I am learning more and more that it is not only about what you know, but also who you know. I believe the two go hand in hand with each other and they can be very beneficial when you are trying to get a job or stay connected. In my work as an educator and blogger, it is very important for me to not only stay connected with people in field, but also to be able to produce good work so that people will be able to endorse me based off of what I do and not just that they know my name.
Most online resumes that you can do online mainly let you showcase things that you have done, what you know, or who you know. But what would make it even more powerful is to be able to combine all of these things together. This is where a web app like Enthuse.me can come in very handy for people. It takes the power of who you are as a person and is able to showcase not only your work experience, but also it gives you the opportunity to show what you truly know. Let me show you more about what I am talking about.
Setting Up Your Page
When you first get started there are two ways that you can sign up, either with Facebook or LinkedIn. Once you do this, it will pull in some of your data from whichever service you decided to go with, then you can start to customize your page. What you have to remember about this web app is that it is all about you being able to showcase who you are, and not necessarily have you do a resume. So when you start to customize your page you will be able to connect to a variety of services. Each of the services are some way of you being able to show people what you do and not just list your skills. For example, you can connect your YouTube or Vimeo accounts which can possibly be used to show off some skill that you are good at.
Connecting to different services
Once you are done connecting your services, you can also add notes of inspiration that you have or knowledge of something that you want others to know about. This is a great way for you to be able to communicate your expertise in something that you may not be able to show in one of the services you can connect to.
Adding notes of inspiration or knowledge
The last thing that you can do is what is called the “A List”. This is a group of people that you are currently recommending to others that visit your page. You can recommend people for whatever reason you like, but I can see this as a good way to have a reference list for yourself, or even as a way for others to connect with similar people like you. I can definitely see this feature as a great way to network with others who may be in the same field of expertise as you are.
Adding people to your “A List”
Far From Done
Enthuse.me is in its very early stages, or at least that is what they are saying. As they start to slowly invite people in, they are asking for feedback so that they can continue to add features. I think the biggest feature that is missing at this point is the opportunity to connect with others. I am going to assume that they are planning on adding this in the future as this would be one of the main reasons why I think someone would want to use this site.
Outside of that, I would love to see a few more things added to the web app. I would love to see a more services added, especially photo sites and possibly WordPress. It would also be nice to be able to have the ability to manipulate the design of your site as well as how I arrange things on it as well.
Final Thoughts
Right now, it is a pretty plain site, but I am sure as time goes on and more people use the service, the better it will get. What will be interesting to see will be how this will compete with sites that are similar like About.me, Flavors.me, or even LinkedIn. Will people want to use something like this or stick with something they are already used to? I think the other thing they will have to be able to do is to convince people that their service will help promote themselves and give them opportunities they may not be able to get if they didn’t use it.
You can head over to the site, sign up for the beta and reserve your personal username. It will be interesting to see if they will begin to charge for features or to use the service as they start to grow. But, for now, you can use it for free, so go and test it out and help the developers make it better.