Thomas Goes All Media Crazy

For those of you who haven't kept up with my latest shenanigans, let me just say that I've been exposing myself. I bet that caught your attention!

The exposure has been in different media forms since the start of 2011.  Some of this was planned and some if it was not and has taken on a life of its own.  Here's what's going on:

Rootstech: I attended the first RootsTech conference in Salt Lake City, Utah from February 10-12, 2011.  Not only did I have a great time meeting up with folks from all over the world - many of whom I've worked with online, but I also had the opportunity to deliver three presentations. One of them - a round table on Virtual Presentations was streamed live on the Internet and also recorded.

GeneaBloggers Radio: just before RootsTech, the premiere episode of Season 2 of Who Do You Think You Are? debuted on NBC. I started my own radio show - GeneaBloggers Radio - as a way for the genealogy community to discuss not just that night's episode of the show but also to discuss issues in the genealogy community and to share ideas. Let's just say after 7 episodes, this radio thing is really fun and starting to become popular. Last week for a St. Patrick's Day feature we had genealogists from all over the world including Ireland discussing how to find your Irish roots. And this week the show will be featuring nationally known genealogist Megan Smolenyak.

You can catch the episodes live here from 9-11pm Central each Friday evening. Also, each two-hour show is archived and can be played back at any time.

Listen to internet radio with GeneaBloggers on Blog Talk Radio

Webinars: And I've been very busy developing a line of genealogy education webinars for Legacy Family Tree Webinars that are delivered live online. In January 2011 I presented Google for Genealogists to 1,000 people who signed in from over 33 different countries around the world.  This week's webinar was entitled Backing Up Your Genealogy Data and is now available for viewing until April 4, 2011.

Click here to view the recorded webinar.

© 2010, copyright Thomas MacEntee

How Social Media Helped Give Me a New Career

I was recently interviewed for a news article about social media at the website Second Act (which bills itself as an "online destination uniquely tailored to the needs and interests of readers over age 40."). In her piece entitled, Are You Google-able?,  the author Melinda Emerson interviewed several people who had undertaken a "midcareer makeover" like me.

Most of you know that back in late 2008, I was laid off from my job in the information technology field. After several months of looking for work and ending up back at another global law firm (and working with attorneys who are always the "smartest ones in the room"), I decided to "repurpose" myself and create a career in the genealogy field.

Eighteen months later, I have no regrets and am enjoying the fact that I've been able to turn an avocation into a vocation. So, everyone wants to know, "how did he do it?" Mostly with social media - the focus of the Are You Google-able? article.

In the article, Emerson and I spoke mainly about Twitter and how I have been able to leverage it to my advantage:

Thomas MacEntee, the 48-year-old founder of High-Definition Genealogy, says its best to think of social media as a garden you have to tend.

Laid off from his tech job in Chicago in late 2008, MacEntee reinvented himself as a family historian -- helping people investigate their family trees -- and utilizes social media to connect with clients. It took MacEntee about a year to build his business.

He's been so successful mastering the intricacies of Twitter -- the free service that allows users to share information in 140 characters or less -- that he now teaches a social media class for baby boomers called "Twitter: It's not just what I had for breakfast anymore."

He says the key to Twitter is giving as much as you get, and listening as much as you speak. He says some boomers have a problem with these concepts. "They think they are giving away their work for free, but it's part of building yourself as a brand and an expert," says MacEntee.

Take a look at the entire article since I feel it is spot on in terms of advice from the other experts, especially concerning LinkedIn. Did you know that one of my current and largest consulting clients found me because I had a LinkedIn profile complete with my resume?

© 2011, copyright Thomas MacEntee

Why I've Been Quiet - Sort Of

I wanted readers to know what I've been up to the past few weeks and why such activity has impacted the postings here at DAF and my other blogs. Such activities deal with a blogging alter-ego that I created back in mid-September when I realized that the law firm where I worked, Heller Ehrman LLP was sliding towards an implosion very similar to Enron.

Since it seems I have "mad skillz" when it comes to blogging, I decided to set up a Wordpress-based blog entitled Heller Highwater which would help my 1200+ co-workers deal with issues such as unemployment, proper payment of back wages, accrued vacation, filing wage claims. Hard to believe that a 118-year old law firm would screw its own loyal employees and violate numerous labor laws? Yes Virginia it can and does happen more often than you think.

As the blog took off, with close to 15,000 unique hits on some days, and lots of press (mostly legal industry trade papers and blogs but I was also contacted by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal), it was eating up much of my time. Since my lay-off on October 10th, I've been able to devote more time to helping out my former co-workers, to discuss issues such as continuing health care coverage, how to rollover a 401k, and how to prepare a resume (some of us had worked for this firm for 25 years!).

Where is this all going? Well as I created the blog under the pseudonym Heller Drone, and I created another blog called Thelen The Pain for the staff of another global law firm which has also collapsed and not given its loyal staff that to which they are entitled, I couldn't maintain these different blogging personalities any longer.

So on Monday I had my "coming out" party where I was able to merge ego and alter ego into one. Lots of press as you can see here. Lots of phone calls and emails. But also lots of job leads and work offers to design websites, blogs, etc. Now I can list these two popular blogs in my portfolio and not feel disjointed, from a blogging personality standpoint.

The Unemployment Line

Little did I know that earlier in the week, when I visited Colleen Fitzpatrick's great site called Forensic Genealogy, and took her weekly quiz to identify the photographer and the name of the bread line, would I see myself in such a place by the end of the week.

I've been following the decline of my current law firm, Heller Ehrman LLP which is over 119 years old and was founded by part of the Levi Strauss family in San Francisco. But having worked for "Big Law" as it is called for close to 20 years, I've weather similar storms.

This time, given the economic climate I just don't think that Heller will come through. There is lots of press in the legal industry about this and some of my colleagues have even started a support blog which lists resources and ideas as to how to handle the news and end of your job.

To be honest, I've been considering a career change over the past year, perhaps due to some mid-life crisis thing having turned 45 in December. So, in the tradition of my ancestors who often not only took lemons and made lemonade, but would also sell said lemonade for a profit, I am starting some new ventures. I guess the over-arching project is what I call Thomas 2.0.

If you go and visit one of my two new web domains (http://www.thomas20.com or http://www.thomasmacentee.com), you'll see what I've been up to over the past few days. I've taught myself CSS for designing web site style sheets, worked on data entry and formatting, etc. It has been a fun project and one that has kept my mind off of work.

Plus it is a way for me to hang out my shingle. So if you know of anyone who needs a "project manager, web 2.0 enthusiast, knowledge manager, technology educator, blogger, history geek, cyber-sleuth, virtual assistant" please let me know. I'm going into business for myself and I know I will enjoy it. The same quality work I love doing for my genealogy colleagues here, at Unclaimed Persons and over at Bootcamp for Genea-Bloggers is what I'd love to do for a living. Thomas 2.0 work is geared more towards legal technology but not limited strictly to that field.

I hope that I can keep up with the same quality posts my readers expect here at DAF. One feature I am suspending temporarily since it is so difficult to prepare is the One This Date post. I will be posting over the weekend on different ways of automating the report preparation but right now all the work is manual and very time consuming.

At the end of the day though, I know it could be worse. I am lucky to have low expenses and some money socked away for rainy days. And it is pouring right now. I was always taught growing up that someone always had it worse than I did and complaining and crying didn't really solve the problem. As you can see I was raised in a "no excuses" household and it is during times like these that I truly am thankful for the great job that Mom did with me.

And because I can never resist turning a post into a prompt, and I know times are tough all over - anyone want to relate a family story or two about unemployment, or perhaps winning the lottery, or even having built a successful business?

Photo courtesy of Forensic Genealogy - I don't want to reveal the photographer or name of the photo since it would undermine Colleen's quiz feature for the week!