Social Media is a powerful tool for reaching out to like-minded individuals. As alumni leader for the Japan chapter of UCSD, I use Facebook as one way of connecting with other alumni. Up until now, it has been difficult to find people affiliated with the school here in Japan, even though there are so many of us here. With the recent improvements to Facebook Search, finding people is now easy. But, connecting with people has not changed since the days of before the internet- it requires a personal touch.

The following are some simple instructions for finding people affiliated with your school by region, and then some related pointers I’ve learned about Facebook groups and mailing lists.

I will use my school (UCSD) as an example, but feel free to substitute your own.

1. In the Search bar at the top, type UCSD and press enter.
2. Do not press Enter. Instead, click on the magnifying glass icon on the right.
3. On the left side of the screen, you will see Search Filters. Choose People.
4. A new option will show up called Search Tools, allowing you to choose more filters. The default is Location. Type your region, city, state, etc. here. (Note: you will get a pop down menu to choose more specific locations. You don’t have to choose any; whatever you type is fine.
5. Click “Add another filter”.
6. Education will be the next filter option. Type “University California” and choose University of California, San Diego when it appears in the pull down menu. (you don’t need to choose year unless you want a specific grad year)
7. The results you will see are only your friends. Not so interesting, so scroll down to the bottom to “See More Results”. Click.
8. If you are like me, you may need repeat step 7 a few times until you get to people you are not FB buds with yet. Once you see “Add friend”, then you have hit the jackpot. Check the profile of each person before adding (the search engine makes mistakes sometimes), and if their profile matches what you are looking for go ahead and add them.

Additional Pointers:
1. Personally, I don’t add people to the group myself. I hate it when people do the same to me (thank you Gary Bremermann for noticing this early on). That is why I friend them first, and if they accept, I explain in my welcome email about our UCSD Facebook group and I give them the link, asking them to join if they like. This way I am not pressuring anyone and you only get people on the list that want to be there. Depending on their privacy preferences, you can often email them even if they don’t friend you and invite them to the list. Friending is best because it is more personal, and you are networking. Isn’t that what it is all about anyway?
2. I also have a separate UCSD Japan Facebook list that I add people to so I can follow their updates as a group. It makes it much easier to keep up with everyone, especially if you have a high number of Facebook friends like me.
3. I started keeping an excel file based on the Facebook information. People tend to provide a lot of useful info in their fb pages, but fb is not a database. With my excel list, I can easily filter for UCSD grads, 2009, living in Tokyo, working in Finance. Plus, I can add people who are not part of the fb group, or not even on fb at all (maybe a little strange in the US, but common overseas). Eventually, I would like to make it in to an “opt-in” mailing list, where I send one or two emails out requiring people to respond in order to be included on the list (again, less pressure). Then, I will use the list to send out recent UCSD updates about events, info, volunteer ops, etc.
4. Some people don’t like being friended by people they don’t know. They need an affiliation. My profile is very clear at first glance that I have something to do with UCSD. I believe this increases the number of people willing to connect with me (and not block me!).

If you have some other tips that you would like to share, please let me know.

A few days ago while hosting an information session on leadership training for college students, one of the participants asked me “what is a leader?” I hesitated for a moment. This is something I think about often, but I just don’t have a scripted reply for this.

A very basic question and yet not easy to answer, because leadership means different things to different people. To some people, a leader may be a title- our boss is our leader. Personally, I disagree with this point, as you might have figured out from reading my other articles. I believe a true leader is an agent of the group, always acting out the wishes and desires of the group, both explicit and implicit. Some people do not agree that leaders are beholden to the group. That’s fine too; I accept there are other points of view.

Still, there are characteristics of a leader that most people agree on. I believe as do many others that a leader needs to be a good role model; they need to set an example for their followers to, well, follow. This is not an easy task, because if you find yourself in a leadership role your actions will be scrutinized constantly. Everyone is watching.

The example you set is determined by the image you reflect to the group. Of course, if this is a false image, most people will see through you immediately. That is why so many social media campaigns for large companies fail, no matter how much money they throw at their efforts. Money is not enough to prove to people you are dedicated to your cause, whether it is global warming or a new brand of laundry detergent (in fact these causes could be related).

That is why it is difficult- you must be true to your followers, and to do that, you must be true to yourself. This means that even when no ones looking, you have a reputation to uphold.

When I was in elementary school (a long time ago) I remember receiving report cards with two grades for each subject, one for achievement (A,B,C,D,F) and one for effort (E, S, NI). I remember being perplexed by an A/NI grade I got at one point. Anecdotally, it seems at least the assessment of effort has been in practice for some time.

My father was a NCAA champion wrestler, and I wrestled a bit myself. There are few physical endevours as challenging- wrestling requires you to be smarter, faster, stronger, and more agile while enduring pain and physical exhaustion longer than your opponent. Oh, and you have to be in this condition while you are cutting weight. In wrestling, there is no greater prize than winning that final match and achieving the title of champion. All of your peers and coaches will be singing your praises for that. There is no greater prize. But conversely, the greatest shame and condemnation for a wrestler is not losing, although it hurts. The greatest shame is not putting in 100% effort in to the match. In fact, this thought process goes beyond the mat and in to the life of the wrestler- he must make 100% effort in every aspect of his training, or he will either be made to feel like a failure or more likely he will punish himself for becoming one.

Most wrestlers never achieve any kind of championship, but they are proud of whatever they have achieved because they gave everything they had to give, and nothing less.

Teachers need to reward achievement because that is the way the world works. But, they simultaneously need to enstill a sense of pride in the efforts their students are making. This is no small task, I know. But it is one that can be achieved, with great effort.

In the last post, we talked about how people define leadership in different ways. Hearing about these characteristics of leadership further convinces me that we have to look beyond the dictionary to define leadership, because you cannot add all the qualities of a leader in to one definition. That being said, one summary of these characteristics could be that a leader is someone that people in his group look up to, respect, and truly want to follow. The leader in turn takes on the responsibility of leading the group in an ethical and moral fashion, always acting in the group’s best interest. Under this definition, a leader who is morally corrupt and/or harms its own group members is not a true leader. In this sense, Stalin and Hitler were rulers of their nations, but not their nation’s leaders.

I would also like to add that a leader is a guide, leading the group toward a shared goal, again without sacrificing moral and ethical values. The leader does not turn tail and run at the first sign of conflict, a leader steadfastly guides her flock toward their destination. Gandhi did not back down from the British, but he always encouraged his followers to maintain their moral code of non-violence.

Being a leader is a tremendous responsibility. A title does not make one a leader. A leader cannot take short-cuts to reach his goal; he must always protect the values of the group. A leader must listen to his followers in order to make sure that he is continuously serving them well.

In short, as one student from the Summer session stated, being a leader “is hard work,” plain and simple.

Are you up for the challenge?

Most people believe they know what a leader is, but have never thought deeply about how to define a leader. Dictionary.com defines a leader as “a guiding or directing head, as of an army, movement, or political group.” This definition is too simplistic for me. If you have a terrible boss, is he still a true leader? No, he is just your boss (and hopefully, you will have enough sense to quit before too much of your life force is sucked away by him!).

The students in our Summer 2011 Future Global Leaders program were asked what it means to be a leader, and they came up with many interesting responses.

A leader:

“knows the nature of problems and makes a decision”

“is honest about her mistakes”

“is trusted, ethical, and moral”

“is inquisitive, a learner, a thinker, and a great teacher”

“takes independent action without disrupting the cooperative spirit of the group”

“is responsible for everything”

“is generous, honest, and encouraging”

“is hard work”

“is spiritual, responsible, and has a end goal”

“respects others to gain their respect”

“is a leader of herself”

“takes responsibility for what he does and what his friend does”

How do YOU define a leader?