Here we go…

Industry Staples
Electrical/Electronics and Computer Development Engineers Group (2,789  April ’09- 5,796 Members Now)
This is the largest technical group I was a part of last  year.  It is a dynamic group, and very active.  However, the content tends to be a little bit more generic, and lacks the technical specificity found within the smaller groups formed for topical discussions.  That being said, I really appreciate that there is always something new whenever you visit, and there is a large, diverse audience to whom you can field discussion questions, share news articles, and work on your networking skills.

EMS Insider (Electronics Manufacturing Services (2,663 April ’09- 5,815 Members Now)
EMS Insider falls into the same category of LinkedIn group as the EECDE group above.  More general discussion on larger, less specific, and often marketing/manufacturing oriented topics.  This is a great group to be a part of so that you have messaging rights to people within the industry.

PCB Forum (1,133 Members Now)
The PCB Forum group is a mid sized group and falls right in the middle of everything.  Decent membership, good conversation, relevant news, etc.  If you’re not a part of this group, you ought to be.

Printed  Circuit Board Technologies and Solutions (330 Members April ’09- 930 Members Now)
Same thoughts as the PCB Forum above.

PCB Designers and PCB Designers Group (423 Members and 378 Members respectively)
These two groups cater to the PCB Designer, as is clear by their titles.  PCB Designers is the more robust and put together group, although PCB Designers Group still has provided some valuable activity for me in the news section whenever I have posted a link.  There is a discussion thread about combining the two groups… and whether that happened or not, I am not sure.  I would speculate that a majority of the members are overlapping members.  However, these are my two favorite groups!!…. be sure to check them out and join.  I see them growing tremendously in the next year.

VLSI (2,337 Members April ’09- 4,233 Now)
This group has grown a lot, but still has that feel of being subsidized by a few key contributors rather than it being a lively, dynamic community.

IPC – Association Connecting Electronics Industries
The IPC group is a great resource for the PCB Professional.  Although it is not updated or contributed to as often as many other groups, it is relatively free of junk postings and distractions.  I really appreciate the IPC and their efforts to provide resources; and supporting their LinkedIn group is a great way to show some support.

Rising Stars
These groups have great potential and I see them growing tremendously in the near future… however, that’s up to all of you.  With a little love and involvement, I see these topic/technology specific groups growing into very informative communities.  Some have very few members, and great content, while others have a good number of members, but need more applicable content.

Flex Circuit (42 Members April ’09- 172 Members Now)

PCB/BGA Rework and Repair (103 Members Now)

Unexplainable PCB Quality Issues (151 Members Now)

PCB HDI – Next Generation (124 Members Now)

Signal Integrity Engineering (1,184 Members Now)

RF/Analog/Mixed signal circuit design & product/test engineering (883 Members Now)

RFID/AIDC Technology (1,818 Members Now)

Homepage logo taken from this site.

I have been blessed with the opportunity to speak during the afternoon sessions at PCB Atlanta on October 22.  UP Media has always been very kind to us and have now provided me with this opportunity.

The seminar I will be teaching will be on the topic of marketing yourself using the social media and online tools that are currently available online.  Below is the abstract I submitted when I approached them with the idea.

Are you trying to find a way to stand out among the crowd?  The field of marketing and advertising continues to rapidly change as more and more attention shifts toward Social Media and Online marketing techniques.  A new generation of decision makers and customers who have grown up with these tools is close at hand.  In order to remain current and successful, it is crucial that you have, at the least, a basic understanding of the tools being used.

The Online and Social Media Marketing workshop will give an overview of various online tools and services currently available to help you market yourself and drive business.  You will learn how and where to network with potential customers and ways to develop a strong presence on the web.  Whether you are a novice user, or consider yourself proficient, this workshop is designed to help you develop a comprehensive personal online marketing plan.  Topics covered will include: how to take full advantage of the top social networking sites, making sure you can be found easily online, and creating a pull-marketing campaign.

Do you plan on attending the show?  If you haven’t thought about it, you should.  I do believe that it will be very beneficial to you.  I won’t be as forward as to recommend that you attend the session I will be leading, however, it should be a good time.

If you’re going and you plan on attending this, please feel free to get in touch with me or to comment below with questions you have.  I want to make sure that I address the questions and needs of the people who attend.  Getting your feedback and a feel for your questions beforehand will help me to prepare and provide a more comprehensive and applicable presentation.

The more authors we have, the more dynamic and informative the site will be.  I hope that over time we will have about 15 independent contributors who are able to provide a short 250-500 word article once every couple weeks.

If you are interested in taking on this small, but essential role within the development of HotPCB.com, please feel free to get in touch with us. We can talk about the various potential topics. This site is still very dynamic and your contributions and ideas will help it develop into a great resource.

Call Liam Morris at (800) 217-0202 x13 or email at lmorris@hotpcb.com

HotPCB is being represented at the Cirexx Booth (2246) at IMS 2009.  Be sure to stop by!  We would love to meet with you and explore content creation partnerships, meet designers who wish to be featured, and learn more about what’s going on in the industry.

Liam’s Cell: (413) 824-1987

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For the attendee, there are three distinct aspects of the Symposium that ought to be taken advantage of.  The first is Networking, the second Vendor Qualification, and the third Education.   This first short installment is designed to give you some recommendations on how to capitalize on the great opportunity you have to meet people.

Pre-Event
Taking advantage of the Symposium involves a pro-active, pre-event initiative.   There are many tools available to help you get in touch with people who will be attending the conference.  If you do not already have a profile on LinkedIn, it is important that you do so.  LinkedIn is a very powerful resource and continues to gain prominence.  My colleague Blake Imeson has written a great piece titled 21 LinkedIn Hacks, Tricks and Ways to Make Your Profile Better.  Be sure to reference this as you go about developing your online LinkedIn network.

On LinkedIn you ought to RSVP for the Tradeshow in the events section.  If it has not already been created, then take it upon yourself to create the event.  You will gain prominence by doing so.  Click here to RSVP for the IMS 2009 LinkedIn event. Once you RSVP you will be able to see others who have done so, and you will be able to connect/message with them.  Make sure that you’ve followed the steps in Blake’s article about connecting with power users.   I have put a list of a few power users in the PCB industry who will help you gain access to even more people.

Also, take advantage of Facebook if you are a user.  There is a Facebook group for IMS 2009 as well.

Email some of your business contacts a quick email asking if they, or anyone that they know, is attending the show.  More than likely you will be put in touch with a friend of a friend who is just as overwhelmed by the prospect of networking as you are.

As you begin contacting all of these people, keep a clear calendar of the show in front of you.  It is important that you have read the materials concerning the show so that you know what nights have mixers, city excursions, etc.  Make sure that you schedule times to meet with the various people that you are networking with, but also make sure that you block of times where you do not plan anything ahead of time.  You want to be available so that when you meet people at the show, you can meet with them too.  Also try to avoid too many exclusive meet-ups, but make sure that you have a healthy balance of group activities.  This way, if there are a few people you want to spend time with and it comes down to only one available time for everyone, there is no awkward canceling of plans, simply bringing more people along.

At the Event

You are going to be busy at the show, and hopefully having the opportunity to meet and greet those people you have been in touch with the few weeks before the show.  However, make sure that you have plenty of business cards with you so that you can create more contacts.

Be careful not to gravitate toward one group of people the entire time.  Stretch yourself and branch out.  Split up from your co-worker for a meal and go sit at a table of people you don’t know.  It might be slightly uncomfortable at first, but the event is designed to foster networking and cliques need not apply.

Remember to be yourself and have fun.  Trade shows may be a lot of work and continued education, but the interaction with people who are there can make it one of the best weeks of the year.

In the comments section below feel free to share your tips and suggestions for how to take full advantage of the Networking possibilities.   I look forward to hearing them.

Every attendee ought to be doing everything he/she can to maximize the return on the money spent in travel, fees and opportunity cost.  One of the best ways to do this is to start early and begin making contact with potential customers or vendors you are interested in before the show even starts.  If you are able to develop the foundation of a relationship before you attend the conference, your time spent mingling with your contacts at the show (going out to dinner, grabbing coffee, discussing the workshops, etc) will be far more fruitful and downright enjoyable.  Instead of running around the show thinking “meet, meet, meet” you will have the luxury of operating under a “greet, greet, greet” mentality towards your peers.

I challenge you to take advantage of the list linked to above and to do some pre-event networking.  I will be doing so, and hope to even do so with any readers of hotpcb who will be attending the Symposium.   Over the next few weeks I will be posting various articles on how to use various online tools to maximize your pre-event networking.  Feel free to use the comments section below to share your ideas or to reach out to other readers and see when they will be at the show.

Cheers,

Liam

Read Part One Here.

Designers have started contacting me concerning this project, and the enthusiasm is contagious.  Many have asked me to describe how it will work, what type of biographies we are looking for, how it will help them, etc.  I have tried to explain a few of the core details of the project below.  However, keep in mind that this is a young, organic project and you have the ability to help develop it into whatever you want.

The purpose of the Biography is to tell the story behind the Resume.  This is a chance for you to shine and share the lesser known details about yourself.  In my experience I have often found that the most qualified (on their Resume) are not necessarily always the best people to work with.  I like to develop relationships with those I work for/with, and their passions, past, and future ambitions all influence our working relationship.  This project will give each designer an opportunity to tell others about how they got into the industry, what their passions are, talk about their favorite music, share stories, predict where they see the industry going, say what they want to do in the future, describe what types of projects they hope to work on, etc.  The biography is a strong marketing tool for the individual and hopefully just plain fun.  As this blog gains traffic, featured designers will hopefully receive some good publicity and they’ll have something to show to their colleagues, friends and families.

Feel free to get in touch with me if you are interested in this project, whether it be in helping to assist in authoring some of the biographies, you wish to be featured, or you have suggestions.

Cheers,

Liam

It was instantly clear that although competitive, most vendors shared a sense of camaraderie, and were open to talking with me and answering my questions.  Most of the attendees have been in the industry for over 20 years.  In fact, the industry as a whole seems to be comprised of mostly 40+ industry professionals.  It was apparent that I was the youngest exhibitor.  In fact, I was the only exhibitor asked for ID at the complementary bar during the evening reception.

Small, but efficient and well balanced, the show was in my opinion a great success and well worth the effort to attend.  Attendees flew in from all parts of the country.  There were also individuals from Canada, Sweden, Israel, Singapore, Italy and Africa.

The workshops provided were very helpful, and have inspired me to set a future speaking role as a personal goal.  I obviously would not be able to give a technical seminar, but hopefully through my work on this blog, I will be able to position myself as a leader in bringing social media marketing to this industry.

I highly recommend that you set your calendar for the next PCB East conference.  The whole program is put on by UP Media, and there are a few additional shows occurring around the country in the next few months.  Click here to see a list of those shows. The UP Media team did a fabulous job and it was a pleasure to meet all of them.  I look forward to crossing paths with them in the future.

A little over a  month ago I applied for membership with IEEE and joined a variety of societies pertaining to my line of business.  However, I have yet to really feel the benefit of membership aside from the barrage of emails asking me to sign up for conferences.  In an effort to effectively use my membership, I open the floor to you – my reader and potential IEEE confederate.  How have you taken advantage of the various services IEEE offers?  Has it been an effective networking/educational tool for you?  Share your story of how it has been a blessing – or a bust.

All the best,

Liam

In response to the great comment below:

Ironically, I find the electronics manufacturing industry is be one of the most DISengaged when it comes to taking full advantage of the benefits of social media, including LinkedIn.

As an industry, electronics manufacturing is wrapped in a culture of trade secrecy where competitive advantage is frequently tied to technical prowess and time to market. This environment doesn’t lend itself to the philosophy of sharing and transparency that permeates most productive social networks.

This “close to the vest” culture is frequently reinforced by strict limitations on outward communications, especially with regard to anything that might be construed as a company IP.

I tried mightily to create community within LinkedIn while I was in the PCB industry but even within my own company, it was easier for most industry veterans to fall back into their comfort zone than to embrace the opportunity born of engaging in communities based on sharing and collaboration.

Consequently, you’ll find the most ubiquitous industry presence on LinkedIn, but not because anybody wants to give anything, but just in case they need a job.

**Posted as a response to “Best and Worst LinkedIn Groups for PCB Enthusiasts” by Don Lafferty

Response:

Don,

I agree with you, that the EMS industry is rather disjointed and slow to adopt social media and collaborative tools.  This permeates a majority of the industry, although I would argue that there are some who are more inclined to take advantage of the amazing tools which have been developed in the last ten years.  It seems to me that Small, R&D focused, high technology companies are comprised more and more of individuals who have a much stronger grasp and reliance upon social media.  As young professionals enter the workforce, this trend will continue to develop.

LinkedIn bothers me often, because it does feel like the majority of people involved are there for themselves.  Whether it is to network a new job opportunity, or to sell their products – each person has an underlying motivation for being on LinkedIn.  I too fell into this trap when I first began using the network.  However, if everyone is taking, and no one is giving… you will end up with a stagnant social environment in which few win, and clutter consumes.

What are some of the ways that you sought to create a community on LinkedIn and within your company?  It must be possible to somehow, tactfully, develop a vibrant collaborative community of high-technology professionals who can set the tone for the industry in the fifty years to come.

Others, feel free to comment or to submit responses to me.  My contact information is in the author bio page.