Even when I was six, I felt eons more technologically sophisticated than my grandmother. She came to America from “the old country”, and most of her stories were about simple things, like chasing her pet chicken down the dirt roads and watching my great grandfather cobble shoes by hand.
Something like sitting in our high-rise urban living room changing channels on the television set, let alone how to rearrange the rabbit ears for better reception, was simply beyond her. In an era when TV was new to all of us, she would just wander in if the set were already on and watch what was playing at the time.
Truth is, until a few weeks ago, I felt infinitely superior to grandma. But all that’s changed because of a story I told in my last blog. (LINK?) You may remember the story about my friend Mark, who received an offer for the position of his dreams because some tech-savvy recruiter found his resume on LinkedIn.
In the telling of the story, I related this tid-bit matter-of-fact, as if everybody—including myself—obviously has their resumes posted on LinkedIn. Mea culpa! This is so not true. In fact, when in comes to LinkedIn, I may have more in common with my grandma than I would like to admit.
Once the TV was installed, she sat passively in front of the screen. Once I signed onto LinkedIn and loaded my address book (that much I could figure out), I have also sat passively by. I get invitations to link with others. I follow the no-brainer link and say “accept.” I get invited to join special interest groups, I do.
Then what? Then…nothing. It’s not that I’m not capable of figuring this thing out—uploading profiles, resumes, proactively using these connections to network more effectively, promote and market services, get questions answered and so on—it’s just that until now, I haven’t made it a priority.
But a story like Mark’s—the notion of taking up such robust residence in cyber-space that magical things come to you out of the blue—is my own personal tipping point. If Grandma were around today, I’m sure she would prefer to be able to change the channel from, say, cartoons to CNN. And it’s time for me to stop pretending I’m on LinkedIn and actually start working the darn thing.
Happily, RealForMe.com has a “How to Join LinkedIn For Dummies” video uploaded, providing the basics to help us get signed-on and utilize LinkedIn’s features more effectively.
From there, it’s simply a matter of personal initiative. Many of the uses are intuitive, such as learning how to not only read what others in a special interest group or saying, but pitch in with your opinions, as well. Some are less so, such as how to post your resume and proactively research companies who may have an interest in your skill set. But it’s no more rocket science to master these skills than it would have been for grandma to figure out how to program the digital recorder.
Oh wait. Haven’t figured that one out, either. But after LinkedIn, it’s definitely next.