Man, a website is a lot of work — even without a lot of bells and whistles on it. Who knew?! In general, I’m done with the layout and I’m in the tweaking phase and developing all the content for the site. That’s another thing, who knew content was such a pain to write? Well, even I knew that, but I always seem to downplay how long it’s going to take me to come up with the content I want and massage to not only sound good, but also look good on the page and fit with the rest of my general voice of my site. Also, I’m a perfectionist, so I’m not 100% happy with what I write.
As for the general rebranding of myself as a digital strategist, that’s going a little bit slower than I thought. But I think that’s also by-and-large due to the fact that I don’t have my website up. I’ve retweaked the Twitter and LinkedIn to reflect this, but I’m still showing pretty high in the search results for the software project management kind of deal. Though to be fair, not quite as much as before.
One area I’ve definitely been doing better with is being active across my chosen social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogging). Facebook I might need to create a new “work” profile to keep personal / work separate. As of right now, I don’t really utilize it because to me, my Facebook account is a pretty private affair (ironically speaking) — I spout off all kinds of political mumbo-jumbo and things of that nature about my personal political views, which I don’t want factoring into my business “brand” and perception.
The job search marches on without much change. I haven’t had any leads lately, which is a bit disheartening, but I continue to network and build up relationships to try and find a position. In this market, I think that’s about the best thing you can do. I read a post yesterday on LinkedIn about hiring practices, and how many companies are going with “safe” candidates over “risky/creative” candidates. I have to agree with this tend that I’ve seen as well…that and being too over-qualified for the positions that I’m applying for…and being OK with that.
Overall, this switch isn’t a quick process. I don’t know that I ever thought it would be, but its definitely slow moving. The best things I’ve found - - being able to schedule posts and tweets for the following days while I’m at work. And the networks I’ve joined have been a wealth of knowledge (and bad advice for that matter) but the good knowledge is the kind that you can get anywhere else. From experienced people actually wanting to help others.
In short - it’s going. Slowly, but surely … and a lot of fun.
