Contact & Connect

Please use this form to directly send me an email.

If you’d rather stalk me for a while first then you may or may not find this interesting…

Social Networking Policy:

Below I set out how I use networking websites so that no-one is offended if I don’t friend, connect to or follow them.

Twitter:

I regard Twitter as a communication free for all. I can listen to whoever I like, talk to whoever I like and broadcast to anyone that will listen. Feel free to follow me and I will follow back if I find you interesting.

Defining interesting:

  • You live locally to me i.e. you live along the general M4 corridor area of the UK
  • You are a recruiter or internet researcher
  • You work in Social Media or are passionate about it
  • You share one of my passions, like cheese eating, knitting, Star Trek watching or tea drinking
  • You are funny or otherwise interesting

You may find that I still don’t follow you back. If I look at your profile and you are simply broadcasting your thoughts or blog posts without engaging in conversation, I am unlikely to follow you. If you feel I have missed you (I’m only human after all) feel free to send me a @reply and I’ll follow you.

Follow: @TheSourceress

LinkedIn:

Stop by LinkedIn to find out more about me.

But…

Generally, I don’t like to connect to people that I haven’t met in person or at least had conversations with over the ‘phone, IM or Twitter. So if you are sending me an invite, make sure you send me a message telling me why you want to connect. This message needs to better than “We are both members of ‘insert group name here’.”

I also have profiles on Xing and Naymz, where the same rules apply as for LinkedIn

Facebook:

I generally like to have laid eyes on people that I ‘friend’ on Facebook and be invested in my relationship with that person. If we haven’t met in person I am unlikely to accept you as a friend on Facebook.

I usually conduct a little thought experiment – Would I hug this person if I saw them in the street? If the answer is yes, you’ll probably get friended.

Foursquare:

I have decided to add this location based service to my policy as I am using it more and more. I also get lots of friend requests from people that I have never met or interacted with before.

My general rule of thumb is that if I’ve met you more than once before and would like to meet up for a coffee if we were in the same neighbourhood, I’ll accept your foursquare friend request. There are one or two people that I would really like to meet, but haven’t yet, that I have accepted, but they are a rarity.

Email:

If you have any questions about what I do, feel free to get in touch by email (form at the top of this page) and start a conversation.

:)

{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }

Emma Gartside March 6, 2009 at 1:50 PM

This is such a good idea! Very useful to have a written statement that you can refer people to or that they can review for themselves before connecting with you via any particular network.

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Fiona Maddock October 26, 2009 at 7:42 AM

Great Blog!
I feel guilty – mine is woefully neglected. I get inspiration from my weekly vegetable box delivery. I can write about recipes for hours…sometimes I even make them! My blog/art gallery all the rest will continue to be sadly abandoned until my Year 3 workload eases up a bit. Trouble is…some of the work is really interesting so maybe I should blog about that! I’m really bad at timetabling my inspiration…I tend to just go with the flow.

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Douglas Craig November 20, 2009 at 9:09 AM

Hi Katharine,

Just a wee note to say how enthused I was after yesterday’s sourceology track with yourself and Geoff. I thought I was a good web-stalker, but you guys make me look mere mortal. My mind is literally whirling!

Instead of trying to regurgitate X-Ray’s, Peel-back’s and the dark arts of Boolean to the girls and boys I work with, I’m trying to persuade my company to part with some cash and hire you for a seminar (if you’re keen that is). Watch this space (?)

Living not too far away from Reading, I’m pretty keen to get involved in the ‘geek-sheik’ scene a little more, so feel free to spam (hee hee) me with upcoming event’s

Thanks,
Dougie

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Alan Pollock October 15, 2010 at 10:01 AM

I was passed your name by a colleague who says you help with lead generation.

Is that correct?

Alan

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TheSourceress October 19, 2010 at 2:32 PM

Alan,

Thanks for your comment. I’ve sent you an email.

Katharine :)

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Alconcalcia October 20, 2010 at 5:37 PM

I’d like to see more people reveal how they use the various social media channels. I remain hard to convince that the likes of facebook and twitter are good for recruitment when compared to the job boards or good old fashioned press, but I often get shouted down for having that belief. Yet, a straw poll of friends and business associates suggests that their views are very similar to the ones above and mine, which are – Twitter for business generation/networking and people generally of interest, Linkedin; an online CV which never results in anything more than a connect with someone I used to work with way back when or currently deal with and Facebook, which I struggle to give the time of day to as I find it by and large tediously inane. I am connected to people I know in real life on there but hardly use it. If I want to know how they are/what they doing I’d rather pick up the phone.

So there you have it. As I say, would be good to get some kind of survey done for people’s motivation/raison d’etre for all these social channels. I think the results might surprise even the most ardent advocate of social recruiting.

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Chris Dobson March 14, 2011 at 12:59 PM

Nice work. I think that many people are still starting out with social media tools and as such don’t have a handle on general etiquette – it’s like when people forwarded on jokes and virus hoaxes and replied to all in shouty capitals when they first used email. It’s great to have a guide for those people. For me, it’s a handy remover of guilt. Should I feel bad about not adding you to LinkedIn? (checks personal statement) (feels justified and a little smug and clicks ‘ignore’).
Like.

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Phoebe Pan January 4, 2012 at 6:47 AM

HI Katharine, I’m Phoebe from China. As researcher in recruitment company, I found this social media can be a new way of recruitment in China as well. But we don’t have powerful enough channels or just simply know nothing about using for me.

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