But many of you are making lots of social media mistakes. I know because so many people tell me that social media is a waste of their time. They’re wasting their time, and continuing to make mistakes, because there’s a set of common lies that people believe about social media. Here are those lies:

Lie #1: LinkedIn is for networking.

LinkedIn is great. I’m on LinkedIn. I have 650 connections. At first I wondered, why do I need this list of connections published on LinkedIn? What was the purpose of it? But now I get it. With LinkedIn, people can tell that I am a very connected person.

Most of you already know I’m well connected—I’m a print journalist, blogger, and startup founder, which are all very network-intensive jobs. But if you’re someone who doesn’t know how to tell whether someone is connected, LinkedIn is a great scorecard.

Potential employers like LinkedIn because they can glance at your LinkedIn profile and get a sense of how connected you are and how much money you make. (Yes, large networks correlate to large salaries.) That's the utility of the scorecard.

But what you cannot do on LinkedIn is build a network. Networks are built on relationships, which grow from conversation. LinkedIn is not for conversations. So you need to go somewhere else to build your network, and then, when it’s big, display it on LinkedIn so you’ll look great.

Lie #2: Twitter is for conversation.

So if you need conversation to grow relationships into a network, then you look for the social media tools that are for conversation. Right? Twitter seems easy. It’s only 140 characters, so it’s appealing to someone who is weary of spending every waking minute using social media.

The problem with using Twitter for conversation is that we need more than 140 characters to make a genuine connection with someone. So you’re not going to have a whole conversation there; Twitter is great for finding people who have similar ideas, and for keeping track of them in a superficial way.

But you still need to go elsewhere—offline or online—to solidify the relationship to the point where you would actually care about each other in the way a solid network connection does, but Twitter is a good start.

Lie #3: Blogs are personal journals.

Your blog is a record of what you’re thinking, and that record will represent you online, as a high-ranking search result when someone googles your name. So if you care about building a network, you’ll stop using your blog as a diary.

Your blog is intellectual exercise for you—to keep yourself thinking in a disciplined way about things that interest you. And it’s an intellectual exercise for other people—to follow your thought process and decide if they’d like to engage you in conversation. The blogosphere is a cocktail party for the intelligentsia without J Brand jeans or Jimmy Choo shoes. It’s just ideas, bouncing back and forth, and you’re deciding who to talk to.

I know I’m always telling people to stop worrying about what their blog is going to be and to just start blogging. I say this assuming that you understand that a blog is a networking tool. It’s one of the most important ways you can create career stability, by being who you are and connecting with people who like you for who you are. Your blog is a career-management dream-come-true.

Lie #4: Social media is no place for business.

The most common thing idiots say to me about my company is that we are never going to make money. But, we already do. Because companies definitely understand the need to leverage social media to meet their bottom-line goals. And my company helps them do that.

Companies understand they need to participate in conversation, and they are looking a professional places to do it. If you want to be known to companies, you will use social media to allow them to get to know you. (Wait. This just in. Government agencies get it as well! Check out the TSA's stellar use of social media.  A mommy blogger wrote a post accusing airport security of taking her son from her during a security check. TSA disputed her claim by posting video of woman and her son on the TSA blog. The mommy blogger published an apology.)

Which brings me to the seven-second rule. Someone who just met you for the first time, in person, will give you about three seconds to impress them. So you are very careful to show your best first impression in this situation. You already know this.

The same is true online. You probably get ten seconds instead of seven seconds, but the person will google your name, looking for something relevant in the top results, and click. If they are not impressed in the first ten seconds, they won’t keep reading about you.

If they go to Facebook, you have no idea what they’ll find out about you because so many people write on your wall about unprofessional things. If they end up at LinkedIn and you have a relatively shallow level of experience, you will not look good next to the typical LinkedIn user who is 40 years old, earning more than $100K, and has 15 years of experience.

So where do you want people to meet you for the first time online? Somewhere they can hear you talking about ideas. For bloggers, this is often a blog URL. Others could try Brazen Careerist, where your profile is comprised of your thoughts and ideas—you, being you.

Comment on: 4 Lies about social media

1. Pitch yourself as specialized.
Most people are relocating from a city that is in low demand to a city that is high demand. For example: Tucson to San Francisco. There are not a lot of skill sets that someone has to look outside San Francisco to get. If you want to get a job from Tucson, you need to have one of those skill sets that people do not think they can hire for in San Francisco. Usually this means that you're very specialized. So, the first thing about getting a job in a city you don't live in is that you need to be very specialized or in high demand.

The idea behind being a specialist is that you are so good at a very specific thing that people are unlikely to find someone as good as you locally. Sometimes a good career coach can help you rewrite your resume to focus on a specialty. If you don't have one, a good primer for finding a specialty is reading about the funeral industry, where you have to specialize in something (sometimes weird) in order to survive.

2. Pitch yourself as a big-city catch.
Some of you are trying to move the opposite direction: New York City to Tuscaloosa. In that case, you can pitch yourself as having big-city know-how that you can bring to a smaller city. I know from having a company in Madison that when we hear a star performer from a big city is relocating to Madison, we automatically consider interviewing that person. It's a bias that the competition is so much tougher in big cities that people who have risen to the top are probably worth looking at because we don't see a lot of those people.

3. Get a reality check.
If you can't pitch yourself in either of those ways, then you're going to have to relocate before you get a job. Think about it: Why would someone fly you in for an interview when there are plenty of local people who could do the job? It makes no sense.

4. Be amazing at building local networks.
If you are still determined to get a job before you move, you should commit a lot of time to building a network. You know that most jobs come from networking. So you need to have a strong network on the ground where you want to relocate. This does not mean inviting forty people in that city to connect with you on LinkedIn. Those are not the type of connections where the person goes to bat for you. You need a network of people you have real conversations with, and share real ideas with. After awhile, these people will care about you and want to help you. This is one of the reasons that among the professional groups on Brazen Careerist, location-based groups are the most popular.

5. Choose a city since you can't choose a job.
Most of you are simply going to have to relocate before you get the job. And, since you are going to have to move before you have a job, why not make sure you are going to the right place? You can read about the research I used. (For all my complaining about Madison, I have to say that the research I used turned out to be true, and Madison is probably the right place for me.)

Another resource for figuring out where you belong is Richard Florida's book, Who's Your City, which he has conveniently broken up into web-friendly widgets for your relocating pleasure. Try this one, for example.

And, once you decide on a city, you can use Florida's analysis to double check your conclusion. Check out these best places lists. (Note: More than 80% of gen y wants to move to New York City, but, frankly, most of people don't belong there. Here's a test to find out about you.)

6. Consider your friends and family.
Before you relocate for money, consider that the number-one factor for whether or not your next job will improve your happiness is whether you'll be moving closer to friends and family. Because, you already know this, but money does not buy happiness. And, you might not know this, but a job does not make you happy, either. A job can make you unhappy, but once you have the basics of a good job, it's your relationships that make you happy .

Comment on: 6 Tips for doing a long-distance job hunt

Also, Holly Hoffman wanted to meet Guy Kawasaki. And really, it's not like I’m his best friend, but because I know him, I could say to Holly, "Oh, I'll introduce you." And I did that. And Holly was thank-you-thank-you, even though Guy is so nice that you can just walk up to him and introduce yourself and he'll be nice. To everyone.

And I'm standing there with a bunch of 25 year olds, because I'm always hanging out with 25 year olds because that's basically my job—I work with them and my business is for them. But I was not with THE 25 year old because the night before, I woke up to him peeing on the carpet in my hotel room.

When I asked what he was doing, he said, “Oh, sorry” and then he went back to bed. So I woke him up. And yelled at him.

He said he was drunk. He went back to sleep. I woke him up. I said, “I told you you had to go down on me and you didn't. You asked a woman out after she wrote a whole blog post about oral sex and you don't even do oral sex.

I’m pissed.”

He says, "I was too tired.”

“Too tired for ten times? We've had sex ten times.”

The night deteriorated and I told him to leave the next morning, by 8am.

He says, “Can you wake me at 7:30?”

And I say, “No, I'm not your mother.”

So at the party, that night, I was surrounded by 25 year olds, but not that 25 year old, and you can imagine that I was really happy when someone my own age came up to me.

But I really couldn't tell why he was coming up to me. I have said before that I think I have Asperger Syndrome, and I think it's full blown when it comes to dating. So I have to be direct. So when this guy who is clearly in my age bracket comes up to me and says, "Hi, I like your blog," I ask, "Are you trying to date me?"

I know this is not normal. But I had been to a million parties and I had had a glass of wine, and I just wanted to sort people quickly.

He thought for a minute and then he said, “Yes."

Great, right? He showed me that he can cope with my weirdness and still come out okay. So we hung out talked for a while, and then I realized my phone was dead. And the night was early and I needed to text people and so I wanted to go back to my hotel room to get my charger.

The guy said he'd walk there with me.

I tell Ryan Paugh because I think maybe I’m missing something.

Ryan says, “He thinks you're having sex with him.”

“What?”

“Yeah. You can't take a guy to your hotel room and not have sex.”

“Oh. Wait. But I told him I need my charger.”

“No.”

“Okay. Okay.”

So I tell the guy, “No.” Then I walk him over to his friends, who are at the same party, and I tell them our date is over: “I'm getting my charger and he can't come with me because I don't want to have sex with him.”

His friends laugh.

I think this is a good sign.

So the next night we have a date. It is very low pressure because he is from a state that is far away and does not have a direct flight from Madison. And he is not a gazillionaire, so he is not going to buy a house for us to share in Chicago when we meet at O’Hare. So: No future.

I tell him, "Be careful of that wet spot on the floor." And then we have a one-night stand. At least I think it is going to be a one-night stand. But then in bed, I can tell that he’s not thinking one-night stand because he does sweet things that guys never do to me, like stroke my hair. I do that with my kids.

And then things deteriorate quickly. Well, for three weeks, things are good. I like him and I call him. And I see him again. Then things get bad because he twitters about me. And I think, I do not want the world to know I’m dating him because maybe I don’t want to be dating him.

And he tells me I’m out of my mind that I’m worried about who is twittering about me. He says something, which I will summarize as: Get a life.

So I am not with him. Because you can’t be with someone who thinks you’re out of your mind. And I’m not with the 25 year old, who, by the way, is also twittering about me, in an odd sort of way.

So I’m thinking the lesson here is that if work and sex are mixing then it’s a sign the dating isn’t working. But really, there must be a ton of people who think sex and work overlap because, look, my blog has 33,000 subscribers.

So maybe the lesson is I shouldn’t date people I meet through my blog. But then I think, who have I met not through my blog in the last two years? And maybe the answer is no one.

Comment on: Does it work to mix work and dating?

I say, “No.”

He says, “We’re trying to hire her.”

So I check out her blog and dis her and he says, “She was dating Matt Mullenweg.”

I say, “Really.”

He says, “Yeah. I was talking with my business partner and we both thought it must really suck for her that they are not dating anymore but they are still mentioned in the same breath a lot.”

“Really? Like how?”

“Google Glenda Bautista Matt.”

I do that. Their life looks really fun. They do cool stuff, meet cool people, and how can you not think Matt is great? He is. Who knows what he’s like to date, but he’s a great online brand.

That conversation was four weeks ago. And I have talked with this guy I’m sort of dating, D, a lot since then. But I am not saying that he’s my boyfriend because maybe I want my boyfriend to have as big a brand as Matt.

For forever, girls have been looking for guys with a ton of money — even the smart girls. But I married a guy who never earned any money, and honestly, I never really cared. We had problems, but not because I earned all the money.

So now I know that I don’t need to look for a guy with a ton of money. And since my divorce, I've taken time to be sort of a free spirit, just dating people for fun and connection and all the corny things my readers ask me to pay attention to, as they explain how the farmer is not right for me, and how the 25-year-old is not right either, and that the alcoholic private equity guy is an alcoholic.

Then I thought about Glenda. I immediately thought she must be a good hire because she dated Matt. It’s a good reference. You know she’s smart. Because how could Matt be with a moron? He couldn’t. And even before you see her in person, you can know she’s not below average in the looks department, because I don’t think Matt needs to go there. So my point, here is that attaching your own brand to a known, solid brand is very good.

I see Hollywood people doing this. It's not new. But it's new that today each person online is some sort of brand and we are all personal brand managers.

So, D, who is really attentive and normal—two traits I have never had in a boyfriend, ever—is scary to me because I’m giving up the chance to enhance my brand by dating an online star.

So I was sort of keeping D a secret. Because I was worried doors would close. But I could see doors closing because each week I’d spend more time on the phone with him. You might have noticed this. There’s an inverse correlation between how smitten I am with who I’m seeing and how frequent these blog posts arrive.

Last week, for example, there were two posts, and I only wrote one of them. When I was in a terrible marriage and trying to hide in my work, there were four posts a week, sometimes five.

I found myself doing stuff like talking with him all day via IM and text and email and the phone. So that even though he lives very far from me, it felt like he was sort of everywhere, all the time.

I got tired, so tired that I actually sent the kids to school one day and went back to bed and missed all my meetings. When I called Ryan to tell him I overslept I felt like I was the intern calling human resources and hoping not to get fired.

Ryan didn’t care. He knows I work way more than most people and that I would probably be more sane if I worked less.

But I got nervous and went back to working long hours and still talking on the phone late at night, until one night recently.

I saw I missed a call, and I called him back, and I said, “Where are you?” Mostly I asked because it sounded loud and I know his routine now, and it’s never loud at 8pm. He said, “I’m on a plane. Stuck on the tarmac.”

I said, “You didn’t tell me you were flying tonight.”

He said, “You didn’t ask.”

I went ballistic that how could we talk this much and he not tell me his travel schedule.

Then he told me his schedule.

I told him I am planning a trip to the same city. We could be sharing a hotel room. Why is he not telling me ahead of time? I tell him I’m so frustrated that I have to hang up.

He says, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you wanted to see me.”

I said, “Are you nuts? I talk with you almost every night. “

Then we both paused.

He said, “You don’t know who this is, do you?”

Then I died as I realized he is my freelance sales guy who lives in the same area code as D.

I tell him,”Oh. God. No. I didn’t know it was you. I have to hang up. I have to call you back. I have to call you back in maybe ten years.”

That was the first thing. Of many things that are the result of me spending way too much time talking and writing to D.

He sent me a quote about how we each vibrate a certain way and we find our vibrational match.

I told him I think that’s true, but I vibrate like an insane person. And I worry that I am attracting my vibrational match for insanity and that if I could just get more sane, I’d attract a different match.

He pointed out the obvious: I will probably not get more sane. “This is just you,” he said.

And then I got happy that he is stable and calm and largely unshakable, when I am often shaking as much as I can.

And then I tell myself that I have to admit that I’m dating him. I’m not sure what that means, but the only reason I’m not doing it is because I’m holding out for some amorphous online brand that will perfectly complement my own.

Do not write to me and tell me that’s shallow, okay? It’s the new millennium version of a gold digger. And I know I’m not the only one. I’m just the only one willing to admit it.

So I guess when someone wants to hire me, I’m not going to be able to get the job based on who I’ve dated.

Comment on: Gold digging Web 2.0 style

Personal branding describes a process where individuals differentiate themselves from a crowd by articulating their unique value proposition, whether professional or personal, and then leverage it across platforms with a consistent message to achieve a specific goal. In this way, individuals can enhance their recognition as experts in their field, establish reputation and credibility, advance their careers, and build self-confidence.

Here are five reasons why Generation Y is better at this process than everyone else:

1.   We have the least amount of responsibilities.
Personal branding is a very time consuming exercise that most adults don’t do because of the sheer amount of responsibilities they have, which are priorities to them. However, the more time you invest in your personal marketing efforts, the more successful you’ll be.  For Gen Y, the amount of hours we have left after classes, interships and jobs, is still greater than an older person in the workforce, with twin babies, a pet dog and a list of errands. Millennials can stay up till 2 or 3 a.m. growing our personal brands using social media tools, such as blogs and social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Brazen Careerist, to become more well known in our industry.

2.   We're already marketing ourselves intuitively.
We’re all marketing ourselves without thinking much of it, but Gen Y is doing it on steroids. Gen Y is all hyper-connected with mass media, including the fact that their cell phones are an extension of their hands and that we go online more than any other generation. Every time we send out a text message to fifty of our friends or update our status on Facebook to a few thousand friends, we’re marketing ourselves to our world.  Then our network spreads our messages to an even greater audience in just minutes.  The many marketing lists we’re building online, such as Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and YouTube channel subscribers, are assets that will be useful today and in years to come.  Companies that we work for can get the word out for free using our networks.

3.  We are equipped with a bottomless pit of marketing tools.
Every communication channel is a marketing tool, and since Gen Y is the most plugged in generation, there isn’t a tool we don’t touch.  Aside from the phone and in-person meetings, Gen Y has instant messaging, Skype, social networks, blogging, podcast and more.  By using these tools, Gen Y delivers messages faster and in different forms, so we can build our personal brand in a shorter period of time.  Members of Gen Y are very proficient using these tools because we grew up with technology and can easily adapt to the changing technological landscape, whereas other generations have a longer learning curve.

4.  We understand how to build personal connections to build a brand.
Gen Y’ers are the masters of social media, which means we understand that marketing exists through other people. We use social media tools to put us in touch with other people who can help make us more successful.  Since we are young, we can connect with older generations who can share experiences, lessons learned and other career advice.  We are more productive at work by being connected to more people who can help answer questions.  Gen Y-ers can position themselves in their company as the go-to-person for all technology needs, making them an invaluable asset to their work group.

5.  They have no choice but to be marketing mavens.
Standing out among the millions of job seekers is quite hard in this economy and the competition to succeed in any industry isn’t declining anytime soon.  Internship hiring will be cut by 21%, co-op hiring by 11% and 22% less jobs for 2009 graduates, according to NACE.  The amount of pressure on millennials is immense and it forces them to rethink the way they are perceived and how they market themselves to stand out from the pack.  Gen Y can showcase our website, blog and other unique items that can differentiate us, relative to other applicants that are applying for the same jobs.   We spend more time figuring out what makes us unique, compelling and marketable to employers because otherwise we'll be jobless.

This is a guest post from Dan Schawbel. He is 25 years old and already, the New York Times has called him a "personal branding guru." Dan's book is Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, and it just came out today.

Comment on: Twentysomething: Gen Y is better than everyone else at marketing themselves

First of all, I get five to ten books every week. And I throw most of them away. Second, honestly, for the most part, you have to be my friend for me to write a whole post about your book. Sure, there are exceptions. For example, Tim Ferriss is not my friend but I wrote about his book anyway. But the exceptions are mostly for academic books with research that blew me away.

So stop thinking that I am going to write about your book if you simply send it to me. But really, if you want to promote a book, the best thing to do is make a lot of friends before the book comes out. Just like you don't want to wait to build a job search network until you need a job, you don't want to build a book promotion network when you need press.

So, Ramit has put up with a lot from me, including me being an hour late to have coffee with him. More than once. He has earned a post.

Also, he's earned it because he's an incredibly hard worker when it comes to promotion. The other person I know who works this hard is Tim Ferriss, but Tim tells you that he doesn't. Ramit admits to hard work, so I like him better. And Ramit tells me all the stuff he is doing, like convincing people to listen to MP3s where he is selling stuff, which I told him I would never link to on my blog because I'd feel like a used car salesman, but still I admire how many avenues Ramit will travel to sell stuff.

I am not a great seller. Which you can tell on my blog, actually. I mean, I have a company and no one even knows what it does. I could be selling the shit out of it on this blog, but instead, I am writing about requiring my dates to bake cookies with me. Ramit does not have posts about having sex in his apartment. But he does have posts about his friends trying to get laid and I enjoy that.

So I told Ramit that while I am sure that he is the direct-mail genius of Web 2.0, I cannot help without having to go to a mikvah afterward. And since I don't do mikvah, I can't do all his upsell, upsell, upsell stuff.

He replied, “How about a free plane ticket?” But not for me. And that is why I love Ramit.

So Ramit wants you to buy the book. I'm pretty sure he wants you to buy it today. Because Ramit is a Svengali of Amazon ranking and somehow Ramit's book was number one on Amazon yesterday.

And if you buy the book, you can send him the receipt and you might win a plane ticket.

Here’s how: If you order the book and email your receipt to penelope@iwillteachyoutoberich.com within the next 48 hours, you will be entered to win a free plane ticket to anywhere in the US.

If I write a crappy enough post about the book—like this one, where I manage to write about the book but never tell you one little thing about it—then maybe no one but you will send a receipt and then you'll win.

So before you leave a comment complaining that this is just about Ramit and me and Ramit making money, remember that the plane ticket is all about you.

But I do want to say something about his book. I am very bad with finances. I have known this for a while but recently, two things have really bothered me. First, I read that ENTJs are very good with finances, so this makes me think that I am underperforming there. Second, I noticed that every guy I date is amazed at how much money I have coming in (a lot) and how much I have going out (more than a lot) and how crappy a car I drive. (Actually, it’s not just the car, it’s the consistently odd choices, like no living room furniture because it costs too much.)

The first thing I tell those guys is to shut up. And then I tell them that they don’t understand because my financial issues are different than everyone else’s. But you know what? I don’t believe that. I don’t believe peoples’ problems are special. Still, I wasn’t making much headway until Ramit’s book came. The book is geared toward people in their 20s who still have a lot to learn and Ramit is teaching them (hence the title: I Will Teach You to Be Rich), but I am not in my 20s and I learned a lot anyway.

I always have a book in the kitchen that I read to distract myself from two young boys who are always turning harmless stuff into guns and killing each other. So for the past couple of months, while my kids have been shooting each other, I have been reading Ramit’s book, one or two pages at a time. And what it did was make me realize that there are tons of small things I can do to make big improvements. And also, knowing what to do feels empowering, even if I still have a financial mess on my hands.

I actually think this is the way career advice works as well. First, you need to know your problems are not unique. Then you need to know what people do to solve those common problems. The action of actually making change is the last step, but the first two are harder.

Comment on: Warning: I’m promoting my friend’s book

1. Be interesting. The questions people ask you are not really what they want to know. It’s what they think will be interesting. They would ask you about the price of tea in China if they thought the answer would be interesting.

So your job in an interview is to give an answer that is entertaining and thought-provoking and all the other things that people like. You don’t need to answer the question as much as you need to answer the need for interestingness.

2. Be short. The world does not have an unlimited attention span to hear how your mind works. So you can’t think out loud in an interview and have everyone wait til you get to your point. Your point has to start right away.

Also, if you are short then you are more likely to be interesting the whole time. The longer you talk about a given topic the harder it is to keep someone’s interest. In the PR world this is called “soundbite”. But really, you can use the sound bite technique everywhere – on radio, in a blog post, on a date.

3. Be conversational. You can’t be chatty in a written interview because there’s no one there. But on the phone, or on TV you can actually make the interview into more of a conversation. In a many cases, the interview becomes more interesting this way.

First of all, it tells the audience that the person interviewing is interesting in their own right, because you are asking questions back to him or her. And a room with two interesting people is better than a room with only one interesting person. The second thing is that the conversation becomes a little less scripted and there is more risk and more space for unbridled passion, on either side of the conversation. And spontaneity makes conversation more engaging.

Be upbeat is also a rule. I think. But why is this a rule? I’m not sure. I think it is like the rule about the first two minutes – or whatever the time frame is that someone forms their judgment of you. You want them to meet someone who is fresh-faced, chirpy and upbeat. But what if you’re feeling grouchy? What if you are not really a chirpy type of person?

Recently I’ve been experimenting with breaking the rule about being upbeat. I did an audio interview with self-confidence coach Steve Errey, on a morning when I was having a confidence crisis. And I decided I was not going to fake it on the phone.

Then a week later, I did a written interview with Gretchen Rubin, who is writing a book about happiness research, and I decided to allow myself to reveal that I feel pissy about the happiness research.

And you know what? I really like both interviews. Maybe you will too. And if you like those, then maybe you will also like the photo that everyone told me I could not put on my blog masthead because the world does not like sulking. But I love a good sulk:

Comment on: Three ways to give a good interview, and one way to shake things up

The poll is a fun way for me to think about career topics. A new format always gets me going. But it's also fun because even after writing about careers for ten years, I have a lot of questions in my head that I have not found research to address.

Today's poll is one of them. I know the research about who is bulimic and what happens to them. Mostly because I was bulimic all through college and I thought becoming an expert on the topic would help me stop throwing up. (That didn't work, but the mental ward did). But there is no workplace research. And I'm curious. So I wrote the poll question because I genuinely want to know the answer: What percentage of women in corporate America are bulimic? I think the answer is higher than anyone would expect.

I know that my poll would not pass scientific muster. But I like that we are at least going to start talking about my question. Well, that's what I was thinking. But then I realized that my poll idea—while a grand opportunity for snark, and also an opportunity to fulfill my dreams of writing quizzes for Cosmo—is not the depth of conversation I am hoping for.

So maybe, I am thinking, I will write a post about the poll each week, to hear what you all think of the topic. I still want you to vote on the poll. Who doesn't love a good statistic about sex (last week) or bulimia (this week) or the intersection of sex/bulimia/work (maybe every week)? So you all should love the poll archive.

Some of you will ask, "Why are we talking about bulimia and sex on a career blog?" Here is some career advice for you: The best thing to do in a recession is make your focus on keeping your learning curve high. Forget about rank —it's going to be hard to get internal raises or big jumps from job hopping. But eventually the recession will end, and you want to make sure you're in a good position to take advantage of that.

People who are always curious and always learning are keeping the recession from killing their career trajectory. You don't need to have a job to be learning, you don't need to have a great title to be stretching your skills. And really, really, you don't need to go to graduate school and earn a degree to prove that you are learning.  In fact, maybe you need to take a job you're not thrilled with, but remember that no one can dictate your learning curve. You control that.

My curiosity about bulimics at work is a reflection of the curiosity that got me through the recession that existed when I entered the workforce. When I was unemployed, I worked in interesting jobs for free. When I was employed, I read outside my expertise at night. When I was out with a group of people, I looked for the people who could teach me something new.

So, some of you will go for the bulimia poll, and some won't. But regardless, each of us should ask engaging questions each day. It's a lifestyle, and it's cheap, and it keeps our learning curve steep, so it's a great way to face down a tanking economy.

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That photo is from a time when I was just getting my big writing jobs—at Yahoo Finance and the Boston Globe—and my book was coming out. And the headshot was all about making me look older and wiser than people maybe thought I was.

But, really, I am not big on authority. I'm more about conversation. And I think it's way more interesting to look a little off-kilter and ask good questions, than it is to look perfect and act like I have all the answers. So I knew it was time to change my photo.

Then I started getting excited about trying lots of new things on my blog.

Then I did what I do best: Found great people to work with.

The first person I chose was Jessi Pervola. She does the design work for my company, Brazen Careerist, and she is super fun because she thinks of new features and fun layouts that make people want to do more. So I thought maybe she'd do that for my blog.

Of course, all top-flight designers do what Jessi does, on some level. But the other thing that made me choose Jessi is that I love her blog. I love that the design is weird—with tons of white space that would scare most people. And I love that the first things you see when you go to her blog are these two links: What's my problem? and The full list. It makes me laugh. And I think she must be really, really pulled together because she actually knows the number of problems she has.

The other person who worked on my blog is Clay Collins. He is the crazy, night-owl SEO guy who I have to stay up til 2am to talk to. But he is always worth the phone call, even though I usually consume 2000 calories in sugar-enhanced bread products in order to stay up that late. Clay has ideas like the poll. Or maybe that was Jessi's idea. But that's what is great about picking people who are great. They don't bicker about whose ideas are whose. They don't step on each others' toes. They just come up with amazing stuff.

So here are some of the things that are new, and if you look around the site, you'll find a bunch more:

My twitter feed is back. And for those of you who worry that I write too much snark about investors, you will be happy to read this twitter: An investor tells me don't stop writing about investors. "It makes you differentiated," he says. And he says, "Would that be a good pickup line?"

There is a poll. It will change every week. Maybe every Tuesday if I can stick to a schedule. There are so many things I want to ask you guys. Today's question is about sex with your boss. But only because I wanted to ask if you thought I should change my photo all the time, but my editor—yes, now I guess I have a poll editor—said the sex one is more interesting.

The header is different. The queen of branding herself has a branding problem: I sold Brazen Careerist to my company, so I don't actually own it anymore. So I really need to separate myself from the Brazen Careerist brand. I don't quite know how to do it. Maybe Penelope's Blog. Like Seth's Blog? Or maybe I am too full of myself and I will never be Seth. (After all, Seth keeps getting book contracts to republish his posts, and when I tried to do that, my editor nearly canceled my contract.) So the header will probably change a lot—like, every night at 10pm when I have branding panic and call Jessi to make changes to the art.

It is no coincidence that I'm launching a new blog the week of Thanksgiving. Thank you so much, each of you, for being part of a community that makes finding success at the intersection of work and life a much less lonely process. I like that we all do this together.

This has been a tough year for me. Divorce, farmer tumult, funding a company in an economic crisis. And all of you have been a great reality check for me about what is going right and what isn't and what we can expect from life.

You have also helped me to see that it's been a great year. My blog allowed me to start my company, and my company allows me to have big, fun job and still pick my kids up after school. And believe it or not, I actually still have a fun dating life . . . but you'll have to come back here to find out about that.

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Are you wondering if you're good at image management? Ask yourself how you responded to that first sentence. If you said to yourself, "I am not consumed by what other people think of me—I have enough self-confidence to just be myself," then you are probably bad at image management.

Because it's not so cut and dried as either being ruled by everyone else or just being yourself. In fact, managing your image is mostly just making sure that people see you as your true self and don't get side-tracked by things that easily derail our perception of other people.

Here are three ways you need to manage your image and you might miss these opportunities if you're not paying attention:

1. Hang up on important people.
It's clear that voicemail is a dying technology. Email is much more efficient, and it's rare that leaving a voicemail is better than sending an email. But if a phone number is all you have, then you better be ready.

Which happened to me last week. I am raising funding for my company, and I had to call up a powerful, famous venture capitalist. I had an introduction to him. I had his cell phone number, and I was very nervous about getting the message right. As a writer, I wished I had his email, but I didn't. Anyway, it occurred to me that maybe his cell number is more valuable to have anyway. Maybe harder to get.

So I rehearsed my voicemail—connection to the guy first, then my phone number, then what I want from him (a meeting), and then my name and number again. Ready.

Then I dialed and a recording said my message would be translated to email.

I went ahead with my rehearsed message. Which was totally stupid. An email should not read like a voicemail, so I had the wrong message for the wrong medium.

Now I know, for the future, that if that happens, I should hang up immediately and recraft the message I'm going to leave: Probably just a name and a number and the name of the person who referred me. Anything else probably won't get translated properly by the voice recognition software anyway.

2. Compare yourself to losers.
A lot of your performance at work is about perception. For example, research from Tiziana Casciaro shows that if people think you're likable, they will perceive that you do good work. And if people don't like you, they will perceive you do bad work—even if you are a genius at work.

Also, it's important to manage up—let people know what you're doing well—so that they know what you are accomplishing at work and why you deserve to get great assignments.

The problem with all this is that you need to walk a fine line between pushing yourself to be a star performer and feeling good about what you have done already. Complacency is for losers, but so is perfectionism.

You need a balance. Thomas Gilovich of Cornell University studied Olympians and found that people who win the bronze medal are happier than people who win the silver. Because silver medalists compare themselves to the gold medalists, while bronze winners compare themselves to people who didn't get a medal.

If you compare yourself to low performers at work, then you feel successful, and if you feel successful you will be happier. This is circular, but in a good way, because people who are happier at work do perform better. Even against high-performers.

Gilovich sums it up this way, "Happiness is not a trait but a talent. Finding balance between achievement and satisfaction." This is an example of how satisfaction is not actually material to the achievement, but more mental. So be sure to allow yourself enough satisfaction so that your achievements are recognized and people appreciate the chance to work with you. For many people, this means comparing yourself to the losers at work. But that's good for you, as long as you keep on improving. (Hat tip: Dennis Yang.)

3. Spend money on image when money is tight.
Are you wondering how Sarah Palin could spend $150,000 for new clothes last month? If you don't understand why she needs those clothes, you probably are not spending enough on your own image. The key to knowing what to spend money on is knowing what people are paying for, so you know what you're cutting corners on.

For example, expensive bangs are very different from cheap bangs. If you don't know the difference you don't know whether to get crappy bangs. The same is true for eyebrows, and highlights. Newsflash: Good highlights in LA and NY are $300, without a haircut. And you have to get them done every two months.

Sarah Palin is going on TV every day. She has no idea how to look like the other people in that league, but she is doing what Republican stylists say, and she looks great. Who doesn't look great in an Armani suit from Saks? That's the thing about expensive. Expensive is safe, especially if you don't know what you are doing—you will look like you know what you're doing.

And don't tell me about Michelle Obama's $150 dress. She made headlines when she wore it on the View because making that outfit look great is hard to do.

So if you want to look like you belong at a certain level, you need to pay for what others in that league pay for. Work is a club. And if you think people want to see you cutting corners in a bad economy, you're wrong. Time magazine reports that Playboy—the grand arbiter of all image consulting—found that in a bear market, centerfolds of meatier women sold better. This makes sense: In a down market you naturally want to be around people who don't seem to be suffering from the financial hardship.

In a centerfold, it's meat on your bones. In the workplace, it's an Armani suit.

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