So I’m now writing for AOL… I’ve written a few posts/articles, and today one of them was good enough to hit the “welcome screen,” which means quiet a few people might see it. Quite a few = lots.
Here’s an image of my article on the AOL welcome screen:
This article was edited and changed a few times, which is something I’m not used to (can’t you tell, from my writing, that I’m not used to being edited? :p)
Pretty cool stuff.
If you are coming over from AOL, welcome!
I wanted to let you know that I’m only backing away from the premium subscription for a little while. I start a new job tomorrow, one that I was able to land in no small part because of your JibberJobber career management software. I was able to track several submissions I’d made to this particular employer, giving me a valuable history of my interactions with them. That history allowed me to connect a few dots and that gave me an advantage I needed during the interview process.
This is the response he gave me when he downgraded from Premium to Regular. I love it – last week I’ve had three JibberJobber users change their status from unemployed to I FOUND MY DREAM JOB!
That really thrills me.
JC ended his message to me with this:
[JibberJobber is] a great tool that I’d be proud to help plug for.
Thanks for sharing JC, and best wishes at your new gig!
Not on JibberJobber yet? Sign up here. Get on our next user webinar tomorrow morning (register here).
We recently got feedback from our survey of user requests, and then met as a team to discuss, prioritize and assign work orders. We were all jazzed to plan out the first part of 2010 and make JibberJobber more intuitive and more powerful. There is a lot of great stuff coming down the pipeline, and no suggestions where ignored.
Here are some updates we released last week (did you notice any of them?):
There were also some minor bug fixes, as well as some nomenclature (wording) changes around the site.
Today is the last day to tell Obama and his people about JibberJobber.com.
Please Recommend JibberJobber to the Department of Labor. Read why here, or Recommend here.
I have been working on JibberJobber for almost four years.
There are tens of thousands of people who have signed up (not all are users – my thoughts on that here).
We continue to invest in the development, and have been told by outplacement firms and other companies that we’ve developed something that they have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and years trying to develop.
I want people to know about this fantastic tool. I want the government to know about it.
For that, I need your vote – let’s put this on the Department of Labor’s radar - recommend it here!
THANK YOU!
On the way home I was a blender of emotions. Elated to be free of the crap. Sad to feel betrayed. Useless since I was a tool. Many, many emotions.
But heck, look at me know. I’m still ALIVE.
And I’m doing better than ever.
I’m happier.
I’m more powerful (because I’m EMPOWERED).
I’m positioned to really tackle MY goals, not some other guy’s goals.
I’m OKAY.
And if your last day is today (or yesterday, or yesteryear, or next month), I’ll tell you, YOU WILL BE OKAY.
YOU WILL BE OKAY.
It might take four months. It make take two years. But YOU WILL BE OKAY!
In this post I’m asking you to take a few minutes to recommend JibberJobber to the U.S. Department of Labor.
This is like “voting” for JibberJobber, but it’s not for a web award, or to be listed on a blog… I’m guessing the implecations of this recommendation will be that JibberJobber will be recognized by the government and broadcast as a job seeker resource to many workforce service departments.
In short, I think this can be the think that legitimizes JibberJobber to the US Government, which will be a big win not only for us but for the people who need something like JibberJobber.
I’ve had many talks with government people, but the problem always comes back to one thing: since there is an OPTION to upgrade, they say they can’t recommend it. I think this is either a super-lame policy, or a misunderstanding of policy. Nonetheless, many government people I talk to say something like (I really heard this):
I LOVE this! I’m going to tell my daughter, who is just graduating from college, to get on and use JibberJobber. But I can’t mention it at my office because there is a fee (NO, there is an OPTIONAL fee). And we can’t endorse anything that is for-profit.
Oh. My. Gosh. Choke me now.
Guess what… LinkedIn has an optional upgrade. Monster has optional upgrades (or levels).
A major disappointment when I first started JibberJobber was seeing a great divide between the government trying to create their own stuff, and not promoting anything else, and private industry creating really strong, powerful tools.
Guess who lost? Anyone who went to a workforce services office who wasn’t told about what they really should have been using as a resource.
Okay, didn’t mean for this to be a rant… let me get back on track.
I think, I hope, that if JibberJobber gets enough recommendations then we’ll finally get that quasi-endorsement from the government that will help hundreds thousands millions know about this very useful tool.
Here’s a quote from a comment from yesterday’s post – I found this to be really powerful:
I just “stumbled” across JJ today. After 9 months in the job search, talking with “career coaches” and recruiters as well as other job seekers and this is the first I’ve heard of it. This should be the first place a job seeker is led to.
Thank you, Gary Donnelly, for sharing that (see his entire comment here). It is a damned shame (says Steve Gallison) that he had not been pointed to it earlier.
We have tens of thousands of signups, but with last year’s economy we should have had millions.
Please recommend JibberJobber to the DOL and hopefully we’ll get the respect we deserve, and job seekers won’t have to waffle around for almost a year before they “stumble upon” this very helpful resource.
To recommend JibberJobber simply:
Follow the process from there. I’m guessing it will take you all of three minutes.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I neglected getting this scheduled until just this morning… sorry to all the new users who had a few days of “um, the webinar doesn’t really exist 
.”
Anyway, here’s the deal – we get on at 9:00 am Mountain Time (you can should sign in early). NOTE THE TIME ZONE. I always have a few people who get on an hour early, or an hour late. If you miss the webinar, or if can’t wait for the next one, you can always see a recording here. We spend about an hour going over stuff – usually it’s beginner stuff, but sometimes there are questions that take us into more advanced features. I go with the audience.
When you sign up for a webinar you won’t get email reminders of any future webinars. If you want to sign up for others you have to do that one at at time. The schedule is as follows:
You should sign up for at least one of these webinars!
I was honored to make the top 11 (not the top 10) in the Top HR Digital Influencers 2009 list.
The list of bloggers here is really fantastic, and it’s flattering to be on here. This list is based on certain levels of traffic and links and stuff like that (quantifiable stuff), not necessarily quality of content or even whether they are active bloggers anymore (Joel Cheesman is ranked at #3 but discontinued his usually-number-one blog back in September).
It’s really cool to see relatively-newcomer Mark Stelzner on this list, and it’s even more cool to see he’s at #1. Mark has done a fantastic job as the founder (cofounder?) of Job Angels.
Launce Haun has always been awesome and well-respected, as have Jessica Lee (met her in person!) and Kris Dunn.
I’m surprised to have gotten a better ranking than Laurie Ruettimann (what a punk she is!) and Jason Davis, as both of them have been a big part of RecruitingBlogs.com, which is one of the best-run Ning sites I’ve ever seen.
It’s an honor to rank higher than Bill Vick, recruiting genius, and Peter Clayton, the mastermind behind Total Picture Radio, even though I think they are way better than I am.
There are a few names I don’t recognize, but I’ll get familiar with them in a bit.
If you are interested in jobs, job creation, employment, recruiting, the job search and hiring issues, there’s a great list of blogs to follow.
I do wonder (so does Laurie R.) why some other terrific advisors are not on this list - I mentioned the writers at Career Hub recently, and I never see Nick Crocodilos (brilliant information) on any of these lists, although he should be. And it will be interesting to see my competition and other job seeker software vendors get on these lists next year (hopefully), as many of the resume writers and career coaches who have started blogging in the last year or two. Oi vey, where are the outplacement firm blogs?
Thanks HR Examiner, for the recognition and work!
Today is the last day of the special. If you want to take advantage, login to JibberJobber and upgrade for one year.
Even if you are a premium user you can do this – we’ll just add one more premium year to your account AND you get the four premium videos. Here are five reasons to do this special:
It’s super easy to get all of these things right now – just login to your JibberJobber account and upgrade for one year. (after today, each item is priced individually – the upgrade is $99 and each video is $50)
Oh yeah, this isn’t a secret – please let everyone you know about it.
I’m extending the JibberJobber unbirthday special through this Friday. In summary, here’s what you get for $99:
So, you upgrade for one year at $99 and you get $300 worth of product – that is a 66% savings… what are you waiting for? Login to your JibberJobber account and upgrade for one year!
I’ve been waiting for three things, which are now available. Before I get into that, I want to introduce JibberJobber’s unbirthday special. Don’t worry, we only celebrate this once every year – six months after the real birthday. JibberJobber is 3.5 years old… yippee!
This special is available from now through Friday, December 11th.
To celebrate our unbirthday we are offering anyone who upgrades for one year ($99) the following premium videos:
These are four special videos I created, all priced at $50 each. Invest $99 in your career and get 12 months of Premium JibberJobber as well as $200 worth of videos. You can watch these videos as often as you want (they are all streamed – not on DVD and not available for download).
To take advantage of this special simply login to your JibberJobber account and then choose Upgrade from the bottom menu, and upgrade for one year.
The three things I’ve been waiting for before I sent the newsletter are:
To help point us in the right direction with development, I’d love to get your input on some things that are on our development list. Could you please complete a 14 question survey to let us know what new development is most important to you? http://tinyurl.com/jj-survey (this link goes to a Google survey page – it should take a few minutes to complete)
Finally, the next JibberJobber user webinar is on December 2nd – click here to register: http://www.jibberjobber.com/blog/free-webinar
Thank you! If you have any suggestions for JibberJobber, please let us know (the best way is through the Contact Us form, OR on the survey above)!
Jason Alba
:: CEO – JibberJobber.com
:: Author – I’m on LinkedIn — Now What???
:: ”LinkedIn for Job Seekers” DVD (not just for Job Seekers)
:: http://www.ImOnLinkedInNowWhat.com/dvd
:: http://twitter.com/jasonalba
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This is a feature that has been on our list for over 18 months. We’re really excited to announce it is finally available to you (it is a premium feature).
In a nutshell, this new feature allows you to create a Log Entry by sending an email to a special email address.
When I say Log Entry, realize you can:
If you are not a Premium users use the Contact Us form and we’ll bump you up for five days so you can play around with this very super cool feature. Here’s what you do:
Go to My Account (from the main menu, when you are logged in) and then click on the Email Address Tab
Here is the page where you set it up and make it active. These are two security measures so others can’t create log entries on your behalf (not foolproof but they are pretty good).
The second/bottom section says Log Email Address. This is where you activate it.
The first thing you do is set up your unique email address. Simply put some keyword in the Keyword box – your personal, unique email address will show up as you type it – this is he email addy you will use to create a log entry. I put the word “secret” in my box…
Notice (corresponding to the numbers above):
Next, put in the email addresses that are authorized to create a Log Entry.
Note that you can put in multiple email addresses… just separate them with commas. I have two main email accounts I use, so I put both of those in this box. Email from other addresses to my unique address should not create Log Entries.
Finally, click on the Set Keyword button. You should notice the bold/red email addy is now bold/green.
Now, go to your email client and send an email to someone in your JibberJobber network, and BCC your new unique email addy you just created. I use BCC so people don’t “reply to all” and have a chance of creating a Log Entry. NOTE: I put in multiple email addresses – all corresponding to contacts I have in JibberJobber, and a Log Entry was created for each email address I put in the email. THAT IS COOL!
Then, within 5 minutes (we check for new emails every 5 minutes) you should see the Log Entry created on their contact record in JibberJobber. Here’s the Log Entry created when I sent to the address I have on a record in JibberJobber:
#1 is the email Subject, and #2 is the email Body.
To do the other cool stuff, like associate multiple contacts, companies or jobs, or to make it an Action Item, etc., go to that page and click the HELP icon 
.
Let us know if you have any feedback on this feature… thank you!
The second Now What book that I didn’t write is available on Amazon and as an ebook download from Happy About. The image to the right is pretty big because I LOVE how all of the people are represented by business cards, and the one in the middle (presumably YOU or ME) has hands out, ready to meet and welcome other people — how cool!
I’m at a Networking Event — Now What??? is a terrific resource for anyone who has to go to any kind of networking event for the purpose of… networking!
I remember a few years ago when I went to networking events and cheated… I went late and left early. I totally missed the point of the event, and missed out on opportunities to meet people who could be helpful in my job search.
Now when I go to networking events I am really looking for networking opportunities. But it is not as easy as I originally thought – to have a successful experience because of a networking event there is:
In this book on how to work a networking event Sandy teaches you how to really, effectively get value out of your networking. I don’t care if you are networking with job seekers, business owners at the chamber of commerce meeting, at a luncheon with managers and directors, or with your target prospects – this book will help you understand how to more effectively work the room, find those key relationships, and then move forward from there.
Congratulations to first-time author Sandy Jones-Kaminski for this very useful book (see what others have said about it here)!
You can get it for $19.95 from Amazon or from Happy About, or get the ebook (immediate download) for only $11.95.
Once you get it, if you like it, consider giving it a favorable review on Amazon – thank you!
There are lots of books on Twitter right now – I was supposed to write one of the earliest but I was in the middle of rewriting I’m on LinkedIn — Now What??? and I wasn’t sure I wanted to write another technical book that would have to be updated every year! I opted to not do that but instead create hands-on, visual webinar recording that shows you how to use Twitter.
Twitter for Job Seekers (the video) is specifically designed for professionals in a job search.
It is a 1 hour and 24 minues (and one second) video, walking you through what Twitter is, and how to use it in your job search.
It’s based on the idea that you want to find network contacts who can help you in your job search – find people to add to your own personal/professional network, as well as how to communicate with them after you find them.
There is also training on what to do with your own Twitter account. As a professional, what could or should you be tweeting? (going into personal branding, and how to use Twitter as a Personal Branding tool)
I show you how to get value out of Twitter EVEN IF YOU DON’T HAVE A TWITTER ACCOUNT. This is essential for many professionals who aren’t excited to jump on this bandwagon, but still want to tap into the power that Twitter.com has created. There is significant power there – and you can tap into it without even signing up for an account.
I won’t try to convince anyone to get a Twitter account, but I do want you to learn how to use this tool so you can achieve your career management objectives.
To access the recording (as many times as you like) simply do the following:
This $50 investment into your career management is worth it… once you are done you should have your brain wrapped around Twitter as a tool, and know how you are going to incorporate it into your job search strategy.
(if you are already logged into JibberJobber, simply click here)
Another new update we did this week is so simple it barely merits a blog post.
Of course, some users will love it, even though it’s not a huge deal. So I’ll tell you what is was, but I want to wrap it in a concept.
JibberJobber is… well, complex. It’s not simple. It’s very powerful, but the complexity kind of scares some people off.
I bet your job search, or career management, or personal branding management, is also complex. There are tons of books, articles and blog posts about the stuff – it has to be complex.
Sometimes in the complexity we miss opportunities to simplify, while doing something that will have a “significant” impact on what we are doing.
Check out the first time I wrote about this in one of my favorite blog posts titled I Hated My Lawnmower. One tiny change made a huge (significant) difference in my lawn mowing experience. And my neighbors couldn’t laugh at me anymore (for that, anyway ).
The second time I referred to this was another favorite post titled Permission to Manage Your Career. As someone who’s serious about CEO of Me, Inc, this was a significant epiphany for me.
My message to you is this: perhaps there is one simple thing you can change which will produce significantly different results. Perhaps it’s a job search tactic… or perhaps it’s where you work (messy office vs. clean room or coffee shop)… or perhaps it’s what you wear when you start your day… or perhaps whether you smile when you are on the phone or not.
One simple thing might change a lot.
Find that one simple thing, and then I challenge you to make the change.
Ok, having said that, here’s the simple change we made (thanks to a few users who have suggested this):
On the List Panel one of the columns you can see is the Next Action Item Date. This is now a hyperlink – you can drill down and go to that log entry/action item.
So simple, but a real enhancement for those who navigate a lot through the List Panel view.
There ya go, another cool enhancement, and an analogy of how you can relate the concept to your career management
JibberJobber is a Career Management Tool. One feature that really breaks it out of the short-term “job search tool” and makes it more valuable in your long-term career management is the Job Journal.
Don from Pittsburgh suggested that we give free users the ability to add Job Journal entries without upgrading. After chatting about it with my team we agreed, as this is such a significant part of managing your career.
The Job Journal allows you to record your past accomplishments:
Let me suggest that when you most need this information (like when you are creating your resume, or when you are in an interview) is the time you are least likely to recall it.
I wrote Depression Clouds Everything, the most commented post on this blog, with this in mind.
You know you are awesome, and you have a terrific history of bringing value to your employer – but when you start your job search (or as it drags on) it’s easy to forget your accomplishments – and these accomplishments are part of your story. These accomplishments are what you can use to help an interviewer understand just how valuable you are.
When I was putting together my own interview question responses, and my resume, I easily overlooked more than 50% of my accomplishments – they were long-forgotten.
This is where the Job Journal comes in – login to your JibberJobber account, mouse over Tools (in the main menu) and click on Job Journal. You can enter 25 accomplishments in the free level… sure it’s not unlimited but it’s a great place to start. I’d be quite impressed if you could list 25 accomplishments right now
As you put your accomplishments in the Job Journal, flesh out the story – you should be able to state the Problem, your Actions, and the Results (PAR).
Career Management is a long-term thing, for sure. Please do not lose track of your professional accomplishments – you won’t remember all of them when you really need them – and that’s where JibberJobber and the Job Journal help.
Past posts about the Job Journal are here:
The Job Journal – Sept 2007
Liz Handlin writes Keep a Job Diary – Jan 2007
Not Just A Job Search Tracker – Why Professionals Need JibberJobber – Oct 2008
Here’s what I’m up to the rest of this week. If you are in or around Orlando note there are two events on Thursday you can come to. Both are free, afaik. (link to the original post)
Wednesday Oct 14
4:10 pm – Arrive at airport
6 – 8 – Open
Thursday Oct 15
8 – 10 – nuthin – that’s 6am Mountain time so I’ll be waking up :p
10 – 12 – Career Management 2.0 for a Job Seekers network meeting – open to anyone. 351 South State Road 434, Altamonte Springs, FL. This is in a furntiture store, apparently.
1 – 3 – lunch with my buddies at Seasons 52
3 – 6 – private meeting
7 – 9 – Career Management 2.0 for LDS ProfNet (a Professional Networking group) – open to anyone. 45 E Par Street, Orlando, FL. This is in an LDS church.
Friday Oct 16
7am – 9:30pm – Career Conference – I present at 10am (only for conference attendees)
Saturday Oct 17
7am – 3pm – Career Conference
3pm – airport to fly home
Three years ago I started to learn about this industry I had never heard of – outplacement.
I hadn’t heard of it because the company that laid me off doesn’t do outplacement. When I got let go I got a very small severance and advice to go to a free resume clinic.
Outplacement, I learned, is a service provided by a company to help an employee who is being terminated to land on their feet. Outplacement services typically include some coaching (individual or group), learning opportunities (seminars, webinars, etc.), and sometimes office space. There are other perks of receiving outplacement, but those are at the core.
Outplacement packages typically start around $1,200 and commonly are more than $2,000. Executive outplacement packages can easily be five figures.
As I was learning about this industry I thought about how cool it would be to offer something to companies like mine – there is no way they would have spent $1,200 per termination, but perhaps they would spend a few hundred dollars on each of us. To that company, outplacement was too expensive.
Interestingly, traditional outplacement firms are not interested in going below a certain price point – there is a lot of overhead associated with traditional outplacement and they just can’t go that low.
My idea was to create an offering that could satisfy that price point.
Fast forward three years… I got an email from a recruiter a couple of months ago saying he was just let go and did I know of any opportunities. After not doing anything with my idea for three years because (a) I didn’t have the mental bandwidth, and (b) I’m not a sales professional, I thought I’d throw the idea at him.
And here we are today, with a new website called Affordable Outplacement. We’re definitely not going head-to-head with traditional outplacement, rather we are going where they have chosen not to go.
There’s more to the story, but I’ll leave it at this for now. I think it’s quite exciting, and I’m anxious to see how things unfold over the next 12 months!
Oh yeah, I should mention, YES, we are looking for talent to help us move this forward. Specifically (and only), right now we are looking for inside sales reps:
I’ll be in Orlando from Wednesday, October 14th (arrive around dinner time) and leave in the afternoon of Saturday, October 17th.
My schedule is below. You can see this is a lot lighter than what I normally do.
Wednesday Oct 14
4:10 pm – Arrive at airport
6 – 8 – Open
Thursday Oct 15
8 – 10 – nuthin – that’s 6am Mountain time so I’ll be waking up :p
10 – 12 – Career Management 2.0 for a Job Seekers network meeting – open to anyone. 351 South State Road 434, Altamonte Springs, FL. This is in a furntiture store, apparently.
1 – 3 – lunch with my buddies at Seasons 52
3 – 6 – private meeting
7 – 9 – Career Management 2.0 for LDS ProfNet (a Professional Networking group) – open to anyone. 45 E Par Street, Orlando, FL. This is in an LDS church.
Friday Oct 16
7am – 9:30pm – Career Conference – I present at 10am (only for conference attendees)
Saturday Oct 17
7am – 3pm – Career Conference
3pm – airport to fly home
Maybe I’ll see you at one of these events?
Last night we made significant changes – hopefully they won’t affect you and how you use JibberJobber – but I thought I’d let you know what we’re up to.
About six months ago our current hosting company (where our server was hosted for the last 3+ years) informed me that they were changing direction and not going to host sites anymore. This was sad because I had worked with the owner for many years before and knew him to be an amazing server guy.
In the course of doing research I found a new server guy who had pretty much everything I was looking for. As an IT person, I look for character, skillset and customer service first – the technology is a given. I was looking for a “partner” who would take ownership in the service they would provide. (note: this is not a legal partner, nor someone who has equity in JJ)
Over the last few months my team and his team have been involved in planning, testing, and some dry runs. There is really no good time to do something like this – many things can go wrong. Midnight for us is daytime in other parts of the world – and we have signups from over 100 countries – so really, there isn’t a “best time.”
But we bit the bullet last night – I noticed the last emails from my team were around 4 and 5am… basically saying it’s done, tested, and let us know if there are problems.
I know the limits of Quality Assurance testing… and how great users are – so of course I woke up this morning to a problem from someone trying to buy the LinkedIn DVD – with just a few phone calls I got that resolved.
Anyway, this move means many things for us and you – hopefully the biggest change you’ll see is a FASTER JibberJobber. I’ve seen it perform faster… and this was definitely becoming an issue.
If you have ANY problems – bugs, errors, or the system isn’t doing what you think it should, please use the Contact Us form to let the team know.
Thank you for your patience – and a HUGE THANK YOU to my team who was up all night (after testing and prepping all day) to make this as smooth as we hoped it would be!
Now that we have this behind us we can start working on some of those work orders we’ve been anxious to address!
Check out this very cool writeup in a newsletter after I spoke at POAC:
Jason Alba Scores a Major Hit with 102 people at POAC
Last evening Jason Alba held the POAC audience of 102 spellbound for two hours. Jason’s explanation of the methods used in conducting “Career Management 2.0″ was like a fine mystery novel, leaving the reader wanting to turn to the next page (slide). As he concluded the evening’s remarks there was a sanguine air in the crowded room, some sort of wishing it would go on for several more hours, yet others were feeling an electrifying charge to get a head start on revamping their marketing strategy.
The comments were awesome and still coming in.
Steve Gallison, Director of POAC
Wow. Spellbound… fine mystery novel… sanguine air… very cool!
I admit, that was one of the funnest presentations I’ve done in a long time
Steve, by the way, has a really cool email signature… check this out (I took out the colors/formatting… focus on the content/message):
Stephen R. Gallison
POAC Founding Director
Maryland’s only free
outplacement assistance center
for the Professional, Executive,
Technical, Managerial and Scientific
communities since 1992.
Often Imitated – Never Duplicated!
I love it!
Here’s the latest on my trip – I’ll be out of the office from today through Monday Sept 28th. I tried to get 12 presentations but I’ll have to settle for 7.
Friday, Sept 18:
Fly in late (9:30pm). Grab rental car and stay with friends in Maryland.
Saturday, Sept 19:
sightseeing with my oldest daughter in D.C. Any suggestions? I think all the Smithsonian museums are closed on Saturday?
Sunday, Sept 20:
Running around Woodbridge, VA showing her were I met her mom – and dinner with a buddy and my sister.
Monday, Sept 21:
1:30 – 3:30 – Private presentation in Hunt Valley, MD (outplacement firm)
7pm – Bel Air, MD – Grace Career Networking Group. Free – come if you can!
Tuesday, Sept 22:
11:00 – 12:30 – Private corporate presentation in D.C.
1:30 – 3:30 – Private presentation in Fairfax, VA (outplacement firm)
6:30 – 8:30 – socStardom at Johns Hopkins University Montgomery Campus, Rockville, MD. This is for entrepreneurs and businesses and will focus on how to use social media to grow your business. Register here. Free.
Wednesday, Sept 23:
1:00 – 3:00 – Human Resources Association – National Capital Area on job search/career management in Washington, D.C. Location and registration info here. Not sure if you have to be a member, but this event is… Free.
4:00 – 5:30 – LinkedIn for Executives ($50 or $60) – register here. Note times are Eastern … you’ll have to do the math to figure out what time that is for YOU.
6:00 – 8:00 – State of Maryland Professional Outplacement Assistance Center (POAC) presentation (location here). Already booked solid.
Drive to Annapolis for Conference
Thursday, Sept 24:
conference in Annapolis
Friday, Sept 25:
conference in Annapolis
Dinner with my sister, her man, and my daugter in MD or D.C.
Saturday, Sept 26:
conference in Annapolis, then fly home around lunch (oops, I thought I had this scheduled on Sunday)
Every once in a while I get a harebrained idea to do something new and cool. I know, I’m nutz.
First it was to start a crazy job search organizational website… JibberJobber.com.
Then it was to write a book that might sell a few copies… I’m on LinkedIn — Now What???
Then it was to actually become a professional speaker (got dragged into that one) … this is what prompted the redesign of JasonAlba.com.
Then it was to develop other informational products like the LinkedIn DVD: LinkedIn for Job Seekers.
Look where all that got me :p
Well, here’s the next one. This met all of my criteria for doing a new thing (complement the other stuff? Check. Fun? Check. Rewarding? Check.) Let me tell you how this all started.
Alison Doyle is the Job Search Expert at About.com. When she comes to Park City with her man, who is the Ski Expert at About.com, she lets me know so we can hopefully have lunch together. About a year ago I went to lunch with Mark Newman, CEO of Hirevue (a very cool company) and we were just chatting… no agenda, nothing planned, just chatting.
Somehow we got the idea to start an industry blog/site that talks about the plethora of job search tools (and stuff)… new ones, old ones, etc. The idea was to create a place where we talk about what there is, what we think of it, how they could improve, and stuff like this. Something like TechCrunch for the job search world.
Of course, we are not going to be, or compete with, TechCrunch. But we thought there was an opportunity to fill a gap. We were SO EXCITED!
And then we all went back to our day jobs and got busy :p
Until recently… we finally pulled it together and decided to make it happen. This week we came up with the name Job Search Talk, bought the domain, set up the blog, and started moving forward.
We’re jazzed, and hope to be able to provide value to people in the job search space (HR, job seekers, recruiters, software developers, etc.) – but we don’t want to (or, can’t) write all of it! So, if you have any opinions on what is out there, or what should be out there, let us know – we’d love to have experts (whether you are a job seeker with expertise as a product user or a career coach or a software vendor) help us put up information and opinions about what is available… !
Cool, huh? Crazy but cool.
Updated on August 14.
I finally bought tickets for my D.C. trip. I don’t have much scheduled now but will over the next few weeks. Here’s what I know now:
Friday, Sept 18:
Fly in late. Grab rental car and find a place to crash close to Baltimore.
Saturday, Sept 19:
sightseeing with my oldest daughter in D.C.
Sunday, Sept 20:
not sure - probably more sightseeing, and show her were I fell in love with her mom (in Northern Virginia)
Monday, Sept 21:
1:30 - 3:30 - Private presentation in Hunt Valley, MD (outplacement firm)
6pmish - Job Seeker group in Maryland near Baltimore.
Tuesday, Sept 22:
11:00 - 12:30 - Private corporate presentation in D.C.
1:30 - 3:30 - Private presentation in Fairfax, VA (outplacement firm)
6:30 - 8:30 - Blog Stars presentation in Rockville, MD
Wednesday, Sept 23:
1:00 - 3:00 - HR Association in D.C. on job search/career management
4:00 - 5:30 - Webinar for Netshare (Experts Connection) on LinkedIn for Executives ($50)
6:00 - 8:00 - State of Maryland Professional Outplacement Assistance Center (POAC) presentation (location TBD)
Drive to Annapolis for Conference
Thursday, Sept 24:
conference in Annapolis
Friday, Sept 25:
conference in Annapolis
Saturday, Sept 26:
conference in Annapolis, then fly home around lunch (oops, I thought I had this scheduled on Sunday)
If you know of any job clubs, etc. that I can speak at, let me know - I’d love to fill my schedule (up to 4 presentations per day). Anything IN Annapolis would be great for Wed - Saturday.
Some very, very cool updates in JibberJobber:
Detail Page Makeovers
Something I’ve heard over the years is the design of JibberJobber “feels old.” I could never really put my finger on what that meant, but a user interface professional made a suggestion that our “Detail Page,” which shows the details of a Target Company, Contact or Job Posting, was the main problem. She made a number of suggestions, most of which we incorporated into the new design of the detail pages… here’s the new look:
Instead of listing all of the changes, we’ll just leave it at this… because this is not the most exciting thing I want to announce today. That would be….. (drum roll)….
New Views/Reports on Get Contact List
Note: The Get Contact List page is a premium feature (one of my favorite, and most used). There are two additions to the Get Contact List reports/output.
The first is simply the addition of the image when you print a list of your contacts. Do you organize events, or have a need to check attendance at networking events? Or do you just want to have a printout of who might be there, and have a picture to remind you what they look like? You’ll like this.
The first drop down on this page is Export To: Make sure you leave it at the default, which is Print List (yeah, that’s new, it used to just say Print), like this:
Then, in the Fields to Show section, drag Image to the very first spot, and check the checkbox, like this:
And then the report you get, which is optimized to print out, will look like this:
Oh but that isn’t all… here’s the second brand new report… which is like the one above but gives you the entire Profiles (not log entries or action items) … this is why we made the Detail Page changes I noted above. Instead of choosing Print List, I choose Print Profiles, like this:
And the report looks like this (these are two fake records, but the point is, all of the contacts that meet the criteria will have their Profiles (and Notes) listed one under the other):
I think this is pretty dang cool! Thanks to JibberJobber evangelists Tom in New Jersey and Don in Pennsylvannia for suggesting these reports!
Every other week we do a one hour tutorial on JibberJobber - you can see the schedule and register here (the next webinar is this Wednesday).
I finally got around to recording a new version of this webinar, so you don’t have to wait to jump on the live webinar (where you can ask questions and sometimes we go off on more advanced tangents)… here are the first two parts of the one hour webinar.
You can see all of these, and more, on the JibberJobber Vimeo channel.
Part 1
Part 2
Updated 7/1 with Part 3!
Part 3
If you click where the red arrow is pointing on either of the videos you’ll pop the video out so it’s full screen.
Not sure how I missed this one, I knew it was coming… but I didn’t write about it in my last “JibberJobber News” post…
For years we’ve been asked to put a Save button at the top of the screen of the add contact, since you have to scroll down about three pages to find it (which is no fun if you only have a name and email address to enter).
We finally put the button here:
When you hit Quick Save it will save the record and take you directly to the List Panel page.
If you don’t want to go there, then go to the bottom of the Add/Edit Contact page and choose where you want to go…
Also, this is one reason why my List Panel is ordered by who I put in the system last - I always see my most current entries at the top of the List Panel.
Yeah, we know - JibberJobber users are celebrating this around the world (last I checked we had signups from over 100 countries).
Finally, finally, we got around to something that has been much requested: putting tags on Jobs and Companies.
Tags are awesome. We’ve had them on Contacts for a long time, and now you can organize your data with tags on Companies and Jobs.
We also put “Images” on Companies… so if you can grab the logo of a Company you can see it on the Detail Page as well as the search results, the List Panel, and the Maps. In pictures:
To add an image on a company, the field is directly below the Company Name… see the Tags field two below that?
This is a view of the Detail Page, you can see the Tags there (top arrow), and the image in the Notes section (just like on the Detail Page of a Contact):
On the List Panel, you can do a search based on tags, like this (this applies to all fields… just put in the field name, colon, and the search phrase (no spaces, like in the image)). Notice there is only one record showing because we just released this like 8 minutes ago, and this is the first company I’ve tagged. Also, note the second arrow pointing at the image of the company.
On the Job entry/edit page you’ll see the Tags box right here:
One quick thing to point out - notice on the Job Tags there is a drop down that says “Choose a Tag,” but on the Company Tags there isn’t that drop down. Here’s how this works:
Pretty cool, huh? It’s a simple thing we should have done early on - thanks to the user requests we finally got it in!
(FYI, Tag Maintenance is not in the system yet but is coming soon - another oversight! This will allow you to manage Tags the same way you manage Categories (add, edit, delete from a maintenance page)).
As usual, send us any suggestions (best is to use the Contact Us form). We have a list a mile long and are continually working on it.
I’m beyond frustrated with Comcast email issues… I’m writing this post for two reasons:
First, for the issue of the JibberJobber mail server not able to send to Comcast addresses. I was an email admin a while back and know that we will never win the war on spam. Never. It’s a huge issue, of course, as no one likes spam. But sometimes the rules put into place cause more problems than they fix.
For example, when I was an email admin we set a “threshold” so that certain emails would go through (the good ones) and others would get stuck in a spam bucket (the bad ones). Guess what? There were a number of “false positives,” that is, emails that were GOOD but got marked as spam.
Executives (who are typically the most whiney in situations like this) at first complained they got too much spam. So we change the threshold so they get no (or little) spam, and then they whined they weren’t getting the important emails (the false positives, usually from their kids).
The problem here is that Comcast has blacklisted our server, which means NOTHING will go from our server to a Comcast email address. We have tried to go through their process of getting off the blacklist, but have heard NOTHING back from them. Very unprofessional. Maybe @comcastcares on Twitter, but this is living hell for me, as I have a bunch of users saying “I never got _____ email.” And indeed, they are writing from a Comcast email address.
I’ll try again today, based on this blog post about getting off of Comcasts blacklist, but I’m not hopeful.
Enough about me and JibberJobber - now for the regular person. I strongly encourage you to get a Gmail email account, for a few reasons:
There ya go. I gotta stop writing and go try and get off of Comcast’s blacklist. Grrrrrrrrrr…….
Oh yeah, in case you are having blacklist problems with your email server going to Comcast, here are some good reads:
I finally set up the JibberJobber user webinars so that you can access them with the new GoToWebinar VOIP option - which means you don’t have to call into a number - simply listen on your computer speakers. Hopefully this reduces any confusion about the audio portion.
I also set up a recurring webinar training, starting on Wednesday (June 3rd) and going every other week through the rest of the year (you can see part of that schedule here). When I first starting using GoToWebinar they didn’t have this feature, so people would say “why is the webinar in December of 2009?” This should be resolved now, also… hopefully.
To get on this next webinar (June 3rd), or any webinar after that, simply register at this link below. When you register you will get an email back with info on how to get on the webinar.
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/549339059
THE BIGGEST CONFUSION I’ve seen is the TIME of the webinar. These webinars are at 9am MST, which is 8am PST, 10am CST and 11am EST. I don’t know how to do the higher level math and calculations that Arizona people can do, so I can’t say what time it is there, but I’m guessing they can figure it out based on 9am MST
Here are some other ways to get help with JibberJobber:
Written documentation in the WIKI. This is a project we started a while ago - if you have any suggestions on what to add, just let us know.
JibberJobber Two Minute Tutorial Videos. Some are more than two minutes, some are less than two minutes, but you get the point. Many are years old, … we’re updating these in a different place, check this out for the most updated user tutorials.
As always you can use the Contact Us form to submit questions, suggestions, rants, raves, etc.
Note that all of these links are found from the HELP page, which is at the bottom of every page in JibberJobber, including this blog.
Wednesday I blogged about the history of the development team, and mentioned we have a list a mile long. Let me share an example of what we do… just a few days ago my developer released a new feature allowing you to add someone from Twitter, just using their Twitter handle. Note: you do NOT have to be on Twitter, or even be logged into Twitter, to make this work.
Here’s how it works:
Login to JibberJobber, go to the Add a Contact page, and click on the Quick Add from Twitter link.
I put in ShirleyFrazier, since she tweeted to me. Plus she is a basketologist - how could you not want a basketologist in your network? Never know when that might come in handy!
The contact information is added, and you can see what information we get to pull over from Twitter (all the stuff the arrows are pointing to are automatically brought over from her Twitter Profile).
This is a FREE feature… in a future post I’ll show you how to use Twitter in a job search, which will perfectly dovetail into this feature.
Like I mentioned, we are constantly working on improving the product - whether it’s the user experience, or stuff under-the-hood, this is a full-time job for us, to make your job search and network relationship management just a little bit easier!
In March of 2006 I had the idea for this revolutionary job search organizer, which would soon be called JibberJobber.com. I had already thought of two other online businesses and was putting together business plans and operational plans to move forward on them. I was looking for programming resources to help move these projects forward. Even though I have a background in web development, I knew my time was better spent doing other stuff.
I looked for offshore outsourcing shops (that’s the budget I had) and was really disappointed with what I found. The communication I got from those shops were overly sophisticated, not what i wanted nor what I was used to. I figured they were accustomed to working with huge companies, like GE and Ford and Microsoft… I needed something different.
One morning, a programmer who used to work at my old company (the one I got laid off from) popped online. He left our old company about a year before I did, and we hadn’t communicated for a LONG time. He had a stellar record at our old company and I had come to know him as a very talented developer. I asked him what he was up to, and he responded, “I’m going to (a city a few hours away) for an interview.”
I responded, “why don’t you just work for me? You can work out of your home, work your own hours, etc.”
During the conversation I told him that this would be a six month project. Little did we realize what we were about to start - he’s been with me for over three years!
From March 2006 - May 2006 he worked on taking my 20 design screenshots and implementing them. I knew getting the site up in two months was pushing it, but we did it.
Early on I did some html programming, but one day he said “Jason, you are indenting two spaces, and you need to indent only one space.“ It was then that I realized (a) he was more obsessive about code than I was (and I was more obsessive than others), and (b) he was absolutely the person I wanted on this project - he cared about stuff that no one would see, but that would have an impact on other parts of the company, and (c) by helping with the programming I was probably slowing things down - that is the last time I helped in that area (which was a really good thing).
Around May, 2006 I got a message from the quality assurance (QA) expert from our old company - she said that since I left, the company went in a different direction and she was very unhappy and that she was leaving. She wasn’t asking for a job, just letting me know (as friends) that she was moving on. I didn’t know how to pay her but I really, really wanted her to come work for us … I really hated doing QA, and once again, I knew I needed to spend my time on other things. I figured out how to increase the funding I got and brought her on to do QA - she’s been a lifesaver many times.
So what have these two done since May 15, 2006? JibberJobber was not done in May 15, 2006, it was just good enough to go live… since then we’ve grown a wish list that is pages long, and it seems as soon as we get one thing off the list we add three more. Most of our wish list items come from our own use and from our users… we love user input!
As an employer, I’m proud to say that my original team is still with me, three years later. And I hope they are with me for many years to come - we have a chemistry that just works, and I’ve felt extremely blessed that I’ve come across them.
(as a side note, over the years I’ve engaged other professionals, including graphics designers, another key web programmer who has done quite a bit on JibberJobber but he isn’t full-time with us, a user interface designer, a server admin, etc. For those who want to do their own website with this level of functionality, it takes more than one superman
Last week I meant to write four more blog posts, but the week got away from me. Being Mr. Dad and Mr. Mom and Mr. JibberJobber was more than I expected. Not to mention a two-day trip to Irvine for a speaking engagement. So here’s a quick update on three things:
First, the LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD:
- The DVD plays in a Mac, PC and in a regular DVD player. I think the coolest way to watch/learn is to put it in the DVD player (on your TV), and then sit with your laptop or PC and go along with it.
- This is not a 1+ hour webinar… instead, it’s a bunch of segments… how to beef up your LinkedIn Profile, how to do LinkedIn Recommendations, how to ________. There are a bunch of chapters or segments that you can browse to. It’s self-paced - watch the entire thing at once, or watch just one segment a day.
- You can learn more about it from the LinkedIn for Job Seekers website, which lists all chapters… also, check out this video my video editor did:
You can get the DVD from the LinkedIn for Job Seekers page, or see below on the special offer.
Second, the JibberJobber three year celebration and specials:
Last week I wanted to do some special posts on JibberJobber, for the week-long celebration. I didn’t get to it, so I’m extending the special through this week.
I’ve already had a bunch of upgrades and sent out a bunch of DVDs… during this week if you upgrade you get:
- Two years of JibberJobber for the price of one! That would be an upgrade of $4.13 for each of 24 months. That’s a sweet deal - over 50% off!
- The LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD. Whether you are in a job search or not, this DVD is a great training resource for you (for a site license (university, outplacement, etc.), contact me).
- Your choice of the Blog Marketing 201 - 501 or the Write Your Book! webinars.
- Other stuff from my partners that I’m putting together.
Simply login to your account, then click on the Upgrade link at the bottom of any page, and then click on the highlighted Upgrade Now link. Make sure to choose the one year option.
Third, my baby boy, Daniel:
Daniel was born almost two weeks ago. Mom and baby are doing great… they sleep alot, and Daniel does all the right stuff (poop, cry, look confused, eat, etc.). I had a fun time injecting social networking into the birthday of my boy - you can read about it here (for the record, @DeepEddy guessed the closest, and did so more than 12 hours before Daniel was born!)). Here’s a picture of Daniel:
(I can almost hear the oohs and aahs :p)
You can read about that night in this post from last year, titled Two Years Ago Today, A Website Was Born.
As is the custom, we are offering specials for those who upgrade any time this week… here’s how it works:
Upgrade for one year ($99) this week and you get:
If you already have an upgrade that isn’t lifetime, we just add the additional 24 months of premium onto your account… this is a sweet deal with just the extra premium… throw in the DVD and other stuff and it’s an AWESOME special you don’t want to miss out on!
To take advantage of this special, login to your JibberJobber account, click on the Upgrade link from the bottom of your page (in the footer), and do a one year upgrade.
Can you do me a favor?
Blog about this, tweet about it, tell your buddies about it, share this with your job ministry and networking groups… hitting three years is a big deal for any company, and we’re proud to be here!
The week of May 11th - May 15th (probably including both weekends) we’ll be celebrating the third anniversary of JibberJobber.com. I’ll never forget the night we went live, and the months leading up to it. Seems so long ago!
Each year we have special offers and fun stuff that we do (ok, this year we’re going to introduce fun stuff!), and I have some ideas for this third anniversary… but I thought I’d throw it out to you: what do you think we could do for this third anniversary?
Note that we’ll grandfather the specials… for example, anyone who pays for an upgrade today will get the accompanying prizes that we offer then… I don’t want you to think you have to wait until next month to upgrade :p
So what are your ideas? What special offers should we give? Anything fun to do (as a community?)?
Today is the last day of the LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD sale price - I just asked my main web guy to change the price to $59.95 plus shipping and handling tomorrow. Tomorrow I expect the box of DVDs to arrive at my office, and I’ll ship a bunch in the afternoon.
If you want to save $10 and have me eat the shipping and handling, you need to order today 
. Additionally, I’ll throw in some kind of THANK YOU for ordering early thing - not sure if it will be free premium of JibberJobber, or one of my other webinars (Blog Marketing 201 - 501 or Write Your Book), but it will be something cool (any ideas?).
LinkedIn for Job Seekers has the following chapters/session:
Instead of a “here is every link in LinkedIn, and if you click on it here’s what happens” training, this focuses on what I think you should focus on with LinkedIn. So there you go - if you want it you can get it whenever, but if you want to save some money and get some other goodies then order it TODAY.
I’ll decide on what bonuses to give with these preorders before I ship - you can leave suggestions in the comments (or by email).
First, the announcement: I have one more Personal Branding Award to give out, and then I’m going to retire it. I’ve been doing it for about two years, and I think there’s enough information in what I’ve written that you should get terrific ideas on writing your own blog for your personal brand. It’s a great resource.
I’m sure I’ll come across some other blogs that are awesome, and I’ll showcase them, but I won’t necessarily do it on a monthly basis (I’ll just do it when I feel like it). Cool?
You can see past winners of the JibberJobber You Get It Personal Branding award here. Next week I’ll announce the last winner - it is someone who’s blog I’ve seen over the last year, and think it is one of THE BEST blogs on the internet…
Announcement 2 is that I already know what I’m replacing this award with… I’ve been thinking about it for the last 6 months and am really jazzed to switch gears to this other thing (you’ll see what it is soon).
Today I want to share the blog that Christine Sharer started for the Make A Wish Foundation of Utah. Christine says she’s new to all this social stuff, including blogging, but one look at her blog and I know SHE GETS IT. There are only a few posts, but they are so compelling… these are heart-tugging posts.
Make-A-Wish is an organization that needs donatations. On her blog she is not asking for donations… rather, she is telling you stories about what happened to the recipients of your donations. Each of her posts start off with “Where are they now?” and then the name of the person.
These stories are awesome, and I think just telling these stories is going to do more for her organization than putting “donate here” badges on the blog.
Kudos Christine, may this be an example of excellent blogging for non-profits and for-profits alike!
And if you want to read some super-inspirational stories, go check out the Utah Make-A-Wish Foundation blog!
A few years ago my friends at emurse were recognized by Rafe Needleman fro CNet’s Webware. Rafe is a big voice in the web 2.0, online space (webware is software for the web… get it?), and having a mention in an article he did was a big part of emurse getting some good traction in the market.
Shortly after I saw the article I contacted Rafe with something like “hey, check us out - we’re cool too!”
I’m guessing Rafe gets pitched hundreds of times a day and has to sift through a lot of meaningless (or ill-prepared) pitches. I was flattered when he finally did a writeup about JibberJobber on webware in November of 2006 (wow, that was a LONG time ago!).
Then, I heard about the Webware 100, which is a list of 100 of the best web apps (that is, applications, not just brochureware websites). Oh how I longed to be on that list… I don’t think I came close to making the cut, however, and when I saw the list of Webware 100 winners I knew I didn’t have a snowballs chance in ______.
Until 2009, that is. A buddy of mine submitted JibberJobber as a Webware 100 finalist and forwarded me what he submitted. I was flattered that my buddy (I won’t name him here - he’s in New Jersey and knows who he is!) submitted JibberJobber, and really happy with what he wrote about JibberJobber in his nomination (he’s been watching JibberJobber since the very early days).
Of course I didn’t think I’d make any cuts… but Rafe emailed me about a week ago and notified me that JibberJobber is a finalist! Oh man… what a terrific honor!
Considering how big the winners of past are, like Amazon, BlogTalkRadio, Google, Craigslist, ebay, PayPal, Skype, Opera, Yahoo, Woot, iPhone, YouTube, etc. I don’t think I have a chance at all… they have traffic and reach that is extraordinarily larger than my reach… but let me just sit here super flattered, and elated, that we even made it in the cut - from around 6,000 nominations down to the final 300.
What a freaking cool honor.
Now, just because I don’t believe we won’t win doesn’t mean I won’t ask for your vote… if you have a minute to spare, please head over and vote for your favorite job search organizer… er, I mean, career management toolset, er, I mean, personal relationship manager, er… you know what I mean 
Thank you to J.R. in New Jersey for nominating me, and thank you for Rafe and team for letting me enjoy being a Webware 2009 finalist … what a terrific honor!
(I’m writing this on Saturday morning… not sure when I’ll update the blog)
Tomorrow (Sunday) I head to the airport at 6am so I can fly to NYC. Here’s my schedule:
Sunday, March 8
I leave home at 6am to arrive at 3pm in JFK and pick up the box of my books that Delta had lost from my trip two weeks ago.
Dinner with Tom York, a senior executive who I met through the ETP network.
Monday, March 9
Long Island from noon - 2pm: Social Media Business Tools and Technologies for Entrepreneurs, Small Business and Career Transitions 2009 and Beyond (This is a Bill Sobel event) This is focused more on Entrepreneurs and businesses.
Head back to JFK to go get on my Turkish Airlines (if you are my wife, or close loved one, don’t read this) … heading across the pond for the first time in my LIFE! Wow!
From Monday night through Thursday night I’ll be in Istanbul, Turkey. I’m doing a one-day event called Social Networking for Marketers, which will be simultaneously translated as I speak - I’m very excited to learn how Turkish business and marketing professionals are using social networking in their marketing, and to see how my message is received. This is also the first trip that I’m not overbooking myself so I can do some sight-seeing and buy stuff for my family (more than the customary postcard, which my kids put on their wall)….!
Thursday, March 12
Arrive at JFK around 5pm. I’m told all flights into JFK are late, so I have no idea when I’ll really get there, or get through customs… and I’m also told my body and brain will be messed up from jet lag for at least 2 weeks.
Great, another thing to mess up my brain
I’m intentionally not scheduling anything on Thursday night although it pains me to have a whole in my calendar.
Friday, March 13
Hm, just read that this is Friday the 13th. Hope things go well!
NYC, 7:30am - 10pm: Another Social Media Business Tools and Technologies for Entrepreneurs, Small Business and Career Transitions 2009 and Beyond (Bill Sobel event), but this one focused on career transitions.
NYC, noonish: Columbia J School (not sure where it is, but here’s a blog you can reference - hopefully Sree sees this and can leave a comment with details). This is an open presentation where I’ll talk about “Next Generation Job Hunting,” sharing my own experience from the last three years and talking about how JibberJobber can be used by college students to prepare them for their job searches. I’m sure I’ll talk about other cool stuff, too :p
NYC, 7pm (I think): Dinner with the ETP folks… I can’t find a link to this, so someone from ETP please leave a comment with a link, and let us know if there is more room to come.
Saturday, March 14
Morning: somewhere I hope to do an event but we’re still working on the details (looking for a free venue). This is in coordination with some a meetup (more info later, I hope).
Afternoon: meet with with Dave Perry and Kevin Donlin… excited to meet with them!
7pm, fly back to SLC, arriving before midnight.
And after this I’ll be home for about a month… ! Yippee!
Last night we had the biggest upgrade to our system yet. In the last 2.5 years we’ve had a bunch of upgrades, but this one required us to actually take JibberJobber offline for a while so we could make some database changes… huge thanks to my team for their efforts in this release, and for working in the wee hours of the night to do the upgrade! Here’s a partial list of what’s new:
Action Items and Log Entries: this is the biggest change, and I’ll blog about it more next week… but we had huge, significant changes to this (that’s why we took the site down).
One thing that we will all dance around and hug about is the ability to associate a job with a company with a person, and a person with a company and a job, and a company with a job and a person, etc. Before you couldn’t make all of these associations, but now you can, and this is HUGE.
“Approve All” option on Contacts shared: now you can approve all the contacts shared in bulk, instead of having to approve them one-by-one. This is a really cool feature allowing you to get more value out of JibberJobber and networking if have buddies who are also using JibberJobber.
Tree view of contacts under just one contact: I LOVE LOVE LOVE this feature. The Tree View is cool, showing me my network graphically. This new addition allows me to see the tree below one contact. The icon is on the detail page (as well as the List Panel) of a contact:
When I click it I see the graphical tree view of who that person has “referred” to me… instead of sifting through my hundreds or thousands of contacts, I now see just the network that this person introduced me to, like this:
Jobs got new stuff: there are a bunch of new fields added to the Track Jobs page, including the option of a status of each job:
View your account type, upgrade level, and change levels: This is one of those Doh! We should have had this from the beginning! But now we do, so we’re good :) Under My Account, General, you can click on this blue circle to see what your level is, how to upgrade or downgrade, etc.
Referred By is now faster… much, much faster: I have over 5,000 people in my network, so when I go to the add a new contact page it loaded kind of slow (too slow for me). This was because the Referred by was a drop down… but now it’s not, and it loads way faster. Simply type in the name of a contact and we’ll show you any names that might be the one you are typing… and you choose from that list, like this:
Here are other miscellaneous additions:
I’ll blog more about the other updates, but this stuff is awesome, and we got a bunch of things on our “we need these in JibberJobber now!” list crossed off!
If you have other ideas, you know where to send them
Created and Maintained by Jordy
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