One of the things I’ve been super-jazzed about since I graduated last year has been this whole relationship-building thing. Not limited to those that include romance and flowers, I’m talking about new friends, working relationships with colleagues, and my favorite, the relationship one can have with a mentor.

Do you have a mentor? If so, was it someone who was assigned to you? Did you seek this person out yourself? Essentially, there are two species of mentors – ones that are assigned to you, either by an employer, educator, coach, or boss and then there are the ones that you seek out, serendipitously meet, or just kind of come into your life and take on that role.

While I can’t help you with the first camp, I can speak to how to work on the whole finding a mentor thing.

There are three steps that will help you get on your way.

1. Identify the type of mentor you’d like. In a professional/career-type mentoring relationship – are you looking for someone who can advocate for you and your skill and help guide you through your career? If so, perhaps you should look to someone who is a couple (or several) levels above you in the hierarchy. If you’re looking for someone you can vent to, I’d recommend sticking to someone more around your same position, someone who understands the day-to-day of working at your level. While it’s great to have a senior staffer who understands you and how you work and what makes you tick, sometimes you just need to grunt about junior-level stuff. And that’s totally okay.

I’d also recommend that you have more than one mentor – find someone in your organization and find someone outside. The more people you work with, the more people you meet, the greater chance you have at people advocating for you when the time comes. It’s never a bad thing to have good people around you.

2. Get creative with your approach. Chances are, the person you’ve identified as your mentor-to-be is incredibly smart, has their shit together and has a lot of knowledge to offer up. That being said, they probably have lots and lots of people they’re working with. They probably have people coming to them all the time with questions, with the hopes that they’ll get an answer, let alone, a mentor.

With Aaron, that was how it went down. He was speaking for a bit at the Mashable party at SXSW and he sounded like he knew what the hell he was talking about and that he could possibly have some nuggets of goodness to pass on to my almost-grad self. I thought he might be an important person to connect with. So, armed with my newly acquired flip cam, I marched up to him and asked him to answer one simple question – “what one tip do you have for the almost-grad?” Following the interview, I was again impressed with his answer, how much he “got it” and was hell bent on learning more. So, I told him just that, and the rest, as they say, is history.

3. You have to give back. The biggest part of being someone worth mentoring is just that – being worth mentoring. You can’t just run up to someone and take, take, take and not offer up anything in return. Granted, there isn’t much by means of knowledge that I have to lend these folks that have taken me under their wing. But I do bring boundless enthusiasm, an eagerness to learn and turn that around and offer up that knowledge to the people I’m mentoring. Be a rising star, be eager, do good work that is worth recommending, and it’s just a big happy cycle of rainbows, sprinkles and brain power.

In the end, it’s all about surrounding yourself with great people. If you want to make it in this biz (PR, marketing, digital, social, emerging, LIFE, whatever) you have to continually surround yourself with the best and the brightest. I’m fortunate to have a handful of these people in my life. I thank my lucky stars every. single. day.

So what’s your take on mentoring? Over-rated? Best thing ever?

I’ve talked about how important it is to find a mentor, in fact, it happens to be one of my favorite topics. Without the handful of people that are invested in my success, I’m not entirely sure that I’d be where I am today.

I can tell you that without Penelope Trunk, my resume would be boring and plain. Actually, without Penelope, I wouldn’t be sitting where I am right now, because I wouldn’t have gone to SXSW, I wouldn’t have met the people that I met, and I wouldn’t have seemingly stumbled into the amazing opportunities I’ve had since SXSW. So thank you, Penelope.

Without Aaron Strout, I might not understand the business world nearly as much, and I might have fallen down a couple times if he hadn’t been right there with an answer when I needed it. I remember when I met Aaron – we were at the Mashable party at SXSW and I dragged him away from his group to do an interview with me for my blog. Shortly thereafter, he became one of my favorites, responding quickly, concisely and always having great advice.

Without Bryan LeMonds, I would have only had Penelope’s version of my resume, and I’d still think that the point of PR is what I was taught in school, not the very simple answer of “making people realize why they matter”. Meeting him shaped my trip at SXSW, and he gave me a new outlook on the industry.

Without Adam Keats, I’d still be in Florida, probably still bartending and content with half-assing the job search (okay we know that isn’t true, but I’d still be in Florida, for sure). Adam is a man of his word, and I am thankful to have the opportunity to be working with him in my time at Weber Shandwick. I remember when I met Adam, I was rambling like an idiot about what I wanted to do when I graduated, why I love social media and PR, blah blah blah, and he said “funny, that’s what we do everyday where I work”. And the rest, as they say, is history.

So, to be approached by not just one, but three students in PR in the past couple weeks is really exciting, and definitely a change of pace. This time around, I’m the one deciding when and how to respond. I’m the one with answers, and if I don’t have the answer, I have a bunch of people I can call on to get it.

I’m taking all of my mentor-mentee experiences and rolling them into one so I can do a bang-up job at mentoring these up-and-comers. This makes me want to call my mentors and ask them a million questions. While I know there are a lot of PR students out there, there are very few that actually seek out advice, let alone students that follow up. Of course I’m happy to help because I was there not even a year ago, hungry for knowledge and guidance. And I still am. It’s interesting, being the one answering the same questions that I had a year ago. That’s how I know these students are going to do big things. They have the same drive that I did, and I turned out okay.

::note to self, thank mentors and hug them::

It’s amazing how fast my world has turned around from when I started out on this journey. But that’s another post on its own. 

Do you have mentors? Are you a mentor? Have you learned qualities from your mentors that you pass down to the people you are mentoring? What is your biggest piece of advice for mentors? For those seeking a mentor?

Yesterday I recieved a question about mentors from Akhila Kolisetty.

In response to your question, Akhila, I contacted my two most prominent mentors for their take on the question. Below is their advice, followed by mine, so you can see what both mentors and those that are being mentored have to say about the process.

Aaron Strout, VP of Marketing at Powered, Inc.
As far as my mentors go, I met them thanks to dumb luck, or “quite serendipitously” as Aaron likes to put it. Back story of how I met Aaron here. He is one of my career mentors, and he’s heavy into the social media side of marketing, something that interests me greatly. He’s also the quickest to respond so when I have a question that is urgent, he’s my go-to guy. And Aaron is a great mentor in that he mentions me in his blog, and always pushes my work. And for that, I am forever grateful. He is the epitome of a give-and-take mentoring relationship.

Do you have any tips for how to approach a potential member, besides dragging them away from conversation at a party in order to do an interview? (that was my method when I met Aaron, and recently, it concerned me that I was rude in the way I approached him… his responses below)

You were not rude at all. Just assertive. And there’s a difference. Not everyone is cool with that approach but most smart, go getters will appreciate your “grab the bull by the horns” attitude.

As for other advice for someone proactively seeking a mentor (that doesn’t choose to do it at a SXSW Mashable party), I would get really familiar with their work by reading their blog, following their tweet stream, looking at their history on LinkedIn, etc. This would include starting to engage their potential mentor via commenting on their blog, engaging them in Twitter, etc. Once that has happened, reaching out to the mentor with some background of who you/they are along with a rationale of why you want them to mentor you would be helpful.

Penelope Trunk, Author of Brazen Careerist, Founder of BrazenCareerist.com
Penelope and I met at the PRSSA/PRSA National Conference in Detroit. Back story here. Penelope is my career mentor. She helped me create a resume that was spot-on for the jobs I was pursuing. She guided me to SXSW, which afforded me the connections to get hired in Chicago, before graduation.

She also has several posts about how to find and maintain a mentor, and her tips are what helped me understand what a mentor needs from the person they are mentoring. Below are links to some of those posts:

• How I got my current favorite mentor
• Get your next mentor by being slightly annoying
• How to ask for mentoring

Building on a list that Penelope was given, here are seven steps she was given, with my advice attached.

Step 1: Identify a potential mentor. Mentors can be any age, and at any place in their careers.For me, both of my mentors are 10+ years older than me, so they’re old enough to be peers but not quite old enough to be my parents. I like this age difference because they’re obviously 8-10 years into their career, and they know what they’re talking about.

Step 2: Have good questions. Keep it to what they’re here for. Penelope, for example, is one of my career mentors. I keep my questions to her about resumes, work and networking. I made the mistake of asking her about what to get a guy I was dating for Christmas, and she kindly got me back on track. She’s not a life-coach, she’s here to help me advance my career. She actually blogged about it.

Step 3: Don’t expect miracles. Mentors aren’t gods or deities. They can’t part the seas to the top of the corporate ladder for you. But they can connect you with people that are important for advancing your career, and they most certainly can recommend you. Being a person worth mentoring will help you get what you need from the relationship.

Step 4: Be a good listener. Enough said. You’re here for advice, don’t waste your mentors time by not listening to it. If you don’t agree with their approach, maybe you should find a mentor who you do agree with.

Step 5: Prove you’re serious. When Penelope told me to create my own experiences, I did. I created a campaign for Moffitt about how they should use Twitter as a part of their communication strategy. They implemented it recently. Reporting this back to Penelope shows that her advice is working, and also that I’m taking it to heart, reinforcing that our relationship is worth continuing, because I can execute the things she suggests. I’m not wasting her time.

Step 6: Always be on the lookout. One mentor is not enough. I have four, Aaron and Penelope included. Sarah is my “how to be a lady” mentor. She helps me with professional dress, how to carry myself, how to handle difficult situations with catty women, etc

Adam Keats is my mentor at Weber Shandwick. I imagine I’ll have a few more once I get up to Chicago, but Adam got my resume in the right hands. He also took me under his wing at SXSW and introduced me to the “Who’s Who” in social media and PR. I hope to be a part of his team at Weber after I’ve completed my internship.

Step 7: Give back. Being a mentor is a great way to figure out how to be worth mentoring. You’ll find out what is annoying about people that want to be mentored, and you can shape your behavior accordingly. For me, a quick follow-up is essential. I spoke at a panel yesterday at USF for freshman and sophomores in the PR program and two students came up to me after class. One said she wanted to “pick my brain”, which, by the way, is my favorite way to approach a potential-mentor.

Are you a mentor? Are you looking for one? What has worked for you in finding a mentor? What is your best advice to those looking to find one?

Thank you Aaron, Penelope, Sarah and Adam for your insights and for leading me to greatness. Your mentoring efforts do not go un-noticed and I truly appreciate the relationship I have with each of you.

The coolest thing about being a candidate for a position that you’re relocating for (minus the thrill of a new city, new people, new life) has got to be a phone interview. I have recently gone through a total of six phone interviews for my newest position, and I’m here to tell you, it’s not scary. I used these tips to prepare, and now I have compiled a list of my own. (Thanks, Penelope, for getting me all squared away!)

1. Go somewhere quiet. For me, this was my car, for all six interviews. A lot of important business happens in my car, because it’s a quiet place away from the classroom, work and my apartment. I can’t get a good silent spot on campus unless I’m in my car. If I tried to do an interview at work, I’d have servers yelling about medium-rare steaks, which is not the best background noise.
2. Dress the part, if you want. For me, I’m not comfortable in super-formal business attire. I never have been. So I wore what I am comfortable in, business casual. I wore something that I look great in, I was having a great hair/makeup day, and you could tell. You can hear confidence on the other end.
3. Have water handy. I get wicked dry mouth when I’m talking for a long time, so I had water handy. I also am prone to little cough-attacks, the little tickle in my throat comes up at the most inopportune times, (think finals in a 1200-seat auditorium… are you SERIOUS?) so I was prepared. But not slurping it. Don’t slurp water, or chew gum, or smoke, etc when you’re on a phone interview.
4. Smile. If you’re smiling, your voice sounds upbeat. Really. It’s a huge difference. Think about when you call a friend and you know they’re upset. It’s the same thing. You can hear emotions.
5. Don’t be afraid to think about your answers. Yeah the pause will feel like forever since the person on the other end can’t see you thinking as they would if you were face-to-face, but don’t just jump into an answer because you’re afraid of the pause. Believe me, they’d rather wait for an awesome, well-thought-out answer than to hear you ramble while you try to gather your thoughts.
6. Ask questions. The normal interview rules still apply. Everything you do in an in-person interview needs to be done on the phone, with twice the enthusiasm. Ask questions about the person interviewing you. Make sure your questions are relevant to the conversation. An interview should be about two-way communication, so help facilitate that. Don’t just answer, ask as well.
7. Follow up. Immediately. The best thing about my iPhone is as soon as I got off the phone with my interviewers, I sent them an email thanking them for the opportunity to learn more about the company and for the experience. Be sure to include something that you found particularly interesting. It shows that you were paying attention.

Do you have any other tips for phone interviews? What is your preferred method of interviewing – in person or on the phone? Do you rock interviews or do they scare you?

I went to SXSW and fully anticipated having a ton to tell my supervisors at Moffitt. I came back and had so much to say, that we scheduled a meeting for yesterday to go over everything I learned, namely how Moffitt could use Twitter as a part of their communication strategy.

Here are some things you should consider before actually giving a presentation on Twitter to a staff that is unfamiliar.

1. Make sure you’re in a room that is technologically sound to support your presentation. We were so caught up in just getting the meeting scheduled that my preferred conference room was in use. So we went to the boss’s spacious office and had a round table with one computer monitor. Not ideal.

2. Make sure IT hasn’t blocked Twitter.com. Seems pretty commonsense, right? You’d think so. As of Wednesday last week, we had no problem accessing Twitter.com or search.twitter.com or any other Twitter-affiliated site. Come meeting time? It wouldn’t load. It was like cooking with no utensils, or ingredients for that matter. I wasn’t able to demonstrate all of the wonderful things I had rehearsed, and was forced to explain it with no visual aids.

3. Bring backup. I brought Joel Comm’s Twitter Power, a book about dominating your market “one tweet at a time”. We went over some key points briefly, but I wasn’t able to fully show the points laid out in Joel’s book since I couldn’t log on to Twitter.

4. Open it up for questions. When I realized that I wouldn’t be able to access anything, I simply opened up the floor to questions. What is the benefit? What are some demographics for users on Twitter? Are other hospitals using this? I was able to answer most of the questions, though, of course it would have been easier with a visual aid.

Do your homework. Then you’ll be successful.

To wrap up the individual posts about my new friends and their tips for the Almost-Grad, I present to you, Brian Camen. He works in higher education PR in Arizona. Brian graduated college in May 2007 so he can still relate to those of us about to finish up our education. To find out more about Brian, check out his blog, The PR Practitioner.

What is your one tip for the Almost-Grad?

One main tip for new professionals: Don’t pretend to know everything. Many times students come right out of college into their first position and pretend they know everything about media relations, about writing and even the company they work for. It’s an unwritten rule that when you are in an entry-level position you are there to learn, develop and grow your skillset and knowledge about the PR industry. Mistakes happen, but learn from them and don’t pretend you are an expert when you’re really a newbie.

Are you speaking from experience?

I made that mistake when I first entered the workforce. I had 4 or 5 internships and thought I was king. That was very foolish of me. My attitude quickly changed for the better and I’ve grown so much in my first two years in the PR world.

Anything else you’d like to share with the class?

• Network, Network, Network
• Use social media to your advantage, not disadvantage
• Interviews = practice makes perfect
• Create opportunities by doing pro bono freelance PR
• If you don’t have one already, find a mentor (I’m a big fan on mentors. I am where I am today because of mine)
• Enjoy the time while you’re still in school and looking for a permanent position – your life is about to change!

Thank you Brian!

Are you in your first job and feel like you know it all? Has someone called you out on it? Do you think that people are afraid to seem unexperienced so they pretend they know all of the answers?

There has been a lot of talk lately about whether or not Twitter is going to get you anywhere. Jamie Varon wanted to get hired – she set up a campaign, and though she didn’t get hired by Twitter, she did land a job as Community Manager for TechVenture. Case in point – when used correctly, Twitter can absolutely get you somewhere.

My story? I was at the “Old Media, New Tricks” panel at SXSW. I was tweeting live all of the points that I thought I would want to remember, since I was using it as a way to take notes, and I was participating in the virtual discussion about what was being said in the panel. Adam Keats from Weber Shandwick saw my feed, liked it, followed me on Twitter, which lead him to my blog, where he commented on my series about SXSW and self-discovery, and I emailed him after he posted the comment. We emailed and texted back and forth the rest of the day, met up later that night, and he took me under his wing, introducing me to everyone I needed to know.

Because of that connection, I have had two rounds of interviews and a writing test with Weber Shandwick’s Chicago office. Now I wait. In the next two weeks I’ll know whether or not I’m going to be uprooting my life to Chicago in August. If I get hired, no doubt it’s because they believe I am qualified for the position – but the connections made on Twitter are what got my foot in the door. Had I not been on Twitter during the panel, Adam may not have met me, and I would have been another resume in a stack of hundreds. Networking with him allowed me to make an impression before he had even seen my resume. Now that is what social media is all about.

Regardless of whether or not Weber Shandwick brings me on board, I learned valuable lessons. I went through a total of six phone interviews (post on how to rock a phone interview coming up). I took a writing test – demonstrating the skills I could offer the team. And that’s what life is all about.

I think the people that think you’re wasting your time on Twitter are either not understanding the true value of building a social network or they are upset that it hasn’t gotten them anywhere. And Twitter isn’t for everyone – I know that. But being a senior, about to graduate into the world of PR, where social media is starting to revolutionize that industry, Twitter is for me. And I thank Twitter for opening doors I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to explore.

Now cross your fingers and think good thoughts!

What are your thoughts? Have you made valuable connections on Twitter or other social networking sites that have helped your career? Do you think Twitter is a waste of time? What is the best way to use social networking to your advantage?

Much thanks to Aaron Strout for his tips for the almost-grad. Next up, Jim Storer, principal at Community Roundtable. Jim thinks that the lines between our professional and personal lives are blurring, let’s take a look:

Jim Storer’s One Tip for Almost Grads from Sydney Owen on Vimeo.

Could you describe Community Roundtable in a couple sentences?

The Community Roundtable is a peer network for people building community and social media programs at medium and large companies. It’s a high-touch network with regular (~weekly) conference calls, webcasts and/or live chats on topics that interest our members. We’re dedicated to making our members successful by providing access to the most relevant people and information given their interests and initiatives.

Any other tips for the Almost-Grad?

My other advice to everyone just getting started is to become known as a “giver.” Help connect friends with people that can help them. Give a book to someone who you think would enjoy it. Share your contacts or LinkedIn friends with people you trust. Go to a conference and introduce your colleagues to everyone you know. Generosity really does come back around and the whole “Google is your home page” advice won’t be an issue if you’re out there helping everyone succeed.

Are you a giver? How do you balance your professional and personal life? Are your lines blurring, or are they very defined?

Are you a professional in PR, Marketing, Social Media or any combination of the three? Would you like to be a part of this series? Check out my contact information at the top of the page, or follow me on Twitter to get involved.

As SXSW Interactive starts to wind down, I want to leave you with a couple of pointers from one of the big guys in social media, Peter Shankman. This is by no means the end of my posts about my time here at SX, but I felt this was of the utmost importance.

1. Take as many journalism classes as you can. If you understand journalism, deadlines, how to write for a particular beat, what the newsroom is like, AP style, etc, you will succeed at a rapid pace as a PR professional. If you can pitch to the appropriate people, and understand what a journalist considers a good pitch – you are set. For life.

2. Talk to as many people as you can. I know I’ve been harping on this for several months now, but networking is huge. Anyone who follows Peter on Twitter can see that he’s got it down. Anyone that’s ever had the pleasure of meeting him in person can see that he’s as passionate offline as he is online, if not more so. Having the opportunity to interact with Peter at SXSW on multiple occasions was amazing. I was able to see him both as a panelist and as a rocker. “Rocker?” you say? Yes. Which leads me to number three…

3. Learn one song that you can rock at karaoke. Okay so this wasn’t actual advice that he gave me, but damn, this guy can rock the Bon Jovi. Seriously. Don’t believe me? Check it out.

Thank you Peter for your amazing input and fantastic rendition of “You Give Love A Bad Name”. I look forward to working with you in the future.

My journey in Austin, navigating everything that is SXSW Interactive started off with a good dose of reality. While Mentor #2 made some great points and definitely opened my eyes to how everyone should be approaching PR, his stand-offish attitude about my enthusiasm for social media wiped my usually-amazing smile right off my face. And then he wonders why I’m not smiling. Well I decided to change it up.

Since I spent much of Saturday wasting away possible networking opportunities with some awesome dramatics (the sarcasm is actually dripping from “awesome” if you look closely), I woke up Sunday, plastered a smile on my face and hit the streets. It was time to make up for a botched “interview” and time wasted.

The goal of the day was to go to as many panels as possible and network with as many people as I could. I went to three amazing panels including “HealthCare and Social Networking”, “Old Media, New Tricks” and “Are PR Agencies a Dying Breed?”. For a recap of those panels, if you aren’t already following me on Twitter, you should, and search for these tags: #snhealth, #sxswOMNT, and #pr2. You can see some of the amazing discussions that took place during the different sessions.

Lesson #6: It’s okay to Twitter during sessions (and in bars!), in fact, it’s encouraged. During my first session, Ben created a tag for the conversation so we could all follow along. It made the experience that much better, because what wasn’t being said in the discussion was being said on Twitter. It was incredible to see the dynamics of the conversation change. At my second panel, Dan and Rob had already established the tag they wanted us to use.

The fact that being on your computer, playing around with Twitter and texting was all encouraged was an awesome thing. The fact that all of the people here are early adopters if not innovators makes me feel right at home. The lightbulb went off when I walked into the first party – I am a nerd. And it’s confirmed. And I like it. I’ve found my happy place.

Lesson #7: Don’t mold yourself to the company you’re thinking about. Be yourself and if it fits, it fits. My live-tweeting drew attention to my site and in turn, I made a lot of new contacts. I met Adam Keats of Weber-Shandwick in Chicago and he introduced me to anyone and everyone that I needed to know. My conversations with Adam were the extreme opposite of those with Bryan. The conversation had a good flow, both of us asking questions and talking about how social media is revolutionizing the way we do PR. Adam is clearly an awesome guy to know, as his networking skills are amazing, and he passed my communication test (he finished one conversation before he started another, in short). With Adam, I walked away with that “I nailed it” feeling.

Lesson #8: Being energetic and passionate is going to get me places. I know I already touched on this several posts ago – but my energy is what is going to get me the job. Why? Because the people I want to work with are the people that feed off of a good energy, people that see my passion and can feel it. Experience is still necessary, yes, but I don’t need to be stressed out about how much I have an if it’s enough. Because it is. Nobody expects me to have all the answers, I’m too young to have all the answers. But I do have an incredible hold on what I do, and am eager to learn and grow and show people what I’m all about.

Talking to the people I talked to, both last night and today, made me realize that I am doing everything I can and that I’m on the right track. This conference has been the most powerful thing for my career so far, as I have had four interviews, all different in their own right and all something that I can definitely learn from.

And, I won a flip camera today! I guess I’ll have to start looking into doing some vlogging.

More to come. Dinner at Rio Grande, then Mashable Bash.