And over at US NEWS and World Report, maybe we need to just toughen up?

Still, when your workforce is 80% under thirty years old, one had better understand new media and especially new ways of communicating with them.  In that spirit, I met Dan Schawbel some time ago.  Dan himself is a mid-twenties technologist who specializes in personal branding for generation y’ers.  He is a nationally known expert on ways the youngest generation now in the workforce can brand themselves.  He interacts with this generation constantly and speaks nationally on this topic.  His blog is a treasure trove of information on this topic and I recommend it without reservation.  You can find it here.

We use our little dog as a promotional giveaway, we mail them to prospects and customers.  On desks all over America, you will see our little orange dog.  It communicates our brand and our sense of fun….and if we brighten the day of an HR person or jobseeker, we consider it a ‘win.’  In that spirit I mailed two dogs recently, one to Robyn McMaster, a brain expert in New York and one to Dan, who lives in Massachusetts.  Neither one are prospects, and will most likely never be customers, either.

Nothing is more positively received than an un-expected gift.  Seriously, I sent these two dogs just because I enjoyed reading their blogs and I thought I would show some un-solicited goodwill, with no expectation or guarantee of something coming back my way.  It proves my point yet again, that something given out will nearly always come back to you, enhanced and increased.

Thanks for the nice positive article Dan, and a belated thanks to you as well, Robyn.