Get good at social media. Now.

Get good at social media. Now. The second start-up I did was with a guy who had great data about city governments but didnt know how to turn it into an Internet company. So I wrote a business plan and got it funded. It turned out that he also had no idea how to use the Internet. He had a secretary, Laura, who printed out his emails for him to read and then he dictated responses to her. He hid this from me until one day I needed to dig through his emails to find correspondences from investors. I said, Give me your password. I dont know it. Okay. Ill get it from Laura. No. Okay. Ill give it to you. What is it? Hold on. There is stuff about sex sites in there and I want you to know I dont know how it got there. I know. Everyone gets spam from sex sites. Its not just you. Oh. This is funny now, right? Its funny that he thought typing was not in his job description. Its funny that he thought he could get by without learning how to use the Internet. But that was 1996. The corollary to that today is people who think they do not need to be good at using social media. The whole Internet is going to be social media: shopping will be social, your resume will be social, your whole career will be built on social media, and your kids education will be built on social media. (And if you think you dont want kids, then the way you are going to get to a place where people dont bug you about that decision is through social media). I wrote very early that social media is the key to a good career. It seemed so crazy when I wrote it, but I was sure it was true. And now that I am running a vibrant tech career from a rural farm, I thank god every day that Im great at social media. Do you think social media is too much work, and you have a life to live? This is what social media gets you: Social media gives you control over your life and your career so you can prioritize however you want. You can achieve what you want. And you can ignore what you want. Thats why I get to post photos of basketball on my career blog. Being great at social media makes the odds better that Ill be where I want to be when I want to be there. But watch out. Because social media isnt a skill you list on your resume. That would be like putting Internet on your resume. (Yes, I swear. There are people who still put that in the skills section of their resume. We should gather those resumes for the Smithsonian collection while we still can.) So then the question is, How are you going to learn about social media? You could do what Ive done: Ive spent the last five years of my life doing nothing but social media. Trying everything, making mistakes, working 100-hour weeks. I do not recommend that. So what do you do? The first thing is, start rewriting your resume to show that social media is a part of your life. Its just what you do to get the job done. Think of this as similar to what people had to do in 1998 when it was too late to put as your job title, Internet Manager. The next thing is that you need to start learning from experts. And heres where Brazen Careerist comes in. My company. For those of you who have forgotten, even amid farm fights and pig sales I still own a large share of Brazen Careerist. I will love Brazen Careerist the most when it sells for millions of dollars and I can be a farm princess. But until then, I love Brazen Careerist for its amazing track record for using social media tools. Thats just what we do to run the business, and we are totally great at it. So we have decided to offer a Social Media Bootcamp. And honestly, I think every one of you should take it. First of all, Im teaching part of the course. But each of us needs to learn from a range of people so we can figure out whats best for us, and the course will be taught by a collection of people that even I am excited to learn from. So. Heres the link. Sign up. Its $245. And Ill see you there!