The Father

William Randolph Hearst [From Wikipedia] (April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher.^[1] Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father. Moving to New York City, he acquired The New York Journal and engaged in a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer‘s New York World which led to the creation of yellow journalism—sensationalized stories of dubious veracity. Acquiring more newspapers, Hearst created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world.

He was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives, but ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909, for Governor of New York in 1906, and for Lieutenant Governor of New York in 1910. Nonetheless, through his newspapers and magazines, he exercised enormous political influence, and is sometimes credited with pushing public opinion in the United States into a war with Spain in 1898.

His life story was a source of inspiration for the development of the lead character in Orson Welles‘ classic film Citizen Kane.^[2] His mansion, Hearst Castle, near San Simeon, California, on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, was donated by the Hearst Corporation to the state of California in 1957, and is now a State Historical Monument and a National Historic Landmark, open for public tours. Hearst formally named the estate La Cuesta Encantada (“The Enchanted Slope”), but he usually just called it “the ranch”.

The Son

William Randolph Hearst Jr., [From Wikipedia] attended the University of California, Berkeley and was a member of the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity.

He was instrumental in restoring some measure of family control to the Hearst Corporation, which under his father’s will is (and will continue to be while any grandchild alive at William Randolph Hearst Sr.’s death in 1951 is still living) controlled by a board of thirteen trustees, five from the Hearst family and eight Hearst executives. When tax laws changed to prevent the foundations his father had established from continuing to own the corporation, he arranged for the family trust (with the same trustees) to buy the shares and for longtime chief executive Richard E. Berlin, who was going senile, to be eased out to become chairman of the trustees for a period. Later William Randolph Hearst Jr. himself headed the trust and served as chairman of the executive committee of the corporation. Today his branch of the family is represented on the trustees by his son William Randolph Hearst III.

The Grandson

William Randolph Hearst III [From Wikipedia] (born June 18, 1949) became president of the William Randolph Hearst Foundation in early 2003. Son of William Randolph Hearst, Jr. and grandson of William Randolph Hearst, Hearst is also director of the Hearst Corporation.

Hearst has a son, William Dedalus Hearst, and three daughters, Adelaide, Caroline and Eliza.

Hearst graduated from Harvard University in 1972 with an AB degree in mathematics. He spent years as an employee of the Hearst Corporation, eventually as editor and publisher of the San Francisco Examiner. His grandfather had also headed that paper, though his father had been publisher of the New York Journal American. In some television commercials Hearst III was shown having a conversation with his grandfather’s portrait. (In fact, he was only two when his grandfather died.)

In 1976 he left the company to become the managing editor of Outside magazine which was then being started by the Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner. Hearst returned to the company and newspaper work in 1980.

In 1992 he again left his job at the company, remaining on the board of directors. The following year he succeeded his father as a trustee of the trust that controls the company and chooses the directors.

In 1996 Hearst was a co-founder of the @Home Network Broadband Internet service with Milo Medin, cable companies TCI, Comcast and Cox Cable where he served as the company’s first Chief Executive Officer.^[1]

In 1995 Hearst was named partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers,^[2] where he continues to serve today. He sits on several Boards of Directors of companies in which the firm has investments, including Hearst-Argyle Television.^[3] He served as a member of the Board of Directors of Juniper Networks until May 2008.

Summary

So what do you think when you look at this interesting lineage? Lines like “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” springs to my mind. By looking at the influence each father had on his son you can see the possibility of a future for William Dedalus Hearst, born 05 02 1979, William Randolph Hearst III’s son . . . or not. Will he follow in the footsteps of his father, grandfather and great grandfather? Only time will tell, but just looking at the network for these “men of words” I believe we will continue to see the Hearsts connected to digital networks.

Related articles

• Hearst Lives (possil.wordpress.com)
• Hearst Acts Like Venture Capitalist in New Media Marketplace (nyconvergence.com)
• Tea for Two: Hearst Castle, San Simeon, California (photographerwilltravel.wordpress.com)

I was looking at articles on the growth of social media data collection sites by Bloomberg Business and came across this company that had won a contest sifting research on why men like stubble on their face (answer: they think it looks good, but I digress). I went on the web to check out the company, Netbase, who won the contest and found an awesome site–friendly, fun and one I know I’ll be returning to regularly.

So, why talk about this site? Well besides the fact that they “get” how to research social media better and faster than most of their competitors, I see they have the elements of Networlding–they do better business faster because they show the “human side” of their business.

I couldn’t find one page on their site or blog that didn’t show me people. Real people working in this real company doing really good work . . . and have fun at the same time. The picture, above, is a picture of Net Base’s blog. Check it out.

They are definitely in my top ten list of great sites and I plan to follow them on Twitter and LinkedIn. How about you?

I take great pleasure in sharing my success and expertise in assisting fellow thought leaders publish books. Don’t heistate to come talk with me by Contact me here, connect on LinkedIn, or call 312-560-0982 to chat with me free of charge!

Social Media and Publishing

I have 15+ years in publishing and eight years in online social media strategy and implementation that includes:

• Check out the collection I’ve authored and/or co-authored on Amazon including best sellers 50 Ways to Better Social Media and 75 Cage Rattling Questions to Change the Way You Work.
• Publishing – write books that get you more speaking engagements, new clients and customers and grow your position and credibility as a thought leader. After authoring and co-authoring twelve books and helping hundreds of others do the same, I have found there is nothing more successful that offers returns year after year than publishing a book.
• Leveraging LinkedIn – using it since it began, we have helped 4000+ people and have been coaching 6 Figure executives through 6 Figure Jobs on this since LinkedIn started
• Continuing to leverage Twitter and Facebook integration with LinkedIn
• Content development – Turn your blogs into e-books and what we call “Pre-books” and then into self-published print-on-demand books
• Publish through Kindle, Ipad and, now, Google

Coaching

Ready to just jump into a coaching session? I’ll share all my top tips and best strategies for growing your business through social media and/or publishing starting with a one-hour session. From here I’ll apply this first payment to any other service offering we have at Networlding. Alternatively, if you got what you wanted in the first session, that’s great too! I look forward to talking with you!

$300 Introductory Coaching Session with Melissa

Speaking and Our Speakers Bureau

Please vist our speaker page.

Help Networlding 4.0

This year we realized that it’s time to rewrite Networlding and that’s what we’re working on with our current working title, “Networlding 4.0: Mastering the Power of Social Networking.” To this end we would love your ideas, Networlding success stories and questions on the new book.

Give Back

Over the past decade we have given to the community annually in efforts such as a Networlding contest and free celebration for the best Networlders, a revitalization event for the City of Chicago that brought out more than 300 professionals, a mentoring event for Scholarship Chicago students, free Networlding seminars for high school, undergraduate and graduate students and annual cash donations to charities that serve the disadvantaged.

Currently our focus is on an initiative I created called Leadership 12-29 to help young people get better starts in their careers.

We also help non-profits achieve their goals. To this end we offer our Networlding books (in electronic form) free of charge. To learn more call us at 312-421-4213 or by contacting us here. We look forward to helping you.

7.    How do you use networking to support the success of others? When you use the word “connector” that’s what I am. I connect people. I sent out emails today to three people I met on Friday connecting them to others I believe can help them. I even talk with the people I am connecting to make sure I know how they want to connect. It is not about me but about what I can do for others.

8.    What are your top values? – That’s a hard question for me to answer. I have hired a life coach myself to help me identify what they are; I think I know what they are but I want to really get some clarity in understanding. I want to help others but what ultimately I want out of my life? What is the piece that drives me?

9.    What attributes do you bring to the job as a leader that are related to the skill of networking? – eg.1. creativity, 2. innovation, 3. team building. – I try to find creative ways to build my network. I created a mastermind group to that end. I just got a testimonial from one member who is part of the group, who at first did not know if she would get something out of the group. She said she has learned so much and has made life-time relationships.

10.    What public figure has raised in your eyes the standard of performance of networking? I would say that two people here that I know would be, first, the president of our chamber in Gilbert and the vice president of one of our local hospitals.

11.    What is your number one strategy for success? Mine is just sticking with what goal you have set. This is from the  Disney movie “Finding Nemo” which is funny but in that movie there is a little blue fish called Dori. She says at some point to Nemo’s dad, ”Just keep swimming.” There will always be roadblocks but you need to “just keep swimming.”

12.    What role does social responsibility play in your life as a “Linkable Leader”? – I guess we each have a responsibility if we are going to be a connector that we understand that role. I went to a meeting at the chamber for a committee I am on and we were talking about why people don’t renew their memberships. They go to one event and if they don’t get a client they give up. They need to understand that you are going to events to open relationship possibilities and from that come clients.

13.    What is something you have not done as a leader you would still like to do? The one thing I would like to do is write a book. I have shared that with you and I do believe that it is one thing that is part of being a leader is giving back. I would also like to speak more.

14.    Please name the best networker you know and why. Besides you (Melissa Giovagnoli), there is Kathy, the president of the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce.

Growing Your Brand Through Your Book and Other Book Products

Here are just a few line extensions that could come from your book:

• A Tips Booklet: An example would be our Networlding 101 Ways to Better Networlding tips booklet which is offered free on this blog. This helps your prospects “try before they buy.”
• An E-Book: We are big fans of e-books because they can be the precursor to your book or follow-on books. An example here would be a product created by the organization Z-Mags. Take a look and see what you think. This organization enables your prospects and clients to really dive deep into the value your organization can bring to the table.
• A Guidebook: If you have a book that is a how-to book then a guidebook will really help with training from you and also, licensing your training to others. Here also consider a facilitator’s guide for train-the-trainer programs. We are just getting our guidebook published with a facilitator’s guide.
• Games: Everyone loves games. They engage. They create connection. They accelerate learning. Consider starting with something simple like card decks that help educate like The Creative Whack Pack by Roger Van Oech or Think Pak: A Brainstorming Card Deck by Michael Michalko.

Finally, I also mentioned Chris Brogan’s new book, Trust Agents, which is all about building trust effectively online. The emphasis here is not that you can build the kind of trust you might build with a best friend or even a group of good friends but a way to be more “trustworthy.” With the growth of networks online this becomes a challenge and Chris and his co-author, Julien Smith, help provide a path to make that challenge easier. The result is that those who understand this difference can become more trustworthy which then adds value and credibility to their brand which can also lead to better sales.

I have been working with executives on LinkedIn since its beginning and have found, again and again, that people need help figuring out how to leverage its power for their job search. With the statistic floating out there that 86% of the way people get jobs is through networking a tool like LinkedIn that has over 40 million professionals on it with the average age between 40-42, one would have to pay attention to this tool. But what’s the 20% focus you should have to yielf an 80% return. That’s where you start.

First, make sure your profile is as strong as it can be. It should have key words that hiring professionals would use. One of the best ways to figure out what these words would be is to do a key word search by clicking on the “People” page of LinkedIn (top left-hand corner in the navigational bar on the site). Search for keywords you would think would be used in searching for your job but also think out of the box. For example, since leadership is something that many employers search for in a candidate, if you are seeking a management position, put a keyword search in that includes some variation of that keyword. I just searched on the keywords “leader” and “marketing” with the title of Sr. VP of Marketing. I found 16,356 people referenced with those closest in my network listed first. I then reviewed a number of the profiles to see how they were constructed. There were hundreds of great models to emulate.

Second, explore the Company pages of LinkedIn to further compare your profile with others at the targeted companies you have chosen and to identify the right “Tipping Point” of connections you can make into those organizations. Again, let’s take the terms marketing and leader at the Sr. VP level. This time I search through organizations like Intuit, a top software company out of San Francisco. I found they currently have the following number of employees on LinkedIn:

* San Francisco Bay Area (500+)
* Greater San Diego Area (500+)
* Tucson, Arizona Area (500+)
* Greater Los Angeles Area (500+)
* Dallas/Fort Worth Area (500+)
* Reno, Nevada Area (278)

I was able to get a great snapshot of the organization. I found this company has thousands of active employees on LinkedIn. This means that I should be able to gather deep wisdom about what that company wants in an employee and, further, to connect with enough people who can help me network my way into the organization.

Third, get yourself a support group with whom you can share your job search experiences. I always say the best group to start is your own. This could look like a weekly call with others who are in a job search mode or a face-to-face meeting where you keep sharing your search techniques. My clients are constantly telling me how tough it is to face the daily loneliness they feel during a job search. But you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out and connect.

There are so many strategies you can use to accelerate your job search. I’ll over more in upcoming weeks. The important thing is that you do have a process and you do have a support network who will help you with direction and connection. So many of my clients find that they are able to learn and master networking when they have a sound framework that is tailored to their unique backgrounds. Finally, the best news about learning how to network better and to use all the new low-cost no-cost, online tools is that networking is something they can always use in their new positions to grow their careers. In other words, networking is a skill you never want to have get rusty. It can always be useful.

Bonus Point: If you who purchase the program I created that contains the comprehensive tools–the combination of the networking process and LinkedIn strategies and basic and advanced usage training (all for the low price of $79) you will receive a free coaching session with me to even further tailor your job search. However, this offer is good for only a limited time, so if you are interested, visit http://budurl.com/6figurejobsearch.

Career Coaching Experience

Helped over 4000 people on their LinkedIn Profiles
18+ Years of Experience
Specializing in Senior Managers and C-Level Professionals
6 Figure Jobs – partnership as “The Networking Coach” for more than six years

Kevin’s ebook details the market transformation of a bottled water company, from a me-too player to a tribe-focused brand.  Insights are drawn from Accelteon’s expertise in strategy & analytics and Torque’s expertise in market execution.

Kevin is offering his free co-authored  e-book and you can get it by clicking here.

How Xbox’s Social Strategy Could Change Gaming Forever
AdAge.com – USA
In fact, from what I can see the news that these social networking giants are coming to Xbox has been met with virtual silence. …
See all stories on this topic

———–

The FASTForward Blog » Launching Social Networks for the …
By Bill Ives
I recently spoke with Anne Berkowitch, CEO at SelectMinds, a provider of corporate social networking solutions about her experiences in creating and hosting online social networks for large brands such as IBM, Dow Chemical and Deloitte. …. Among the topics discussed between host Jerry Michalski and the speakers, panelists, attendees, and contributors to this blog: enterprise 2.0, search, the user revolution, the future of content, and much, much more. …
The FASTForward Blog – http://www.fastforwardblog.com/

———–

What Is This Website Twitter That So Many People Are Talking About …
By admin
MrWebMarketing – Motivational Speaker | Guest Speaker | Keynote Speakers – Internet, Facebook, Twitter, Blogging. Keynote Speakers, Motivational Speakers, Seminar Speakers, Conference Speakers … Twitter is a social networking website that is based around mini blogs. A blog is a way to share information on the Internet. Full length blogs can be found all across the Internet on websites by using popular blogging sites such as blogger.com wordpress.com. …

——–

MrWebMarketing – Motivational… – http://www.mrwebmarketing.com/ What Is an Online Social Media Conversation? – Liz Strauss at …
By ME Liz Strauss
… thread to take in a direction the the speaker wants to go. In online social media experiences, conversation is often input via keyboard within the context of a blog comment box, a Twitterstream or a social networking site thread. …
Liz Strauss at Successful Blog – http://www.successful-blog.com/ Busuu.com is a language learning site driven by the community …

——–
By Charles Young
Busuu.com is an online community for learning languages in a social networking setting. Users can learn English, Spanish, German or French using the site, which. … Learn from native speakers: Learn directly from native speakers of the busuu.com community via our integrated video-chat application! By doing so you can practice your language skills in a live conversation. Learn with our material: We have prepared over 150 learning units covering diverse topic areas and …
Great Sites To Visit – http://www.greatsitestovisit.com