That (and a tad more) describes Maddy Dychtwald. She’s pretty well known, ridiculously successful and, dang, good looking to boot.

She’s the author of Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better. She’s also the co-founder, along with her husband Ken, of Age Wave. Together they’ve been warning us for a long time now about the dangers of ignoring the demographics of aging and the talents of our senior citizens.

(Ken Dychtwald, by the way, is one of the very best speakers we’ve ever seen. He’s always understood intuitively what Seth Godin warns about in Really Bad PowerPoint – that bullet points slaughter audiences, but the right emotional images help deliver the message).

So, why in the world would someone like Maddy Dychtwald feel it necessary to tweet? She’s got it all, already.

Contribution

Chris Brogan (one of the most knowledgeable social network experts on the planet) will tell you that online social networking is not about selling – but instead about contributing, mentoring and giving back.

In Maddy Dychtwald’s case she contributes her expertise. She’s intimately involved with issues like the marketing power of women and the implications of demographic shifts. She uses that expertise to link her followers to news, resources, studies and articles on the topics she knows best.

Sure, she tweets about her own books and appearances. (we should be so lucky to have such success and such a schedule!).

But, she also uses her background to lead us to intriguing articles like a Christian Science Monitor article about the popular television show, The Closer; and an NPR story about Sarah McLachlan’s fight to keep her wonderful concert series, Lilith Fair, alive.

And, those are just a couple of examples. Follow her and you’ll see a lot more.

So, what makes Maddy tweet?

Well, it’s certainly not what makes Sammy run.

Nope, those who are already successful, accomplished and knowledgeable are in the best position to give back – and they’re the ones who most need to pick up their keyboard and tweet with us.

Maddy does. Now, we just need to work on her husband Ken.

The card said:

“You recently tweeted about your ReadyTalk experience and even used the word ‘Awesome.” We appreciate your feedback and for sharing & spreading the word about ReadyTalk. Enclosed is a hard drive as a token of our appreciation.

With Regards, April.”

Wow. Just wow. That’s all we could say.

ReadyTalk.com is a Denver-based, online meeting services company. Think WebEx and GoToMeeting, only without the hassle. ReadyTalk is actually easy to use, doesn’t crash your computer and allows you to hold a webinar without the usual attendant brain damage.

We’ve conducted ReadyTalk.com webinars for the Colorado Society of Association Executives (CSAE). We’ve done a couple others for their Web Seminar Series. But, oddly we’ve never written about them on our blog.

Sure, we’ve gotten online Twitter thank-you messages back for a “tweet,” but we’ve never, ever gotten a card (and gift!) for a “tweet.” Makes you think about your online strategies, doesn’t it?!

Eat, Drink and Be Married

What do you do if you’re pretty much a 100% online company? That describes MyWedding.com. They’re an online local wedding resource, as well as a total management site for the happy couple (RSVP, email, registry, blog, etc).

They already do a great job of creating relationships online, but last week they blew it all out and invited everyone in the Denver/Colorado Springs area to show up at their new offices in Castle Rock, Colorado.

And, boy did they ever provide offline goodies – wines from Castle Rock Winery, superbly neat little gift boxes from Keltoy.com, food and excellent service from Occasions by Sandy, and on and on.

The place was packed! Photographers, florists, DJ’s, caterers, brides, grooms and every other type of wedding hob-nobber, rubbing elbows with Woody Pastorius and the rest of his welcoming crew at MyWedding.com.

Get Off of It

It made us think about online businesses. When was the last time you took your online business – and got off of it?

These days, when it comes to social media everyone wants to pitch its money making power. They tell you that if you just twerp your web site, use the right keywords and tweet 20 times a day you’ll be a success at the online game.

Ever stop to think that perhaps the real power of social media is to keep the “social” in it?

Pretty sure ReadyTalk and MyWedding have. What about you?

The press is oh so fond of focusing on the numbers and percentages of unemployment – and this repetition of gruesome statistics can demoralize even the most dedicated job searcher.

The deflating result is that we begin to think, “How will I ever get the kind of job that will fulfill me?”

The Opposite Problem

Consider this. There are tons of unfilled jobs in this country. The challenge is to put the right people, with the right skills, into those jobs.

Sounds easy, right? And, in this age of computer databases and 1/10th-of-a-second Google searches, what could possibly be the problem? Obviously, technology is the answer, right?

“Putting Folks to Work”

Well, maybe not. Say hello to Michelle Diaz. Her job is, as she herself describes it, “putting folks to work.” She doesn’t work for the government. She’s doesn’t work for a non-profit. She works for a company that actually makes money putting YOU in the right job.

Michelle is the Regional Vice President for Spherion Staffing Services. She covers four states and any number of local offices that generate 75 million real live American job-placement dollars.

Motivational Job Hunting

The way Spherion makes its money (and keeps its investors happy – look for SFN on the New York Stock Exchange), is to help employers match the right people to the the right job openings. This matching process, it turns out, is only partly about skills.

When we talked to Michelle, she told us:

“We can interview for skills, but the right match is mostly about getting to the bottom of the question of motivation.” 

And, guess what, it turns out that computers just aren’t all that good at plumbing your true motivations. It still takes people like Michelle, and the folks who work for her, to do that.

Don’t Beg Uncle Harry

So, if you are looking for a job, before fixing your résumé, before buying a new suit and even before calling up Uncle Harry at the factory, you need to get your head on straight.

What you need to know is that there ARE jobs and that companies ARE looking for you. You just need to find the right kind of agents who will not only match your skills, but also get to the bottom of your motivations.

That’s what we liked about Spherion. They “put folks to work.” And that has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

Editors Note: As always on this blog, we do not accept referral or affiliate fees from any of the companies or resources we write about.

Yes, Cinde Dolphin might make it big in her new endeavor, chronicled in that NY Times article, The Job You Make. But, what happens to those entrepreneurs, store owners, consultants, speakers, inventors and other risk takers when they don’t make it big – and have to (ugh) get a job again?

Yesterday I got a text message from an old friend who is nearing retirement. After working in corporate America for about 13 centuries, he told me he’s now ready to branch out on his own and “find my passion.” My response was simply, “I’d rather find my paycheck again.”

It’s in the Water

What happens when you follow your dream, and then find out that your dream didn’t follow you back? Too often (and these stories never make the New York Times), you squander your 401K, max-out your impossibly high interest rate credit cards and pay millions of dollars supporting your health care coverage habit. Don’t ask us how we know.

I don’t know if he invented the term, but UC Santa Cruz professor Robert W. Fairlie points out that there are a lot more “necessity entrepreneurs” when the economy is bad. (Dr. Fairlie sort of wrote the book (or at least the PDF) about individuals creating businesses in his “Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity.”) 

“Necessity entrepreneurs,” then, are those folks who get laid off of often high-paying jobs and then decide to try speaking, consulting, stand-up comedy or other death-defying gambits.

But, as you can see in the screen shot above, some necessity entrepreneurs now find themselves looking longingly at those regular paychecks of yore.

Who You Gonna’ Call?

You know what comes next, right? Yes, we thought we’d do a little research, send some emails and place a few phone calls to try to find out what’s going on – and then report it faithfully here.

We thought we’d follow some current job searchers and report on their tactics, strategies and mental breakdowns. Our interview line-up looks something like this (we reserve the right to change it without notification):

• New Job Searchers
• Frustrated Job Searchers
• Internet Job Experts
• Old-Fashioned Job Experts
• A Recruiter (or two)
• Some HR Big Wigs
• And anyone else we choose….

Where You Gonna’ Look?

Along the way, we’ll reach out and try to separate the truth from the bunk about how Internet and social networking sites can help your job search, what kinds of strategies are best and what you can do to keep from jumping off a bridge if you don’t find employment right away.

We won’t, of course, be able to resist showing you a few Internet research tricks that might help:

But, that’s just what we do. It’s called Internet research and we’re pretty sure it will lead us to some interesting people and great ideas along the way.

We bumped into Charlotte’s Stallings again this week out on the speaking trail. We hadn’t seen her for some months and it has been almost 11 months now since we wrote about her in Run, Charlotte, Run!!

We chatted for a short time before she zipped off to the airport. We didn’t have the heart to tell her that the valuable information she had learned from her trusted fellow speakers in the National Speakers Association Linkedin Group had been washed down the drain.

Discussions Held Hostage by LinkedIn

Here’s the problem. Smart, savvy speakers are asking their group (in this case the National Speakers Association Group on LinkedIn) if they know anything about a company called the International Speakers Network.

Again this week, another speaker, Shawn Kershaw, asked – “International  Speakers Network – Anybody had experience, positive or negative, with them?”

What Shawn didn’t know is that there have already been two major discussions within the NSA LinkedIn Group about the International Speakers Network.

Yes, Charlotte Stallings asked the same question 11 months ago. The responses added up to the most comments ever up to that point. Almost 100% of the comments were explicit warnings, a few of which we listed in Run, Charlotte, Run!!

Then, just a couple of weeks ago, Orvel Ray Wilson asked the NSA Group about a sister company of ISN, with the same results – tons of warnings about the business practices of ISN and its ilk:

“Let’s call it like it is — Both Brenda and her last employer ISN are scam artists and we’ve all lost way too much money to them.”

“I think you get the message: Stay away. Period. Many of us learned the hard way. “

“She promised me lots of stuff at her last job, took my money and I never heard from her again.”

These two discussions are a treasure trove of warnings about this questionable company. But, they are more than that. They are not just warnings from anyone. They are warnings from current NSA members who have had first hand experience and know what they are talking about.

Poor Shawn, however, might never see these warnings. Isn’t the search function of any web site what really provides its power by saving you time? Instead, LinkedIn’s pathetic search system is keeping this information from the very group members who need it the most.

Try This at Home

Try this yourself if you are a member of the National Speakers Association LinkedIn Group (or try similar searches within the LinkedIn Groups you belong to).

To properly search within a LinkedIn Group, you must be signed in to LinkedIn and be in the “Discussion Section” of your particular group.

Take a look what happens when Shawn does her most likely search for International Speakers Network.

She gets absolutely nothing about ISN. Nada. She does get 5 results that have nothing to do with the International Speakers Network. And, it doesn’t even matter if she puts her search terms in quotation marks.

After such a search, Shawn would have no idea that at least two speakers have already asked her question – and received tons of emphatic warnings.

Oddly, if Shawn were lucky enough to do a search for the initials “ISN,” she would connect to the two most relevant results in the NSA Discussion Section that we have shown above.

This is not just odd or unfortunate. It’s a huge problem.

In order to be effective, group sites such as this need to be searchable – and effectively so. Otherwise, the same questions and the same answers will continue to recycle, and who’s going to waste their valuable time doing that?

Editors Note: We have not linked to the International Speakers Network for obvious reasons. Go there are your own peril. We have also not linked to any of the Group Discussions in LinkedIn because they will not work unless you are a member of LinkedIn (and sometimes even a member of a specific group).

Yes, we just found yet another social media “expert” pitching the idea of an “Auto-Follow” program. These programs let you automatically follow anyone who follows you on Twitter

Not a good idea. If the latest round of Twitter spam attacks proved anything, it was that you MUST NOT do that.

And, Now Your Computer Can Be Hacked

It’s bad enough that otherwise smart people have all bragged to us, “I have 2,000 followers on Twitter and I’ve never even used it much.”

No they don’t! If they have 2,000 followers on Twitter, they have 1,800 porn linkers, swindlers, multi-level marketing goofballs, foreign gangsters and outright spammers.

The numbers are so high that people who are paying attention are leaving Twitter in droves. Why? Because Twitter can’t even oust the accounts that are stealing legitimate brands, like Wordpress.

Pictured below are some of the followers of one of the top speakers in the country. She’s been sold a bill of goods because she thinks she is following people of some worth. But, she’s now following:

Don’t laugh. If you use any sort of auto-follow system, you’ll find that you are now following the same kinds of bozos. Just take a look.

The sad fact is that these days 9 out of 10 people who join Twitter are unsavory types of one kind or another – pornographers, swindlers, used car salesmen types and outright spammers.

Go ahead and keep playing around, if you like. Keep thinking that Twitter is some sort of way to make professional connections.

Nope. It’s become simply a way for so-called “Twitter Experts” to deprive you of something even more important than your money. Your time.

Oh, By the Way

Of course, staying away from auto-follow programs only protects you from following bozos. It doesn’t do anything about the folks who follow you. Here are our latest 3 followers on Twitter:

Oh gosh, I sure as heck can’t wait to follow them back!

The fact is, if you like being cornered by veggie pill marketers, used car salesmen or escaped convicts, you’re gonna’ love Twitter.

Who is Dominic? Is he one of your LinkedIn connections? Nope. In fact, Dominic has the sum total of four (yes, count them, 1, 2, 3, 4) connections. Poor souls.

But, even though he has few friends (no wonder), he has joined something like 40 LinkedIn Groups. And, yes, he happened to join one of the groups you belong to – which is how he got entrée to your inbox.

So, you say, no problem. There must be a privacy setting on LinkedIn that would keep Dominic out of your life. You know “privacy settings.” Those are the adjustments social networking sites don’t publicize at all and that you never have time to fiddle with even if you do discover them.

But, this is a problem. The only privacy setting that would keep Mr. Spam out of your inbox would also keep the legitimate members of that group from communicating with you.

There Goes the Neighborhood

And, that’s the problem. I do want to “Allow members of this group to send me messages via LinkedIn.” I just don’t want zeroes like this guy to have access to me.

In fact, I want LinkedIn to throw his sorry behind out the door – now. If they don’t, their once verdant social networking neighborhood will turn into a slum of social nitwits. And, that’s when we’ll all leave. I’m just leading the way, leaving now unless LinkedIn begins to eject Dominic Spam and his ilk swiftly and summarily.

Tell LinkedIn you feel the same way, or Dominic and his friends will soon be cramming your inbox with a ton of this kind of garbage, too.

To be eligible for the Mercury awards, you have to be a Boulder or Broomfield private, locally owned company. Then, you have to have stratospheric growth rates like 400% and 500%.

To get some of the great wine, beer and yummy food, though, (and to hob-knob with these fastest growing companies) all you had to do was sign-up, pay a ridiculously small fee and show-up.

The winners were recognized with awards, champagne, photo-op’s and even 30 seconds of microphone time (thank goodness for short speeches). Companies like Cloud 9 Living, Eco-Products, Boulder’s Best Organics and Goozmo walked away with the top honors. (download an Excel list of all the Mercury 100).

However, it was a different short speech from Tom Keller that may have meant the most to those gathering at this prestigious event.

Keller calls himself a serial Internet entrepreneur, and he has the successful credits to prove it. He recently sold his latest venture, Intense Debate, for a nice wad of money – and when he did, he gave a healthy portion of that wad to some of the folks who are doing good work in the community,

He challenged the award winners (and those of us enjoying the goodies and beer) to do the same:

“Take time tonight to go visit with Chris and Gretchen at the Community Foundation booth – or take 10 minutes out of your busy work day tomorrow to visit the Community Foundation web site. You’ll find out how they are helping your community – and you’ll find out what you can do to help them.”

Following up on Tom’s instructions, we made our way over to talk to Chris and Gretchen.

Chris is Chris Barge, an award winning Boulder Daily Camera and Rocky Mountain News reporter, who is now the Director of Philanthropic Services for The Community Foundation. Gretchen is Gretchen Minekime, a past President of Boulder Business Professional Women, and now the Community Foundation’s Director of Advancement.

From Mr. Barge and Ms. Minekime we learned that The Community Foundation is out to “improve the quality of life in Boulder County, now and forever, and to build a culture of giving.”

They are a lot like an organization you are likely to find in your own community, wherever you live, as there are over 600 such foundations around the globe.

Take a peek at the Grants Archives section of their web site to see how extensive their reach is. They’ve distributed over $30 million in grants to Boulder/Broomfield organizations – covering education, health, environment, the arts and more.

Yes, it was a night where the Mercury 100 winners were honored in Boulder. But, it was also a night where everyone in the community will be a winner, if they do what Tom suggests and take the time to talk to Chris and Gretchen.

Here’s a little exercise you can do for yourself in LinkedIn.

LinkedIn’s “Discussions” accompany each LinkedIn “Group.” They are the equivalent of the general “Answers” section in LinkedIn, but you must be a member of that group to participate in those discussions. (We wrote more about the advantages and disadvantages of this kind of group “exclusivity” in “Run, Charlotte, Run.”)

A Real LinkedIn Discussion

Ready for the exercise? If you belong to any LinkedIn “Group,” simply go to the “Discussions” tab for that group.

Next, compare the number of comments that real questions get vs. the zeros that are racked up by the sales pitchers.

In the picture above, Nanette Littlestone asked a real question to get a real discussion going in the Book Publishing Professionals group. She asked, “What are the most important things writers look for in an editor?”

Right away, in no time at all, the comments started to roll in. Soon there were 36. These were real people responding to her question and trying to help her make the right decision.

By the way, if you go to this discussion (if you belong to the group), you’ll notice that Nanette also publicly thanked and commented back to every single one of the folks who took the time to answer. That’s what networking is about – it’s about the conversation, and conversations build relationships.

A Fake LinkedIn Discussion

Compare that with the picture below, where someone blared, “Check out my profile.” Here’s the thing, though. NO ONE responded. It didn’t work. Even after a month, no one responded.

Why? Because it’s not the place. It’s no more appropriate here than it would have been at a real-life networking event. At such an event, this guy wouldn’t have just handed you his card and said, “Buy my stuff.” But, he does exactly that here!

Why didn’t he get any comments? Everyone knew that he was simply promoting himself – or his seminar, or his life-enhancing elixir. They moved away from him, just as they would from that kind of bad behavior in real life.

The Internet is no different from real life, but we’re being sold on the idea that it is. We’re being sold that online social networks can help us sell, and we’re being told we can do it in an anti-social way.

Go for Brooke

The great thing about this exercise is that you can replicate it over and over, and you’ll always get the same results. Selling and self promotion do not work here.

In fact, selling and spamming have become so common and so unacceptable that some savvy groups, like Brian Carroll’s B2B Lead Generation Roundtable, have decided to try and stop it.

Brooke Bower moderates Carroll’s B2B group and she recently posted this warning to its members:

Blatant self promotion, job postings, spam or topics not related to B2B lead generation will be removed. If you post off topic again, you will be removed from the group.

Good for you, Brooke. Let’s keep the discussions in “Discussions” and move the anti-social behavior somewhere else.

Elli St. George Godfrey (@3keyscoach) pointed out that Shakespeare had already written about Twitter – “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” She then went on to say:

This blog post is part of a theme I’ve been experiencing this week. There is the on-going discussion about transparency. This past week , at the NAWBO Boston chapter event, we had a great discussion about humility and self-promotion.

They discuss things like that in Boston?!! Makes us want to move there.

The “I’s” Have It

That topic of “humility and self-promotion” got us doing our “search” thing (hey, it’s what we do). We wondered just how much discussion is there on the web about the topic of humility and self-promotion? So, we started a search at the source, on Search.Twitter.com, of course:

humility “self promotion”

Not surprisingly, there was only one tweet and it wasn’t quotable verbatim. The lone tweet suggested: “Humility will get you ‘bleeping’ nowhere.” So much for intelligent discussion (and humility) on Twitter.

Then we tried Google with the exact same search:

humility “self promotion”

Ozymandius

Among the varied results there was an article titled “Getting Ahead without Tooting Your Own Horn” by Ray Blunt. He’s the Associate Director and Fellow of The Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation & Culture. In his article, Ray even quotes Percy Bysshe Shelley. It’s amazing, really, how many poets wrote about Twitter.

We’ll let you read his article for yourself, but one of the points Ray makes references Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great, and the research behind what Collins calls Level 4 and Level 5 leaders. Blunt writes:

What they found rather amazed them. Many of the companies that actually had the best sustained results over time … …were actually somewhat obscure. One reason they were obscure was that their CEOs were people who shunned the limelight and tended to talk in terms of “we” not “me.”

Hmm… not a lot of “we” on Twitter.

The Good Book Says

We also found David Maister’s 2007 blog entry “Self-Promotion.” David is currently taking a break from blogging, but like Rosanne Cash says, “god I hope he comes back soon.”

Again, you have to read this honest and thoughtful (and humble) piece for yourself, but here’s a taste:

Like many other professionals, I’m comfortable with showing my material and saying “Let the work speak for itself” but I’ve been around long enough to know that more than that is required. I’m just not comfortable doing it.

The humility and self-promotion discussions remind us of that verse from Matthew:

Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

The current crowd of Twitter barkers and hawkers don’t just put their messages on candlesticks; they explode them all over the universe with rocket flares. Amazing how well they can do that in just 140 characters.

Seems to us that folks like Ray Blunt and David Maister have bushels more to offer.