You might have seen the video.  It’s called Social Media Revolution and it’s already gotten over 400,000 hits on YouTube since its release only a few weeks ago.  It tells a story through numbers about the furious growth of social media around the world. Facts appear on the screen in rapid succession with haunting music in the background: “If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 4th largest.” “By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers. . . 96% of them have joined a social network.” “Social media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web.”

It spews its facts so fast you can barely digest them, which is how many people feel about the pace of virtual updates on sites like Facebook and Twitter. Will it ever stop coming at us and demanding our attention, fractured as it is because we’re sifting through emails, texts, all while uploading our latest photos to Flickr?

According to Erik Qualman, who created the video to promote his new book, Socialnomics, it won’t be stopping any time soon. And if you don’t want to be left behind, you’ll embrace the social media revolution:

I had a chat with Qualman about what all this means for us and our careers. Following is a condensed version of our conversation. {Read the rest at Yahoo!}

Last spring, I took a writing workshop led by Constance Hale, who is well known in literary circles as an extraordinary teacher. The workshop was based on her book, Sin and Syntax, and in about an hour, Hale transformed the way I think about writing sentences and spinning out paragraphs. At Hale’s feet, we students were like children learning language for the first time, as we played games like the one in which we competed to replace the verb walk with the most sizzling synonyms (like gambol, shamble, lumber, lurch, sway, swagger, and sashay).

Hale specializes in helping professional writers to write better, cleaner prose. But she’s also worked with lawyers, CEOs, P.R. and marketing types, and others who write as part of their jobs. Her philosophy was informed by years as an editor at Wired magazine, where she says the magazine’s staff was consumed with presenting technological concepts in a way that was lively, fresh and human.

I asked Hale for some every day tips that will transform writing from lackluster to vivid — whether it’s in an email, a cover letter, a pitch for new business, or even a status update on Facebook.  Here’s what she recommends: {Read the rest at Yahoo!}

Creating a LinkedIn profile is pretty straightforward when you have a job with a well-defined title. But I’ve been getting questions lately about how to create a profile on LinkedIn when what you’re doing isn’t so tidy. Two scenarios that come up a lot are how to create one of these profiles if you have a slash career (e.g. yoga instructor/caterer), or if you’re unemployed (or, as they say, consulting).

There’s some overlap between the two scenarios because in both cases you are taking what feels like a standard tool and tailoring it to fit your needs. And the good news is that when you spend a little time with it, LinkedIn allows for a lot of customizing.

Here are a few ideas: {Read the rest at Yahoo!}

For a long time I had trouble saying no. I’d get a request, and have a hunch I should say no. But because I generally hate to disappoint people, I’d say yes. And then one of two things would happen. I’d do the thing and resent it. Or I’d realized that I shouldn’t have said yes and have to back-pedal my way out of it. Not anymore. Now I say no. Often.

I’ve been thinking of this lately as I’m in one of those crunch periods where I can’t take on anything else personally or at work. I’m getting married in two weeks and will be taking some time off after that. So I’ve been trotting out my “noes” with increasing frequency. In fact, I did it twice last week. …

Being able to say no has lots of benefits. It helps with time management, reduces stress, and most important, ensures that you can do the things you’ve said yes to….

Here are some rules for figuring out when to say no: {Read the rest at Yahoo!}

If you spend any amount of time online, you’ve probably needed to post a head shot or other image of yourself. If you’re lazy, you leave the photo area blank or go with a random photo you have lying around. But some folks are adopting avatars, those tiny cartoon-y images which are becoming increasingly common.

During the election, Obamicons (avatars in the style of the iconic Shepard Fairy Obama poster) were flooding the Web thanks to a free program offered on Paste Magazine’s website. Now, during the “Mad Men” frenzy, images like the one here are cropping up, courtesy of the “MadMenYourself” campaign on the show’s site.

So, why would you want one of these avatars? I’ve been talking to lots of folks who use them, and here’s what I’ve learned: {Read the rest at Yahoo!}

Every time I enter a negotiation it feels like the first time. I can rehearse, prepare and strategize, but if I really want something or have any emotional stake in the deal, all the wisdom I think I’ve collected over the years starts jumbling together (For example, “Never start the money conversation,” mushes together with “Name your price first to make sure you’re negotiating from your number, not theirs.”)  And if negotiating requires a long waiting game, my impatience gets the best of me as all I want to do is get the deal sealed.

I decided to talk to a pro to see if I could improve my ways, so I rang up Jim Camp whose latest book, “No: The only Negotiating System You Need for Work and Home,” just landed on my desk. Camp is a seasoned negotiator and coach who has trained the FBI on how to negotiate in hostage situations, so I figured low-stakes negotiations like mine would be much easier to manage. {Read the rest at Yahoo!}

As a popular and controversial blogger on career management, Penelope Trunk (who formerly blogged for Yahoo! finance), knows how to get attention. She does it by giving contrarian advice (“why graduate school is outdated“), blogging about her marital problems and dating life, and by frequent references to sex (always with connection to a career issue),

This week, she’s hoping to shine the spotlight on Brazen Careerist, an online network she has co-founded, which she hopes will be GenY’s answer to LinkedIn.

People in different age groups network differently, says Trunk, and they need different tools to get jobs and manage their careers. As she sees it, Baby Boomers responded to ads in newspapers, Generation Jones (the tail end of the Baby Boom) used sites like Monster and Careerbuilder, and Generation X dominates LinkedIn. “We’re due for a new recruiting tool,” she explained. “And it has to deliver what Gen Y wants, which is conversations in a professional environment. They have been networking online since they used IM in the fifth grade to talk to the popular kids after school.” {Read the rest at Yahoo!}

One of the lasting effects of the recession of 2009 may be that many upper middle class parents who expected to send their children to private universities now can’t afford it. And since those families are probably too well-off for financial aid, there will be a huge boom in attendance at state colleges and universities, and even community colleges, which are upgrading their offerings at a furious pace.

But that might not be the only route for future students. According to “Who Needs Harvard,” an article in the current issue of Fast Company magazine, we might be just a couple of decades away from a time when a good chunk of higher education will be taking place online. It’s not just virtual courses; now that online social networking allows for conversation and connection these new outfits can also offer an entire online community to share the learning experience with.  And both venture capital firms and the Obama Administration are plunking down lots of money to support experimentation in this sector. {Read the rest at Yahoo!}

Does it drive you nuts to have to check voicemail on more than one phone?

Have you ever started a call on a land line and then wanted to transfer the call to your cell phone so that you can finish from outside?

Ever call someone, leave a message with your office number, then leave your office and realize that forgot to give your cell number?

Would you like to be able to send text messages from your computer rather than from your cell phone?

Ever wish you could listen in on while someone was leaving a voicemail and then decide to pick up (like those old answering machines allowed) — or that you could read your voicemail as an email or text message rather than having to call into a system (like iPhone’s visual voicemail)?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’ll probably want to try Google Voice, a new service that has “future of telephone” written all over it. It’s not a phone service provider, so you’ll still need your contract with whatever company provides your service. Rather it’s a new phone number that can coordinate your different phones and allow you to do a slew of things easily and efficiently. I’ve been playing around with it for a few days to see whether it’s something that will help or complicate life at work. (I’m not the only one on Shine playing around. Daily Grommet just did a post explaining how it works and how to get on the waiting list for a number.)

So what does Google Voice mean for your career? {Read the rest at Yahoo!}

When I was researching my book a few years ago, I was looking for employers who were taking advantage of people’s desires to build significant careers while working a flexible schedule. I highlighted companies like Axiom, a new kind of law firm that caters to lawyers who don’t want traditional full-time hours (e.g. working parents, artists, or those starting businesses on the side).  Axiom pitches itself to clients as an economical alternative to big law firms since it can avoid the high overhead associated with overstaffed firms. Another firm, Virtual Law Partners,
has been getting some buzz lately with a similar approach.

Now scores of companies are thinking flexible and virtual, in all kinds of fields — from virtual assistants (check out Delegate Solutions), to corporate executives (see EPOCH). The troubled economy has been a boon to businesses like these, which can offer part-time employment to displaced workers and deliver lower cost services to clients. {Read the rest at Yahoo!}