Polly Pearson's Blog

The 5 Ingredient Recipe for "Work Love." A Thanksgiving Gift.

I met with a (very) senior exec yesterday who said, "We all need love. Even I need love."  He was talking about love in the workplace. The kind that comes from simple "thank you's" or acknowledgments of good work.  

It brought to mind a time when I had about 450 people reporting up to me in some fashion. The highlight of my day was getting a "Daily Dilbert" in my email box. It amounted to a rare a moment in my day when something good and happy, with no agenda, was freely shared with me. (This was during the last recession, when positive or light-hearted information was "a find," and a pleasure to behold vs. dealing with budget cuts, people cuts, and "doing more with less.")

Over this past year, I've discovered a new type of Dilbert.  Something that can not only bring string-free smiles and positive feelings, but that can add business and personal benefit.

It sort of feels like a recipe for "work love." It fills the gap that no boss can fill -- while offering a boost, a feeling of connection and worth, and a source of new inspiration and knowledge to every day. 

What better holiday to share it than Thanksgiving?

The Work Love Recipe: 

"Connections with people who share a professional interest or relationship which can deliver string-free spontaneous joy." 

The regular joy you will get from these connections is better than a shot of espresso, and similar to a "great job" memo from the boss.  Simple as that.

What could a sample 5-ingredient list look like for the "Work Love Recipe?"

1. Identify areas that interest you professionally.
   
   For me, topics of interest include business strategy; use of technology to better reach and engage large audiences; culture and values; buzz marketing and PR; Business and Personal branding;  IT industry dynamics; "Best Place to Work," "Employee Engagement," and "Leadership" best practices; and breaking business news. 
   
   

      Image: Derek Farr, Flickr
   
   

2. Seek out thought leaders in these areas and read/comment on their work. 
   I set up a "Google Reader" and subscribe to several blogs for a real-time fix such as:
   
   
   http://www.allthingsworkplace.com/
   http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/
   http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/
   http://blog.buzzoodle.com/
   http://www.chrisbrogan.com/
   http://alltop.com/
   http://chucksblog.emc.com/chucks_blog/
   http://lensblog.typepad.com/ebiz/
   http://www.davidkspencer.com/
   http://blog.guykawasaki.com/
   http://stevetodd.typepad.com/my_weblog/
   http://lindseypollak.com/blog/
   http://personalbrandingblog.wordpress.com/
   http://punkrockhr.com/
   http://realdanlyons.com/
   http://storagezilla.typepad.com/
   http://techtrends.billpetro.com/
   http://pulverblog.pulver.com/
   http://thestorageanarchist.typepad.com/weblog/
   http://womensdish.typepad.com/the_womens_dish/
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Join your company's social network.
   Read what others are saying. Join discussions. Start discussions. Subscribe to the communities you enjoy following.  You'll start discovering ideas -- and the people behind them - that turn your brain on, in a very work/professional sort of way. Many of these people will become your friends.
   
   Inside of the EMC ONE Social Network, I subscribe to the EMC Culture Talk Community.  This way I get a quick email alert when new content is posted. I frequent the Competitive Community, the HR community and the ever interesting "Watercooler".
   
   
   
   
    
   
   
4. Find and join professional networks outside of work. Networks that are both on-line and the old-fashioned face-to-face types.
   
   My face-to-face network:  TARA.  "TARA is a small constellation of diverse, influential, global women who build long-term, mutually beneficial relationships to take charge of their professional and personal destinies and help others do the same." We have an annual retreat in Belize :) and meet often in local chapters.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   My on-line networks:  These will also allow others to find you easily. I am a member of LinkedIn, Facebook, the Downtown Women's Club, and college alumni groups.

   

and one of the most interesting of all ....

1. Leverage and join Twitter.  This is a means to connect, gain value, and form relationships -- including true friendships -- with people and ideas you respect. You don't have to "Know" these people at first, all you have to do is "know of them" to be able to see personal snippets of their ideas on a daily basis.  I think of these snippets as "Brain Candy." On Twitter, people post brief, genuine thoughts (no fancy company-speak) and links to content they liked.  You can scan 10-15 posts in a matter of seconds. Click on the ones that look interesting to you. Share content you find of interest - inclusive of your own blog -- and further your personal brand and network at the same time. The mood is upbeat and supportive.
   
   I visit Twitter 1-3 times a day  generally during "downtime" segments lasting 1-10 minutes. Examples: waiting in line for coffee at the Dunkin' Donuts drive through and at the grocery store; waiting in the dentist office; walking down the long hallways at my office; during TV commercials; when I can't sleep at night; and during the all-too-rare pedicure.
   
   Some of the 200 interesting people and content I follow on Twitter:
   
   http://twitter.com/nytimes, New York Times Feeds
   http://twitter.com/jowyang, Industry Analyst
   http://twitter.com/penelopetrunk, Career Journalist, CEO, funny
   http://twitter.com/ezrabutler, Marketing and strategy guy, funny
   http://twitter.com/cheeky_geeky, Funny geek
   http://twitter.com/timoreilly, Smart guy
   http://twitter.com/chrisbrogan, Interesting, connected guy
   http://twitter.com/vendorprisey, Industry analyst
   http://twitter.com/DowntownWoman, Networking maven, TARA member
   http://twitter.com/guykawasaki, Tech, social media guru
   http://twitter.com/adamcohen, PR guy, social media and red sox fan
   http://twitter.com/JimJCramer, The one and only Jim Cramer. Boo Yahh.
   http://twitter.com/skydiver, PR connector guy
   http://twitter.com/Pistachio, Social media maven
   http://twitter.com/Scobleizer, Tech journalist
   http://twitter.com/barbaramassa -- EMCer, head of US recruiting
   http://twitter.com/kcornwall, EMCer, in Marketing on the West Coast, Mom, Funny
   http://twitter.com/SteveTodd, EMCer, Innovator in software engineering, blogger
   http://twitter.com/davidkspencer, EMCer, manager in software engineering, blogger
   http://twitter.com/billpetro, EMCer, on the road mobile device technical guy, blogger
   http://twitter.com/PeterQuirk, EMCer, neat geek, connector with great info, blogger
   http://twitter.com/gminks, EMCer, technical training, blogger
   http://twitter.com/LenDevanna, EMCer, web czar, blogger
   http://twitter.com/danschawbel, EMCer, social media PR, blogger
   http://twitter.com/NCorridanGregg EMCer, women networker
   http://twitter.com/Storagezilla, EMCer, funny neat geek in the field, blogger
   http://twitter.com/kkempskie, EMCer, corporate PR guy
   http://twitter.com/JamiePappas, EMCer, social media platform guru
   http://twitter.com/storageanarchy, EMCer, trouble maker (!), blogger
   http://twitter.com/NuzhatMKarim, EMCer, University Relations phenom

To net this all out, I feel a record amount of "work love" on the job these days. My mind is constantly stimulated and I have a huge pool of professional contacts, both internal and external, to bounce business ideas off of.  And, I truly believe, I've never been more productive. The work I've done for this past year I believe is among my very best; better for my network, my energy level and my sources of daily knowledge and inspiration. At the same time, subtracting the truly lousy economy and the job loss around us, this is about the happiest I've ever been on the job.

I'm thankful today. Thought I'd share my recipe with you.  Feel free to connect with me on Twitter to start your connections flowing.

-------------------------- TALK BACK -----------------------------

Where do you get your sense of "work love?"  Please share your tips, and/or your favorite sources of ideas or inspiration.  This networked land is still rather new to me.  Two years ago all my efforts and connections lived in a relatively small circle.  I, like many others, are trying to pick this more connected world up on the fly. Your input is most welcome.

Something Good in all this Mess: Employee Engagement via Social Media

In all "Challenge" comes "Opportunity"

Boy, are we looking at opportunity. 

One that allows employees -- and leaders -- who might never meet in the course of daily business, to share thoughts and ideas. And to have those ideas be heard and acted upon.

These past two weeks have been, I believe, a tipping point for our internal social network, EMC ONE.  We saw:

• Two well-attended strings blasting the company for not including our employees openly enough

followed by...

• An EVP joining the community discussion saying that going forward we'll listen better and look to the greater EMC community for input

followed by ...

• Executive led discussions with the community sharing real-time business management information and asking for our people's input

followed by ...

• Employee led discussions with the community saying, essentially, "Okay, let's get granular and let's get going. Let's start brainstorming what else we can do."

followed by ...

• A flow of ideas, discussions, blogs and wikis by employees, managers, and executives alike covering costs, emotions, management strategies, and opportunities to know each other better.

I also found people who never paid attention to the social network suddenly quoting it and realizing its power and its potential. What was once looked at with question, is now being looked at as opportunity.

In all "Challenge" Comes "Opportunity"

 

------------------- Talk Back -------------------

Companies need to keep focused on the quarter ... and yet people know there is something ominous in the air.  How do you think companies should manage information flow in this cloudy and unprecedented situation? 

Imagine the Possibilities.

This morning I had the pleasure of being the executive speaker to introduce EMC more fully to a class of amazingly bright and accomplished individuals interviewing for the opportunity to join EMC's Finance Rotation Program for recent college grads.

 

Among the questions they asked me:

1. What can someone like me do to help the company?
2. What will be the next be change for EMC?
3. How did you manage your career and be able to move so many times across the company?

When I came back to my office I saw this "Imagine the Possibilities"card sitting on my desk.

The art of imagining the possible and working passionately to make it happen is actually the best answer to all three of these questions. 

How so?

My answer to question #1:

Help us be better. Reverse mentor someone. You are more connected, more global, more able to move quickly and manage several things at once than many of the people you'll be working with. You're Web 2.0 savvy.  Help Gen X and the Boomers learn how to leverage social networks and new models which will allow us to collaborate, gain new knowledge, innovate and operate more efficiently around the world.

Imagine the Possibilities.

My answer to question #2: 

The change we are about to face into will be the change every technology company, and nearly every other company around the globe is about to face into. You will remember this time for the rest of your lives. How can you make your mark? What possibilities and opportunities do you see that could improve your company ... and perhaps the world as well?

Imagine the Possibilities.

My answer to question #3: 

I followed the advice my manager's manager (Brian Fitzgerald) gave to me on my first week on the job nearly 18 years ago.  "If you see an opportunity to do something, as if you can do it and chances are they will say yes."  I've used this advice constantly throughout my career at EMC. I think it could apply to any job at any company.  I remind folks that everyone is moving fast (especially a company like EMC which has a CAGR of nearly 30% since 1990). Never assume that something is as it is because someone made a grand decision to make it that way.  It is highly possible that a) No one has thought of your idea or b) No one was passionate enough about the idea to advocate for it and make it happen.  If you see something you're passionate about, and can benefit your company -- work to make it happen!  It could result in a new job for you -- one that meets your passion and adds further value to your company.

Imagine the Possibilities.

My friend Peter Quirkshared this You Tube clip with me yesterday. It is from the closing of the 2008 World Economic Forum with conductor/author/speaker Ben Zander. 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zErpOnYZZH0

 It is an inspiring piece with a new frame of mind -- one of opportunity and possibility -- for all the challenges that face us in the world today.  It is a model to make magic happen. If we're sharing this with our world leaders and the gigantic challenges they are facing right now, well, I think it can work for folks like us too.

------------------ Talk Back --------------------

In times like these, do you think companies would welcome people to think differently, freshly about the challenges we face?  Do you think they'd welcome ideas presented with passion that would make your company stronger?  Are you ready to think in terms of possibilities rather than purely of the pain that will come with the likely changes we'll all be asked to deal with? Are you ready to greet your boss with a list of opportunities in light of changes rather than a list of complaints?  Give it a try. Let me know what happens.

Building an Employment Brand ... beginning with the Genuine.

Over on the Personal Branding Blog today, Dan Schawbel outlined "ten employer branding strategies to become an employer of choice" and featured our work at EMC prominently -- thanks Dan!

He captured organizational considerations, highlighted innovative routes to market, visual brand identity, and tone as among the steps. All great content. What informs the content however?

At the end of the day a brand is a relationship.  To have a healthy relationship, you should know first who you are and what you stand for.

In EMC's Employment Brand journey, we spent our first few months in the unsexy (but incredibly moving) process of researching internally and externally to unearth and validate our brand attributes and the target market's desires in an ideal place to work.

We then built an "Employment Brand Message Architecture" to document who we are in a way that 

A) genuinely reflected our culture, values and life at EMC 

B) aligned to the target market's ideals in a place to work.

Our architecture begins with the customer view of EMC and then moves to the internal environment and working norms of our people.  Its language is B2C, particularly in the promise and value prop segments. The architecture content flows as follows:

Our Company's Role in the World

Our Master Brand Identity Goal

Our Company Mission

Our Company Strategy

Our Culture

Our Employment Brand Promise

Our Value to Employees/Candidates

Our Credo (inclusive of values)

The architecture informs everything we do in communicating EMC as a place to work inclusive of EMC.com/careers; recruiter messaging; ads; blogs; new hire content; and more.

After researching, documenting, and validating/refining the architecture, the next steps were:

A)  Documenting and implementing the strategy for bringing the employment brand to life -- in our case, we want to 'humanize' the brand and feature our peoplespeaking for it and exemplifying it as a place to work  vs. showing a packaged presentation by the Company.

B)   Understanding and identifying opportunities to improve the brand itself while furthering the company's strategy execution -- our programs, policies and actions that reflect a continually improving company as a place to work, influenced by our strategy and the expectations and desires of the talent market. Examples of this would be making use of Web 2.0 work tools and behavior models as well as enhancing EMC's programs for working moms/families. 

So for the first year, we built the foundation and began the process of bringing it to life in a more focused and exciting way -- a way that is better aligned to forge positive, trusting relationships with the Talent market.

The next stage was where Dan picked it up -- where we started bringing it to market via exciting routes like Twitter and Second Life and in exciting packages such as ads and the banner of this blog. 

Woven in between every move is the tough stuff -- the soul searching -- reflecting our inner beauty (what truly is compelling about EMC as a place to work) and our inner devil (our "over-used strengths") and working to adjust the cultural norms ever so seamlessly so that we can be better than when we started.

Which reminds me of the question I asked when CEO, Tucci and EVP of HR, Mollen stated that they had a goal for EMC to be recognized as a "company of choice" and a "FORTUNE 100 BEST PLACES TO WORK FOR." 

I asked, "Do you want to get the shiny award or do you want to be it?"

The reply, "We want to be it."

We're getting closer every day.  And along the way we're getting some shiny awards. 

Yesterday, the "Boston Globe Top 100 Companies to Work For" shiny award was added to our 2008 trophy case.

------------------------ Talk Back ------------------------

What do you think of this approach?

Back Up!

PICTURED: iJustine of  http://tastyblogsnack.com/

 

Back up has got some new attitude thanks to our Mozy offerings. Check out the cool new ads they're running, http://www.youtube.com/getmozy, starting this week on some pretty mainstream media.  (I like the microwave one best, myself.)

Fox News
MSNBC
CNN Headline News
Bloomberg
Discovery Home
DIY
Travel Channel
Golf Channel
Science Channel
Military Channel
Versus
DirecTV Sports

 

 

... and the T-shirt

 

 

Dave Robinson, the head of Marketing over at Mozy adds, "All of the videos can be easily added to your Facebook or MySpace profile, blog etc. with one simple click."

 

--------------------- Talk Back --------------------

Who knew back up could be so ........? I think our Harley Davidson account reps might be calling Dave soon for a few shirts.

 

 

EMC Strategy

A few years ago I was asked to help communicate and engage the people of  EMC with our strategy. A concise definition of our strategy had not necessarily been written down at the time, and we were in the midst of a total transformation and re-birth as a company. 

As part of that process, I looked into the definition of "strategy."  One definition that I liked was rather simple and went something like this: "Strategy" can be defined as "a general statement of direction inclusive of what makes you different than everyone else." 

At the core of our strategy? 

Information.

Or as we like to say it, to focus on the "I" in "IT".  We use more words to further define the precise strategy at any given time -- but the notion of "Information" is always at the core.

The importance of the "I" is kind of obvious right?  And yet, listen to most IT players.  Their conversation is about the "T."  The network, the appliance, the server, the operating system, the application.

50 years from now.

Think of 50 years from now. The technology will likely have changed. The people who manage the technology will have changed. The processes will have changed ... the information (inclusive of information we call "content") will still be needed. It had better not have changed.

-- I remember a meeting we had once with the CIO of the State of Massachusetts. 
He said it was easier for him "to find information from 1790 than it was to find it from 1970."
With all the benefits of technology, technology also seems to complicate matters ... if we let it.  --

I was reminded of this "top-level" and not-spoken-enough commentary as I watched again a great 5 minute video out of Kansas State U on "Information." Please, take a look. It will add interest to your day ... and help bring to life the importance of what we're working on over at EMC.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CV05HyAbM

"Technology" gets all the buzz ... (iPhone anyone?) .... but what is really important is the access to ideas and information/content the technology brings us, right?  EMC is the caretaker (think protect, secure, manage & store) of most of the world's important information. We are where information lives. Our work touches lives -- your life -- every nano-second of every day.

I sign all my emails with this simple statement:

 At EMC, we believe that information is a business’s most important asset.
Ideas—and the people who come up with them—are the only real differentiators.

 

------------------ Talk Back ----------------------

Time to chatter more about the letter with the top billing in "IT"?

-- Polly