Posts Tagged ‘competences’
Entrepreneur, leader, space creator
The great desk tidy continues. Professional organizational designers will instantly recognize what I am going to describe as Level 2 or C Band in Paterson parlance.
Understanding what is needed when
Let’s imagine a mechanic. He, and increasingly she, has served an apprenticeship, gone to college, and worked on lots of cars under the supervision of experienced mechanics.
A car arrives. They look at it. The learn of symptoms from the driver. They make some investigations in a manner that any other trained mechanic would recognize as methodical (or haphazard). They take action.
From time-to-time though, the bundle of symptoms is out-of-pattern. It may be a rare case that they haven’t encountered before It may be a complicated case where feedback to the basic tests they carry out is obscured and muddies the decision making process. The case may be complicated by factors not really to do with the car itself. Spare parts might be short or the car might be needed in less time than the mechanics need to do everything as well as they would like.
When the job becomes complicated, a more experienced colleague steps in “reads the situation” and explains the priorities to the skilled but inexperienced worker. Now that they are oriented again to a set of tasks that they know how to do, they can pick up the task from there.
In time, of course, they become experienced themselves and mentor others.
Directing traffic
In an organization, the role of the experienced worker is sometimes played by a controller who cannot do the job themselves. The archtypical example is the Air Traffic Controller, who prioritizes aircraft and coordinates them with each other and resources on the ground. The controller is not the aircraft Captain’s boss. But does give orders of a kind.
The intersections of networks
In networked industries, the role of the controller is likely to become more common. They may have rudimentary grasp of the skills they coordinate – they may have the equivalent of a light aircraft license, they could join in firefighting in elementary roles, they can do elementary electronics – but they are specialized in control. They have the mindset to concentrate on what is in front of them for long periods. They have good mental maps which they keep up-to-date. They are important enough for psychologists to study them in depth. Indeed many of the advances in applied cognitive psychology have come from studying air traffic controllers.
And so it will be with “managers” of the future. Though that term has developed so many connotations that we may have to drop it.
We will have people skilled at managing “space” where people come together to get things done.
People in this line of work will probably start early. We will see them organizing conventional clubs at school, working online and developing mental models about how to create cooperative spaces in a networked world.
Five competences for space creators in our networked world
As I am on a great clean up of my paper world, I want to write down five competences that the “space creators” of the 21st century will have.
#1 What needs to be done
#2 Emotional energy to connect
#3 Form a collective umbrella
#4 Delegate tasks to protect the collective
#5 Keep commitments to positive emotional space
Sort of abstract but it follows a logic to be: what needs to be done, why are we bothered and how or why would this be our priority, what is the space that we need to work together, what are the important tasks to maintain this space and who will do them, are we having fun here?
How do we learn these skills? A post for another day, I think. First, any comment on the competences?
We are in social media because we really have fun
Most of us who get into social media because we love it. We like computers and we are fairly sociable, though curiously, often introverted too.
We do what we love, and we do it happily all day long.
It’s only when we start to think about making money, that we start to think about monetizing. And then we start to think a lot about money. And we start to talk about it too.
Have you ever noticed that people in other industries don’t talk about money nearly as much as we do?
That’s because they have more than us.
Why other people make money
My ‘day job’, or at least my day-job in years gone by, was as a psychologist to commerce and industry. We put in systems – pay, performance appraisal, selection. Hell, even pensions.
Most social media firms are much too small to be bothered with such systems. That’s lucky. These systems tend to be rather dull.
The guiding principles behind the systems are another matter though.
Take competencies, for example.
We try to understand a job in terms of its essential skill base. What do we get done? What are the main clusters of tasks?
I’ve been edging toward a model for social media and this is what I’ve come up with.
Menu board of 5 competencies in social media
Competence 1: Customers
Who are our customers? If they used our service, what would they use it for? How do they satisfy that need without us?
Once we’ve introduced our service, how do they use it? What tweaks do they introduce?
This isn’t a customer-service role. It’s a strategic-role where our expertise is watching the people we serve.
Clay Shirky is the best example of a person who is expert in this role He works at the role of macro-strategy. What affects all of us?
We also need mavens working at the level of micro-strategy – our own industry, our own locality, our specific demographic. Anthropology and sociology are good foundations for this expertise.
Competence 2: Technology
Today, Seth Sternberg, founder of Meebo, posted his thoughts on managing startups over on Techcrunch.
He believes that the core team needs at least two technical people: the pixelator (design of the front end) and the person who makes the servers fly (backend).
That’s a useful framework to start with. Where is design and processing going? What is likely to break onto the scene in the next five years? What is flair and what is competence in the field?
In the social media world of south-east England, many of us rely on LoudMouthMan to give us an overview of what is happening.
I suspect many geeks are very specialized and are micro-micro, so to speak. What are the slightly broader ‘chunks’ that match clusters or groups of apps who compete with each other?
Competence 3: Marketing
Now we get to looking after customers. Marketers in the social media space are quite competent technically. They use social media to find customers, respond to customers, and tweak the system to manage the % ROI.
This space is very noisy. But I perceive most people are chasing the business of big traditional companies who are perceived to be flush with cash.
I haven’t met too many social media marketers who will manage a startup. The closest that I know of is Julius Solaris who is his own startup, so to speak. He arrived in UK less than 18 months ago and has built an extensive network of entrepreneurs in London.
I’ve done a little work on the broad mega-picture of Facebook & Twitter and Linkedin users in UK
To work our own space – to go from zero customers to 1000’s of customers, we need to copy Julius.
Competence 4: Keeping it all together.
I have met some accountants at Julius’ meetups. Accountants who specialize in social media are as rare as hens’ teeth though.
Lawyers are a little more common, but not common at all. Omar Ha-Redeye, reading for his JD in Canada is the closest I know.
This post is my contribution to this competence ‘Keeping it all together’ by thinking ahead about our skill base.
Competence 5: Emergence
And lastly, who is Hannibal of the A team?
We sometimes bring ‘old world’ attitudes to social media. We want to be in-charge, largely because we don’t trust each other and we are terrified of losing control of the ‘rent’ – the unusual profits.
In reality, of course, we barely have any profit at all. This is part of the creative sector and few people get rich.
Hannibal doesn’t play this old fashioned role. Hannibal thinks up the game plan. Hannibal builds the missing trust and gets out some fair and cast iron contracts (that the lawyers, accountants and psychologists will make happen in their detail).
Hannibal coordinates. Hannibal sizes up the progress we make in our distinct arenas and passes information between us to help us stay together.
And second only to building trust, Hannibal senses the emergence of new understanding, clarity and more finely tuned goals. Hannibal represents the group to itself . . . represents the group to itself.
Hannibal must love the group, seriously love it.
We are Hannibal in our own lives. We think up our game plan. We help all the people who help us to trust each other. We pass information between them when they cannot do it themselves. We sense what we can do together and we represent this possibility so everyone can imagine a future that includes us . Universities have started to offer full semester courses to start students developing personal leadership.
Five competencies for managing a social media business
- We need them all in part
- It’s great when we find a maven who will keep us informed of broad changes
- It seems to me that there are many opportunities to become experts at “industry” level (between niche and the broader picture).
- “Keeping it all together” is calling for people with professional skills to specialize in social media.
- We are all Hannibals in our own life.
- Some people play the role of Hannibal in project teams and get very good at it.
Any use to you? Has this list helped you to check off your strengths and the strengths of your network?
Can you start a project team in the next month? Who is missing from your team?
When you next go to a meetup, who are you hoping to find, probably standing somewhere quietly?
Any thoughts?
Related articles by Zemanta
- From Nothing To Something. How To Get There. (techcrunch.com)
- Be a social media star: a menu board of 5 competences (flowingmotion.wordpress.com)
- Image via CrunchBase
Arrgh! Interview preparation!
The worst thing about preparing for a job interview is the time it takes. Google “job interview preparation” and it will take you a good half-an-hour just to pick out some good resources.
Then, you have to wade your way through the article. And you are no better off! It’s like learning to drive from a manual.
Down the right hand side of the screen, Google helpfully lists adverts for career coaches who help you practice for job interviews. They may save you some time.
Practice your interview over the internet
Hmm, but no coaches who practice over the internet. I’ll do it for you, if you like.
- Email me your job description and the “person specification“.
- I’ll email you back 5 questions to prepare.
- And I will ask you another 3 questions that you must answer without preparation.
- We’ll connect at an pre-arranged time through Skype.
- And I will give you feedback.
Fees?
EXECUTIVE : 100 pounds (for preparation, interview & feedback)
PROFESSIONAL: 50 pounds (for preparation, interview & feeback)
SCHOOL-LEAVER or OPERATIONAL: 33 pounds (for preparation, interview & feedback).
Contact Me
- Email me with suggested times and your questions on jo dot working2.0 at gmail dot com.
- I’ll confirm a time and answer your questions.
- If you are happy, you can send me your job description.
- I’ll need around 24 hours notice.
Look Me Up
My professional profile is at Jo Jordan on Linkedin.
Let’s get this done!
PS This post was made to test Google Adwords. If you do need interview preparation, do let me know. I may be able to refer someone who lives in your area who can help you practice.
flowing motion 
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