tangled web

My hard drive died a few weeks ago and I lost everything: iTunes music, photos, client documents, new business proposals, and the contents of my PR portfolio.

Luckily, Web 2.0 saved my butt big time because I had photos on Flickr, Myspace and Facebook. I could pull a majority of my client work from Google mail/docs and BaseCamp. Where I wasn’t covered was the innards of my PR portfolio – media placements, news releases, and letters of recommendation among other things.

I needed a channel that was going to bring my career to life for current clients and potential employers – a virtual space to toot my professional horn.

Bits and pieces of in several places: here at TW, BrainGain Website, LinkedIn etc. – but nowhere quite as thorough as my black leather binder with tab dividers and plastic sleeves filled with three years worth of blood, sweat and tears.

The New York Times career blog, Shifting Gears, gave me a step in the right direct with The Web 2.0 Resume. Not surprising at all to find that there’s a social media resume. Crafted much like Shift Communication’s social media news release (I love those guys, they’re always up to such cool stuff!), the SM resume is a next generation branding tool for anyone working in advertising, PR, marketing, and social media.

Here are two great examples from Christopher Penn and Bryan Person.

The Bryper Blog’s gripes (and mine) about how paper resumes fall short of selling YOU:

• It doesn’t reflect the thought leadership of your blog or podcast.
• It doesn’t list the online responses to the award-winning YouTube video you produced for a client or the comments you received to a post-mortem blog entry about your ground-breaking integrated social media campaign.
• It doesn’t tell your potential employer where and how you’re commenting online.
• It doesn’t show the depth and breadth of your professional network or online presence.

Looks like I found my project for the week! Stay tuned…