a spokesperson for Apple said in a statement about Friday's Supreme Court decision "We could not be happier for our employees, customers and people all over America who now have the right to marry the one they love.”

Airbnb

Airbnb, the travel giant reportedly close to receiving a $24 billion valuation, has offered full healthcare coverage to same sex partners since its founding in 2008. The startup also provides 10 weeks paid parent leave to all parents and, like Google and Twitter, covers the cost of transition surgery for transgender employees.

Netflix

Netflix has provided same sex employees full access to employee benefits for more than a decade, according to a rep.

There are many more tech companies all over Silicon Valley and all over the United States who have similarly forward-looking policies. At these companies, they're just glad the Supreme Court finally caught up.

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Your Internet is going to explode with annoying autoplaying videos whether you like it or not

IMAGE: ERICA SHIRES/CORBIS

BY JASON ABBRUZZESE

2 DAYS AGO

Welcome to the slightly obnoxious future.

Autoplay video is going to find you. Chances are it already has, unless you live a cloistered existence and manage to avoid Facebook or Twitter or any number of media websites.

When you scroll through Twitter, videos and GIFs will automatically start blaring from your computer, Twitter's announced this week that it had introduced video and GIF autoplay to its service follows on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat (in its Discover section) and various media sites that have begun rolling clips whether or not users want to see them.

SEE ALSO: Twitter timelines get noisier as videos and GIFs start autoplaying

Twitter insisted that the change as good for consumers — "See more, tap less" — a notion that many users didn't quite believe.

Debra Williamson, a principal analyst for eMarketer, said that the embrace of autoplay is part of the larger arms race across the web around video and the lucrative advertising it attracts.

The social properties are really coming on strong. Facebook is a huge challenger to YouTube and Twitter wants in on that too. Snapchat and Instagram are also putting out different types of video advertising," Williamson said. "They all want to see video get bigger, and they all want their share of it."

What's that sound?

Thankfully, not all autoplay is created equal.

Facebook and Twitter can at least claim that their videos don't play with sound and can quickly be stopped as a user keeps scrolling. Both require users to click the video to enable sound.

Other sites — and their advertising — can't quite claim the same. Autoplay on media websites often includes sound, leaving people susceptible to unexpected blasts of sound coming from their speakers. Accidentally-running-into-autoplay has become the new leaving-your-phone-on-your-desk-with-the-ringer-on, the kind of careless aural disaster sure to alienate your colleagues in open-plan offices.

User annoyance of autoplay is evident. Google even came out with the ability to figure out which tab is producing sound, a problem often caused when a page suddenly starts playing video.

What's the point of suddenly blasting a video at you? Well, this chart sums it up nicely: Money.

Fight back

Autoplay has been around for years on the Internet, and people are getting tired of it.

A Reddit discussion entitled "Dear websites that set their videos to autoplay: Please stop. Seriously. If I want to watch the video I'll click the play button." features gems like this:

That post is actually a year old, and autoplay video on the Internet is a topic that has been the source of no shortage of complaints. "Autoplay is a bad idea not just for accessibility but for usability and general sanity while browsing," blogged web developer Emma Sax back in 2009.

Others have made more recent complaints.

But, like any bad but profitable idea, autoplay has slowly made its way across the Internet, spurred on by people watching a ton of videos on smartphones.

The upside is that people have started to fight back. Most web browsers have simple ways to prevent programs from operating without at least a click. Chrome in particular has apps that specifically target autoplay on YouTube.

Facebook and Twitter also allow you to turn off their in-stream autoplay.

Autoplay != autopay

Autoplay has already shown to be an easy way to boost video views, but advertisers aren't entirely convinced that this is a good thing.

Hard questions plague autoplay video metrics — is 3 seconds really long enough to be considered a view? — and they're the same problems companies have to solve before autoplay becomes effective in advertising hot cars, clever teeth-whitening ads and

"There's still some question about autoplay quite honestly. I think not every advertiser believes that autoplay as an accurate indicator of engagement," Williamson said.

Still, it's hard to ignore the massive scale that autoplay has spurred. Facebook has yet to really try to monetize video using autoplay, but it has succeeded in using the format to begin rivaling YouTube in the span of about a year. Facebook now claims to provide around 4 billion video views a day.

Whether that number is legitimately comparable to the viewcounts of rivals also speaks to questions about whether advertisers are sold that autoplay is a good thing. Facebook counts a video as being viewed after only three seconds of airing. With videos autoplaying, it's conceivable that people scrolling through their Newsfeed

Jim Nail, an analyst for Forrester with a focus on online video, said nobody knows if autoplay is good.

Twitter, he added, had more or less been pressured into it.

"This is classic technology industry herd mentality," Nail said. "Once it’s launched by one technology company, then every company feels they need to launch it and offer it."

Nail said that online video needed considerably more research before best practices were clear. TV advertising, he noted, has gone through decades of study to optimize its advertising.

"People are just throwing things on the wall to see what sticks and what people will pay for as opposed to doing any research around what is really the best way to communicate a message and what’s really acceptable to consumers," Nail said.