Does this make me look professional?

Am I wearing something that fits me properly?
Does this make me look younger or older than I actually am?
Is this comfortable?

These are questions that I asked myself when I was about to start my new job (which is going really well in case you’re interested). After I signed on the dotted line and I turned to my closet. What needs to be chucked and what needs to be added to my collection? Dress shirts? No thanks, I already have 16 (I’m not joking).  More blazers? Yes possibly. Better fitting pants? Yes.

I started to weed things through my closet and I thought I was doing well on my own. I knew better than to do it alone and called in reinforcement and got two close friends to help me. I paid them in pizza and they were brutally honest. They forced me to let go of the shirts that I hadn’t worn in well over a year but couldn’t let go of them before. I divided my discarded clothes into two piles 1) for the charity box for clothing outside my apartment and 2) for Dress for Success.

What’s Dress for Success?
It’s an international non-profit organization that helps disadvantaged women get back on their feet by providing them with business clothes and career development. If you have any business clothing that you would like to donate in Toronto then you can do so every Wednesday and Thursday between 10 am – 8 pm at 188 Lowther (Spadina and Bloor area) on the third floor.

In addition, Queen’s Toronto Alumni is hosting an event “Shop in Style” next week at Banana Republic on November 4, 2009 at 6 pm. The fee is only $10 and is open to non-Queen’s grads as well. You get a 25% discount off your purchases that evening.

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Hence all my dress shirts.

Best conversation in a while

Apologizes for not updating this in a while. I never intended to end my blog but after the last post, a few things happened to me one being the fact that I was without my laptop and internet for almost a week. It’s been busy the last little while but no worries, I’m back. I’ll try to fit in a post a week.

About two weeks ago I had one of the best conversations in my life. I was at a business function celebrating Public Inc‘s first year. It’s a great organization that promotes positive social good through little acts and habits of good. I went to the event and saw a couple people that I knew. One was a COMM 92 grad and another COMM 00 grad. It turned out that they both worked at the same place a few years back but not at the same time. It was an amazing experience to talk them about work, leadership and marketing. I was sort of in awe the whole time. These are seasoned professionals who were recounting their work stories and life lessons. I still remember this conversation and it was two weeks ago. One of the things that struck me was “You learn from organizational behaviour (OB class) that leadership is so important yada yada yada but it’s not until you’re in the job and you have a terrible boss you truly realize how important leadership really is.”

Have you had a great conversation like that?

Link to Refresh Events Presentations

This is the link to the Refresh Event presentations last week. It also has the audio synced up. You can see Adil Dhalla and Jonathan Dunn‘s presentations. Let me know if you have any questions or feedback.

After the event last week, I have met up with four people that I met at the event. It’s about taking networking to another level where you’re actually connecting with people.

One great quote that was said at a coffee meet up earlier today was:

“Toronto is this great place where people actually want to do good and strongly believe in karma. You can’t do that elsewhere.”

I truly believe this. I have only been in this city for nine months now and I am amazed by how many passionate people I have met in the last little while. It’s about improving our city by giving back. Give where you live.

Recap of Refresh Events

Last night I was an Ignite presenter at Refresh Events. It was a great inspiring event. I saw some familiar faces that I’ve seen from previous events in the Toronto area. I also met some new people in the interactive community. Every time I go to an event, I realize how small the world is. I met a couple Queen’s grads doing amazing things such as My City Lives and met someone about to change the Canadian education system whose sister is about to go into Queen’s Commerce in the fall (small world indeed).

There were two memorable moments:

• Watching people speak impromptu about various subjects such as finding your passion, going from an employee to an entrepreneur and there was a great communication story (I like fish story)
• Jonathan Dunn spoke about mobile marketing and it was a great speech. As he spoke, I would turn around every now and then and see people on their smartphones tweeting about what was said (Twitter tag: #RefreshEvents)

Earlier in the day, I met with a great person who is also between opportunities. We shared tips and advice. He worked in the financial field for years in a business development role. He had the decision to get back into another similar role or to travel the world. He took a huge risk and travelled the world. He actually made it to the event (he had another appointment that evening) and spoke as a impromptu speaker. I was completely inspired by his speech. In fact, I was blown away by all the speeches. I will upload the link for the podcast when it’s up and ready.

Here is my presentation slidedeck of “Finding Opportunities.” Did I mention that I had exactly 15 seconds per slide? It was automated and it was very tricky because the timing had to be perfect. It was a great challenge though. Would love to get your thoughts about the evening if you were there or what you think of the slidedeck.

Body language speaks volumes

As I practice for my presentation later tonight at Refresh Events, I’m very conscious of my body language. It gives so much away. It’s not about what you say as so much how you say it: the tone, arm gestures, eye contact etc.

Last week at Toastmasters I was the Tables Topics Evaluator. I evaluated people’s short impromptu speeches. I listened to what they said and focused on how they said it. What I noticed was that I focused a lot on body language. Arm movements and eye contact can really make or break a presentation.

A good friend of mine is studying body language and suggested that I record myself while practicing for my presentation. He said “You can’t change what you don’t know what to change”. The first run-through on camera was interesting to watch. As I continued to practice more then I became a lot more confident because I knew to stop fidgeting or playing with my hair.

This is something you can apply to when practicing for interviews. Yes, you can practice your success stories all day but in the end, it’s all about how you say it. If you can, record yourself on camera to learn how others may perceive you.

Tips in presenting to a large group:

• Let your arms flow naturally as you speak
• Make eye-contact with different people in the audience and hold it for three seconds
• Be confident by practicing your speech
• Remember that you’re probably more critical of yourself than the audience so relax!

Finding Opportunities Presentation

I am pleased to announce that I will be an Ignite speaker at a Refresh Event in Toronto next Monday evening.

Refresh Events encourages collaborative partnerships, fosters education at all skill levels and creates networking opportunities within the Toronto interactive community. I went to their event last month and was inspired. I hope to do the same during my speech.

Here are the details for the event:

Refresh Events: Stay Fresh 10
July 20, 2009
7 pm – 10 pm (I will be presenting around 7.30 pm)
215 Spadina, Suite 120 (Centre for Social Innovation)

My presentation is titled “Finding Opportunities” and it’s about the different online projects I’m working on and how I found them. I’ll be speaking for three minutes and I think there is a Q&A period afterwards as well. I will be uploading my slide deck on to SlideShare, my LinkedIn profile and this blog after next Monday.

Hope to see you there.

P.S. What do you think of the title of the presentation? Pretty catchy eh?

“Which Bucket Do You Fit Into?”

Last night I went to my first Wired Wednesday event. It was a part of Net Change Week which is a week designed to break down the barriers between digital professionals and social change makers. This is of interest to me considering my previous experience in the non-profit experience and my current exploration of social media. Some amazing things are happening right now and it’s amazing to meet people who are a part of it.

At the event, I met some very interesting people including people in marketing/advertising/PR, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. I spoke to a particular person for some time and we discussed different topics in the area of social media. I mentioned my previous non-profit experience, my marketing experience with UPS and how I currently blog. He said to me “Wait a minute, which bucket do you fit into? I’m trying to figure out where to slot you in my mind.”

I laughed a little. I guess I’m in a bunch of buckets. It’s like I have 20 legs and I have a foot in each bucket. The issue becomes a lack of focus. I can’t be everything to all people but at the same time why can’t I have these different interests? Why do I have to pick?

I had an informational interview a couple days ago and it was amazing. We discussed personal branding, the advertising industry, and the importance of putting yourself first. She emphasized the importance of focus. She said to fill in the following:

“Jenmy loves life. Professionally she….”

I’m still trying to find which bucket I belong in.

No one wants to be the first on the dance floor

That line is from a speaker at a social media meetup I went to on Monday. There’s a social media group that meets on the Third Tuesday of every month. It was my first one and there were 300-400 people there. Pretty amazing stuff. Monday’s talk was about creating quality online videos.

No one wants to be the first on the dance floor. Just like in grade 4. That’s why you have to “seed” your blog or forum a bit in order to get people going. This reminds me of the Blog-off contest that I’m in (it ends this week). I was the first one to post but I was thinking about posting earlier in the week. I was waiting for someone else to do it. No one wants to be the first one because it’s scary. Sometimes you just have to be bold. After I posted so did everyone else. I was that weird kid that started the dance.

Speaking of being bold and meetups, I think I’m addicted to meeting new people. It’s so weird but I get energy from being in a unknown place and introducing myself to strangers. I didn’t use to be like this and now it’s like I feed off it. I’ve met the most interesting people in the last couple days such as entrepreneurs, social media enthusiasts or people in television. It’s about being bold and sticking your hand out there. If I can do it, anyone can do it. I’m a really awkward person but I’ve learned to be less awkward by meeting so many strangers at different networking events.

Tonight I’m off to feed my habit. There’s a Queen’s Alumni event tonight. I have offered my time and services to my alma mater and the VP of the alumni association in Toronto offered to introduce me to some people tonight.

“Let’s not waste a perfectly good crisis”

The title quote is one that I heard from the Ad Women of Toronto event that I went to Thursday morning. Colleen DeCourcy spoke about change and technology. It was a great breakfast presentation.

Recession? I see opportunity.

I’m doing all the things that I wanted to do before but didn’t have time such as volunteering, taking classes and attending different networking events. There’s opportunities out there. There’s still movement in this economy. It’s just about finding the right one.

Next week is super busy for me with interviews, networking events and my first Toastmasters speech. I’m a bit nervous about it. The goal of the speech is to speak in front of an audience and recognize what strengths and areas of development I have. Pretty simple. The topic is about myself…not so simple. I’m trying to think of a way to style it so that it’s engaging and personal. I want to have it written out by today since I have so many things happening next week.

I’ll be guest blogging in the next two weeks on the Community Marketing Blog in the blog-off contest I was speaking about earlier in the last post. Check this link out for my introduction. The goals of each blogger:

1) To write topics they believe will be inspiring
2) To generate as much traffic to their blog as possible
3) To create as much interaction as possible

I’ll be blogging through their site but will post links to it on this blog and my Twitter account. Friends/strangers: HELP ME OUT! Support me by viewing and commenting on my blog posts on their site. Merci!

Also, there’s a networking event called Exposed. Looks really cool with speed networking and a game show. It’ll be May 22nd at Devil’s Martini.

The Art of Networking #2: Positive Networking

I just came back from a networking event which was impromptu – meaning that I had no idea about the event beforehand. I got a nice e-mail from a marketing colleague (who I met at another networking event) of mine telling me of a Green Connections and Green Careers event hosted by ACCES Employment and the City of Toronto. I saw the e-mail and then booted it out the door. I got the e-mail at 11 am and the event was scheduled to end at 1 pm. Good timing!

That’s why it’s so important to network. People will get to know you and your interests and send along information. In fact, another person today sent me an e-mail about a marketing position. It’s all about positive networking. I honestly believe it’s about helping other people. What’s nice about networking is that you hear about different events. Some things I find out on my own online but other events I hear about by talking to different people. It has become a snowball effect. So far I’ve gone to 4 networking events this week and I thought this week was going to be slow!

I’m happy to help others in any way I can. Just ask me.

Tip: I heard that the City of Toronto is hiring 1,000 people this year. I heard it from a City employee.