RE:THINK

I’ve talked about this issue ad nauseum in the past but it’s reared its head again in this article in the News Limited press (Brisbane’s Courier Mail, to be accurate). So, what am I talking about?

Businesses blocking access to social tools in the workplace. In this case, Facebook gets a mention, but it applies to social networks generally.

I’m firmly of the view that this is a foolish approach by business. For several reasons:

• it assumes staff are going to abuse the privilege of Internet access at work rather than treating them like adults
• it disconnects people from the very thing that makes them people - theirnetworks of other people
• it denies people the opportunity to reach out to peers, clients and customers in the places they might be which very well could be Facebook, or MySpace or LinkedIn or a Ning community, etc.
• it abrogates responsibility for managing staff and imposes kindergarten-level, easily bypassed rules
• it fails to recognise that a smart and workable Acceptable Use Policy for social networks might work better than just blocking or banning
• it’s demoralising, demotivating and belittles the maturity inherent in your people when you treat them well and trust them

There’s more than enough research in existence (just two there from McKinsey, but there are many more) to indicate that allowing access to social networks at work, coupled with a functional and well-considered policy on what is and isn’t okay makes for a more engaged, more motivated and potentially more innovative work force.

The example I use frequently when asked this question is Facebook related. I’d suggest that it’s very okay to use Facebook to stay in contact with industry peer groups at work, but demonstrably not okay to use Facebook to play zombie games or Scrabble at work.

Which would your employer prefer? A happy worker, connected tightly into industry best practice and able to reach out for help when needed, or the proverbial mushroom - in the dark and fed on the crap that isolation produces? I know which I’d prefer if you were my employee.

Not to mention, this blocking argument has been seen before. First it was telephones on desks, then long-distance calls, then PCs, then email, then IM, etc., etc. The issue is no different with social networks.

Social networks are just another tool that have incredible potential to help your business if used in the right way. As such, here are the four things I’d suggest you and your business do today to make sure your staff are empowered to use social tools at work but also understand with crystal clarity what is and isn’t acceptable:

• Start with an acceptable use policy - get everyone’s feedback into it, get it drafted and in place on your intranet so everyone can read it. Make sure that your staff know their acces can be monitored and that there are consequences for repeated abuse of the policy (which may range from a warning to dismissal, depending on the abuse).
• Have an internal social network - of some sort. Ensure people can connect to each other within your organisation so that they build familiarity and expertise with the way social tools work.
• Open the firewall - blocking is both unneccessary and a workplace form of the Nanny State. If you trust your people, leading and managing them well, they will be more likely to trust you in return and also be more likely to feel inclined to follow the policies you introduce.
• Encourage use - not only allow it, but actively encourage your people to connect online (as well as more traditional ways) with each other, their peers and your clients and customers. Opening these channels offers fantastic opportunity to increase inputs to the thinking done in your business, offering an attendant potential for increased innovation

There are no perfect answers to this issue, but I think this offers a decent start.

This is real, folks! this is how creative you have to be to get a job now. I’m sure if you have a job, in a secure and established company - you’ve got nothing to worry about. But if you’re a bit worried, keep reading!

This story came out yesterday on CNBC.com (7.1.09).  It is quite long, and you’re welcome to read the whole thing, I’ll just give you the gist:

Among the iconic images that summed up 2008 was that of Joshua Persky, the unemployed investment banker who slapped a sandwich board over his suit that said “Experienced MIT Grad for Hire” and hit the streets of New York to try to reclaim his place on Wall Street.

 

Cynthia J. Kohll Tip No. 1: Be Creative. A sandwich board over your suit to catch the eye of employers? That’s definitely creative. And effective!

Well, now he’s an iconic image of how to dig out of the mess that was 2008: After 12 long months of job hunting, having to give up his Upper East Side apartment and send his wife and kids to Nebraska to live with her parents, Persky has landed a job. He was hired by accounting firm Weiser LLP in December.

And, despite the fact that a lot of Wall Street jobs are drying up and may never come back, Persky managed to get a job doing the same thing as before, valuations.

So, how did he do it? Mr. Persky have 6 suggestions (and I’ll add the obvious, at the end) :

 

 

1) Be creative. You have to think outside the box to make others aware of what you need.

He had been going along, interviewing and networking for the first six months — even with executives from some of 2008’s casualties, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.

 

The Perskys  made some sacrifices: wife and kids went to stay with the parents, while Mr. Persky continued his job search..

He  decided  had to do something different: after having drinks with his wife he came up with the crazy idea to put a sandwich board on and hit the sidewalk at lunchtime.

 

 

So, he figured if he had the sign on, people might approach him. “You have to try to stand out as much as possible,” Persky said. “That’s more important than ever, given this job market.”

2) Be open to change. It’s easy to wedge yourself into a tight spot, where you’re search is stuck on one field or one location. But given the jobs that have evaporated that may never come back, flexibility is the key.

“You have to be ready to change careers, locations and industry,” Persky said. “To reinvent yourself.”

 

 

“You really just have to expand your horizons,” he said. “Our dream was New York City but we were willing to go anywhere in the world there was an opportunity — internationally or nationally,” he said.

3) Get professional help. A lot of people poo poo professional help, declaring that they are capable to do it on their own.

That’s how Persky felt for the first six months of job search. But, he saw the light after Paloma Bowland, a career counselor who does business development for JibberJobber.com, contacted him and helped him revamp his resume — and his approach.

“Most people’s response to my resume is ‘Wow!’” Persky said. “Before, I wasn’t getting a job,” he said.

 

Bowland made him take the time to make changes, revamping his resume, working out a marketing strategy and helping to keep his spirits up.

 

4) Redo your resume. You may think your experience sells itself, particularly if you’ve been on Wall Street for a couple of decades.

Yeah? Wrong.

You’ve got to organize the information in a way that sells you for the position you want. And, as Persky found out, sometimes that means a nonchronological resume.

 

You have to figure out what your goal — what type of job, what industry, what city — and organize the information on your resume to fit that to a “T,” including everything about you and your experience that is applicable.

“You think about how you would like it to be,” he said. “Nothing is too small or too big to be in there.

5) Figure out your brand and sell it. A lot of people do marketing as part of their job, but when the job is gone, they don’t realize they have to apply those skills to marketing themselves to future employers.

Based on the publicity generated by his sandwich-board strategy, Bowland determined that Persky’s brand was integrity, creativity and bravery.

 

“I never thought I was creative or brave,” he said. “That’s the brand that came out.”

Sometimes, as was the case with Persky, it’s easier to have someone from the outside help you figure out what your brand is.

The next step was to unify his offerings on Facebook, Linked In and his blog.

Persky had already been doing a blog, www.oracleofny.com, to chronicle his unemployment. He admits, it was his kids who got him on Facebook. But it was Bowland who helped him unify his offerings to make sure that they seamlessly — and professionally — dispersed his marketing, his brand.

 

And, of course, it’s not just the marketing — you also have to sell it.

“Really successful salesmen don’t follow up once, they follow up 101 times until it’s impossible to do more,” Persky said. “Just because someone doesn’t answer an email or phone, doesn’t mean the answer is no or they don’t care it just means they haven’t gotten to it yet.”

6) Perseverance. Persky went through a lot of hardship in the 12 months he was unemployed, including having to pack his wife and kids up and ship them back to Omaha while he slept on a couch. But through it all, he never gave up.

“Don’t give up,” Persky said. “In the end, that’s what did it,” he said.

“It wasn’t because of the sign or the blog. I stuck it out and I didn’t give up.”

Indeed, when his networking and interviewing strategy wasn’t working in the first six months, he adapted with creativity, flexibility and some professional help and just stuck with it. His efforts drew the eye of a career advisor, who helped him take it to the next level — the level that landed him the job.

At the end of the day, an expert is not someone who knows a lot.  A real expert is someone who’s KNOWN for what he knows.

You gotta make yourself known, with creative PR and marketing strategies, and then you have to learn how to sell yourself. the competition is fierce. And you have to beat it! otherwise - you go hungry.

What are you gonna do?

 

Guy is, according to him: a founding partner at Garage and co-founder of Alltop as well as a husband, father, author, speaker, and hockey addict. He’s written 9 books, the latest one is Realty Check.

In this book, Guy  is explaining a few fundamental issues when starting a business. Guy is sharing his experience as a VC (Venture (some call them Vaulters) Capitalist, and trying to get rid of (or at least reduce) his Tinnitus, which is a rare illness, which causes constant ringing in his ear.

The book is written in humor, however I recommend taking the advice in the book pretty seriously.

From my understanding, the book stands for these things:

• The KISS principal (Keep it simple, stupid)
• keep learning and educating yourself - cause you don’t know what you don’t know
• don’t be too clever in your documents - have a clever product, and super clever team, which leads to the next point
• You shouldn’t operate on your own - surround yourself with the best people you could find.

I subscribe to the same: I always involve other people, good people in my ventures, (example: www.timetorethink.com). it is a lot easier than working alone, and you get the pleasure of having other people’s input and opinions.

Hopefully you’ll read this book, just before you start your business, and this book will steer you in the right direction.

Maybe it is “too late” and you already run a business. If you think you know it all, and there is nothing to be learned from other people, you wouldn’t be reading this blog in the first place.

I don’t think this is the case, hence you’re reading this blog. Reading The Art of The Start as a business owner, will shed some light on how things are working (and why other things don’t work).This book will also expose you to some brand new thinking patterns, teaching you “how to fish” as the old saying goes:

Give a man a fish - you’ll feed him for a day; Teach him how to fish - you’ll feed him for life!

Enjoy the book - I am!

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