Boston Social Media experts wanted for Wentworth event panel

Posted by Nelson de Witt on November 15, 2009 under Posts | Comments

Hello everyone, My name is Nelson de Witt. I am a member of the Wentworth institute of Technology Alumni Association board of directors. We are looking for help with our upcoming networking event.

Summary:

In late April the Wentworth Alumni Association (WAA) is having it’s annual networking event. This year we are planning the event around social media and business. We are looking for three or four people to be part of a panel discussion about how to use sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn for business. We would like to hear suggestions from you about who should be part of our panel. Leave suggestions of possible panelist in the comments below.

The Event:

Every year the WAA holds a networking event for its alumni and companies closely involved with the school. Our past events have included a talk about Generation Y in the workforce and another about how to network effectively. This year we are doing the event on Social Media and business.

Our alumni are primarily from the construction, architecture and civil engineering fields. The idea of using social media for business is still very new to our alumni. The purpose of this event will be to get our alumni together for networking and to provide them with thought provoking information about this topic.

The event is scheduled for the evening of Tuesday April 27th, 2010.

Who we are looking for:

We are looking for three or four social media “experts” to be part of a panel discussion. They do not need to be professional marketers but they should be actively using social media for business. They do not have to be connected to the school but it would be a big plus if they were.

Ideally we would like to have one person to talk about Twitter, one about Facebook and one about LinkedIn. (Being active in this space  myself, I know the rules of engagement are similar across all three sites. However, it would help our alumni to have one person who could talk in detail about each site.) Panelist should be able to talk to about strategies for using these sites effectively as well as give examples.

The conversation will be a guided discussion about how these sites are changing the business landscape and the opportunities this creates for our alumni.

How you can help:

Please tell us who you think should be part of our panel discussion. You can also volunteer yourself as a panelist. Tell us why which site this person knows well and why you think they should be part of the panel. Also if you have any questions for us about the event just ask.

You can leave comments, email me directly dewittn@cotosolutions.com, or get in touch with me on twitter I’m @dewittn. We are also looking for help getting the word out about this. Any Tweets, links or posts about this would be very helpful.

Making time to improve your work

Posted by Nelson de Witt on October 13, 2009 under Posts, Process Improvement | Comments

Ofen when we look to improve what we do we spend too much time on the out come and not the process. We tend to focus on the details of what we want to improve and overlook how we do it.

The thing most people miss is that much of the energy that is wasted on a poor process could be used to improve the process. The act of managing a project  can take up so much time that there isn’t any left to focus on making it better. If you are trying to improve what you do it might be useful to look at how you work. Here are a few ways you can improve how you work.

Start with the BIG problems – Ask your self this questions: What are the biggest organizational challenges I face? Typically thee or four problems come to mind. Those are the problems. The problems you should focus on first. Find software or develop a system that makes dealing with these problems easier. Once your new system starts to kick in it will be easier to do your daily work.

If first you don’t succeed – Improving the process of your work is not easy. It may take several attempts to find programs or a system that works for your group. Keep at it though. I’ve found that it takes about a year for a comply new process to fully take effect. The upside is that you will start to see some benefits right away. However,  you may not see all of them until the whole process has been improved.

Garbage in Garbage out – The thinking here is that a poorly designed system done faster is still poorly designed. While this is true it can also be used as an excuse not to start. It is very hard to improve a process that is taking up a lot of time. Sometimes it is good to speed up a bad process so you have more time to make adjustments. When you can see the road blocks its easier to change direction then guessing what they are. What if you are wrong?

Flexibility is important – The software or system you use really doesn’t matter. What is most important is that you can adapt it to your needs. No group of people works or thinks the same so having software, a system or a process that doesn’t fit your needs can get in the way. This is one of the most impornant and most over looked aspects of making this better.

Focus on making how you do things better and that will free up time to make them better. Good luck.