Over the summer I did some Twitter and Social Media recruiting/branding training for the Dallas office of Matrix Resources. I worked at Matrix from 1996 to 2000 and was a top performer on the contract IT staffing side. That training led to a webinar I did recently for Matrix job candidates to help them promote themselves better through social channels (we are still working on re-recording that session since the audio had some problems). Matrix recently unveiled their great new blog, the Matrix Wall. Adam Waid, who does CRM and Social Media for Matrix asked me to write a guest post. Hope you enjoy it.
By Craig Fisher
You heard me. I said the geeks are the cool kids. Last night I attended a meeting of the Social Media Club of Dallas. You may be saying to yourself, "Hmmm, that sounds about as much fun as Physics Club…" But I’ll let you in on a secret. All the cool kids were there. And many of them were self-proclaimed geeks.
Social media is all the rage in recruiting, job search, marketing, etc. And the people who are at the forefront of it are mostly techies. This point was raised by the keynote speaker, Tim Walker, Social Media manager for Hoovers.com. He gave a great presentation about the value of Social Media for companies. You see, the techies are always the early adopters of new technology. They were with the internet, and they are with social media. And they are also the people I most want to recruit for the IT jobs my company helps to fill for our clients.
Early adopters are the ones on the cutting edge of new technology. They are smart, and ahead of the curve. They are cool. I met so many great people at this event that I would have gladly paid a large sum of money to attend. Fortunately we had some great sponsors including nomee (these folks introduced me to a cool new social media aggregator that runs on Adobe Air and sits on your desktop. It does what Plaxo would do if everyone used all Plaxo’s features. It’s like FriendFeed meets Tweetdeck. Yes, I’m a geek too.), and Moroch PR (our location host), who made it possible for all 110+ attendees to attend for free.
Tim also made a point about cool kids when someone asked a question about the new Twitter lists feature. The question was about whether these lists will create some kind of exclusivity in the Twittersphere. Walker quipped that the people who would attempt to exclude others by using lists are the same ones who sat at the cool kids table in high school. He didn’t have time for them then, and he doesn’t now. I suspect Tim Walker was plenty cool in high school. But don’t tell him I said so.
My point here is that the cool kids, for me, are the techies, the early adopters, the bleeding edge thinkers. Many of them proudly call themselves geeks (a Tweepsearch of Twitter profiles for the word "geek" returns over 46,000 users). And geeks are cool. So whether you are an employer, a marketer, or a job seeker, go seek out your local social media club. If your town doesn’t have one, start one up. This is physical world networking, and you should be doing it. You may find your next superstar employee, or your next job, or client. Let your geek flag fly. It beats the heck out of Physics Club.
