21st century job hunting – Media! Tech! Parenting!

21st century job hunting, 21st Century life, 21st Century parenting, digital footprints, digital life, parents and technology, social media

Can You Have an Online Presence & Still Have Some Online Privacy?

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Marti Weston

How do you develop a solid online presence while simultaneously having the ability to enjoy a social media account with friends and maybe even be a little goofy? It is possible, but organizing one’s digital footprints takes organization and attention.

This issue is of paramount importance for people who will be applying for school or jobs in today’s digital world.

To learn more about managing life in the social media world check out an informative New York Times article that describes how a 21st Century individual goes about balancing privacy with a necessary public online presence. Many people worry about how much to share in the digital world and how to separate personal and professional personas. The article, Build an Online Presence Without Giving Up Privacy, explains how a person can go about doing it. Continue reading “Can You Have an Online Presence & Still Have Some Online Privacy?” →

21st century job hunting, 21st Century life, anonymity, anonymous apps, apps, citizenship, conversations on commenting, cyber-bullying, digital citizenship, digital parenting, educating digital natives, family conversations, parents and technology

Teach Children About Anonymity Before They Make Mistakes

Posted on April 29, 2016April 22, 2019 by Marti Weston

Anonymity presents digital kids with a complicated social obstacle — one they must confront and understand if they are to protect themselves from potential problems. Digital anonymity is not a friendly concept for growing children. I’d argue, in fact, that it’s downright dangerous, but app makers continue to offer the feature. For now these apps are a part of many digital kids’ daily lives, often negatively affecting their digital wellness.

No child with a connected device is immune from possible trouble caused by anonymity, because issues can arise in an instant, often as a part of routine online social interactions. Anonymous opportunities take advantage of kids’ developing brains, encouraging them to make public mistakes in judgment, and enabling young people, sometimes as young as third or fourth grade, to act and communicate with less and less restraint. A mistake made with an app’s anonymity feature can be hurtful or humiliating.

Continue reading “Teach Children About Anonymity Before They Make Mistakes” →

21st century job hunting, digital change, digital parenting, family conversations, generating content, parents and technology, social media, social networking

Just How Much Social Media Is There?

Posted on October 22, 2012March 19, 2019 by Marti Weston

Gary's Social Media Count — Click on the image to visit Gary’s Social Media Counter.

Have you ever wondered about how much social media interaction occurs in the digital world at any given point in time? Recently I discovered an excellent social media teaching and learning tool that helps people gaze into the always-changing world of social media content.

Over at PersonalizedMedia.com, blogger Gary P. Hayes offer a living widget with algorithms that track the approximate number of interactions in a range of social media categories — all in real time. He’s also turned his counter into an iPad app.

Visit Social Media Counts — a living statistical chart originally published in 2009 but upgraded in 2011 and 2012 — and start counting the moment you open the page. The site offers a progressive snapshot of what’s occurring in the social media universe as time moves along. It continues counting until a visitor closes the web page, and it starts counting again if the page is reloaded or if a user clicks the “now button.”

Leave the page up on your browser, come back a while later, and gaze in wonder at the growing statistics. Users can also click on the day, week, or month buttons to see different, and more massive social media statistics.

Continue reading “Just How Much Social Media Is There?” →

21st century job hunting, collaboration, digital parenting, parents and technology, teamwork

Multi-Generational Teams Do the Best Work

Posted on May 22, 2012March 3, 2015 by Marti Weston

Have you been ever in a work situation where you feel especially old — as younger colleagues occasionally roll their eyes, proudly demonstrating their up-to-the-minute technology skills? Or maybe you’ve seen more experienced workers shoot down younger worker’s ideas. Lots of people in mid and late career periods, well people of all ages really, note these frustrations. It’s not all about age or technology — it’s about working together.

…and guess what?

Teams with differing ages and skills are often the most productive. While technology skills are important, collaborative skills and teamwork are more significant. In today’s fast-changing world, we are spending considerable effort teaching tech-savvy students how to work together with people who have differing perspectives and different kinds of ideas. Twenty-first Century employers are on the lookout for workers who can collaborate.

Sometimes older and more experienced team members offer points of view that add innovative problem-solving puzzle pieces to a team’s project. Younger workers can push limits and eagerly try new things. Older workers can also be skilled mentors. Skilled leadership, the ability to help people form a cohesive team, is a key to success.

Read, Why Multi-Generational Teams Are Best, over at bNet, the CBS Interactive Business Network.

Two broad reasons that a variety of age groups work together well and produce better results: Continue reading “Multi-Generational Teams Do the Best Work” →

21st century job hunting, collaboration, digital parenting, teaching digital kids

Still Not Convinced About Collaboration?

Posted on February 20, 2012March 19, 2019 by Marti Weston

extreme job interviews — Extreme Job Interview Requirements

At a time when cyber-bullying is a nationwide problem and negative political campaign advertisements are saturating the airwaves, some compelling signs indicate that students who are not immersed in activities that emphasize respect, responsibility, and collaboration may be disadvantaged in job interviews.

According to Job Interviewing, to the Extreme, an article at LATimes.com, many employers are incorporating new and sometimes innovative techniques into job interviews. These include interviewing two candidates at once to see how they communicate with one another, asking interviewees to solve offbeat problems, and conducting some part of an interview on Twitter. The goal of these unconventional methods is to figure out how an employee might function under pressure and whether he or she might communicate awkwardly or not know how to be a team player.

Best Quote from the Article

…while some applicants reveal a creativity that might have been smothered in a more conventional interview process, others expose tics and weaknesses that might have remained hidden.

21st century job hunting, parents and technology

IBM Benefits from Young Adult Social Networking Skills

Posted on January 12, 2012February 28, 2015 by Marti Weston

IBM social networking — Read the entire article.

Perhaps the parents of digital kids don’t have to worry quite so much about the focus on

According to a San Jose Mercury News report, IBM is exploring ways to use social media to improve its business practices. The company, working with San Jose State University graduate and undergraduate students, has identified potential ideas, related to social media, to connect and communicate.

The article, IBM Sees Students’ Facebook as More than a Waste of Time (yes, the headline could be grammatically tightened up),describes how the students, with so much experience using social media, are presenting all sorts of ideas that can possibly transform the connections that employees make with one another and with customers.

Another example that demonstrates how multi-generational groups that include (and different perspectives) can come together to make good discoveries.

BONUS: This type of activity prepares students to understand and work in the adult world.

21st century job hunting, digital parenting, parents and technology

Relying on a Resume? Think Bigger!

Posted on November 22, 2011March 19, 2019 by Marti Weston

If you are a parent helping an adolescent get started on the first hunt for a job or internship, or if you know someone who is searching for a job right now, Business Insider has just published an unusual infographic to help you understand that a resume may not always be the best — or at least not the only — job seeker’s tool.

This infographic offers an overview of the personal characteristics that employers cannot discover just by reading resumes. Any individual who seeks a position in this day and age needs to think about how to expand a resume and more clearly demonstrate these additional traits to potential employers. These include: