Resume

How to Make a Resume

Because of the volume of resumes employers receive; most of them now use some kind of resume tracking or applicant tracking system. This automates many of the tasks necessary for tracking candidates, and also makes it possible for an employer to find a resume they received months or years later. As a result of the technologies used, its important to keep your resume in a certain format that will be correctly read and interpreted by the systems. This used to be referred to as a "scannable" resume because of the hardware that used to scan paper resumes into the computer. Now, career websites and resumes received via email are "parsed" and stored in a database.
Once your resume is stored electronically, employers use keywords to match the stored resumes with their open positions. In order to find the resumes, employers (and recruiters) use keyword searches, usually a boolean search.
Because of the technologies involved in parsin g the resume, it is important to keep the format of your resume very simple and somewhat plain. This means that you should generally avoid fancy fonts, graphics and and other "special effects" that dont always make it through the technologies correctly, at least for your electronic resume (you might want a more elaborate version to hand out at job fairs, but it really isn't necessary). A resume that is not formatted correctly wont appear in a search for matching keywords, which greatly reduces your chances of landing interviews. I have seen some resumes come through with "gibberish" as a result of the writer trying to use charts or pictures on their resume.

Resume Format >>>
Here are some practical tips for formatting your resume:
Use a simple font. Do not use a decorate font. Times New Roman and Arial parse most accurately and are the "standard" fonts for business communication, which your resume is.
Use a standard font size. For business communications, fonts of 10 and 12 points are the norm.
Avoid using charts, pictures, tables or graphs in your resume. These rarely make it through. If you have information that needs to be in that format, consider an addendum to your resume or, perhaps, a web page that you have created that stores the information, with a link to the web page from your resume.
If you are applying for a job where it's important to show off your formatting or creative skills to land a job, such as a Web Designer or Graphic Artist position, distribute copies of your fancy paper resume at interviews. Better yet, send both a fancy and plain resume format, or create a fancy Web resume and portfolio, and include the URL in your emailed resume or cover letter
Technical Resumes - Tips, Samples, Examples and Templates

Your resume remains one of the most important components of your job search. A well written resume that gives the employer an accurate vi ew of your skills will help you stand out from the crowd. Here are links to some of my favorite resume tips, resume samples and free resume templates. I have also included links to some actual resumes of employees I have hired in the past for various technical companies.

Resume Writing Tips - How Not To Write a Resume
A recent poll of technical recruiters and hiring managers asked for the top "pet peeves" - things they see on resumes and cover letters that make them less interested in speaking with a candidate. These make great examples of how not to write your resume.
Use of the current "tense" in all jobs on the resume.
Writing the resume or cover letter in the third person.
Too many grammar and spelling mistakes.
Use of tiny, tiny fonts (10 pt or less) so as to cram as much information into the resume as possible.
Photos on resumes (this is a cultural preference).
A listing of their personal interests and activitie s.
Sending a resume attachment named 41808res.doc - use your name or descriptive label.
Writing the resume using table formats (columns).
Using a resume that is password protected (without sending the password).
Including references - but not professional ones - just friends and co-workers.
Having no contact information on the resume or including a phone number that is no longer valid.
When a candidate's email address is not appropriate for the work environment. Example: BigFoxyMama@.com
Resumes that are too long. Most seem to feel that general descriptions pertaining to work history for the last 10 years is sufficient.
Resume stuffing, for example, listing of every software application you've ever touched as a "skill".
Education written so its not clear if the degree was obtained.
Job hopping, which could be contract positions but it's not explained. (If you have been on short term contracts, make sure yo u clarify that they are contract jobs).


Top 7 Tips for Effective Resumes
Ever hear the saying "you never get a second chance to make a first impression?" Your resume gives a potential employer a powerful message about what kind of employee you would be. With only a few seconds to capture the attention of the reader and showcase your extensive skills, you need to make the most of your resume. Read on for resume tips and tricks.
1. Resume Tip 1: Spell Check and "Reality Check"
Before you submit your resume, make sure you give it a spell check using your word processing software. After you spell check it, have someone else give it a quick "reality check" to make sure that the spell checker didn't miss anything and to make sure that you didn't make a mistake that your computer can't catch. It is important that you get a second set of eyes to look over the document that could be responsible for your next job.
2. Resume Tip 2: Not Too Long, But Not Too Short
How long should your resume be? This is always a tough call. Some experts believe a one page resume is the perfect length. I would disagree, unless you really have few skills and experiences to share. Go into enough detail to give an accurate view of your skills, but not so long that the reader falls asleep. You do not need to list every project you have ever worked on. Summarize, but be inclusive.
3. Resume Tip 3: Formatting Counts
Have 2 versions of your resume available. One to be viewed online, and one to be handed out at in-person interviews and job fairs. Fancy formatting with pretty fonts, lines, boxes and bullet points just does not make it through on most computers. Anything you send or submit online should have very basic formatting (spacing and paragraph breaks, for example).
4. Resume Tip 4: Keywords are Key
When an employer searches a database, they use keywords. In general, they expect the results to be r epresentative of what they are searching for. This should mean a couple of things to the resume writer:
Include relevant keywords in your resume, because this is how you will be found.
Don't stuff your resume with keywords that are not relevant of your experience. A list of keywords that do not represent your expertise should be avoided.

Check out How to Make a Resume for more on keywords.
5. Resume Tip 5: Include the Basics
A technical resume should include the following information sections.
An objective: 1-2 sentences describing what you want, customize this for the job you are applying for.
Education: Any degrees you have completed or are working on, as well as relevant classes or certifications. Only include your GPA if it is very high.
Experience: List your past employers and/or major projects you have worked on. Start with the most recent.
Technology Summary: List only the technologies you know well.
6 . Resume Tip 6: Have Multiple Versions
If you are in more than one role (or have skills that may fit more than one role) you should have multiple versions of your resume available that highlight those skills. For example, if you have years of experience as a software engineer, and also have project management expertise, have two resumes: one highlighting your software engineer experience and another highlighting your project management experience.
7. Resume Tip 7: Make Your Resume Viewable
Recruiters and hiring managers like to search and "source" for candidates. If your resume (or bio) is not someplace where an employer can find it, then they don't know you exist. In addition to the regular job boards.

Resume Writing - Guidelines for New Grads

Resume Writing A Guide for New Grads

Purpose of Resume Writing
When you are writing your resume, it is important to keep in mind the purpose of the resume. The resume is meant to spark interest in you as a candidate. Your resume writing should be with the intent to get an interview, not a job offer. It is not meant to list every single course, skill or accomplishment you have. Remember, resumes get interviews, not jobs.
The resume should do the following:
Create a positive first impression. This is done by showcasing your communication skills and making the resume easy to read. The resume should be succinct and easy to follow.
Tell who you are. When you are writing your resume, you are telling the reader who you are and why they should consider you for a position.
Describe what you have learned. Especially for a new grad, your resume should highlight the courses and projects that are applicable for the job you hope to be hired for.
List your accomplishments. Your resume should highlight any special accomplishments you have achieved. If you made a 4.0 while working full time, were awarded a special scholarsh ip, or received special recognition of some kind, it should be listed under your accomplishments.
In order to make your resume pleasant and easy to read, you will want to follow some resume format guidelines. The resume format is important because you want to make sure to keep the readers interest and, ultimately, be called for the interview. A poorly formatted resume, one that is hard to read, contains many errors, or doesnt flow well, is not likely to accomplish your goal.
Resume Format General Guidelines
The following guidelines follow typical resume format and business letter writing standards. These a general resume format rules:
Font size of 10 or 12
Perfectly typed with about a 1 inch margin (even if sending via email, since it will likely be printed out)
Use only one font. You may vary size for emphasis, if necessary.
Do not use different font styles. If you need to call attention to something, you can bold it, but use this sparingly.
Avoid all-capital letters and italics as they are difficult to read.
Resume Format - Section Titles
Begin your resume with a heading which includes your name, address, phone number and email address. This is usually centered at the top or left justified.
Omit personal information such as age, sex, or marital status.
The resume objective states the position type you are seeking. It looks very professional if you tailor the objective to the position you are applying for. Other than that, don't make this section too narrow.
A well organized technical skills or career skills section can be placed after the objective. This should include skills in which you are at least proficient.
The education section should identify your training by listing the university(s) attended with degree(s) conferred, major, and grade point average.
The work experience section comes next and details the most recent positions or areas of ex pertise first and continues in reverse chronological order. Project experience can be listed here if you don't have any formal work experience. I also see many graduates add internships and their larger projects in this section.
The accomplishments section comes last and highlights specific areas in which you have excelled, including leadership activities, memberships, and honors or awards.
Before Writing Your Resume
Before you sit down to write your resume, it is helpful to think through a couple of points. The first is to think in keyword terms, because employers will use them to search for resumes.
Some general keyword examples:
Ability to ... (delegate, supervise, etc.), analytical ability, detail oriented, problem solving, results oriented, communication skills, team leader, lead
Some technology industry examples:
Software, systems, UNIX, Linux, SQL, Oracle, java, .NET, Operating System, CAD, Mechanical systems, Design, OO Programm ing, SDLC, coded, programmed, administered, engineer, programmer, developer, network, Cisco, Microsoft
Tips for Resume Design
The following tips for resume design will help ensure that your resume is easy to read and can be parsed to a resume database properly.
Keep the resume design simple. Using a standard resume template will help with this.
Use standard font styles (Times New Roman and Arial are standard.
Use a font size from 10 to 14. Font sizes of 10 and 12 are standard, with some titles and headings in a larger font.
Avoid 'fancy' styles (italics, underline, bold, fancy fonts etc.).
Do not use horizontal or vertical lines, graphics, charts, tables or boxes. They don't parse well to resume databases and they often print out looking funky.
Use bold fonts for section headings.
Use common names for section headings (i.e., Education, Experience, Technical Sills, etc.)
Put your name at the beginning of the res ume, with contact information on separate lines, immediately following the name. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to have to read through the entire resume to find an email or phone number.
Avoid abbreviations, except for popular acronyms.
Be concise in your descriptions of projects and work experience. Longer is not necessarily better!
After the Resume
After the resume is written, make sure to proofread. See these Resume Tips for more ideas that will help ensure your resume gives the best first impression possible!
Print the resume out, to see how it looks for a manager that might prefer hard copies. Adjust any spacing as necessary. You will want printed resume copies to take with you to job fairs and interviews.
Sample Resume - Experienced New Grad Resume Sample
Resume Sample - New Grad
This resume sample is from an experienced new grad. Use this resume sample as a guide for writing your own resume.

James Shah
1255 University Avenue
Sacramento, CA -95825
(916) 555-1111
jshah@email dot com

Objective
To obtain a challenging internship/full time position in the field of Computer Science and Software Engineering.

Education
M.S. in Computer Science, California State University, Sacramento, CA, USA GPA- 3.7/4.0
B.E in Computer Engineering, C.U.Shah Engineering College, India GPA-3.8/4.0
Skills Inventory
Programming Languages: BASIC, C, C++, VB6.0, PROLOG, COBOL, VC++, HTML, DHTML, J2EE, JSP, JAVA, ASP, ASP.NET, C#.NET, PHP, XML,JCL
Communication/Network Protocols : TCP/IP, Mobile IP, VoIP, 802.11
Operating Systems: UNIX, Linux, SUN Solaris, Windows NT, Windows 2000 server, HP-UX ,Mainframe
Database: Oracle 8i, SQL, MS Access 2000, FoxPro, Microsoft SQL server 2000, MySql server 5.0, DB2

Experience:
Intern Data Analyst, May 06-sep 06, Vision Service Plan (VSP):
Migration of Metadata web site:
Phase 1: Move the Old Web Site to new IIS server: Since the Metadata web site was running on old IIS box, we were facing the speed and crashing issues everyday. So the first phase of this project was to move the current structure of Metadata web site which is ASP pages and MS Access Database to new server.
Phase 2: Migrate the Database from Access to DB2: Due to the business need and reliability issues, Data base of Metadata was migrated from Access Data base to DB2 Database. I was responsible for designing the new database schema, conversion of all the queries into the DB2 compatible format, as well as change the ASP code to fetch correct data using DB2 database.

Phase 3: Change the Front end: To make the Metadata web site more user friendly, I have re design all the ASP pages and added some extra facilities which can help the user to find information easily. The new front end is more organized and meets all the standards of VSP intranet.
Projects

Data mart design and implementation for Engineering Dept of CSUS (M.S. Project): To maintain the quality education of CSUS, design the web site and accept the feed back from the users i.e. faculty, students and workers about the quality of education, current majors offered by CSUS, Courses offered, Lab facilities as well as the education level of faculty members using ASP.NET and store that data into data mart using OLAP facilities of Analysis Manager of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and generate useful reports using Pivot tables of MS Excel. The current statistics are on MS Access 2000.

Data link layer: Designed and implemented a data link layer services using UNIX and C Socket utilities. The Project provides all the functionalities of the data link layer like flow control, error control using CRC-16 protocol, piggybacking, and compression using algorithm at client and server.
Executi on of the Instruction Using Pipelining: Using Hardware Language, Verilog, implement the 5 stages of the pipeline with nop as a detection and correction of the data hazard between multiple instructions, which are executing simultaneously in the pipelining and also generate the corresponding control signal using hardwired and microcode logic.

Voice Recognition: Software that can recognize the voice identifies the pitch of the tone and makes a graph of the comparison, and telephony application to record your messages. Online Hotel Booking: Developing a 3-tier application for hotel booking using J2EE, JSP, JDBC, My SQL Server 4.1 and HTML, Tomcat Server.
Design basic Compiler Utilities Using SML: For a given source code and grals grammar definition, provide parsing which can convert the given source code into abstract syntax, provide static semantic to validate the given code, provide dynamic semantic to generate the desirable result for given source code.
Solv e problem definition using various Algorithms: Develop various Algorithms such as Divide and Conquer, Backtracking, Dynamic Programming, Branch and Bound to solve given problem.

Design SRS for Iguana Vision Inc.: As a part of SDLC, Design the SRS document to specify the functional and non-functional requirements as they pertain to the intended product to be designed by Iguana Vision, Inc for Single Medical Provider Franchise. The scope of this document is to describe the proposed inputs, outputs, problems, proposed logical & technical solutions to those problems and project management aspects which can help to take design, development and validation related decisions. Here Client wishes to expand their medical practice by providing a single provider franchise license with turn key software to manage the business. One key portion of business management is the scheduling and management of client appointments for different types of services using Use case diagram, ER D, Data Dictionary, Class Diagram and UML modeling.
Relevant Courses:
Mobile Computing
Programming Language Principles
Advanced Computer Networks
Database Design
Data Model &Data Management System
Data warehousing and Data Mining
Software Engineering
Telecommunication Network Management
Algorithm and Paradigms
Computer Architecture
Data Mining and Data warehouse
Honors & Activities
Presented a National Level Paper on "Hacking" at C. U. Shah College of Engineering and Technology, Surendranagar, India.
Lead the Technical Committee in and organized Technophile State level symposium.
PROFILE: Sincere, Hardworking, Self Motivated, excellent written & oral communications skills, quick-learner, Team-Player, Able to adapt to new work environments & situations, possesses responsible leadership qualities.

Example of a Software Engineer Resume

oe Employee
555 Main Street
Sacramento, CA 95628
myname@myemail dot com
(555)555-1111


SUMMARY
A results-driven, customer-focused, articulate and analytical Senior Software Engineer who can think "out of the box". Strong in design and integration problem solving skills. Expert in Java, C#, .NET, and T-SQL with database analysis and design. Skilled in developing business plans, requirements specifications, user documentation, and architectural systems research. Strong written and verbal communications. Interested in a challenging technical track career in an application development environment.
Experienced in:
Engineering web development, all layers, from database to services to user interfaces
Supporting legacy systems with backups of all cases to/from parallel systems
Analysis and design of databases and user interfaces
Managing requirements
Implementing software development life cycle policies and procedures
Managing and supporting multiple projects
Highly adaptable in quickly changing technical environments with very strong organizational and analytical skills


EMPLOYMENT

E*Trade Financial, Sacramento, CA July 2002 Present

Software Engineer (Customer Service Systems)
Re-engineered customer account software systems used by brokerage teams. Web developer for user interfaces to trading inquiries, support parallel systems.
Developed and implemented new feedback system for users concerns, bugs, and defect tracking regarding use and functionality of new interfaces.
Coded web designed interfaces using Java, XML, XSL, AJAX, and JWS.
Support system for existing intranet for employees, including designing and developing the Advantage@Work system company wide.
Code and support provided through ASP.NET, T-SQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle 9i.
C ollaborated in the development of in-house development of new banking software interfaces. Supported existing legacy system to provide newly created cases and insured they were available in the systems in parallel until legacy systems were retired.
Intel Corporation, Folsom, CA Jan 2000 Jul 2002
Systems Programmer (Remote Servers and SSL Product Analyst)
Deployed and tested Remote Installation Services(RIS)-Server Installs on Windows XP.
Focused deployment of Server builds and handled some client builds.
Modified Visual Basic applications for use in post-server builds for customizing builds.
Researched RIS and Active Directory for future deployment world-wide. Presented findings to both the Networking Operating System Network Technology Integration team and the Microsoft Joint Development Team (JDP) at Intel. Produced a document binder for RIS and Active Directory to follow the project to the next team representative.
Wrote bi-m onthly progress reports, participated in weekly staff meetings and JDP team meetings designed to develop white paper processing.
Provide technical support to the SSL team, managing inventory.
Participated in testing and use of new SAP system as it was integrated into Intel.
Managed Chipset products for IO Business Units.
CSU Chico, Chico, CA 2000 2002
Business Department (Visual Basic Teaching Assistant)
Computer Science Department (Supervisor MS Office Suite Teaching Assistant)
Supervised all lab assistants, guiding them with student project development.
Provided one-to-one guidance with Visual Basic programming instruction techniques.
Wrote small program projects for assignments.
Presented structured learning labs where students could ask questions regarding Visual Basic Programming construct and syntax.
Prepared structured teaching guides pertaining to chapter material that complimented the lectures by the professor.
Provided customized software for tracking student progress throughout the semester. It included reporting for the professor on assessments, projects, homework, lab work, attendance, and overall grades.


SOFTWARE SKILLS
Experience with:
Databases: MySQL, Oracle, Access, SAP
Software: Microsoft Office, Remedy, Microsoft SQL Server, DB Artisan, Eclipse, Visual Studio.NET, FrontPage
Languages: C#, Java, Visual Basic, ASP, XML, XSL, JWS, SQL, and T-SQL
EDUCATION

CALIFORINA STATE UNIVERSITY, Chico, CA
BS Computer Science/ Business Minor
4.0/4.0 GPA
COLLEGE OF THE SISKIYOUS, Weed, CA
AS Computer Science

3 sample of General resume

Sample: Resume


FirstName LastName
87 Washington Street
Hopedale, NY 11233
Phone: 555-555-5555
Email: xxxxx@xyz.edu

EDUCATION

XY Z UNIVERSITY
Hopedale, NY: BA, American Studies
Cumulative GPA: 3.93

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY STUDY ABROAD
University of Trier, Germany (Summer 2005)

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY
Washington, DC: Washington Semester in American Politics (Spring 2004)

RESEARCH AND ANALYTICAL EXPERIENCE

U.S. Department of Education
Intern, Office of the Deputy Secretary (Spring 2005)
Generated concise written synopses of current legislative action for use by the Department, Congress members, and the general public through the ED website.
Researched and presented to policymakers several successful school design and construction projects to support the Administration Schools as Centers of Community proposal.
Washington Semester Independent Research Project
American University (Spring 2004)
Examined how the increasing dependence of needy students on federal loans instead of grants for higher education has affected college access and enrollment; culminating in 65-page paper
Historical Society of Saratoga Springs
Research Assistant (Spring 2003)
Researched archival materials, wrote text panels and selected objects for a historical exhibit on Saratoga in the 1930s

LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE

Vice President/Academic Affairs
Student Government Association, XYZ University (2003-2004)
Chaired 60-member body representing each academic department and student perspectives on curricular issues
Participated in college-wide policy decisions concerning such ethical issues as the sale of cigarettes on campus
Made detailed oral and written presentations of curricular reform actions in public student fora
Presidential Search Committee
XYZ University (2002-2004)
Served as one of two students on a college-wide committee to nominate the sixth President of XYZ University, through all stages including:

o A detailed self-study of institutional needs and goals to determine selection criteria
o Search for, and hire of, a higher-education specialty consultant
o Written evaluation of each applicant, interviews and final recommendation to the Board of Trustees
Honors Forum Council
Student Body Representative, XYZ University (2001-2002)
Set goals and guidelines for the first two years of Skidmore?019s innovative, comprehensive honors program whose mission is to increase intellectual engagement and academic rigor in students?019 freshman and sophomore years

ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES

Student Alumni Society: Founding Member (2002-present)
Committee on Academic Freedoms: Student Representative (2002-present)
Skidmore Orchestra: French Horn (2001-present)
American Studies Club: Secretary (2001-present)

COMPUTER/LANGUAGE SKILLS

Prof icient in written and spoken German
Extensive experience with Internet Explorer, HTML, Lexis-Nexis and Microsoft Office

Sample 2: Resume

FIRSTNAME LASTNAME
67-61 75th Street
Any town, NY 00000
(555) 555-5555 xxxxxxxxxx@aol.com 87 Washington Street
Hopedale, NY 11233
(555) 555-5555
xxxxxxx@xyz.edu

________________________________________

EDUCATION

XYZ University
Bachelor of Arts, May 2000
Major: Psychology. Minor: Studio Art
Hopedale, NY

BRITISH AMERICAN COLLEGE OF LONDON
Student during the semester of Spring 1999 London, ENGLAND


EXPERIENCE

Fall 1999 AMERICA READS PROJECT
Tutor
Assisted children ages 6-7 with the fundamentals of reading
Aided with capitalization, punctuation and printing
Read stories aloud, entreating children to addr ess content
Helped with other activities, from math assignments to art projects
Eased frustration by providing support and encouragement Hopedale, NY
1997-1999 XXX CAREER SERVICES

Office Assistant

Gathered alumni career surveys and updated hundreds of data files utilizing Microsoft Access
Maintained employer literature and credential, counseling and recruiting information files
Compiled materials needed for mailing of credential requests
Performed various administrative duties Hopedale, NY
Summer 1999 CITYARTS, INC.
Intern
Researched corporate and foundation funding sources, using resources at the Foundation Center
Drafted preliminary correspondence with possible philanthropists
Prepared grant applications and supporting materials
Helped with fundraising events such as benefit auction
Provided general office support New York, NY
Summer 1999 MUSEUM OF AFRICAN ART< /p>

Artist Assistant

Supervised young participants in painting workshop
Aided children in the creative process by providing support with painting
Assisted the lead artist in all phases of project implementation, from hanging canvases to cleaning workspace New York, NY
Fall 1995 NEW YORK PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH GROUP
Volunteer
Collaborated with others to rebuild a brownstone in Brooklyn under the auspices of Habitat for Humanity
Recruited others to participate in NYPIRG meetings and events
Posted material around the Queens College campus which advocated public awareness of issues Flushing, NY


SPECIAL SKILLS/TRAVEL

Microsoft Word, Microsoft Access, Netscape, and research databases, including PsychInfo. Travel throughout Europe.

Resume Sample 3: Resume/Student

FirstName LastName
email: xxxxxxx@xyz.edu

PRESENT AD DRESS:
XYZ University
Hopedale, NY 11233
(555) 555-5555 PERMANENT ADDRESS
155 Essex Street
Anytown, CT 00000
(555) 555-5555
________________________________________
EDUCATION

XYZ University, Hopedale, NY
Candidate for Bachelor of Arts, May 2000
Major: Government 3.83 GPA Minor: Business 3.87 GPA

The Williams School, New London, CT
High School Degree, June 1995

WORK EXPERIENCE

Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., New Haven CT, Summer 1999
Completed a rigorous internship working closely with retail and institutional brokers examining US markets and industries. Researched and analyzed equities, derivatives, and bonds utilizing Merrill Lynch computer systems.

Hartford Superior Court, Hartford CT, Summer 1998
Conducted in-depth project studying daily flow within the courthouse including data collection and analysis utilizin g Microsoft Excel. Participated in data correction and filing in both criminal and civil case flow offices.

ACTIVITIES/SERVICE

Social Integrity Board Chairman, XYZ University, Fall 1999 Present
Appointed by Student Government Association Executive Committee and confirmed by Student Senate as member of Social Integrity Board. Adjudicate and sanction students in violation of the XXX Student Codes of Conduct. Lead board members in delivering opinions and sanctions to students in hearings and written form. Conduct cases in close collaboration with Head of Residential Life and examine XXX's social policies and honor code.

Student Speakers Bureau Member, XYZ University, Fall 1998 Present
Allocate funds to various organizations throughout the XXX community to bring speakers to campus.

COMPUTER SKILLS

Microsoft Office 2000
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Access Po werPoint
WordPerfect
Lotus 1-2-3 I.E. 4.0 and Netscape 4.6
Adobe PhotoShop 5.0
HTML/Web Publishing

iAutoblog the premier autoblogger software

Be The Media — Creating and Accelerating Your Message

In February of 2009 Michelle Tennant Nicholson of Wasabi Publicity, Inc., sat down to speak with David Mathison author of Be the Media the ultimate guide on how to create and accelerate your message your way. From self-published authors, bloggers to community owned TV, film producers and musicians, there has never been such a comprehensive guide. Phil Donahue said this book, "Takes publishing and broadcasting power away from industrial titans and hands it to you."

Here's the transcript:

Michelle Tennant: Hi everyone. It is February 19th and I'm Michelle Tennant. I am known to most as Story Teller to the Media and you can actually read my blog at storytellertothemedia.com. I co-own Wasabi Publicity, Incorporated and also a technology company that is best known for presskit247.com. And what I want to do today is talk to you and everybody on the call about David Mathison, who I'm going to introduce in just a minute. But let's do a little bit of housekeeping first.

This is what we generally have been doing for years and years and years, something called the Wasabi Club, so it's a very informal meeting where we get to talk about a compelling topic in the area of PR and marketing. And rather than just having a bunch of talking heads at you, we actually open up the forum so that it's more like a club atmosphere, like we would just be sitting around having drinks somewhere and shooting I almost said a little blue word there (laughs) that's how casual we are, I almost said a cuss word but they are just like talking about different things that we would in our trade anyway, and we just kinda open it up to business owners in case they wanna find out publicists and marketing professionals and all of us who are getting the buzz out there, what we actually talk about.

And so, if you're with us and you want to just put us on the speaker and you want to mute yourself, you wanna hit *6, to mute yourself and to unmute yourself and you wanna actually ask a question or talk with us, you hit *7. And I'll actually remind you about that in the future. So, but anyway, without any further adieux, I want to talk about this great, great guy that we have today for the Wasabi Club. His name is David Mathison. So, not only did he just write this op Be The Media, which you can, if you're in front of your computer, which most of us are, you can just go right to Bethemedia.com and look at it. But he is also just somebody who used to be a [skip] let me just do the bio, some of the accolades I have right here in front of me, cause he is a pretty big deal. I'm very excited to have him here. So, David, you got a lot of stuff here. I'm just gonna go for it. Okay?

David Mathison: Sure.

Michelle Tennant: From 1998 to 2002, he was the founder and CEO of Kinecta, a syndication services provider for you know, they do Reuters, the Financial Times, The Economist, Dow Investments and Yahoo. I mean you get the picture of how big deal this guy is. So, as CEO, Mathison raised $30 million in venture in strategic funding in less than two years. And now, Kinecta is actually part of Oracle, which most of us know. And before that, Mathison was the Vice President for Reuters, the world's largest news agency where he pioneered standard base online syndication.

So, if you're in the PR industry, Reuters is like big, big deal, in the line with all the other big syndicaters like the Associate Press and so forth, so you get a Reuters hit as a publicist, then you got that hanging that up on your wall as something that you're really proud of. And the other thing that he does, is that he really is, he serves on the board [beep] Media Freedom Foundation, The Mountain Play and webhood.org and served on the board of Conveners of Marin Community Media Center. So some of the people from California might actually be on and be really excited to hear from David today, too. And he has a Masters Degree in International Affairs from Columbia University.

And so, all that expert in every area and we're really excited. If you haven't already gotten a copy of Be the Media, you've got to, cause this is one of those books that is really gonna be a bible for many of us for the future, especially when it comes to doing it yourself and doing it your way, rather than actually being pushed or really forced into a particular way of doing something that doesn't really fit with your own integrity. So, it really is an honor and a privilege to speak to you today, David. Welcome.

David Mathison: Thanks so much Michelle. Hi everybody from the Wasabi Club and others who have joined the call from some of my tweets maybe, and some of my Facebook status, I'm glad you're all here.

Michelle Tennant: Yeah, and so here's how it goes, okay? On the Wasabi Club first of all, we do sort of a little reality sort of check in with what I'm dealing with, at Wasabi Publicity and our campaigns, and then we kind of open it up to other people who are on the phone to really talk about what's on their minds with regards to well this particular talk we're gonna talk about Twitter. So, I'm gonna give you an opportunity to talk about that in just a minute, but let me first pose a question. So if we go through the call, what we all like to do, cause the miracle of the Wasabi Club from the past is we [skip] pose in our club and then somebody will find a solution that benefits all of us, and I've gotten emails that they're like, my god, you know?

I took the suggestion of what other people on the Wasabi Club said and I completely revamped my business and doing really well and so forth. So, I've been pretty amazed at some of the brainstorming and the creative energy that comes out of these calls. So, I would also like to leave the call today with something fresh for all of us. I mean, a lot of us are already using Twitter. We're already using social networking sites [skip] gonna tell us today, David, about the do it your self way and how we can actually all be the media. But I'm really interested in what's relevant and on our minds today.

So, I'll pose the first challenge, if you will. So, one of the things that I do everyday, David, is I'm out talking to the media and pitching them story ideas on my clients. And I oftentimes struggle between knowing, do I use Twitter for that or should I use personalized emails? It used to be, because I've been doing this for 20 years, [beep] pretty clear. You pick up the phone. You send some mail. You actually maybe you know, well it used to be just fax, you couldn't even send an email. Today you've got the email factor. How do you know when it's the best to actually send it via a social networking site or send it through an email?

I think what I'm doing right now, just to give you kind of an insight, is if I know my person that I'm targeting doesn't really like email, and I'm trying to get her attention? Like I did this today, actually, cause I knew that she actually pays more attention to her social networking site, so I sent her a message through linked-in and I got a message right away back. I was like "Oh, awesome", you know? So, but I knew that if I sent her an email, sometimes her emails get lost. So, how would you advise the rest of us on how to prioritize whether we're using Twitter, linked-in, and the rest and [beep] you actually give advice on which one, maybe give us a little one liner on what it is, a little definition in case there actually is somebody on the line who might not know what we're talking about.

David Mathison: You really have to establish relationships. I mean, that's exactly the point of my call today, which is a lot of people are joining the call because they heard that I sold 5,004 books on Twitter through one connection and they're kinda like "Oh my god. I wanna know how that happened." And to be honest, just like you said, it's really understanding -. It's just basic follow up and follow through on understanding who's listening and what way they prefer to have their information.

You know, it's funny. I sent out a tweet, a direct message yesterday. I was announcing my book launch and the person said "No, not interested." And then I followed up with an email on Facebook and said "Do you mind if we have a phone call?" and I gave her a little bit more information. And we followed up on a phone call today and sure enough, now she's in the plan. So, you know, sometimes it really, I think especially for those high end journalists and those people who are really busy everyday, some of them prefer email, some of them prefer linked-in, some of them prefer telephones, but it really is a requirement of everybody out there to get to know the audience.

And just if we speak specifically to Twitter, you'd be surprised at how quickly giant news organizations, like I have a lot of journalists following my Twitter feed and the New York Times, CNN, even Rick Sanchez and others at CNN have Twitter feeds and they're watching it. And even with Reuters, you know, Biz Stone, the founder of Twitter was interviewed by Roy O'Connor and Biz said that Reuters began watching Twitter for trends and found out that it worked really well and the Twitter folks even gave [skip] to the Reuters lab people so that they could use it more effectively. So, it's interesting.

Sometimes Twitter is used especially for breaking events. The recent earthquake in California, it was announced nine minutes before the first Associated Press alert came out. The earthquake was already being used in Twitter. So, like journalists are actually watching Twitter for breaking news. Now how bizarre is that? Usually Reuters and Associated Press are fighting each other to basically be the lead on the story, to be the first news organization to announce these stories, and now some of these news organizations are watching Twitter feeds to find out breaking news. It's fascinating.

Michelle Tennant: And don't you remember also, years ago, before we really started using social networking, the news sources were really watching bloggers. So, it's interesting to see the entire environment on the internet evolve and grow, don't you think?

David Mathison: Absolutely and that's interesting, too, because now we've had a saddle search engines like Google for websites, and now we've got Technorati for blogs and recently, Twitter just bought a search engine Sumize I think it's called, and so that, again is critical for journalists because now imagine if you could search the real Twitter stream. It was great to, you know, Google search on websites can be days or even weeks old. But a Technorati search on a blog can be the same day. Well, if you could get almost instantaneous news by searching the Twitter stream, that's a really powerful tool. So Twitter has got some really interesting applications happening as we speak.

Michelle Tennant: So to your advice to someone like me, a publicist who's pitching people like I mean, right before the call I got off helping Good Morning America with something, yet another segment. And so, you know, I've got regular producers and reporters to rely on me to connect them with families, to connect them with reliable, credible sources. You know, I've got different tools that I've created with my IT team. Like we've got a, like I was talking about with our online press kits.

We just launched something last week called pitchrate.com and if you're in front of your computer you can actually take a look at it. Pitchrate.com is a free service where we're connecting the media with experts and people who want to serve the media, so the media in a closed manner so they don't actually have to share their email address, they can go on there and say "This is the need that I have." And then all the experts and all the publicists can pitch them and it's rated based on the star system, one to five stars. And then the experts can then be rated in the future. So I've got those tools and then I've got I'm just getting -.

It's like my crayon box is getting really full, David, right? So what crayon do I pull out? So then I'll play, you know, I'm [skip] miracle I'm like, "Use pitch rate cause pitch rate is really one of those tools that's gonna be efficient use for all [skip] to really connect with the media in the background and stuff, but when I'm actually driving for a relationship, you know, what is that? A phone call or -? Like how do you know? How do you know when you're actually using your social networking tools and when you pull out the crayon from the crayon box, what are you asking yourself?

David Mathison: Right, and it gets more and more challenging as you build out your base. So, I've got 3,500 followers in Facebook and 2,500 followers on Twitter, like how do you really identify "Well out of each of these followers, who are the most important people?" You know, according to the story or according to topic and that's where I say, like the whole point of my being on this call today is to say that yes, I've sold 5,004 books through a Twitter connection, but it was good old fashioned gumshoe. You know, it was good old fashioned finding out. I think a lot of people are on Twitter now or on Facebook and just basically aggregating followers or aggregating friends and not really taking the time to find out who those friends and followers are.

The whole point of my call today is to say "You need to treat these followers as [beep] gold. You know, if you're not doing the hard work of finding out "Okay, who is that person that just followed me? Let me go to their Twitter profile. Let me go to their -." On their Twitter profile, they have a link to a blog or to a website, let's go to their blog. Let's go to their website. Let's go search them on Facebook and see what they have on their info page in Facebook and befriend them and find out more and more about them. And I think the more that you find out about your leads, the better able you'll be able to determine how they want to be followed up with.

And interestingly enough, this 5,004 book sale came from a Twitter follow up and then I followed up with them and then I went to their Facebook page and then I went to their homepage and then I went to their blog and really, it was just doing old fashioned detective work to find out how that person wanted to be approached and what the message should be that I would approach them with. And we can get into the details of that if you like because it's kind of a fascinating story of -.

Michelle Tennant: No, I really do. We're gonna give you a chance to do that in just a minute, David. Usually right about 15 minutes after the Wasabi Club, I actually take a moment and say "For those of you who want to ask questions, remember it *7 to unmute yourselves. If you're having lunch or making noise in the background, you want to mute yourself, just hit *6. I intentionally now I can mute all y'all, but I actually want us to have a conversation. So this is the time we're now gonna move into the next phase, where we're actually gonna start doing some Q&A with David.

But let's just give him about five minute to really kind of round out the story of how it happened, because I know that's what we're all really in here today. And then we'll actually move into questions and answers and so forth, so I'll let you know when we're gonna open up for questions, but David, go ahead and I really wouldn't have -. What I'm hearing you say today, is "Look, Michelle, you're already doing a lot of work on the phone and with your email and maybe spend as much time developing those Twitter connections that you would in developing those relationships on the phone." That's what I'm hearing you say.

David Mathison: Everybody is an important, you know, anyone that comes and follows you in Twitter could be a critical lead for you, absolutely. And treat it just like you would treat any other relationship and really investigate that. Now maybe you'll find that nine out ten, but you get the same thing at a trade conference, right? Nine of ten leads maybe not into anything at all, but there may be one golden lead in there and I think that's what I see a lot of going on, is that a lot of people are just treating them as just followers and not really treating them as leads and as human beings and people that they may have interesting partnership opportunities with.

Michelle Tennant: Well as you're talking about Twitter, if you're in front of your computer, let's all go to David and so that we're following him, follow him, it's Twitter.com/Bethemedia, so I'm looking now. Of course, please follow me too. I don't have thousands and thousands like David does, by I'm Twitter.com/michelletennant. But go ahead David, I'm on here with you. I'm lookin at there you are. You've told everybody about the Wasabi Club today and take us back in time before you sold the 5,000. I wanna know.

David Mathison: That's actually we should. Maybe we'll take a step back, I mean the big point I want to get across is somebody followed me on Twitter. In one day they bought I then had an auto response message. Whenever I get a follower, it automatically replies, "Thank you for following me on Twitter. I like you already." You know, something silly, but then pointing them to my website. And it's the result of that pointer to my website ended up that the follower bought four books. So, of course, whenever somebody buys a book, I jump for joy, but when someone buys five books I'm ready to send roses.

So, I sent them a direct message saying "Well thank you very much." And then that turned into ten days later, that within a couple of days, I was invited to speak at Baruch College in New York City, from this same connection on a symposium on sustainable journalism. And then that was basically the night after that, we shook hands on a 5,000 book deal and 20 days later, from initial contact, I had a wire transfer into my account for 5,000 books. So I sold 5,004 books. But it's interesting, I think I'm gonna go back a little bit because not everyone's really on the same page with Twitter. Let's make sure everyone kind of understands what it is and how to use it.

Michelle Tennant: Yeah, please. That's great.

David Mathison: Three years ago, when I heard of Twitter, I thought it was just a silly little toy, you know, you're limited to 140 characters and so you can't really tell a large story, but based on what happened to me over the last 20 days, I can say it's definitely not a toy. But I also don't wanna lay down any dogma. There's no right way or wrong way to do it, but like every community, there is some etiquette you should be aware of and you should follow. But my big point today is absolutely, positively make sure you follow up on leads wherever they come from. So, if you're not on Twitter, make sure you go to Twitter.com, join right away and put in a unique user name, either your name or the name of your business.

Michelle Tennant: Yeah, maybe I could do both, David, now that I'm seeing what you've done here. Maybe I should go snag, you know with some of the stuff related to my businesses and my brand.

David Mathison: Snag or stop it, yeah.

Michelle Tennant: Do you do both?

David Mathison: Yeah, I do both and I put my name in parentheses. You can do that, too. I think down the road, you know, my company I'm trying not to build a kind of cultist personality or else we would have a lot of internet marketers, if you get sick or Steve Jobs, or Martha Stewart you get thrown in jail. You know, your whole stock price goes down with the cultist personality. So I try to keep the business separate from my personal life, but in social media, it is really important to have a picture of yourself up, but again, no dogma. I don't use a picture of myself. I use a picture of my brand and my company.

There may come a time down the road where I'll put my own personal account where I'll just be tweeting personal messages, but right now, it's really focused on the company, Be the Media. So, put a picture up for sure. People want to network with people and see that you have a picture up and then tweet a few things that might leave a lasting impression on people. There's a great book that you might want to get started with. It's by Warren Whitlock. That's W-H-I-T-L-O-C-K. You can follow him at Twitter.com/warrenwhitlock.

And actually, if you are on line and you want to go look at his profile, Warren has written a great book called Twitter Revolution and you can see if you're an author listening, you can see that in Warren's profile, he has a picture of his book. So, it's great. You can see his profile to the right. He's listed that he's the publisher of the Twitter Handbook and the more information that you put into your profile, the better because this gives people an opportunity to follow up with you and get more information about you.

So, a little bit more about Twitter, though, before we get into detail. You're limited to 140 characters, so you really have to be concise. It's kind of like Haiku. And about 6 million people are already on Twitter and about three months ago, Twitter rejects a $500 million take over offer from Facebook. It's just a small [beep] 30 person company, raised about $55 million and basically, they've put up this stage where you can kind of express yourself and connect with a community. And all of your messages are sort of known as tweets and you can send them from your computer, but you can also send them from your mobile phone. And usually what people do is they set up their account, which we've done now and we start following people. So the real goal is to try to get well, I shouldn't say real goal' is to get a lot of followers.

There's two trains of thought on that, but you do want to build up a base of followers that relate to whatever it is you're doing or selling or talking about. So, I started out with just friends and family and then I started building that out into colleagues. Again, I was in sort of the toy phase, but then I started seeing how other people were really building it to create these big communities of followers. And so there are ways, too, to build out your followers and there's a couple of tools one place I would point everybody to is Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg.com, wrote a great little article. You could Google it. It's called "Ten ways to increase you Twitter followers."

And Kevin basically says things like retweetings, filling out your bio, linking to other people, using hash tags, following top Twitter users and things like that. And those were all useful tools. And then there's the other line of thought from people like Robert Scovil, if you read through all the comments on that post by Kevin Rose, you'll really get some great ideas and you'll see some of the different ways of using Twitter, but Robert Scovil, he has like 50,000 followers or something. He said a couple of great ways to get followers are to survive a plane crash and tweet it, get arrested and tweet from jail. Have sex with someone famous and tweet that. You know, he's kind of poking fun at it, but the whole point isn't really to get tons and tons of followers, but to really say important things and to get people to follow you because of the content that you give them and not just because you're aggregating, you know, kind of a dead list.

You want to get people who are really engaged in what you have to say. And that's kind of what happened to me, you know, I started at this point, I'm building out a base. The other thing about Twitter is it can get out of control really quickly as you start to build out your base of fans. So you really want to have an application that can assist you in managing all of your Twitter followers. So, I would suggest things like Twhirl.com which is T-W-H-I-R-L dot com. And that basically just allows it sits on top of like Windows or Mac operating systems and lets you do all kinds of makes life a lot easier. There's another tool called Tweetdeck, T-W-E-E-T-D-E-C-K, which is another application that basically let's you manage you're friends as you get more and more followers.

Michelle Tennant: I have a question about that because I don't know we also work closely with Dan Hollings, and he has a Twitter toolbar and he's also got he's at Twitter.com/dhollings. He's one of the internet strategists behind that smash hit movie The Secret, and I'm just wondering if you like how do you know the difference between the bars? Because he's also got like a little Twitter bar and he did 100 Secrets to Twitter, and that kind of thing, so I'm just what would be your recommendation on that, David, on like whose bar do you take?

David Mathison: I'm not sure what you mean by whose bar'.

Michelle Tennant:: He's got like a little bar that you put at the top of your you know, you could put like a tool bar at the top of your computer.

David Mathison: Oh, yeah. Like I recommend Twhirl or Tweetdeck, but there's lots of others. Those are two really popular applications that make life a little bit easier. But there's all kinds of things like -.

Michelle Tennant: What do you use? I'm just curious about what do you use?

David Mathison: I use to use Twhirl, and now I'm experimenting with Tweetdeck, and I like them both. And you know, if you're a Mac user, maybe you just want to use Twitteriffic. It works a lot like Twhirl, but it's really specific for the Mac. Then there's Twitterfox, which is a Fire Fox extension. So there are lots of different things you can try, depending on your operating system and you know, like I think Tweetdeck sits on Adobe Air, whereas Twhirl sits on top of Vista and Window platforms and Mac platforms.

Michelle Tennant: I'm really glad you wrote a book because already like my eyes are glazing over. I'm like "Oh, my god. I can't even take notes. I can't even take notes quick enough to what you're saying. I'm sure everybody else feels the same way. I promise everyone, we're going to open up to questions here in just a minute, but this is all very good stuff and let's keep it simple, because I'm already glazing over, David.

David Mathison: I believe you. Well there's two great ways to really start building out your base and one is go to Twitterholic.com. Twitterholic and other services let you see who the top 1,000 Twitterers are, based on their number of followers. So for example, Barack Obama's got like 300,000 followers. And what you can do is you can kind of see well who are the most popular Twitterers, not only in the nation and in the world, but also in your specific region. Like, if you, Michelle, wanted to know who the top Twitterers are in your region or if I wanted to know who the top Twitterers were in New York, I think right now, New York is like Jimmy Fallon who just took over for Conan O'Brien on the Late Show, so things like that you can break it down and you can start following people from there. And then, what I did was maybe we'll go back to my little story, it was kind of bizarre what really happened. I don't know if you want to open up to questions before we get into how - .

Michelle Tennant: Do you think you can do that now? I can just hear. They're just excited. They've not needed themselves. They're like any minute now, she's gonna say "After questions" they're going like "I got a question." So, can you marry the questions in also with your story, so we can get both done?

David Mathison: Absolutely. Sure.

Michelle Tennant: Okay. Who's got the first question? Now that I've made a big deal don't forget *7 to unmute yourselves. Oh, I put everybody on the spot then.

David Mathison: Should we keep rolling?

Michelle Tennant: Yeah, and then, okay, so if you've got a question, then all you have to do is "I got a question." And then we'll then know that you're gonna be part of the panel, though. I think I did that to David in the past Wasabi Club, he told me. I'm like "You asked a question?" I was like "Now you're part of the panel." But it's just because it's really like we'd be sitting around a bar and we're all just talking about different topics and it's just a way it is in your life, right? You know and answer her face to face.

David Mathison: And you know, there's probably a lot of experts out there, a lot more advanced than I am on Twitter, so -.

Michelle Tennant: Well go ahead with the story -. Oh, we got a peep out there. Or should I say a tweet out there?

J.D. Lassiter: David, this is J.D. Lassiter, here. I don't know if you take suggestions but when I first heard about this crawl I looked at Twitter.com/davidmathison and I didn't see anything. And I added you as first to find that you were actually on Be the Media. And one of my personal gripes is it's hard to find people on Twitter. So I'm wondering why more people don't actually just have a place holder page and then say, I'm actually tweeting over at Be the Media.

David Mathison: Yeah, thanks, J.D. for joining -.

Michelle Tennant: See there you go. That was my question cause I wasn't sure if I could do my name or my various companies and so that's a great suggestion.

David Mathison: It is and you know, like I just did a search on Jill Koenig, who's a good friend and she also has a site called Gold Guru, and I thought her last name has an S at the end and I couldn't find her and then I went to Gold Guru and what she did was exactly what J.D. is saying. She kind of plays smart both places and on the I think it's the Gold Guru page, it says on that page it's just one entry and it just says Yes, you've come to the right place, please follow me a Twitter.com/goldguru and I need to do the same and J.D.'s right.

Like, I am by no means, the expert at Twitter right now. I'm still working on it. As a matter of fact, my background profile, a lot of people say that the profile picture doesn't really describe me or my company or what we do or what we offer and there are a lot of really great profile pics out there with people who and there are companies also, now, outsourcing services where you can get your profile picture done. Again, if you look at Warren Whitlock's page or Jill Koenig, or if you look at Joel Conn, he's got on the left of his profile, he's got his picture. He can tell you how to get in touch with him through his blog. He shows all of the books that he has. He has a book cover. So, yeah, I'm a long way away from being there, J.D., but if you do have any other suggestions, I'm all ears, and of course, I'm Twitter.com/bethemedia and I will, right after this call, go grab David Mathison, as well.

Michelle Tennant: Yeah, we need perfect. Now, the reason why we are doing this call with you David cause this little story about how it all came to pass because I think everybody's interested in you being cause I've heard pros and cons, right, like "Oh, you've gotta tweet, but at the same time, you don't want to be overly promotional. You don't wanna really -." And I could see where, and then I was like "Okay, I'm tweeting, but I'm not really, but I'm slanting it more toward work than I am my personal life." And just like interesting blogs. You know, interesting blogs are really about your life, really what's happening in your life, and that we're all really interested in what we're doing in the background. You know, are you traveling to some place interesting? Are you doing some kind of interesting hobby? So let's take a little grunt into this story and then if other people have suggestions or questions I love that suggestion, thanks so much J.D., you're now part of the panel, by the way. So go ahead and -.

David Mathison: J.D., you absolutely should be part of the panel. J.D. knows better than anyone. J.D. also co-founded, if you get a chance, go to ourmedia.org, which is a fantastic community site where users contribute content and all the content's created common licenses, so, it's all about the community. And I agree with you Michelle, you know originally, when I started I was posting personal things and then I started posting more business oriented stuff and tips and tricks, I think are the kind of things that, you know, your user community wants to know and wants to share and then give you feedback on and maybe even have better ideas.

But I don't think that there's too much value in using Twitter if all you're doing is to promote your own site. It's all about a community and you build your network by getting others to follow you and also contributing to those communities and to the conversations. I should say, it's not just about community, it's really about conversation, as well, and an interactive conversation with people in the community. So I just learned more stuff from J.D. that really, things that I need to do, they're all on the to-do list, but who has time to do all these things?

Michelle Tennant: Well, that big, too. You've gotta actually choose which crayon you want to go out with. So tell us about this story cause we're really -.

David Mathison: Yeah, J.D. might have a comment on that and then we'll move.

J.D. Lassiter: I got another -. Thanks to the shout on our media, you know, I'm still earning all this Twitter stuff myself, so I don't know how many experts there really are out there.

[Laughter]

Michelle Tennant: You know, you know and there's gonna be the next big thing, right? Whatever is after Twitter and then we're all going to have to reorient ourselves, too. Okay, well here's another crayon out of the box, right?

J.D. Lassiter: Hear me?

Michelle Tennant: Oh, yeah, we can hear you.

Jacob M: I wasn't sure I was talking to myself. I actually had a comment. This is Jacob. Hi J.D. We're actually connected on Twitter and this is how I actually found about this whole call, which is interesting. But I'm actually doing a webinar specifically for authors and one of the reasons why I got on this call is that I was going to use your examples, sort of on the webinar. And I actually have a e-book that I put together with somebody on Twitter, specifically for authors and different social media channels that they could look at and how they could use Twitter and sites like Red Room and Facebook, specifically for authors, and a lot of the questions I keep getting were "Are there any specific case studies for authors?" So David, if you don't mind, I'd definitely like to include you as a case study on somebody was able to social media to sell books.

David Mathison: Absolutely. I should probably tell the story before you commit to it. Maybe you won't want it.

Michelle Tennant: And Jacob, I want to make sure that this recording gets to you, so I need to make sure that I'm connected with you. So, you're at Twtitter.com/what is it? J-A-C-O-B?

Jacob M: Jacob M on Twitter.

Michelle Tennant: Okay. I'll make sure that everybody has access to this recording. It is available on our DIT member place, on publicityresults.com, but I'll just make sure also that I'm using Twitter for this, so I can up the ante on what I'm doing on Twitter.

Jacob M: I thought you mentioned The Secret because the author that's hosting the webinar, she's Ariel Ford. I don't know if you're familiar with her.

Michelle Tennant: Oh, she's one of my resource partners over here at Wasabi Publicity. Yes, it's a small world after all.

Jacob M: Yeah, exactly. So webinar is with her on March 4th and she has her book coming out, too, so I kind of teamed up with her and I explained how to use social media for authors. So, yeah, small world.

Michelle Tennant: I'll have to give a shout out to Ariel after this. And she's got soul mate, How to Find Your Perfect Soul Mate. And so yeah, she's over at the Ford group and she was on the Today Show talking about that, so she's just a PR master mind.

Jacob M: Yeah, I told her to give a plug for Twitter while she was on all these traditional media sites and she didn't.

Michelle Tennant: Well you know, we all have to pride what we're actually putting food on our table for, too, right? So anyway, without any further adieu, David you know, get this story. We're all like now at the edge of our seat.

David Mathison: Sure, and thank you Jacob for the invite. That's very nice of you. So basically what happened was, what I usually do is when somebody follows me, I think the majority of the people out there, and I may be wrong, but are just aggregating followers and [beep] really following up on who these people are. If they don't know them, you know, a lot of people in the beginning, you follow people you know, and they follow you back, and that's fine. But as you start building a base and you get 2,500 or 15,000 followers, it gets a little bit challenging and there are automated tools, but I was basically following up on people, and I did have an auto responder.

So, on January 20th, I got a direct follower and the name was Ruth Ann Harnisch, and so I followed up on that with a direct message. You know, I didn't send it out. It was an auto responder that basically said "Thanks for your follow. I like you already. And go get a free copy of the intro of my book, from Bethemedia.com. So again, the key thing there is make sure that you give people something. I think having a digital download or a free gift is important for people to go find a little bit more about you and also just to give back. It's that right after that direct message came out, this follower sent me a direct message saying "I like you, too. I just bought four copies of your book."

So, as I said before, when you get a book sale you're happy, but four book sales you kinda go over the moon. So, I did a little bit and this is where I go back to, again, treat every lead, treat every person with respect and find out who they are. Do the hard work, because you do the same thing when you go to a conference, when you go to meet someone at a networking event. You find out more about them, you'll start chatting with them. And don't just treat it as aggregating leads because it could really, really build you community this way. So, sure enough, I went to her website and I found out that she was the founder of the Harnisch Foundation, which is a catalyst for sustainable social [skip] work for both coaching and -.

Michelle Tennant: Hold on, David. I hear some feedback. I'm gonna address that. Everybody hit *6 to mute yourselves. That's minimize the feedback we're hearing from David's story. Go ahead David.

David Mathison: So the Harnisch Foundation is a philanthropic organization that funds sustainable journalism and coaching initiatives. They have a website, a nonprofit site called, I'm pretty sure, if you look at the Harnisch Foundation, which is the VHF.org, you'll find all about them, but they fund representative journalism. And there's a thing called the coaching commons, which is at coachingcommons.org, which was launched last year and they're basically building a nonpartisan tent where coaches can build the future together. And then when I found a little bit more about them, they have the foundation of coaching, again, which is a nonprofit, noncommercial independent resource for coaching. And then I also found out that they fund a thing called Thrillionaires, which is one of their projects that teach people how anyone can be a thrillionaire from just giving things away from writing a song to designing a website.

Michelle Tennant: Are you saying "Thrillionaire" or "Zillionaire"?

David Mathison: Thrillionaire, T-H.

Michelle Tennant: Like a thrill. That's neat, okay.

David Mathison: The thrill of giving, right. And so then I went to her Facebook and I looked her up on Facebook and I found that after I befriended her, she was basically going to Baruch College in New York City that week because they were having she had just given some money to Baruch to start up their journalism program. And I found out, obviously, from the beginning in my bio, you heard that I used to be at Reuters, cared very much about journalism and with thinking started a community funded journalism initiative here in my local Long Island area. And she invited me to drop everything that was Thursday night, I guess and come to this meeting on Friday, with a lot of people that I'd already known, actually.

So at that meeting, we chatted a little bit more and she liked what she heard and she basically, we did a handshake deal on 5,000 more books. And then within 20 days of our initial meeting through Twitter, she had wire transferred money into my bank account for another 5,000 book order. So, in total, it was 20 days from the minute she followed me on Twitter, somebody who I didn't know at all, to basically ordering 5,004 books. But not only that, the wonderful about this relationship is, and the wonderful thing about following up on leads that you get, wherever they come from, is that you never know where it will lead. Right now, our goal is to actually give these books away to needy journalism students and to folks that really could use the power of Be the Media, teach them how to blog and create a website and create, you know, use videos on the internet, but give them to people who may not be able to afford the book.

So the wonderful thing is that we've already identified a number of different journalism schools and enough different needy folks out there that might be able to get this book into the right hands of those people that may not be able to afford it. So, we look at this as not just the beginning of our relationship, but we're looking at potentially doing a lot more things down the road with the Harnisch Foundation, beyond just selling four books. So, it's a much bigger story even than just a 5,004 book deal. But to most authors, for those on the call who aren't authors, a successful book is usually a book that sells 10,000 books over it's print you know the life of the book. And we just basically got half way there with one phone call.

And there are two wonderful things about that is, one is it's one person. You're not like an itinerant peddler selling trinkets door to door. To get 5,000 books, you need 5,000 people. We got one bulk sale and we only have to ship it to one location. The other wonderful thing is it came right before our first print run, so we were about to go to the printer and to print books, the bigger the volume, the less the per book run rate, so we immediately cut our per book print run rate more than half by getting that 5,000 book order. And a lot of folks also look at that first initial print run, you know, publishers and foreign sales representatives look at your first print run as an indicator of how well the book is doing. So, again, that's a real shot in the arm to be going to the printer and coming out with more than 6,000 or 7,000 books for our first print run.

So, it was a really, really valuable relationship and it all comes from, again, not just aggregating followers and getting as many friends as you can on Facebook, or getting as many followers as you can in Twitter, but really understanding who those people are and doing the legwork to nurture that relationship as far as much as you can.

Michelle Tennant: Well and I think, you know, what it comes to mind for me is I've always said there's an old adage in business, is, it's who you know. Oh, you'll be successful and dozens of things. Well I always it's not just who you know, it's also who knows about you. And when somebody actually follows you, then you have an opportunity to get to know them and just kind of seeing and check it out. Okay, is this a viable contact for me? And then you just never know. Now that person knows about you and like just how this happened for you, that's just -.

You know, one of things that I think that social networking allows all of us, is the opportunity to really nurture those relationships, cause you know, they come out of the woodwork don't they? Like all of a sudden, you're like hey, this person wants to get to know you. This person wants to get to know you and whether you're an introvert or an extrovert naturally, there's something there for you. You know?

David Mathison: And let's say there's so many things that could've gone wrong, like let's say I didn't follow let's say I didn't go on Twitter. This relationship may never have happened. Let's say I didn't have an auto responder that said "Hey, please go to my website." Well, Ruth Ann Harnisch, she's my angel. You know, she came at the right time. It's almost like she was listening cause we really were about to print and this was just such a Godsend for us to get this relationship. But if I didn't have an auto follow that said "Hey, go to my website and take a look at it more", she would've just followed me on Twitter and never had a never had a place to go.

And then. if I didn't follow up on her four book sale, by trying to find out more about her, I never would've been invited to Baruch and I never would've been able to explain what we were doing with Be the Media in a way that was intimate and that let her understand how serious we are about sustainable journalism. And that built that relationship, literally that day of the Baruch conference. That night, the next night at Saturday at 10:00 p.m. at night, we had a phone call and we had a deal done, that night. So there were so many things that you really, you know, that could've had that lead just fall through the cracks, if we didn't follow through.

And then, literally the next day, she left for the TED conference in Palm Springs, which is a huge conference and she was talking up our relationship with a lot of the participants at TED. So, now all of a sudden, my book is sort of top of mind on people at that sort of leading edge of sustainable journalism and community journalism initiatives throughout the country, and that kind of press you just can't buy. You know, this kind of relationship is priceless.

Michelle Tennant: No, and what you've really taken care to do is actually make people feel human in their interaction with you. You know, they're not just a number. They're not just another follower. You're investigating a little bit about who they are and you know, I can see that you can be efficient in your time with that, too, just like when we talk to the media, cause you've been on both sides of it David, but one of the golden rules for publicist is always, you read the person's magazine or you look at their blog or you watch their TV show.

It's just respect so that when you can talk to them, you have a working knowledge of what their beat is, who they are as a journalist, what they care about, and if you really are interested in building a relationship with them, you would do them that common courtesy and that's what I think that needs to be extended to these social networking sites, as you've demonstrated here. Because you're not quite sure who these people are and when you reach out and actually don't treat them as a number but as a person and as a relationship, then who knows what's possible next? How do you prioritize yourself now though, now that -?

David Mathison: Yeah, that's the challenge. There are tools, like I go back and forth on the auto responder issue, because my auto responder was great, but it also was kind of impersonal and for those out there that are looking into auto responders, you know, it's just like Aweber or 1shoppingcart auto responders in email, you can have an auto responder in Twitter at things like tweetlater.com or socialtoo.com, J.D. and others probably have other [beep]. And I've used it pretty effectively, but I also found that it distanced me, that one after Ruth Ann came in, it gave me that one level of distance and as you said, Michelle, when you don't pitch a business week author or a journalist who covers Wall Street, you don't pitch him your gardening book, you know?

If you're not doing your homework, you're gonna get a bad rep with journalists pretty quickly, if you're just spamming folks. So I found that when I took the auto responder off, it took a lot more work on my part because I had to follow up with every individual follower, which can get really challenging if you've got 10 or 20,000 followers. So I don't really know how to deal with that yet. I'm open to ideas and suggestions, but I've used auto responders off and on. Right now, I'm responding directly and I also have an intern, who I believe is on the call, Andre, thank you very much for all your help. He helps me with a lot of stuff I'm doing on Twitter.

Michelle Tennant: Well lets take that to the whole club members who are actually joining us today, so *7 to unmute yourselves, and this is a challenge that we all have today. One of the reasons why we actually created pitchrate.com because the media would use other services that connect them with experts and authors and so forth and then, if you ever used that and made a request, all of a sudden because I was doing that when we were doing Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day', it's coming around again, and I got like 100, 200 responses to my request for a family and a business who was actually doing Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day' and I was overwhelmed that day.

So, that's what people like top tier journalists deal with on a daily basis. I think my Good Morning America producer told me she got 1,500 emails in a 3 hour span. So how are people prioritizing out there? How are you actually getting through the muck of all your social networking things and your pings and you're emails and how are you doing it? Anybody got suggestions?

J.D. Lassiter: This is J.D. I'll just throw in something really quick. Yesterday I got the first complaint I've even gotten about my auto responder. I do use socialtoo.com, that's T-O-O dot com and I explained to her that "Look, I get like 100 followers a day. I've got two websites I'm trying to get up. I've got a full time job, other stuff going on and to me, it's more personal to have a sort of personal sounding auto respond than to not respond at all. So I think it depends on how you do it. If it's like a pitch for something to sell or something, I admit that's kind of a turn off. If you have the time, then yeah sure, go in one at a time and have a conversation with all your new followers, but at a certain point it doesn't really scale.

David Mathison: And J.D. how do you -.

Michelle Tennant: We got a question for you, J.D.

David Mathison: Yeah, and there comes a time, too, like when you do hit a follower, like I notice, you know, I try to give respect even to those people who aren't tweeting, you know, maybe have just gotten started. God knows there are relatively real famous people are not famous people out there who you probably want to follow, but you don't see any tweets yet, or you don't see any other followers or it looks like a spam alert, it's like you think you're following someone like Joel Conn and it's actually a spammer using Joel L. Conn, you know? Like some of those where since I stopped having the auto responder, I was able to identify pretty quickly what are kind of spam bots or people that are just hacking through and it allows me to at least get rid of those followers that I think are really just in it to promote something, you know what I mean? But it is a pain in the neck because you gotta go through every -.

J.D. Lassiter: There are two kinds of auto responders, too, right? There's a way that you just have a response, which is like a message that goes to them, and then there's a secondary option of actually automatically following people who follow you. So that's two different things.

David Mathison: Right.

Lynne Melville: I've got a question.

Michelle Tennant: Sure, what's your first name?

Lynne Melville: I'm Lynne and had read your message at Reuters conference in San Francisco and I listen to you with my cell. God bless these telephones. You mentioned having an intern and I really need one, but how do you find one? How do I go about doing that?

Someone help me.

J.D. Lassiter: Facebook.

Lynne Melville: With my Facebook and my Twitter and all those things like to a certain point and I -.

Michelle Tennant: I think you could use Craig's List.

David Mathison: Yeah, Craig's List and you know another great resource is like I'm lucky in well both in the San Francisco area, pretty lucky the Bay Area has got a lot of universities and right now, there's a lot of people, there are a lot of budding journalism students who are really bright and who know how to write and there are great business school students, so I look at Hathsha and Ithaca and Stony Brook and Columbia and St. John's and CW Post. They are right in my area.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, you've got a lot of great universities there and they are also, sadly, a lot of people getting laid off right now, experienced journalists, experienced writers, people in the media industry that are looking for maybe part time work or just to work for free just to keep their toll in the game and even with people like that I'll offer to give them and email address and a recommendation. At least they have an email address and a phone number where if they're looking for work at least they can tell people that they're doing honest work, you know, blogging here or helping build our list or just responding to Twitter posts.

Michelle Tennant: You know, I will recommend, Lynne, you know, I've been doing PR for 20 years. My first job was in Chicago when I was at DePaul and I went every little university is gonna have the work/study programs and I went to my you know, the motivated college students are gonna be going to that center, wherever that is in the university, to look for opportunities and you can actually phone that office that you have an internship opportunity and then they'll actually connect you, they'll put it in a big binder well, probably now it's more electronic than 20 years ago was, but I remember I found a person who was looking for an inter to do PR, and that's where I first learned PR years ago.

Lynne Melville: Oh, okay. That's what I'm -.

Michelle Tennant: Cause really, what David is saying about reaching out to, you know, you can reach out to a local community by using something like Craig's List, cause they'll have the localized slant to this. There's networking people, but also don't forget to just use the old pen and paper method of getting to your university and picking up the phone and saying "I've got this opportunity" and even getting on the phone with the Dean of that particular, you know, the English Department or the people who are actually in charge of the Journalism Degrees.

David Mathison: And who knows? Maybe there are people on this call who want to help you, so if you want to shout out your contact, if you want to do that over the call.

Michelle Tennant: Yeah, how do we reach you, Lynne?

Lynne Melville: Yeah, I'm at my name is Lynne Melville M-E-L-V-I-L-L-E at Comcast.net, that'd be my email. My question is, how do I know who's capable? What questions do I ask?

Michelle Tennant: Well that to me, seems like a really good Wasabi Club topic for maybe even next month. I think I might take that on, Lynne. We're gonna have a Wasabi Club next month on internships because I think that it is one of the ways that I I think back to all the internships that I did when I was in college and it did give me the step up and today, people are really hurting for work. So then, how do you set yourself apart from the competition? My recommendation to you would be to ask for where they see themselves in five years and then actually to see if what they're working toward is actually a fit for what you're working towards.

Lynne Melville: Well I need to know what they know about Twitter, what they know about Facebook, what they know about blogs.

Michelle Tennant: Well it depends on if that's the type of work, if you know what you're gonna be doing some type of media work or some type of author a book, that kind of stuff that we're talking about with marketing and so forth, I think that that is imperative today and that's one of the things that's really great about the millennials that are coming right out of college and high school today. You know, they've got a foot up because they've just been immersed in this culture of social networking from day one.

I was talking to a friend last night who's dating somebody new and you know, happens to be a 20 year gap between the relationship, okay? And the person, they had like a little fight and then the young person, the millennial said to the Gen X-er, "You know what? If you don't get along with my friends then we can't date, because dating me is dating my whole network of friends" and that couldn't be farther from the truth with millennials. You know, when you're hiring a millennial today, you are hiring them and their entire network cause they've actually been raised in a community of social networking.

Lynne Melville: Right, exactly, exactly, yeah, and that's it. Well there a Laura Smith is big on social marketing and she has actually she wrote a new book on actually having an intern just being your personal -. Sending books and doing all of that stuff that makes it look personal, but yet, have it done. You know, I'm a writer. I'm a speaker. I'm a coach. I don't have time to do all that. I need someone to handle that for me. So, if you do the teleseminar on internships and how to manage it, my concern is I have friends who are plotting this out but they're going on the internet and they're paying somebody in India to do it, and I want the money to stay in this country. You know, you can actually get it online. I don't want to do that. I want our people to get it, but I thought that would an excellent conference next month.

Michelle Tennant: So, yeah, I think it is also the terminology "intern", most of the people on the call they're interested in Twitter. I think the other thing that we can talk about with regard to Twitter, and maybe you want to look at the partners that you have, Lynne, so it's not just about your support staff, but also your affiliate partners. Like earlier, we were talking about partners that we have. I think it was Jacob who said that he's gonna have Ariel Ford on and so forth. Well, Ariel Ford is a publicist who is in charge, we did Depok Chopra and publicized Chicken Soup for the Soul. She's one of our affiliate partners. So, maybe to get to the same goal it's not also just having an intern back at the office, but it's also how are you expanding your own network so that you're actually building those relationships in a new and different way, sort of like what David was talking about, to get to the same goal? Maybe you need an intern. Maybe you need an affiliate partne r.

Lynne Melville: Yeah, I'm familiar with Ariel Ford and [skip] and all the big people on there and I've taken the Telephone Large on their workshop. I'm pretty good at promotions. But this promotion to Twitter and Facebook is really my issue at this point in time, so I'm really glad you have this workshop. Thank you.

Michelle Tennant: Oh, you're welcome Lynne, and I want to just invite everybody, you know, if you couldn't cause Lynne she's on a cell phone. She's going in and out. Lynne, when you get back to your office, go ahead and email me so that if anybody needs to reach you, then I can actually connect the two of you. My email address is pretty easy to remember, it's Michelle, two L's, I'm a two L-er, at publicity results dot com. michelle@publicityresults.com And there's an S at the end of results, so that I can actually connect people with you.

Lynne Melville: Well you know the other way is they can just mail me, Lynne Melville, and I'm all over Google with my book and my website. I got two blogs. There's lots of contacts there, too, so they can -.

Michelle Tennant: Okay, great. Alright.

Lynne Melville: Thanks.

Michelle Tennant: Oh, you're welcome. And before we complete our call, are there any other burning questions?

Male: Hello, hello.

Michelle Tennant: And I'm gonna talk about how to get to David. We already know about Twitter, but are there any burning questions before we complete the call?

Tonya Fitzpatrick: Yeah, I have a couple. This is Tonya Fitzpatrick with the traveling on radio show. And hi. I think, Michelle, we're Facebook friends, too, which is -.

Michelle Tennant: I know you sound familiar yeah.

Tonya Fitzpatrick: Yeah, and I guess I've been following you on Twitter. I just looked you up and lo and behold. And David, I just started following you. I am new to all of this technology. I am a lawyer turned travel journalist. I'm not as savvy with technology and so Twitter has actually been, it's been a bit of thorn in my side and I'm still trying to learn how to work it out and I thank you, David, for sharing socialtoo.com with regards to implementing an auto responder. But one of my questions is kind of a logistical one.

You suggest following people wh



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PC Tricks To Maintain a Virus Free Computer

If your pc is infected by virus so many times and you just fed up with this virus, then in this pc trick post you will be able to understand that how the various worms, viruses and spywares find their way into your precious computer. Most of the time, they are harmful probably aiming to steal your personal information. In this case, we are more concerned about those that could cause your computer to hang up. Use the following six pc tricks to makes your PC virus free.

1. E-mails:

This is the most of the common way through which spywares, worms, Trojans and viruses find their easy way into your computer. When you have your own private emails, increase the privacy settings and never ever open unsolicited and unknown emails, as they may be the source of the much awaiting harms that can damage your whole computer. To avoid this harming your computer, use very good anti-spam software. Never click links in e-mails if you are not sure what are they.

2. USB thumb or pen drives:

This is another and most common source that could affect your computer in a number of ways. The best option to avoid this from happening is by performing a virus scan before copying any data onto your computer and another small tip is not to double click the pen drive for opening. Use right click to open or explore the files in the drive before opening is the best alternative.

3. Use of MS Outlook:

It is not known that MS Outlook could be a source and the best way to spread and hack into your computer, unless you have a real time antivirus programs running. Alternatives to MS Outlook will include the use Windows Mail (which can even identify spam emails from known sources), Pegasus of thunderbird, or web based programs like hotmail or Yahoo.

4. Internet or World Wide Web:

Even a basic computer user knows that internet is the best way to spread viruses like pandemic and are the main sources of malicious programs like viruses, worms, Trojans, etc., which can range up to 80 percent of the worldwide transfer during surfing of the web. By following some of the best surfing habits this danger could be waded off, which will include by not clicking the pop-up windows or by using pop-up blockers.

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Most of us surf the web using mostly with the help of search engines, and one of the best ways either to prevent from visiting malicious website from being listed in your search or to point them out when listed, is by installing some powerful scanners like AVG Link scanner, which is a free ware. Even Mozilla says if a site will harm your computer or not.

6. Use a good antivirus:

If you are looking for one solution that can do most of the jobs mentioned so far, it is also good for preventing from someone else stealing your personal information like online identity, credit card information, password stealing and many other such activities. So always use a powerful antivirus.

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Computer Hacking & Virus / Malware

When a fortune-teller stares into her crystal ball she claims to see through to the misty future and offers guidance to those willing to hand over the required fee. However, she might be stumped when faced with questions about the state of tomorrow's computer viruses, or whether or not there will be a global outbreak of cyber warfare. She ought not to be because, although the internet threat landscape is continually evolving, there are some basic principles that help us predict what's coming next.

Perhaps surprisingly, these hold the human condition at their core. A 21st century Mystic Meg should have no problems foretelling the digital future and we'll explain how you too can look into the future at internet threats. Anti Virus Companies like Symantec, GRISOFT etc have researchers that investigate current threats and new technologies with a view to discovering what the next big security problems are going to be, and they don't use crystal balls.

ITS ALL ABOUT THE MONEY, In the old days the original computer viruses were born of pride or misplaced curiosity. Anonymous individuals wrote computer code to show how clever they were, viewing security software as a challenge. If they could beat anti-virus programs produced by big names such as Symantec, McAfee etc then they would have outsmarted the experts. In some cases their motivation was increased as anti-virus (AV) programs improved over time.

Today things have moved up a few gears and every reputable security company acknowledges that money is the motivation behind the vast majority of online threats. Viruses, compromised websites hosting malicious exploits, fraudulent emails and phishing websites have all been designed to steal or generate money.

As we ponder the future of malware and other threats, we need to look at the matter in the context of criminal endeavour, rather than seeing online threats as a result of vandalism and other types of low- level dysfunctional behaviour.

Over the years it has became clear that a new underground economy has evolved in which our personal details are traded for cash on the internet. This situation not only continues today, but the illegal information gathering and trading systems have grown even more sophisticated. Criminal organisations provide services to others much like legitimate business. They sell hacking tools in a web-based arms market and operate escrow systems to ensure that the thieves don't rip each other off. Much of the criminal activity is based around malware, which forms the front line in the criminals' activity.

Some people create malware, others sell it, while underground services offer to check the latest viruses to ensure that they aren't detected by the software produced by anti-virus companies. It's a sophisticated arrangement, both in terms of business and technology. AV companies, spend a lot of time monitoring and interacting with c riminals as they go about their online business. They have something like an underground version of VirusTotal ( a website that scans URL's for bugs ), to check that their malware can avoid detection, as well as services to monitor botnets. Botnets are potentially vast networks of compromised computers - PCs owned by regular internet users. They are part of the cybercriminal's IT infrastructure and are the equivalent of a traditional gangsters Muscle. Botnets provide masses of computing power as well as the ability to bring down the websites and internet connections of large companies. They can be used to send out billions of spam emails, infect websites on masse and even host transient infected websites that come and go, making them very hard to take down.

In the worst cases (for the individual visitor), it might try to load malware on to their computer. Once malware is loaded on a system, the computer can be used as a tool to spy on its user. This means that usernames, passwords, bank account details and other sensitive data can be siphoned off and sent to the attacker.

Although you might think that this is the end of the story, the criminals who install the malware may not have a direct use for your data. I have read Symantec's latest internet threat report. In it the company discloses that criminals compile lists of credit card numbers and bank details, which they sell off in huge lists. However, the availability of cards has dropped since last year, while demand remains high. This has increased the cost of buying the information. The report also notes a disturbing new development whereby criminals are trading dump tracks' - the whole information found in the magnetic stripe on a credit card. This data can not only be sold for a higher price than basic information, but it's also more usable as it can be used to create a physical replica of the card. Criminals are now advertising personal services and, in a perverse version of online business networking, researchers have found recommendations for people involved in money laundering and even for mules'. According to Symantec: "Mules are unsuspecting members of the public who have been duped into accepting funds into their accounts, or accepting stolen goods.

Like any other commodity, these people are traded on net forums by cybercriminals." At some stage a criminal will end up using these details to commit a fraudulent act, but it's likely that the data will pass through a number of hands first. lf and when your personal data is stolen online, it will often be passed from criminal to criminal before being used. Once in possession of a card, criminals may try to use it to buy goods. Alternatively, a criminal may leverage t he services of a cash-out' criminal. These people may charge nothing for their services that is the service of emptying your bank account- but take a commission on the transaction instead. The online criminals have a large number of potential targets to consider. Although their primary objective is to make money, there are a number of ways to do so, some of which are more subtle than others. criminals put a value on personal details for the purposes of ID theft, selling the data to ID thieves and even pilfering online games login details for financial gain.
WHO ARE THE TOMORROWS VICTIMS? Tomorrow's victims will be the same as today's. The only difference is that the criminals need to stay ahead of the game in order to compete with each other and remain profitable. Criminals will always go for the easiest targets first, looking for low-risk, high-return opportunities. This means creating a widespread threat that has the potential to affect millions of people. The hackers aren't going to single out an individual, but instead hope to catch as many random people as possible, collect their data and use or sell it for financial gain.

These regular people will likely have bank accounts and credit cards that can be stolen. Gamers often have online accounts that carry a high value there has been a thriving market in hijacking or emptying games accounts for years. Criminals might also try a targeted approach, where a specific (very rich) individual, company or group of people are faced with a highly convincing, customise d attack.

In the past, criminals have sent infected CDs and USB keys to workers at banks and other large organisations. Hardware keyloggers can then be used to record usernames and passwords. There have been fears that last year's attack on the recruitment website Monster furnished criminals with lots of personal information that allowed them to target people with powerful employment roles, such as CEOs of global companies. Targeted attacks can also use information gleaned from social-networking sites - a technology that has only become very popular in the last few years. Businesses themselves are another big target, although the scale of the problem is hard to assess. We only see the tip of the iceberg, There are probably documents containing zero-day exploits being sent around and so on, but companies won't go public when they're attacked.

Social engineering has repeatedly proven to be a useful technique for fooling people into taking unwise actions. The criminals trick victims into visiting fake or infected websites, downloading and installing harmful software and even responding to near-blatant attempts at fraud. This last con trick involves sending emails requesting your help in some matter, with the promise of delivering millions of dollars for no work at all.

Security companies claim that infected websites constitute the largest single threat at the moment, The general assumption is that these are legitimate websites that have been infected without their owners' knowledge. The sites are hacked and a small piece of infected code, or a special type of (iframe) link to another infected site, is inserted. When a computer loads the web page, it becomes infected.

There is also a view that sites being operated by less moral individuals may host malware on purpose. Porn websites are hosted by those with a flexible ethical framework, They are more likely than some to host malicious iframes in order to gain a few dollars per installation of malware.

Viruses and infected websites that attack consumer electronics as well as computers are likely to be a feature of future cyber attacks. Currently computers are the main target for online criminals. The PC and, to a much lesser degree, the Mac are both attacked because lo ts of people use them for online banking and other tasks that involve handling valuable information.

Tomorrow's targets will be the devices that people use for similar activities. This means that the PC is going to stay at the top of the hacker's hit list for a long time to come. If a certain type of mobile phone became a popular way to access online banking, then you can guarantee that criminals would start to produce malware designed to target and compromise them. From a criminal's point of view, hardware is a much less important consideration than software when building an attack mechanism. For example, a modern Mac is exactly the same as a PC under the hood. The very same processors, RAM, graphics chips and hard disks are used in both computers these days. The difference is the operating system. Macs run OS X while PCs run completely incompatible variations of Windows or Linux.

As most computers in the world run Windows, criminals concentrate on bre aking into Windows PCs. The more popular Macs become, the more attractive they are as targets. Mobile phones don't share the same relationship as Macs and PCs. Even different models from the same company use different combinations of hardware and software.

This means that there's such a wide selection in use at any one time that a hacker would have to write many different viruses, worms or other threats to catch a significant number of victims. In this situation, variety is a defence. Once people settle on a specific mobile phone, however, it becomes worth hacking. ( could the iphone be a target ? ) Many of the best-known antivirus companies produce an anti-virus product for one or more types of mobile phone, yet they generally admit that the threat in this area is either very low or even non-existent. Mobile phone malware is in its infancy There are millions of viruses and Trojans that target PCs. Mobile phone viruses number in the few hundreds or maybe early tho usands. There is still such a disparity of environments: iPhones, Windows Mobile, Symbian, BlackBerry, Android and others. There is too much variety for malware to function.

Software is much more important than hardware. Today's hackers concentrate on the underlying operating system (such as Windows XP) and common applications that they can access. At the moment, attractive applications include web browsers as well as software that web browsers use, such as Adobe Flash and Reader programs. In recent months security holes have been found in versions of these programs, as well as Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser. When we try to predict the future of internet threats, we can be sure that these types of programs will be targeted.

The only variations will be the hardware used to run the web browsers and necessary plugins. Do you believe that your TV could be hacked? Or your games console? The latest versions of these domestic home entertainment syst ems often include the ability to access the internet, so that they can use BBC iPlayer, YouTube and other popular services. If your TV has a web browser, then it would be foolish to assume that it was invulnerable to an attack. Before you ban TV from your household, remember what we said earlier about attractive targets. Once you and half the popular start banking online with your TV or PlayStation, only then will the hackers move in. And they will. I reckon we'll see anti-virus software being installed on TV sets within the next five years. The traditional view of a hacker attack involves a computer system being manipulated by an unauthorised and external force. So how could your TV could be hacked if it lacks a hard disk or any internal storage at all? Where would the viruses be stored, for example? Similarly a games console doesn't seem to provide a very rich environment for a criminal to exploit. This means that while your PC, TV or console may not be hacked, the data th at flows between it and the computers on the internet that power the services you use could be stolen or corrupted. This is known as data cloud hacking.

IS THERE NO ESCAPE ? The usual way to make money with TV broadcasts is with advertising. The advertising system itself could be subverted and used either to make money directly or as part of a blackmail scam. The internet-enabled TV initially has no financial value, What money can criminals make? They could show you a commercial that may be clickable. This way, people's identity data can be stolen. If you don't click the ad you may be threatened with the prospect that pornography will pop up on screen when your children are watching.

The term cloud-computing is quite vague. These days it tends to mean running applications directly on a server. This isn't a new concept for businesses used to dealing with email and web servers. However, the idea of running an application such as a word processor in the cl oud is novel for most people as we're used to such programs being software that runs on the computer sitting in front of us.

When you use Google Docs to create and edit word-processing or spreadsheet documents, you're experiencing what most people consider to be cloud computing. You should already be able to see some of the security issues surrounding cloud computing. First of all, your data is stored on a remote computer under someone else's control. Every time you access that data you have to authenticate with a remote system, which means that your username and password probably traverses the internet. After you log in, parts of any file that you access also moves through the internet.

This potentially exposes your account and its contents to wrong-doers far more than if you stored your photos, documents and email on your hard disk. However, it's convenient to work this way as you can access your data from any computer that you like (which is also ano ther potential security flaw) and, in some cases, you can use lowpowered computers to run demanding applications because they use the processing power and memory of the service provider's systems rather than the resources of your own IT setup.

The big challenge to companies that provide internet services is to ensure that customers' data remains safe. Services need to identify where data comes from and where it should go. They need to protect against man-in-themiddle attacks, where attackers intercept data as it passes by. Cloud services are not currently developed in this way and can be fooled. Tomorrow's internet attackers will be sophisticated and realistic. They won't spend hours trying to hack your mobile or TV while there are easier options available.

As long as we continue to use PCs to access online banks, buy from ecommerce sites and play complex subscription-based games, so the bad guys will continue to attack via the home computer. Recent his tory shows that social engineering, where victims are fooled into making poor decisions, is a very successful route to separating us from our cash and personal details. Technical solutions' such as internet worms and Trojans embedded in pirated software still exist, but it's those fake emails, infected websites and even infected email attachments that will continue to pose a real threat for the foreseeable future.

We also know that security software is not a cure-all solution. And few security companies would be brave enough to claim that they were winning the war against malware. Nevertheless, an anti-virus program will help protect your system. FREE ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE If you don't want to spend any money we recommend Microsoft's latest free anti-virus program, Security Essentials but for better protection you need to splash out, and currently any of the following are good choices: Norton Internet Security 2010, AVG Antivirus, AVG Internet Security.

It is also important to keep your system up to date with the latest security patches. This means updating Windows, your web browser and plug-ins such as Adobe Flash and Acrobat Reader. Fail to do this and you can't really blame your anti-virus software if your PC becomes infected. While the days of safe computing are probably a nostalgic fantasy (bugs have existed for as long as computers have), it's not scaremongering to say that today things are far worse than they ever have been, and the problem isn't going to disappear.

There is some good news. While the online criminals engage in a virtual arms war against security companies, sell our data for pennies and cost companies billions in lost or stolen revenue, the main security hole is our own gullibility. If you become more suspicious of email requests to change or confirm account details, popup warning messages on websites and too-good-to- be true offers, then you're way ahead of the herd. And hackers are only int erested in the herd.

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