Your Linkedin profile is not like a CV or resume – I’m going to use CV as its fewer letters and I’m lazy. A CV should be more specific, when I looked for a job I would have different CVs for different industries, if I was looking at banking roles I had finance things highlighted and with more detail, if I was looking for consulting gigs I had consulting type roles and accomplishments highlighted. My internet company CV was specifically peppered with my technical and product capabilities.

A Linkedin profile should be updated constantly, should have your recent wins and metrics. The focus should be on getting people who’ve worked with you to recommend you – thanks to everyone who’s recommended me on my profile btw! The reason is that you never know who or why someone’s looking at your profile. It could be a recruiter but it could also be a potential partner, customer, or some other relationship that will grow out of Linkedin. You should have some recommendations from colleagues, managers, suppliers and customers if possible. This covers you regardless of who’s looking at your Linkedin profile. Before I had the landing page for AdAvengers.com ready I had “stealth mode” as the company I worked for, when it was ready I changed it. I’ve already got a recommendation on the latest role and it’s for my contracting work not for the work that I’m hoping Ad Avengers will end up doing. Doesn’t matter, what matters is that people see your doing something – anything – of value for someone – anyone!

If you’re lucky you’ll spend most of your time employed rather than looking for a new gig. Your Linkedin profile is like a Google search for you or like your twitter account, i.e. organic and alive. It should reflect the person you are and not focus on a specific role. Think of it as a funnel, your profile is a tool to get people to find out more about you, to ask someone they know about you, or to ask you if you’re interested in a role or opportunity and that’s when you focus on the specifics about the role and your fit for it (in your CV), not when you’re doing your Linkedin profile.

So here are some of my basic’s for a successful Linkedin profile:

• reflect your character, think of three words you want someone to think of when they read your profile and then write your copy
• ask for specific recommendations from people you’ve done work for, and who worked with you on work you’re proud of
• recommend people, people you really like and would want to work with / for/ or have working for you again
• use metrics when you can – from budgets to impact
• Highlight brands that you worked for – if you worked for a big brand, lucky you, if you worked for brands that aren’t so big outline what they did and if they had big brands as clients
• join groups and participate wherever you can – you never know when a connection might be made
• If you’re on twitter then connect your Linkedin profile – at least highlight it in your profile and send the occasional post to both Linkedin and twitter (Tweetdeck is great for this)
• Be careful of highlighting your credentials in your profile title, I get pretty annoyed with people who have Firstname, Lastname, MBA in their profile,  imagine how someone who thinks MBA’s are useless would feel about that (and believe it or not there are people who feel this way)
• Make a significant amount of content available to all, so anyone looking at your profile can get a decent understanding of you without clicking the “View full profile” link
• update frequently – don’t wait till you’re actually looking for a job, you might miss a customer / supplier / partner

Funny enough, Seth Godin has a great blog post today about what kind of story you tell about yourself, your Linkedin page should tell a story about you.

There’s a parallel here with basketball, lot’s of free agents in the NBA this year are figuring out where they want to play next year. It’s interesting to watch as a fan because you’ll see if players value winning, they’ll go to a team that is set up to win or can get other free agents and become successful, or if they value making maximum dollars.

Knowing why you do something is really important to doing it right / well. When I graduated from B school, I focused on the commute, focused on the location and the brand of the company I wanted to join and that meant a big US company, so I applied for and got a job at one. It looked great on paper and on Linkedin but I wasn’t really happy. I didn’t have the “why” right. Now I know I want to create something, make a difference, create some jobs, and build something that makes an impact, so I know the “why” and I’m much happier professionally.

Don’t get me wrong, there are basic needs like a salary or the availability of a job in a location, but aside from the life basics I think real happiness comes from knowing why you’re doing something. So before you take on the next job, move to a different place or whatever it is you do, make sure you know why you’re doing it.

According to multiple free online dictionaries equanimous means:
“Calm and composed; of stable disposition” or “having or showing equanimity; even-temperedness”

The reason why I’m writing about being equanimous is two fold, firstly the celebrations/riots in Montreal after the Canadiens won a playoff round (that’s right, a playoff round, not the Stanley Cup, not even the conference championship, the second round). As well our stroller was stolen (we think, it may have been taken in mistake) from outside our flat. Two pretty big things, one very positive and one very negative but in both instances being equanimous is very important.

Things can go very well, and things can go very badly. But as long as you’re equanimous you can move on and move up. For Montreal, there are still two rounds of potential playoffs to win before they can declare themselves champions. For us, we still have our default stroller, and we’re okay, our daughter is very happy and we’re still blessed overall.

This is a lesson in business as well. I’m reading Blue Ocean Strategy right now and the interesting thing is that the authors research has shown that no company remains successful forever. Companies that do remain successful for extended periods reinvent themselves repeatedly.

I believe being equanimous in life and in business is one of the keys to happiness and every day I struggle and fight to remain equanimous. I’m glad Tasleem introduced me to the philosophy.

Considering an Entrepreneurial Venture? Go For It, But Have a Career Contingency Plan « The …http://digg.com/u1HVA7

I went via digg to tweetmeme to a blog post on a site called the Job Search Guide about having a career contingency plan. I don’t buy it. In fact I would say having a career contingency guide is almost a step towards failure.

I think entrepreneurs need to be so laser focused on making a great big business that having a contingency plan almost makes you fall off the path to success. Your contingency plan should be on the business. If the business is failing, pivot, a new model, a new customer segment, a new distribution model etc. Don’t fall back on a new career until you know there’s no segment, no distribution, no possible pivot that should be able to work – in which case what the heck did you go into the business for?

This is especially true for young entrepreneurs, if you’re starting from scratch, failure is experience. Taking risk is better then living off benefits and having nothing to show for it.

I have a big problem with people in HR in general and specifically people in HR who look at CVs and see entrepreneurship as a failure rather than seeing someone who tries to create opportunities rather than waiting for opportunities.

My favourite example is this post on Fred Wilson’s blog about getting a college education – “One thing you don’t need to be an entrepreneur, a college education”. Specifically, this exchange between 17 year old Michael in Vancouver and Fred Wilson. In a nutshell, the kid has crap grades because he’s been busy starting things, so he’s not going to University; Fred asks him for his Linkedin and then connects him with some companies he knows and next thing you know that kid get’s a job! Because the people who really matter recognize that this is someone who cares about building great things and people like this are rare.

A lot of failure is due to lack of execution, but some of failure is down to just bad luck. It’s important to know when an entrepreneur has started something and been unlucky versus started something and been unable to execute and it shouldn’t be a career trip up, it should be a career advancement win, lose or draw.

In high school I thought I would end up in New York in my 20s, I ended up in London. Not such a big shift. I realised I just loved a buzzing metropolis that was a true centre of creativity in the world. I wanted to be in a city that everyone knew and where lots of people visited, and I ended up in one. Just not the one I originally intended.

I was happy living the single life, and I ended up meeting my wife. Having fun was the goal and meeting the Bee, moving in together, getting married, and the last 6+ years have been, if nothing else, fun.

We were then thinking of Africa or India, and we ended up in Switzerland. I think we just needed a break from London. We needed to figure out if London was indeed a city we truly loved or a place where we had become comfortable.

So when I saw the John Lennon quote “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”, followed by the proverb “Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday” in a fortune cookie on Flickr, I couldn’t help but be a bit reflective.

I’ve always set out with big ambitious goals, and then let whichever road takes me there take me there. I think it’s a decent way to live life. Have some targets but be flexible in how you get there.

Flexibility in living life seems to be a pattern, whether it’s personal or professional, salary or position, debt or savings, whatever, have a target and then let the universe show you how you get there.

The book talks about how anything worth having needs dedication and is usually pretty hard and how quitting a dead end masquerading as an opportunity (or as Seth calls them a “Cul-de-Sac”) is a good thing.

It’s hardly rocket science, I know. In fact the Missus told me “That seems pretty obvious” when I brought it up with her last night. But it’s funny how you can invest a lot of your time and effort into something that offers very little value and not think that you should drop it and focus on something really valuable – sunk costs apply to everything in my opinion. Or on the other hand how you can think something is too hard and forget why you’ve started down the path in the first place. Sometimes you need a kick up the backside to remind you that this is a dip and you need to power through it.

So thanks Seth, it was a good and short read and just what I needed this week.

One of the things that caught me off guard was work and achievement of work as a source of happiness. In hind sight this looks obvious, but for some reason I hadn’t thought of it. The book goes over the notion that people can look at work as a job, a career or a calling. Me and the wife had an interesting discussion around this subject. I’ve, personally, gone from work being seen as a job (coding websites – aside: this wasn’t my calling, but I can definitely see how some developers would see this as a calling) to a career (managing coders of websites) and now I’m trying to find my calling in the internet industry. She’s always looked at teaching as a calling.

Of course people who find work as a calling are happier then people who look at their work as a job. But beyond that actually getting down and working and having accomplished stuff – whatever that stuff might be or however task oriented it is – can also be a source of happiness.

So, do you see what you do as a job, career or a calling? And are you happier when you get stuff done, regardless of how miniscule or detailed the tasks might be?

In short, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. When this comes to career planning or goals it leads to a non-linear career path.

Non-linear career paths are awesome. It means you go from venture to venture, from idea to idea, industry to industry. But the goals should be set. For me, early on it was to earn a certain salary or to pay off debts, but as I’ve get older my goals have changed, but the approach to reaching them shouldn’t. You have a number of interests and you keep yourself open to whichever opportunities arise to follow whichever interests.

Whether it’s a Taoist approach, a Zen approach or a portfolio approach, whatever, it’s all about openness with a focus on what’s in the horizon.

(Thanks Vinay for the title inspiration)

My mom grew up in east Africa and trained to become a teacher. Since coming to Canada in the 70s she’s worked in a bank for most of her life. To her working in a bank or in the government seemed like really good jobs. Being a doctor or a lawyer seemed like really really good careers. She probably wasn’t the only one, I’m sure there are countless other immigrants who came to Canada around the same time and have the same or a similar mentality.

My wife has tried to explain to my mom what a great career I have, how the education I’ve gone through over the last few years is pretty impressive, yada yada yada, but I don’t think she absolutely gets it.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my mom, a lot. She’s sacrificed a lot to raise me and has done a phenomenal job given what she went through – being in a new country, losing her husband, crappy second marriage – my mom is awesome.

But, it’s interesting that no matter what happens in the next couple of years, no matter how senior I get or what I do, if my mom doesn’t get it I think part of me will feel unfulfilled. I wonder if Stephanie Keller-Bottom feels the same way?

I knew it was going to be interesting the day after I let people know I was joining Yahoo, this happened to be the same day the MSFT rumors came out. Over the weekend a friend of a friend went off on one about how I should have joined Google rather then Yahoo. And now with the Jerry Wang / Sue Decker / Terry Semel announcement I’m being IM’d, emailed and accosted by friends on facebook for my opinion.

It’s hard not to get annoyed and ticked off at the misinformation and speculation. It’s something I’ve never dealt with – got any tips? Here’s my strategy for now, assess the person/people I’m speaking to, that is their background, there perspective and their information source. And then assess the medium being used (i.e. a face to face conversation has to be dealt with differently then an IM or a facebook message). Finally tell them to shut the hell up. Okay I might need to rethink that last step.

Anyway, I guess it’s something I’m going to have to get used to. Especially as I want to stay at Yahoo for some time – which, for the record, I definitely do.