Snail mail has been on my mind lately.

One reason is that I have heard some complaints recently about the way colleagues at Michigan State University have been addressed, sometimes by people they don’t know, in emails, and the offhanded way those emails are written. One, a professor with a doctorate, was put off by a student who began a simple request for a favor this way, “Hi, Kevin.” Typos followed.

The other reason is that I walked into my reporting class with some boxes of thank-you notes and told the class we were all going to thank one of the sources who had helped us with the stories we had written on our beats.

It turned out to be a lesson for me.

I asked the students whether they were prepared to write a thank-you at all times, with a box of cards and a strip of stamps in a place where they could find them. A few of them were that prepared.

“Why am I having you write thank-yous?”

The answers spilled out: “To be nice.” “Because it is the right thing to do.” “So they will talk to us again.” “To get more clicks on our stories.”

Yes, yes, yes and yes.

We navigated the tricky waters of thank-you writing: Lousy handwriting, finding the right person to address the envelope to, making sure that we did not turn the envelope upside down before we addressed. The thoughtfulness of having someone else lick you envelope because you’ve been eating chips in class and don’t want the thank-you “to be all chippy.”

It was fun.

But there are some strategies:

THANK-YOU SALUTATION

Do I write, “Dear So and So?” That sounds too intimate. I think this is generational. My 50-plus generation is still used to “Dear” as a standard salutation and we don’t read anything into that. But letter writers must be comfortable with what they write, so we talked about surrogates like “Thank you, So and So” or just diving in with the name and a comma. Commas, we felt, were warmer than colons, but not too presumptuous.

I saw some beautiful lettering and some that showed a lot more care than what we put into emails.

One person had a Whiteout emergency. Who buys Whiteout these days?

THE STRUCTURE

A good thank-you need not be long. Three sentences are enough if they are specific.

Thank you, Ms. Source,

I appreciate the time you took to show me the library’s new swimming pool. I had never before seen a swimming pool in the library. The time you took to show me the pool and explain how it has helped with the low humidity in winter really helped me write a good story.

Sincerely,

Form-letter thank-yous, even if written by hand, are insincere.

Thank you, Aunt Janice for the lovely gift.

THE CLOSER

A simple “sincerely” can always get you out of a thank-you. If you’d like to be a little warmer, you can write, “Thanks again.” I love the numbers of up-and-coming adults who say “thank you so much” and really seem genuine about it. This is a great quality.

THE CARD

I brought in four kinds of cards. Because we are a class from Michigan State University, two were university cards and the other two kinds were pretty basic designs. One was blue and brown with “Thank you” on the outside; one was a business-style cream card with an embossed “Thank you” and no ink at all.

For the kinds of thank-yous we were writing, bunnies and kittens are out. They look childish for business thank-yous.

If you want to get carried away – and I suggest you do – invest a little money in personalized stationery that conveys the brand you are projecting. People will be sure to remember you in this post-snail-mail age.

One student asked, “May I have a second card to thank someone else?”

“Yes, you may.”

“Thank you.”

By JOE GRIMM
Michigan State University
School of Journalism

The buzz over two-dimensional bar codes is growing and suggests a way for smart job-seekers to stand out from the pack.

The little squares (also called smart bar codes, mobile bar codes and QR codes) are like the bar codes we see on almost everything we buy. But when you scan them with a phone camera, they serve up Web sites, photos, videos or text messages.

There are more than a dozen varieties of smart bar codes. They can be printed on ads, hotel key cards, scarves, even geeky neckties.

The codes are widespread in Japan, where a Toyota subsidiary developed the QR code to track auto parts. You may have seen them on movie posters. Starbucks uses a QR code as a gift card that resides on the owners’ phones.

These codes are starting to cross over to U.S. news media, which dabbled with codes years ago. Remember the CueCat? What has changed since then is that millions of us now have the technology on our phones to scan codes like this.

A two-dimensional bar code on a resume or business card can brand you as someone who is on top of technology and take prospective employers to your portfolio, resume or a video. They can jump-start conversations.

Two-dimensional codes are popping up all over

The Oklahoman’s NewsOK.com announced in early February that it has begun using ScanLife to lead readers with smart phones to additional content, including videos and maps. A week later, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette front pages started carrying codes that take readers to the newspaper’s mobile reader.

A few days later, Mid-Day became the first newspaper in India to use QR Codes. Like the Post-Gazette, it plans to use codes throughout the newspaper.

And in its March issue, Esquire, which has experimented with E Ink (2008) and augmented reality (2009), will print Scanbuy codes in a spread of men’s products, according to The New York Times.

You may have seen a similar box, called a Jagtag, in Sports Illustrated promotions for this month’s Swimsuit Issue or in an NBC Universal Olympics campaign. Jagtags are scanned and then texted, e-mailed or tweeted. More information or a video is then sent back to the user’s phone. No special application is needed, but there can be costs for the text messaging.

A digital edge for job candidates

Yvette Walker, director of custom publications at The Oklahoman and a former recruiter, said slapping a two-dimensional bar code on a resume or business card could give someone an edge, if the interviewer knows what it is. (One of her products, the entertainment tab LOOKatOKC, has been the Oklahoma Publishing Co.’s testing ground for ScanLife.)

“Having it on your business card is very interesting because you’re handing those out person to person and it is generally a conversation starter,” she said. “It would make you look like you know what is going on.”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Director of Interactive Media Pat Scanlon said in a phone interview that he would “certainly pay attention to it.”

“It would just say to me that they have an understanding of what’s in the future and are not just looking back, for argument’s sake, at just the Web,” he said. “For the United States, this is bleeding edge, not cutting edge. It’s way out there in the front.”

Tyler Chance, a copy editor and page designer for the Journal & Courier in Lafayette, Ind., had QR codes on the business cards he handed out at the Online News Association conference in October. “As far as reactions go, I get a lot of puzzled looks at first, especially since not a lot of people have heard of them,” he wrote in an e-mail.

He believes the code helped him get a job because it “made me look tech-savvy and forward-thinking. Which I am, but it definitely encompassed that idea in a way that could be easily communicated to the potential employer. Of course, it was something I had to back up, like an understanding of social media and Web skills.”

Scanlon said he’d pay attention to where a two-dimensional bar code took him. The destination, then, should display well on a cell phone and shouldn’t simply be a standard Web page designed for a computer screen.

Codes can be generated and read with free tools

There are a variety of free tools to generate two-dimensional bar codes. Search for “QR Code generator.” Several Web sites offer a simple service in which you enter a URL, phone number or text message and it serves up a unique code as a JPEG or PNG file. (The open-source Quick Response, or QR code, is a popular format.)

You can add these to a Web site, resume or your business card. A prospective employer (one who has downloaded a reader) can use the code to go to your Web site, portfolio or a video.

Test the code before you use it. The generators return slightly different versions of the code and some worked better for me than others. The matchup among different versions of the code, different readers, browsers and phones is bound to create some trouble, but there is no denying the wow factor.

By JOE GRIMM
Michigan State University
School of Journalism

I have been seeing a lot of LinkedIn profile photos lately. Thousands, actually. I’ve been looking for candidates for Patch.com as a contract recruiter, so I have upgraded my LinkedIn account and have been running a lot of searches.

While looking at so many teeny tiny mug shots, I came across a blog post by a man named Hung Lee, who lists five things to avoid when selecting a LinkedIn profile photo.

Lee rightly surmises that anyone who reads his post must already have a LinkedIn profile. If you don’t, I suggest you get busy. It has become increasingly apparent to me that, if you want to get found, you have to be where people are looking.

Lee’s advice on what not to do when choosing a LinkedIn profile picture resonated me. Here are five things he says to avoid:

1. The non-human, cartoonish avatar (I am willing to cut you some slack on this one if you are an animator.)
2. The full-body shot where your head is the size of the the letter “o” in this sentence.
3. Special effects
4. Dramatic poses
5. Frequent changes

Lee does, by the way, recommend that you use a photo with your LinkedIn profile, saying it’s incongruous not to do so.

I have also found it, not incongruous, but weird, that some people on LinkedIn put their job title in place of their name. That is a deal breaker for me.

A good LinkedIn photo should not be a studio affair. (See numbers three and four in the list above.) They are only thumbnails, people. But they do require more attention than you can give them by holding your cell phone at arm’s length and squinting. A picture with your Webcam can work.

Here are five things you need to have a professional profile photo:

• Both eyes open

• Good lighting, which essentially means the lighting is not behind you, making you look like a big silhouette.

• A solid and light background

• A shot that lets your face and maybe a little of your neck fill the frame. Crop the photo tightly and then upload it.

• A photo of just you. (Though I did see one nice profile picture of a guy with the headstock of a guitar in front of part of his face.)

By JOE GRIMM
Michigan State University
School of Journalism

I once received an e-mail from a reporter and friend that had an eyebrow-raising signer at the bottom of the message. I was not offended but knew others would be, so I wrote back to him and asked if he intended for me to get that.

He was so embarrassed. Apparently, his partner had written the signature line as a private joke between the two of them. My friend was not even aware of what it said because it didn’t display on his e-mails.

This came back to me when I read a post by Jacob Share on JobMob about how this ubiquitous piece of branding real estate is so ignored.
Every day, you send out many e-mails. Are you using your signature line to your advantage?

Probably not.

I just received one from an editor at a major newspaper that had no signature at all. At minimum, a telephone number and his title would be nice.

Others use their signature lines for wacky, off-putting sayings. I received one from a job prospect whose signature said:

“We’ll be old friends until we are aged and senile. Then we’ll be new friends every day thereafter.”
He took my suggestion and changed it.

I know that by now everyone knows to use professional messages on their voice mail. But we need to be even more careful with e-mail signatures. Unlike our voice mail greeting, an e-mail signer can be copied, posted, forwarded and can live on in a hundred ways.

I have two colleagues who post a lot of work online. One’s signature includes five links. The other has seven. That is too many. Narrow that to just a couple, or create a hub or portal that would direct people to the right places. Another option is to use different signers, depending on the recipients’ interests.

What links should you include to brand yourself? I would list, in order, your hub site or portfolio, your LinkedIn page and your employer’s site or business site. You can edit your signature through the settings option in your e-mail account.

The same goes for phone numbers. Don’t send your cell, office and fax numbers on every e-mail. Faxes are becoming so secondary that it hardly seems necessary to make that part of a standard signer.

Keep your signature short. One friend writes short e-mails, but his signature is more than a dozen lines. You can add more information to one line, using pipes (||) or colons (::) as dividers.
Avoid images (especially animated ones) and v-cards in your signature. They are not needed and can prevent your message from getting through, show up as attachments or have long download times.

Some advise you not to use colors. I normally follow that, but teaching at Michigan State University, where green is everything, has made me go green for part of my signature.

Check you signature periodically by e-mailing yourself, and remember to send e-mails from your phone and tablet, too, just to see your signature the way others do.

By JOE GRIMM
Michigan State University
School of Journalism

Are you innovative? Join the club. Hundreds of thousands of people on LinkedIn, the online careers network, say they are innovative, too.

According to a blog post by LinkedIn senior research scientist Manu Sharma, legions of people say they are innovative. Many also claim to be motivated, dynamic and entrepreneurial team players.

Sharma searched LinkedIn to see what people say about themselves in their profiles, and those terms are in the top 10. He wrote that the analytics team “decided to take a crack at finding the most clichéd and overused phrases for the past year using over 85 million LinkedIn profiles.”

When I searched LinkedIn for “innovative,” I received 527,000 results. When I tweaked that to “innovator,” I received 27,000. That’s half-a-million fewer, but still way too many for me to use as a recruiter. “Innovated” yielded about 7,000. Variations on the theme help.

So, if you and everyone else have been reading the same articles about lacing your resume and online profile with actionable words, it is time for new strategies.

Here are four ways to avoid Sharma’s buzzword list:

• Use phrases rather than single words. “Innovative” plus “editor” gives me 21,000 hits. The two words together “innovative editor” gives me just 24. Put a strong adjective with a word that is specifically related to your field or work.

• Look for untapped words. People who are smart about optimizing content for search engines — and that is what LinkedIn employs — do not use the most obvious or popular words. Those words are overused and it is hard to show up high in search results when everyone else is using them. So rather than say you are innovative, use a less-common synonym. You might try “founded” (227,000), “initiated” (197,000) or “inventive” (8,400). Now make the synonym part of a phrase.

• Do homework. It is so simple to search LinkedIn to see what words are overused. Find them and work around them. If you are looking to see what words employers might key on, read their postings. There is no need to guess.

• Get more active on LinkedIn. It is meant to be a network, though most users treat it as a billboard. Ask and answer questions and recommend others. Every action you take on LinkedIn usually prompts a reaction that circulates your name.

LinkedIn’s analytics team got me thinking. I looked up “slacker” (869); “knucklehead” (142); and “dumbass” (54).

Six people use my favorite resume phrase, the tragically misspelled “detial oriented.”