Tomorrow I fly to Thailand for a much-needed holiday. While I am sure that I won't be able to stop myself from occasionally tweeting links, I will not be posting any Daily Twitter Links until I return to Brisbane on Sunday 11 November 2012.
Here are today's must-reads:
1. Your Employee Is an Online Celebrity. Now What Do You Do?:
Meet your newest management headache: the co-branded employee.
A growing number of professionals are using social media to build a personal, public identity—a brand of their own—based on their work. Think of an accountant who writes a widely read blog about auditing, or a sales associate who has attracted a big following online by tweeting out his store's latest deals.
Co-branded employees may exist largely below the radar now, but that's changing fast, and employers need to start preparing for the ever-greater challenges they pose for managers, co-workers and companies. Their activities can either complement a company's own brand image or clash with it. Companies that fail to make room for co-branded employees—or worse yet, embrace them without thinking through the implications—risk alienating or losing their best employees, or confusing or even burning their corporate brand.
Part of this change is generational. Younger employees show up on the job with an existing social-media presence, which they aren't about to abandon—especially since they see their personal brands lasting longer than any single job or career.
Social-media services like LinkedIn and Facebook also encourage users to build networks and share their professional as well as personal expertise. And increasingly, companies are recognizing that these activities have a business value. When a management consultant leads a large LinkedIn group, he builds a valuable source of referrals and recruitment prospects; when a lawyer tweets the latest legal news, she positions her firm as the go-to experts in that field. How can an employer resist?
And yet, there is a downside: Co-branded employees can raise tough questions about how to contain their online activities—and how to compensate them. It also isn't easy for managers to balance responsibilities among the bloggers and nonbloggers within a team. And it takes an effort to make sure employees' brands align with the company's.
2. 7 Electoral Scenarios Most Likely to Trigger Armed Rebellion:
On November 6, the fate of the free world will be decided by a handful of voters in Iowa, Virginia, Ohio, and Colorado, many of whom will have made up their minds at the last minute after a frantic bout of Googling ("Mitt Romney" + "Gangnam style"). If all goes as planned, the losing candidate will call to graciously congratulate the winning candidate sometime before the East Coast has gone to bed, the losing party will begrudgingly accept the result, and the transfer of power will continue in peace, as it has without exception every four years since 1860.
Probably. But there's another possible outcome: Instead of a smooth transition, the nation could be thrown into a constitutional crisis, or at the very least, a few more weeks of waiting. Here's a look at what could happen, in no particular order of probability ...
3. University ranking goal an empty promise:
THE Asian Century white paper's goal to have 10 Australian universities in the global top 100 by 2025 appears to have no intellectual or policy basis, according to higher education commentator Andrew Norton.
The paper states a "national objective" of 10 institutions in the top 100 on the Shanghai Jiao Tong ranking by 2025. There are five this year.
"There doesn't seem to be any intellectual or policy basis to this target," said Mr Norton, from the Grattan Institute.
"My view is that we shouldn't pay any attention to it.
"Really, the only question should be, are we linked in to global research networks?
"You can do that without any particular rankings, it depends on the quality of your work."
These are some of the other things I've been tweeting about today:
- it looks pretty cool too: "Summly wants to make news summaries cool" http://pjblack.me/Q8IdF9
- "Infographic: How Australians study" http://pjblack.me/Q8cjsh #highered
- "Stunning Photographs Of A Darkened New York City" http://pjblack.me/TZj1lC
- this is exciting - @UseClear for mac: "To-Do Lists Made Breathtakingly Simple - Clear For iPhone and Mac" http://pjblack.me/SxlxgV
- "The States With The Riskiest Voting Technology" http://pjblack.me/Sx0Z8q
- "A Visual History of New York City's Destruction in Fiction" http://pjblack.me/Q6gxR6
- the supreme court has carefully chosen cases to keep the court out of the presidential election: "Above Politics" http://pjblack.me/RqPoU5
- from @THREsq: "'Storage Wars' Star Brandi Passante Sues Over 'Stalker Porn' Video" http://pjblack.me/RqIrCq
- "Your Employee Is an Online Celebrity. Now What Do You Do?" asks the @wsj http://pjblack.me/Q5pGt7
- "How much stamina does it take to become US president?" http://pjblack.me/Q60KSr
- "Tug of War's Path Back to the Summer Olympics" http://pjblack.me/Rqp7W2
- "Mark Cuban: Apple TV Is a Pipe Dream" http://pjblack.me/RqonjE
- "Copyright: The New Mercantilism" http://pjblack.me/RqnJme #lwb486
- "7 Electoral Scenarios Most Likely to Trigger Armed Rebellion" http://pjblack.me/Q5YQRN
- "University ranking goal an empty promise" http://pjblack.me/Snl7XX #highered
- from mungo maccallum: "Australia's decisive leap into the Asian Century" http://pjblack.me/Q5Yyu7 #auspol
- "Say Hello to the Ohio Official Who Might Pick the Next President" http://pjblack.me/RtvmKk
- "Infographic: The 2,000 Most Important Films Of All Time" http://pjblack.me/RtvmtP
- "Zappos Terms Of Service Ruled Invalid" http://pjblack.me/Q5PchO
- "Shelley Miller’s Cake Icing Graffiti" http://pjblack.me/Q5pFph
- this is fun: "‘Inappropriate’ Greeting Cards Made With Venn Diagrams" http://pjblack.me/Q5pF8y
- "Some Of The Best Fan Reactions To The Star Wars Episode 7 Announcement" http://pjblack.me/TUIp5X
- "Chris Christie Moves Halloween By Executive Order" http://pjblack.me/TUIh6E
- "Optus 4G hits Brisbane, Gold Coast" http://pjblack.me/Q6i75q
- "7 Fake Hurricane Sandy Photos You're Sharing on Social Media" http://pjblack.me/Q6h3hX
Follow me on Twitter @peterjblack.
And you can get my latest links anytime on my Rebelmouse social media front page.
