Career Acceleration Notes (CAN)

Comcast to buy Plaxo: Will Social Networking become "corporate?"

The Philadelphia Business Journal reported today that Comcast Interactive Media intends to buy Plaxo, the operator of an online address book and social network called Pulse.

What does this mean for those who value the social Web as a tool to:

• share ideas freely;
• build and nurture connections; and,
• experiment with innovative ideas, products, and services?

According to Ben Golub, CEO of Plaxo, here's what Comcast has in-mind:  "Comcast has an exciting vision to bring the social media experience to mainstream consumers...To help users connect with all the people they care about, across all of the devices they use, with all the media they love to consume, create, and share..."

Comcast  Comcast Interactive Media is the Internet business unit of Comcast Corporation  (NASDAQ:CMSCA,CMCSK), the nation's leading provider of cable, entertainment and communications products and services.  Comcast is principally involved in the development, management and operation of broadband cable networks and in the delivery of programming content. Some statistics about the company:

• 24.7 million cable customers
• 14.1 million high-speed Internet customers
• 5.2 million voice customers

Have you looked at your Cable-TV bill lately?  The cost of your Internet Service?  The cost of your land line or cell phone contract?  If yours is like mine, the cost has grown exponentially while the value of the service has remained fairly constant.

Now think about what you pay for social networking tools like Pulse, Facebook, LinkedIn.com, MySpace, etc?  To paraphrase George Orwell's famous line in Animal Farm, it is good and necessary for communications tools to change, but not all communications changes are good or necessary.

What do you think this acquisition will mean for users of the social Web? 

Outside the Generational Box - Strategies for Transition

In my head, I've been re-playing our Mind the Gap:Connecting the Generations presentation in Minneapolis; let's continue the conversation about the 4 generations in the workforce. I'd like to propose a new approach to career transition, one that promotes strategies to understand and transcend generation, and accepts challenges toward achievement of career success in this multi-generational workplace. 

The first strategy:  A-b-C:  Accept but Challenge

• Accept differences - We cannot adopt homogeneous personal qualities or value propositions. It is important to identify and fine-tune the presentation of our brand or unique selling point in conversation, via resume, online, etc.  Accepting differences was one of the contributions of Generation X, e.g. those who now fall roughly between the ages of 30-45. Remember the rock musical, Hair, the first Broadway show that celebrated different thinking about politics, sexuality, and race?
  
• but - As interpersonally aware people, we prefer to use the connecting word, "and." I submit that the word "but" allows all those involved in career transition to engage in a process that may include discomfort and chaos, hopefully leading to equilibrium.  (More on this adaptation of Chaos Theory in another post...)
• Challenge - This is our raison d'etre: the challenge to "be all that we can be" is what makes life exciting.  To achieve our work/life goals and succeed in a work environment in which 4+ generations work side-by-side, we must challenge ourselves to transcend the limitations of our own generational box.  Ellen Sautter, whom I met at the Career Management Alliance Conference, suggested that she is the embodiment of the trans-generation: she is a Traditionalist by birth, who recently co-authored a book that is likely to appeal to all generations, Seven Days to Online Networking.
  

We can Accept differences and search for commonalities, but we must poke ourselves, our clients, and our colleagues to accept the Challenge of a trans-generational workforce - one that takes a "so what" approach to the issue of age. 

So with AbC in mind, here's a challenge for you to chew on; your comments are encouraged:

 

How should we distinguish between personal and professional networking? Is online networking similar to meeting associates and friends at the 9th Hole? Are these online networking tools superficial and self-promotional?

• Is LinkedIn an electronic Roladex? Can it promote real relationships?
  
• Is posting to Facebook superficial or does it promote connectedness? Should "friends" be expected to cleanse their page for evaluation by employers?

Please respond to this blog, or directly to my e-mail address:  Karen@CareerAcceleration.net