The Invisible Mentor

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Thor Muller certainly thinks that you can plan serendipity!

Thor Muller, CTO and co-founder of the firm Get Satisfaction recently gave a talk, The Practice Planned Serendipity as part of the Unfinished Business series at Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCADU). Before we dive into what Muller said during his talk, first let’s look at what serendipity means.

The Meaning of Serendipity

Horace Walpole, English art historian and politician born in the early 18^th century coined the word serendipity. Walpole who loved to write letters was also known as man of letters. In a letter to Thomas Mann he said that he coined the word serendipity from the Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip. In the tale, the heroes “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.”

Image via Wikipedia

As with many things, words often lose part of their meaning, or the meaning is completely changed over a period of time. The way that Walpole used serendipity, sagacity was an important aspect of the definition, which is the “ability to link together apparently innocuous facts to come to a valuable conclusion.” According to Wikipedia, “Serendipity is a propensity for making fortunate discoveries while looking for something unrelated.”

In Muller’s talk, he indicated that serendipity occurs when chance interacts with creativity. Therefore it’s possible to plan the conditions for serendipity to take place.

Getting to Serendipity

There are eight ways that anyone can experience serendipity in a planned way.

Collision: Serendipity requires motion. You cannot have serendipity without collision. Get out there – run into more people and participate in more events.

Preparation: Prepare your mind for serendipity and there are three ways to do so.

1. Obsessive Curiosity
2. Arrest an Exception: Have dogged determination. Hang on until you figure “it” out.
3. Forget What you Know to be True: Nothing is sacred

Divergence: Be ready to divert from the original plan. Take another direction. There are two ways to divert.

1. Branch-out: Take a different fork in the road. Branch-out from another branch, explore the possibilities.
2. Spread Seeds: Spin off new components.

Commitment: You achieve serendipity when you stick to it, you are unwilling to divert from your cause. You know what your mission is and you adhere to it.

Connection: You run into the right people because of your network of connections – because you know the right people.

Porosity: You move the centre of gravity from within your company out to the customers and magic can happen.

Activation: We create the space for serendipity to occur. For instance, there is a certain individual that you’d like to meet, plan on how you can meet her. You could have a party and invite people who know her and encourage them to bring her along. So you create the space for serendipity to take place by having the party.

Additional Information on Serendipity

The Three Princes of Serendip, Part One

Making Science by Serendipity. A review of Robert K. Merton and Elinor Barber’s The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity

The Three Princes of Serendip and the Merchant 

Now that I have attended Thor Muller’s lecture on The Practice Planned Serendipity, I am ready to test the waters.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

At a recent event hosted by the Canadian Women in Communications for senior level women, the guest speaker Linda Jojo, new Executive Vice President, ITS and Chief Information Officer of Rogers Communications shared three lessons she has learned with the women in attendance, but I’d like to focus on only one because it incorporates the other two. And that is the importance of branding yourself.

Quite recently, I have been reading a lot about creating a personal brand for yourself. You have to be known something. Each of us has a unique set of skills and we need to let others know about them, so that when your skill set is needed, your name is synonymous with those skills. It’s interesting that so many people are now talking about personal branding because Tom Peters, the management guru, wrote a seminar article, The Brand Called You in Fast Company in August 1997 – that’s 14 years ago.

How do you brand yourself?

Get yourself SEEN and HEARD. Jojo suggests that you take on tasks that others may not want such as running the United Way Campaign. Why? Because you’ll get visibility doing it, and you’ll also get the opportunity to make presentations about the campaign – this puts you in front of senior managers, the decision makers. She also recommends that you should take on jobs that others do not want. When no one wants a particular job, you can bet that it’s for a reason, and it’s probably because it’s plagued with many problems. But you should not be deterred because if you master that difficult job that no one wants to touch, you will be known as the person to call to solve difficult problems.

Jojo took on the job of running GE’s payroll system, one that didn’t run very smoothly. She made many mistakes along the way because it was a very complex job, but it was the best job she ever had because it taught her how to prioritize and how to communicate during a crisis. Over the years she has built a reputation for herself and that’s one of the reasons why she has moved up the ladder in her career. Sponsors also played a seminal role in opening doors for her. Jojo created a personal brand for herself, and she was SEEN and HEARD.

Unlike mentors, sponsors usually choose their protégés. To be chosen though, they have to know about you, so to have to be SEEN and HEARD. I have been building my personal rand as The Invisible Mentor and Expert Interviewer, how about you?

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Career Coach Peggy McKee from Career Confidential presented at the webinar, “How to Find a Job in any Economy.” The following job search tips were gleaned from her presentation with some of my own thoughts added.

1. View your job search as a sales process where the hiring manager is the buyer, you are the product, and your resume is your marketing and sales material. You only have 15 seconds to capture their attention so use the AIDA formula in your resume. Grab their Attention with your resume or profile headline, capture their Interest by saying something captivating that’s important to them, create a Desire by showing how you can make their lives better, and finally, take Action.
2. Never go through HR, go directly to the hiring managers. HR uses Applicant Tracking Systems as a spam filter to weed out as many resumes as possible.
3. Be proactive and work on expanding your network! Use social media to find and build relationships with hiring managers. Make sure that you always complete your profile for social media networks.
4. If you are interested in working for particular companies, create Google Alerts for the companies so you can keep abreast of what’s happening and discover their pain.
5. Use SimplyHired.com and Indeed.com, which aggregate available jobs, and set up alerts for specific jobs you are interested in to be emailed to you.
6. Only spend 10 percent of your job search time using job boards, use them more as a research tool to identify trends, and which companies are hiring.

Please refer to the blog post, 6 Ways to Maximize Your LinkedIn Presence – Tips from Carol McManus, the LinkedIn Lady. How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Related articles

• 6 Best Practices Using LinkedIn For Your Job Search (messengerassociates.wordpress.com)
• How to Use Blogging as a Job Search Tool (problogger.net)
• 10 Ways To Beat The Job-Search Blues (choosework.typepad.com)

Image via CrunchBase

Recently, the Downtown Women’s Club hosted a teleseminar with Carol McManus, the LinkedIn Lady. McManus has made over six figures of her income from referrals she received on LinkedIn. She spends time building and nurturing the connections she has on LinkedIn and understands the importance of networking and the correct way in which to do it.

McManus shared a few tips on how to make LinkedIn work for you.

1. View your profile as your biography, and think about the way you would like to present yourself to the world. Take the time to complete your profile and make sure the information you include shows you in your totality. People want to know how you got to where you are today. As you are crafting and building your profile, include the things that make you distinctly you.
2. If you have held multiple positions in one company, choose the most memorable ones to write about, and solicit recommendations.
3. In the Summary section, give clues as to who you are and why others should connect with you. Build a rapport, and champion who you are and how you serve your clients. Think about your background, both personal and professional and highlight specific skills.
4. In the Specialties section, list your responsibilities with the accompanying accomplishments.
5. First thing in the morning, log into your LinkedIn account and quickly scan updates from your connections to see what’s going on and reach out to them. Bring people to the front of your consciousness. This is a quick and easy way to keep in touch with your contacts.
6. Join groups whether they are Alumni, Associations, Industry – you are allowed to join 50 groups. Think about who you want to hang out with, and why, and choose groups based on that. Each day choose one or two groups to visit and comment.

What are some other effective ways that you have used LinkedIn? Add your thoughts to the conversation in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Related articles

• 5 Tips for Managing LinkedIn Groups (hubspot.com)

This is what we talked about on The Invisible Mentor Blog this week: Spider’s Revenge by Jennifer Estep, Pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff and Interview with Employment and Career Counsellor Chris Kulbaba.

Mondays at the Salon

The world mourns Steve Jobs, and what I liked about him best was his mind. Jobs knew that magic happened where technology intersected with the liberal arts and I think the key there is liberal arts. And I also think that the most successful leaders know that. The books that these leaders consume are not generally business books, they are books that make them think and business books seldom make anyone really think. They read books that have the ability to change lives.

How to Fill the Information Gap (when you don’t know there is a gap) Part Three

Booked on Tuesdays

The books in the Elemental Assassin Series fall under the genre of science fantasy and I find them highly entertaining. The characters are giants, dwarfs, people who possess and can control various elements such as fire, air, ice, stone and so on. For instance, someone with ice magic can flash freeze a person or thing and someone with fire magic can incinerate. Reading these books you have to open yourself to the impossible. Essentially the story line is that when Gin Blanco was 13 years old, Mab Monroe, a fire elemental used her fire abilities to incinerate Blanco’s mother, Eira and older sister, Annabella.

Review – Success Lessons from Gin Blanco in Jennifer Estep’s Spider’s Revenge

Wisdom Wednesdays

Sergei Rachmaninoff completed a stunning body of work due to his self discipline and high standards. Despite this, he suffered from self-doubt and wondered if he made the best-use of his time on earth because he couldn’t decide if he was a conductor, pianist or composer.

Sergei Rachmaninoff, Russian Composer, Pianist and Conductor 

Perspective Thursdays and Workshop Fridays

This week we featured employment and career counsellor Chris Kulbaba. Kulbaba is very empathetic to his client, and puts himself in their shoes because he knows what it feels like to be searching for a job. He also works with his clients to use LinkedIn to support their goals. Kulbaba offers some very practical advice in his interview. Here are Part One and Part Two of Chris Kulbaba’s interview.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.