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How I got a great job via Facebook! (not spam, I promise)

Jun 13th, 2012
by Zendette.
1 comment

It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed an office atmosphere so I’m happy to have found something that allows me to be part of an office, but work part time, with fairly flexible hours. A mommy job, and exactly what I need now in order to devote enough time to my family and myself.

So how did I land this dream, mommy-job? I posted my requirements to Facebook, where many of my friends are people with whom I have worked in the past. I also post most of my blog posts there so any interested friends can take a closer look, or just read the headline in Facebook.

A few hours after posting, I get a call from a former colleague, asking me to interview to join her team, It was a marketing position, part time, offering me pretty much what I had outlined in my Facebook post.

Facebook can’t “get you a job”, nor can blogging. But being “out there”, and in the mind streams of people who matter can help you get a job. Facebook is only one aspect of self branding.

Effortless friendship?

Jan 3rd, 2012
by Zendette.
No comments yet

With so many social media option, it is easier than ever to maintain friendships over time. Social media grants us the power to maintain contact with people who would otherwise have fallen by the wayside during a lifetime of making friends and then abandoning them as we move on. Now we can hang on to them forever, unless some major incompatibility emerges.

I would love to meet a friend for the simple pleasure of coffee and a good conversation, but who has the time? I mean, most friendships fall by the wayside for simple reasons rather than a huge falling out. Usually one person either moves away, changes jobs, or is otherwise no longer in our immediate sphere of consciousness. Certainly with friends going back 4 decades over 3 continents, I was bound to lose contact with the majority of them.

Facebook has been amazing for allowing me to reconnect with childhood best friends whom I lost during my many address changes as a child. But Facebook has also been amazing for allowing me to maintain friendships during periods when my entire focus is on family and work. I have no time to spend with friends, and all face to face social activity revolves around meeting adults whose children are connected to mine. Without Facebook I would have lost touch with many friends who live less than 10 miles from me just because there was no time to call and set a date.

All this is good, Facebook is good, but why am I afraid that it will replace the effort once made to cultivate and maintain friendships.

Enter Facebook, and voila, I can “manage” all my friends and stay connected even when I don’t have energy to talk on the phone. A phone can be too interactive when I’m wiped out after the kids are in bed and I can finally have a quiet 5 minutes for a phone call. But Facebook abides, allowing me nearly effortless friendships. If you make no effort, can you really call it a friendship?

I struggle with this issue because I truly have no time to see longtime friends. I love following up on them by checking out their latest FB photos but when it comes to chatting, or actually scheduling time together, I fail. Some friends are also very busy, and they understand because they too have no time to meet up and are also happy to maintain the friendship in a holding pattern for a few years until the kids tell use to get lost. But others feel slighted, and I don’t blame them.

Facebook tip

Apr 19th, 2010
by Zendette.
No comments yet
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Today is Israel’s Memorial Day (Yom Hazikaron), and tonight we begin celebrating Independence Day (Yom Ha’Atzmaut). While I know it would be more appropriate to post on that topic, I’ve already seen a bunch of great posts by others so instead, I’ll post some mildly useful advice on how to avoid seeing your Facebook news feed fill up with so many posts about stupid games.

Please accept my apologies if you play one of those Farmville, Mafia or other FB games, but for those of us who don’t, seeing your updates several times a day can get annoying. This advice was posted by one of my FB friends:

anyone sick of seeing game updates in their news feed….scroll your mouse over to the right of one of those postings and the word “hide” will appear, click it and then click the name of the game (i.e. Mafia Wars) on the list and they will be hidden from you from now on ;)

There, now isn’t that better than hiding all posts from a friend who overdid their quota of boring news, which used to be the only way to skip seeing that crap.

Just another Facebook post

Apr 14th, 2010
by Zendette.
2 comments
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A blogger friend was ruminating on the meaning of Facebook in a recent post. She focused mainly on issues of etiquette in Facebooking and how that very term is a “new word”.

I really hadn’t give much thought to netiquette when it came to Facebook because, for the most part, my friends are people I have known IRL (in real life). In other words, they met me under the terms of current, face-to-face, behavioral norms, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we will continue to communicate clearly once things move online.

I have long been interested in online society and intentional communities and how cyber relationships will impact on our friendships in the future. Hey Evelyn, remember usenet! From my perspective, Facebook is a tool to maintain more, but perhaps less intense, friendships with people whom we may only rarely update directly.

For me, Facebook has helped me maintain relationships with people whom I may not have time to communicate with directly via long emails and personalized contact via phone, or (gasp!), face-to-face meet-ups. Instead, I can maintain friendships with only a minimal amount of effort – such as updating my status and occasionally posting photos. I enjoy reading how they are doing, and am usually interested in my friends’ status updates (except maybe the sports updates-no offense my sports fan friends).