In the early 80′s, my mom came to America as an immigrant from the Philippines.  She believed that this country afforded her the luxury that her home country did not – the right to earn a living.  She believed that through hard work, networking, and perseverance, she would have the opportunity to not only take care of herself, but to give back to those whom she loved.

She believed in the American dream.

My mom, along with the countless others who came before and after her, made a choice to find success in this country.  As immigrants, they did not come expecting charity or aid from the government.  They came with no sense of entitlement.  Instead, they came with purpose and a work ethic.  They knew how to save money because they couldn’t afford not to.

Where is the American dream today?

When I look at the world around me, I see the fibre of America unraveling.

Adults are losing their jobs while soon to be college graduates are applying for internships.

College admissions is more competitive than ever, and the cost of a four-year program at most tier one schools is a $200K investment.

Students are graduating with more credit card debt than in years past thanks to an adult world that has done a pretty awful job of demonstrating how to manage personal finances.

Young people in this country no longer understand how to save as a result of living in a world defined by excess and loans.

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I was prompted to write this post after reading a comment from John Cass who expressed that “sometimes you don’t have to pay for interns, gen y will throw themselves at you.” After expressing my belief that employers must reward workers, I got the following responses directed towards me:

In my opinion, employers can afford to mentor AND pay their interns ($10-$15/hour or $500-$2000 stipends for the semester).  What I don’t think we can afford is to tell young people that it’s okay to not have a source of income.  I understand the value of professional networking and I understand the value of learning from experienced professionals.  However, I also understand the burden of being young.

To put things into perspective, when you’re in college, it’s not enough to have tuition and room and board taken care of.  Chances are, you need some kind of suplemental income in order to pay for things like a laptop, books, and lab fees.  If you’re in an urban setting, it’s virutally impossible to resist the temptation of eating out once in a while or purchasing a monthly subway or rail pass.  For those at rural schools, having a car is usually helpful and travel home during the semester can really add up.

There are leisure and recreational expenses to account for, things like spring break trips, movies, sporting events, fraternity dues, dance classes, and maybe the occasional beer or two (*sarcasm*).

Given these expenses, how can we justify an unpaid internship?  John was right in that I know tons of students who would jump at the opportunity to work for free.  However, the debate isn’t whether students will work for free or not, but whether they should.

In my opinion, free labor is the antithesis of what makes us Americans.

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In the end, we’ll all make choices for our own personal reasons and find ways of justifying either side.  Some students will choose unpaid internships while others will choose to work in jobs like retail, bartending, or mailroom envelop stuffing.  The former will benefit from corporate networking and training while the latter will benefit by working towards financial independence.

If you were a student or recent graduate in today’s recession, which route would you choose?

Photo credit: emdot

I feel incredibly lucky that I can answer YES to all of the above.  Can you?

As part of InternetWeek NY, I am pimping out Magnify’s brand and I’m doing it through a blog I created titled, “Internetweek.tv.” For the first time ever, the city of NY in cooperation with the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting, is putting together a seven day smorgasbord of startups, meetups, panels, and parties, all in celebration of one of my favorite things ever – the Internet. Steve Rosenbaum, Magnify’s CEO was looking for something fun to do as part of the festivities and I suggested the creation of this site. Not only does it increase exposure to Magnify’s brand, it also gives New Yorkers an opportunity to get some solid Internet Week coverage (there’s no official internet week blog…weird right?). Last but not least, this also gives the Magnify team, in particular me, a really great opportunity to go out, listen, learn, engage in conversations, and just have a good time. it’s called putting the social in social media.

As the head of Magnify’s Internetweek.tv initiative, I’m literally turning into a one woman media machine. I’m going to events, taking photos, recording videos, conducting interviews, and then blogging, uploading, flickr-ing, editing, tweeting, promoting, etc. I live for this stuff. What makes me so happy is that in the past, I would normally be out there doing this stuff anyway, and now I actually get to say that it’s my job to do it.

When you’re in high school and in college, you can only hope that you have a career in life that allows you to do something you love. I tell myself that I’m lucky to be doing what I’m doing every single day.

This is just day 1 of my Internet Week extravaganza and I’m looking forward to more media madness that will ensue throughout the course of the week. I’m determined to take our little Magnify cutout man with me everywhere and have him pose with famous NY landmarks and all the cool people I meet along the way. He’s officially my new boyfriend.

You can follow my progress on the Internetweek.tv blog and get some behind the scenes insight here.

Oh, and last but not least, a big thank you goes out to my buddies B & E, who were nice enough to help me theme the site and prep it for launch. You guys rock my socks.

• Your blog is your resume
• You must establish your personal brand
• You must use your site as a storefront, a store where you’re selling one product – yourself.

As a result, I feel pressure to write posts about “smart” things complete with”smart” commentary.  I feel the need to write about topics related to the social media landscape, all from the perspective of my twentysomething viewpoint.  I feel the need to cater this blog to an audience of people who I want to get to know me, people who might hire me, who might work with me, people who I respect and admire.  Like the bullet points on any job description, I want my posts to showcase who I am and what I do.

At the same time, I still have to embrace who I am outside of the social media bubble. I am a person, a young female who has insecurities, doubts, and dreams.  I can’t write like the A-list bloggers I read because I simply don’t have the experience or the authority to project that same voice.  I want to blog about my friends and silly stupidnes that ensues when we get together.  I want to blog about how much I enjoyed Iron Man and how much I cried when I went to watch Sex & the City at midnight on Thursday.  I want to blog about my relationships, the move I’m about to make to Boston, the absurdity of politics in America, the ignorance of the average person, the awesomeness that is Wii, and also how desperately I want to get my nails done today.

Most of the time when I don’t post, it’s not because I don’t have a lot to say, it’s because I have too much to say.  I get wrapped up in thinking about what I *should* write, that I skip over what I *feel* and *need* to write, to the point where I just don’t do it at all.

I realize I acknowledged this in previous posts I wrote, but it’s so much easier to dish out advice than execute it yourself.  That said, I’m remotivating myself to be a better blogger by posting more.  I think I can establish myself professionally without having to compromise myself personally.  Hopefully both voices will be heard in the posts to follow.

I’ll leave off with an excerpt from one of my favorite movies, Across the Universe:

“What you do defines who you are.”

“No. Who you are defines what you do.”

“It doesn’t matter what you do.  It’s how you do it.”

I had a friend ask me, “Why do you have to go all the way up there just to talk to people about potential jobs? Aren’t these dudes like always online? Just send them an email with your resume.”

I wish it were that easy, but it’s not. Yeah “these dudes” aka social media folk are always online, but they’re not as accessible as you think. I’ve found that social media professionals today have networks and InBoxes that are saturated with surface-level connections and far too many friend requests, to the point where they can’t even manage them properly. If you want to get noticed, you need to make yourself recognizable beyond an avatar. In my case, this means sitting on a bus for 5 hours to attend the PopSignal party for the night.

Earlier this month, Bryan Person held one of his Social Media Breakfasts, which was appropriately centered around “hiring and getting hired in the Web 2.0 world.” A summary of what the panelists said that day:

• “Think of social media as a thin slice way to build a relationship and also to increase your brand and presence. Engage people in the beginning of a conversation (online via social network) and then take it offline to really deepen the relationship.” – Stever Robbins aka Get-It-Done Guy
• “No resumes. I don’t want to see any paper. I don’t want to see the school you went to…the last 5 jobs…I don’t want you to email me because I know that the people I want to hire live and breath social media (use twitter linkedin, facebook, etc).” – Aaron Strout, VP of New Media at Mzinga
• “If I don’t already know the person, I question why should I? The people we want to hire are the people we already know…” – Todd Defren, Principal at SHIFT Communications
• “Use these tools….but the tools don’t get the job, you get the job.” – Chris Brogan

There you go. Straight from the folks who know it best.

In my own words, the best advice for anyone who wants to work in the industry: show up and speak up. Find out what events are taking place and who’s going to be there. Go to the event and then make yourself known as a potential hire.

These days, you need to make the extra effort by establishing a presence both online and offline and engage in conversations beyond blog posts and direct messages.  That was a lesson I learned at the first SMB I ever attended back in February, which focused on “how twitter changed my life.”

Alright, Boston. Here I come!