Posts

Reboot: Personal Brands and the #TFT13 Conference

/ /by

(Editor’s Note: We’re thrilled to welcome Nick Kellet to TalentCulture as a guest blogger. For more information about Nick, see his profile at the end of this post.)

For many members of the TalentCulture community, there’s only one conference this week — SHRM13, the Society for Human Resource Management annual meeting in Chicago. But I’d like to focus on another conference that happens on Tuesday. It’s called TomorrowsFutureToday (TFT).

At first blush, TFT may not seem relevant. The topic is IT service management. But TFT’s business model deserves a closer look. Founder Chris Dancy is leading a movement to rethink every aspect of conference design and management — including how speakers are recruited, how content is created and shared, and how participants engage during live sessions and beyond.

This fascinating story lives at the intersection of social business, content strategy and technology. It’s a disruptive model that signals the growing power of crowdsourcing, expert networks and personal branding. It touches on many of the same issues and opportunities that are redefining the “world of work.” And from that perspective, it’s an inspiring example for TalentCulture.

Snapshot: What Sets TFT Apart

TFTResultsTFT is a semi-annual, one-day “follow-the-sun” virtual conference, where 24 experts from around the globe speak for an hour each. Unlike classic conferences, the speakers are selected by professional practitioners and peers (via Listly). This replaces the “old-boy” model, where conference organizers control the agenda. Very cool.

Even cooler, all the speakers are paid. Yes, all of them. What’s more, the content “lives” long after the conference. Presentations are recorded and automatically converted into trans-media assets (slides, video, audio and transcribed text) that are reusable across a wide spectrum of digital channels. (This is accomplished via Zapier.)

  • Speakers are encouraged to redistribute content anywhere they wish, indefinitely
  • Access to all content is absolutely free to anyone who is interested, forever
  • The overall event experience — before, during and after — has a big impact on its perceived value
  • Similar to TED Conferences, the agenda development process ensures superior quality speakers and content. No pressure.

Implications for Personal Branding

The first TFT conference occurred in December 2012. That inaugural event demonstrated not only strong community engagement that won sponsorships, but also helped boost awareness and credibility of its speakers. Fact: since their appearance in December, half of the speakers have moved on to bigger and better professional roles.

So, what does that say about the power social media exposure, and its influence on personal brands? Chris Dancy took several moments to discuss this and several other related questions:

1) How do collaboration and social community relate to personal brand building?
“Collaboration and social community are the foundation of personal branding. Both depend on systems of attention, influence and altruism. Personal brands don’t transfer in hyper-digital economies without conscious consumption of community content. By serving the community first as a consumer, you then have the ability to understand the needs of that system. You have two ears, one mouth and 10 fingers — talent observes before it offers suggestion.”

2) Can you really crowdsource your way to a “brand” new career? How can others do so?
“I don’t believe you can crowdsource your ‘brand.’ You can crowdsource your values. If those values are stronger than the habits of a community, then your brand and career will reflect these systems. Others suffer from being overwhelmed by information, tech and connections. We must first teach people to make healthy tech and information choices. Healthy information diets are to the 2020’s what Tab cola was to the 1970’s.”

3) Did the speakers who landed new careers imagine this would be the outcome from a virtual conference culture?
“None of the speakers on TFT who transitioned to different careers imagined the vault in their careers.  The speakers at TFT12 and TFT13 never considered it a virtual conference. In large part, speakers felt honored to be selected by their peers. It was that empowerment that moved their careers. To feel worthy of attention and time in a climate short on both, is the brand found inside of confidence and outside of hubris.”

The next LIVE round-the-clock event is tomorrow, Tuesday, June 18, 2013. Click here to follow the action in real time, or check back anytime to find content after-the-fact. You can also follow the conference backchannel at #TFT13.

In the meantime, let me know what you think about this business model. Could this work for your business domain? And how could you shape and enhance your personal brand while sitting in front of your computer?

Interesting questions — and enterprising people like Chris Dancy are helping us fill in the blanks. Share your ideas below, or connect with me on Twitter @NickKellet.

Nick Kellet, Founder, Listly.com 015_img_2801(Author Profile: Nick Kellet is co-founder of social curation platform Listly. He believes that effective curation is as much about listening and engaging as it is about publishing and the tools themselves. A serial innovator who loves to jump domains from board games to business intelligence, Nick also believes that passion in the company of friends and community is an unstoppable force.

Connect with Nick on Twitter, on LinkedIn and on G+, and follow his writing via his other guest posts and on his blogs at NickKellet.com and at blog.list.ly.)

Finding Value in Enterprise Communities #TChat Preview

/ /by

(Editor’s Note: Are you interested in reviewing all of this week’s events and resources? Read “Communities of Practice and Purpose: #TChat Recap.”)

If you know me, then you know that I’m passionate about communities — digital and otherwise.

My interest in cultivating communities is what drives me as manager at HuffPost Live and TalentCulture, and as the founder of My Community Manager. It’s incredibly gratifying to help people build useful relationships, and to facilitate an ongoing exchange of ideas that is bigger than the sum of its parts.

Digital communities aren’t just a nice idea. They’re also a huge potential source of business value for enterprise organizations, according to management consulting firms like McKinsey. Yet large companies often struggle with how to connect the social dots among their various constituents — employees, leaders, customers, business partners, and beyond.

What Makes a Great Enterprise Community?

Of course, great networking and collaboration tools are helpful in creating and sustaining any kind of social community. But it takes much more than a solid infrastructure. What does it take? That’s the focus of our TalentCulture #TChat forums in the coming week. And we’ve invited two experts to lead the conversation:

#TChat Sneak Peek Videos

Both guests briefly joined me for a G+ Hangout to set the stage. First Jeff defined key terms — explaining how enterprise communities differ from other social networking groups:

And then Maria explained why communities are essential in today’s business environment:

#TChat Events: Why and How Enterprise Communities Work

Need I say more? As you can tell from their interviews, these two experts are just as passionate as I am about exploring the benefits of business-oriented communities. And they’re eager to exchange ideaTChatRadio_logo_020813s with a circle of like-minded professionals. So please join us next week, and add your unique perspective to this very special “community” conversation!

#TChat Radio — Tuesday, May 28 at 7:30pmET / 4:30pmPT — Maria and Jeff join our hosts, Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman, for a LIVE 30-minute discussion about enterprise community issues and opportunities.

#TChat Twitter — Wednesday, May 29 at 7:00pmET / 4:00pmPT — Calling all #TChatters to join us for an open online discussion on the #TChat stream. Come on over and share your thoughts. The more, the merrier!

Q1: What are the differences between social and enterprise communities?

Q2: Why has community development and management been more difficult for the enterprise?

Q3: What are best practices for enterprise community management?

Q4: What can business leaders and internal champions do to facilitate quality enterprise communities?

Q5: What community & collaboration technologies make sense for today’s enterprise?

Throughout the week, we’ll keep the discussion going on the #TChat Twitter feed and on our new LinkedIn Discussion Group. So please join us share your questions, ideas and opinions.

We’ll see you on the stream!

High-Flying Talent Communities: #TChat Recap

/ /by

Birds aren’t known to be mental giants. After all, does anyone really want to be called a “bird brain?” Yet, when it comes to communities, perhaps one of the smartest things you can do is to think like a bird.

At least that’s one way to summarize the wisdom shared at last night’s #TChat, where the discussion focused on the role of leadership and social media in empowering successful communities. These comments sparked my imagination:

“When birds migrate south they take turns being the leader. Drafting is tough.” @DavidSmooke

“And yet, they’re orderly.” @brentskinner

“And from afar the shape looks the same. The opportunity to lead as one.” @DavidSmooke

Similarly, human birds of a feather flock together in online communities. But the model must be sustainable. It’s essential for members to contribute individually, so the group can move forward collectively — whether the community is intended purely for the pleasure of social exchange, or for professional networking and talent development. As some #TChat-ters noted…

“Both social and talent communities are about learning, connecting and engaging.” @susanavello

“More similarities between talent and social communities than differences, it seems…” @YouTernMark

“Communication, connection and collaboration: a trio that works well…” @TaraMarkus

Just as with winged migration, every community has a purpose. Birds don’t fly for the sake of movement. They are en route to a destination, using both individual skill and collective strength to move the flock to its goal.

So, what are the implications for online community leadership? What’s the best approach to move a human flock forward in a loosely-coupled, but sustainable way? Some suggested that it requires a particular type of leadership, one that doesn’t easily fit into the classic command-and-control mold:

“The leader’s sweet spot is with the community – not behind or in front but listening & pointing the way.” @AlliPolin

“Leadership within talent communities is inclusive, open and dynamic.” @ReCenterMoment

On the other hand, some participants underscored the need for social leadership that carries over from the best real world organizational settings:

“No structure = chaos.” @RichardSPearson

“Leaders who foster communities in orgs break down silos – help develop more collaborative work relationships.” @nancyrubin

“The collaborate-&-bring-out-the-best-in-all thing? To me, that’s a big part of leadership, no matter what realm.” @AnneMessenger

“The best leaders lead by knowing how to ask the right questions, no different with a talent community.” @ideabloke

However, as our own community leader, @MeghanMBiro, observes, social engagement may not be a skill that many leaders have developed.

Regardless, for a loosely coupled talent community to thrive, its leaders and participants must embrace the community’s interests. Just as with birds of a feather who aim to reach a distant destination together, sustainable communities require individual skill, combined with collective engagement, and awareness of a common purpose.

Technology can provide tools to connect us in real time. Leadership can offer guidance and direction. But ultimately, the power to propel a community forward rests in the hands of those who show up.

Want to learn more? For complete insights from the discussion stream, see the highlight slideshow at the end of this post.

#  #  #

Highlights & What’s Ahead on #TChat

Did you miss the #TChat preview? Go here. Are you looking for the highlights slideshow? Keep scrolling to the end of this post.

NOTE: If you’re a blogger, and this #TChat session inspired you to write about social communities, we’re happy to share your thoughts with others. Just post a link on Twitter (at #TChat or @TalentCulture), or insert a comment below, and we’ll add it to our archives. There are many voices in the #TChat community — with many ideas worthy of sharing. So let’s capture as many of them as possible!

We hope you’ll join us next Wednesday at 7pm ET / 4pm PT for another #TChat. We’ll be exploring issues related to military veterans in the workforce. Look for the preview early next week via @TalentCulture and #TChat. Enjoy your weekend!

Image credit: “Gulls Over Head,” courtesy of V Fouche

#TChat INSIGHTS Slide Show: Communities and Leadership
by Sean Charles (@SocialMediaSean)

[javascript src=”//storify.com/TalentCulture/tchat-insights-the-talent-community-leader-s-swee.js?template=slideshow”]

Top 20 Venues for Thought Leaders

/ /by

While there are many ways you can establish your personal brand online and offline and inevitably stand out from others in your industry, functional area or even job candidate pool, one of the most powerful ways is demonstrating your unique value contribution through thought leadership.

A thought leader is by definition someone who is recognized for his or her innovative ideas, opinions, and/or perspective. However, if you want to be recognized as such, you must actually share your ideas, opinions and/or perspective with others.

Here are the top 20 venues for new and veteran thought leaders to share their value, expand their audience and grow their reputation and personal brand.

  • LinkedIn Answers: LinkedIn Answers is a unique Q&A forum that allows LinkedIn users to post questions and contribute answers to others’ questions. Getting involved in asking questions, answering questions and sharing insights and ideas related to your chosen industry is an effective way to establish your personal brand in an area of expertise.
  • Quora: Quora has combined the power of Q&A and Wikipedia into one platform where each question and answer become a living document that users can continuously discuss and update. Quora can be a great way to establish credibility and visibility. It also can be a comprehensive resource for networking and gathering information for future work and content, entrepreneurial ventures and/or personal efforts.
  • Your Own Blog: Blogging and contributing value-added content to better serve your industry can be an outstanding way to increase your visibility and demonstrate your unique value to potential employers and career stakeholders. Blogs are very easy to get started. There are both free and self-hosted platforms to choose from, including WordPress, Blogger and Typepad.
  • Guest Posting: If you’re not ready to commit to starting your own blog, consider writing content to contribute to other industry blogs. To find candidate blogs for your posts, do a quick Google search, check out the blogrolls of leading blogs in your area and check Alltop, an online magazine rack that provides a list of all the top blogs by industry or topic category.
  • Commenting: In addition to writing your own content, don’t forget to respond to the content that others publish on their blogs, as that can help you network your brand with other thought leaders and demonstrates your involvement. Again, use Google, blogrolls and Alltop to identify relevant blogs on which to become active.
  • LinkedIn Groups: There are thousands of LinkedIn Groups for you to join, including alumni groups, industry-specific groups, special interest groups and more. Start being active and contributing value from Day 1. Share interesting news with your groups, post links to intriguing articles and join in group discussions to show your investment in your industry or area of interest.
  • Facebook: While Facebook is intended to be more social than professional, this doesn’t mean it isn’t a venue for you to brand yourself. Share your activities and contributions or valuable resources in moderation with your friends, family and connections. They may already know you and your brand, but this will continue to reinforce it.
  • Twitter: Micro-blogging with Twitter is another way you can network with others, engage people in conversation and contribute value from your own blog, other industry blogs and websites and other thought leaders online.
  • HARO: HARO is a free personal branding service that connects professionals and students with writers, bloggers and journalists seeking sources for their articles, books, blog posts, etc. This can be a great way to get quoted in industry publications and increase your credibility and visibility among your peers.
  • Reviews: Writing a thoughtful review demonstrates your opinion of and take on someone else’s ideas and contributions. Leverage sites like Amazon to share your responses to others’ work.
  • HubPages: HubPages is an online platform where you can share your advice, reviews, useful tips, opinions and insights with hundreds of other authors and visitors without having to host, manage and market your own site or blog.
  • Squidoo: Squidoo is another platform for creating single webpages on your interests and recommendations, inevitably enhancing your online presence, search engine rankings and personal brand.
  • Google Knol: Google Knol is another platform where you can create, collaborate on, and publish credible web content without managing and driving traffic to your own website or blog.
  • SlideShare: Whether you have a presentation you have given before that you want to post, want to create a new presentation for others to view or have a portfolio of work to show off, SlideShare is a great tool that allows you to feature your presentations and documents and demonstrate your expertise and ideas in your chosen field.
  • Self-Publishing: If you interested in authoring longer works for your industry, consider self-publishing a book through CreateSpace or Lulu. You can also self-publish e-books in pdf format and share them via your blog, Scribd, SlideShare and across your networks.
  • Publishing: While there is no shame in self-publishing, getting published by a publishing house or publication does carry some prestige and credibility. You may know of publications and/or publishers in your industry to which you may want to send your content, but do check out the Writers Market series, as they provide invaluable resources and directories for writers.
  • Speaking & Teaching: Getting in front of an audience and sharing your expertise and ideas with them is an effective way to brand yourself as an expert. Identify something on which you can speak or present or even teach to a group of people and offer to contribute to an upcoming industry event or event put on by any associations you have joined. This will obviously take practice and may require you working your way up to bigger venues. You can also host your own events and market them to your local community and network. Promote your events online through LinkedIn, Facebook and Eventbrite. Remember, if you don’t have a physical space, you can also offer teleseminars and webinars which may attract larger audiences from around the country and world.
  • Video: More and more professionals are leveraging the power of video to market themselves, their expertise and/or their offerings. Sites like YouTube are popular platforms for featuring and marketing your thought leadership through video.
  • BusinessWeek Business Exchange: BWBX is a networking platform where you can both connect with fellow professionals in your industry and areas of interest, but also where you can share online articles and resources, including your own.
  • Networking: General career and business networking both online and offline will enhance your personal brand presence and connect you with other thought leaders, career stakeholders and potential followers. Attend in-person events in your industry, join local trade associations and make a point to network with at least one new person every week. Compliment your offline efforts by networking with other professionals online, using tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Networking Roulette by Brazen Careerist, BeKnown by Monster and any other tools or forums within your area of interest.

What are some other top venues where you share your ideas, opinions and personal brand?

Chris Perry, MBA is a Gen Y brand and marketing generator, a career search and personal branding expert and the founder of Career Rocketeer, Launchpad, Blogaristo and more.

Twitter Chats Reveal the Future of Online Communities

/12 Comments/ /by

Written by Omowale Casselle

Recently, I have been paying a lot of attention to different chats that happen on Twitter. Quite honestly, these community focused discussions are extremely interesting to me because of what I believe they reveal about the future characteristics of online communities. (If you’re a regular here at TalentCulture, you probably have participated in this community’s popular Wednesday evening #TChats. If not, I recommend you do!)

Collective vs. Individual Ownership

  • While there is usually someone who has come up with the initial idea for a hashtag, by and large it is owned by the community of participants. No one can trademark or copyright a hashtag. Also, the social nature of the platform makes it difficult to prevent anyone from using it.  This collective group ownership is a valuable element of future online communities. When people feel ownership, they become careful stewards of what has been created.  In many ways, they are so in love with their experience that they refuse for others to destroy what has been built. As a result, you will often find community members passionately maintaining community norms.

Participation varies and depends on interest/expertise/willingness to share

  • In online communities there has always been a distribution of participation. With hashtags, there are additional ways to foster participation. For example, even if you are too shy to speak; one can simply re-tweet something that they find especially valuable or interesting.  By lowering the barriers of participation, more people are drawn in which is the key to utilizing the collective knowledge of the community.

Many of the most popular are based on niche topics with the core value proposition being the opportunity to learn more

  • Many hashtags are first and foremost an opportunity for others to learn about an area of interest.  This shift away from self-gratification towards mutual gratification is one that I think is especially exciting about these communities.  Instead of people hoarding knowledge, hashtag chats give participants an opportunity to share their learnings with others. In the process, valuable social capital is earned which gives people with key insights increased hierarchy within the online community.

Heavily focused on crowdsourcing (Moderator asks questions and variety of people weigh in on the subject, the most popular or well received answers are typically re-tweeted)

  • Many hashtag chats are loosely organized around the topic of a few questions with the community being asked to respond based on what they think.  Within this dynamic, community participants can ask burning questions that are on their mind around the subject of interest.  This simultaneous loose and rigid structure is especially appealing to participants.  In addition, the real-time nature of the communication channel enables moderators and community members to key in on subjects that are of great interest.  This helps keep the interest of community members and keeps them coming back each week to learn more about a specific topic.

While these trends are just developing, it will be interesting to see how they evolve to become what I believe will be the foundation of successful online communities moving forward.  This represents a shift from the closed model that many web 1.0 communities were based upon.

Remember, the model that forced you to register for a site to figure out if the community was interesting.  Once you realized it wasn’t, they already had your email address to spam you with.  No longer! In this new dynamic, you have to show your worth in the open community before people will even give you a chance to move into a closed, intimate relationship.

This dynamic is especially crucial for employers who are seeking to engage with prospective candidates to master. By moderating online discussions around subjects related to their industry, company, or individual opportunities, employers can create a dynamic recruiting environment that will be irresistible to candidates.

HOW TO: Build & Maintain A Talent Community

/7 Comments/ /by

What is a talent community?

According to Wikipedia:

A talent community is a collection of social cliques (or talent networks) of people that are part of the job seeking process. These people may be seeking a job themselves, offering career advice to others, recruitment professionals, college campus recruiters, sourcers, and friends seeking jobs or advice. Talent communities inherently provide 2-way interaction between the individuals.

A talent community is not a list of candidates on a web page or in a spreadsheet; it is an environment consisting of people who can share ideas for the purpose of career networking or social recruiting of candidates.

Employers can interact and communicate with prospective employees as well as inform candidates about employment opportunities, receive referrals, and handpick qualified individuals from inside the group. A talent community can include prospective candidates, past applicants, current employees, and past employees. Talent Communities are managed by recruiters and/or hiring managers.

The benefits of building a talent community

  • Qualified candidates at your fingertips
  • Less dependence on expensive, ineffective job boards
  • Less money spent on job advertisements
  • Increased interaction with potential candidates in order to help them understand what your organization does
  • Better quality of applicants to job openings
  • Creates a talent pipeline for future job openings
  • Attracts passive candidates

How to build your talent community

Turn your “careers” page into a central hub for past (“alumni”) employees, interested candidates, recruiters, hiring managers and current employees. Incorporate tools for communication and interaction to drive conversations in your talent community. Provide an exclusive look into your organization, its employees and the culture behind the company. Use video, multimedia, photos, testimonials, etc.

Create smaller talent “networks” within your talent community to target specific audiences.

Social recruiting solutions (such as Cachinko) provide separate plugins or an overall solution for managing talent.

Maintaining your talent community

When you start engaging candidates through a talent community, it’s important to continue to provide value on a regular basis. There are a variety of ways to do so, such as sending updates or an e-newsletter, providing additional information on new job openings and internship programs, creating contests, writing blog posts, or connecting via social media.

ERE.net author Kevin Wheeler said in an article about talent communities, “Communities of candidates are powerful and reduce the need for special sourcing or the use of outside recruiters. They can increase the number of positions a single recruiter can handle and provide higher quality candidates in a shorter time. They always trump databases.”

What do you think? Ready to start building your talent community today?

Social Media Meets Lightning Workplace Learning: #TChat Recap

/ /by

Two camps.

One that digs social media as THE engine driving recruiting, learning and organizational development.

And the other that does not.

That was pretty clear during last night’s #TChat about social media in the workplace.  Some of you may have tired of the social conversation, but many of us have not.

Remember the resistance to e-mail and the Internet?  Good Gosh — what business value do those time-wasters and secret sharers have?

So much fantastic input last night — like workplace laser word tag.  Zap.  Zap.

Zap.

For me, “social” has always been about networking and learning outside and in the organization and taking the conversation offline to “live” to further discuss:

  • That job opportunity
  • That sweet hire opportunity
  • That business opportunity
  • That learning opportunity
  • That sharing knowledge opportunity
  • That mentoring opportunity
  • That business birth opportunity
  • That consulting opportunity
  • That collaborative R&D opportunity
  • That partnership opportunity
  • You know, these opportunities and more

Again, the key is taking these conversations offline to “live.” The anecdotal statistics are there for me and many others; I’ve generated many of those opportunities above as I’m sure many of you have as well.

But, the business metrics are still all over the place and underreported and overestimated.  Such is the life of a business metric, right?  I wrote a little about that yesterday in my post I say recruit how we do business, and do business how we recruit.

With the rise of the mobile/virtual workforce, I can’t imagine the world without organic and holistic social connectivity.

The “does not dig” camp is choking on the words organic and holistic right now.  We are here to share different views. Like a real workplace. Like a real social community.

Here were the questions we asked last night:

  • Q1: How has #SM specifically impacted the way you conduct a job search and manage your career?
  • Q2: Within your org, how have #SM platforms/tools been used to enhance HR/recruiting initiatives?
  • Q3: Within your org, how have #SM platforms/tools been used to enhance learning initiatives?
  • Q4: How have #SM platforms/tools been effective – or not – at any or all levels within your org?
  • Q5: What business metrics have you established to measure how effective your #SM efforts are?
  • Q6: What specific barriers do you see within your org that impede top to bottom acceptance of platforms/tools?
  • Q7: Be honest – how do you see yourself improving your efficacy in utilizing #SM platforms/tools within your org?

Thank you to all who participated.  It’s good folk like you who make every #TChat a lightning learning round of workplace laser word tag.

Zap.

Social is about us, not the technology.

Here were the top contributors from last night:

  1. @talentculture – 172
  2. @meghanmbiro – 129
  3. @KevinWGrossman – 105
  4. @IanMondrow – 89
  5. @JeffWaldmanHR – 79
  6. @gregoryfarley – 77
  7. @LevyRecruits – 77
  8. @CyndyTrivella – 64
  9. @dawnrasmussen – 53
  10. @Kimberly_Roden – 52

See you next week, January 25, 2011, 8-9 pm ET (5-6 pm PT).

Intentional Collaboration: The Mechanics of Learning to Learn Together

/11 Comments/ /by

Originally posted by Chris Jones, a TalentCulture contributing writer. He is an IT Strategy & Change Management consultant, with a passion for driving new levels of engagement and learning in the modern organization. His research areas include the dynamics of organization culture, and more recently, the importance and implications of critical thinking. Check out his blog, Driving Innovation in a Complex World, for more.

In our increasingly complex world, the compelling need for strong leadership and resilience to “clear the path” for change is evident.  It’s a core message from Chip and Dan Heath’s “Switch” that resonates with pretty much everyone in the corporate world.  Clarity of vision is paramount. Conviction to achieve it, just as critical for any dynamic workplace or social community.

These ideas are not new.

It’s just getting harder and harder to survive without a strong, hardened competitive edge, an edge sharpened by effective collaboration.

The ability of an organization to solve its hardest problems lies deep in its inner workings.  Can team members from multiple backgrounds and disciplines work together to develop new insights and solutions?  Do they have the tools and skills, or can they acquire them?

Surely there’s an application for this?

It sounds straightforward in principle, but culture often works against us, fueled by the western industrial model forged on hierarchy and silo-thinking.  In these environments, specialization and experts rule the roost, and collaboration will typically struggle.  I conducted deep dives on culture barriers in 2010 and I’m increasingly convinced cultures can, over time, be intentionally redirected.  But it takes focus and rigor, and a long-term investment of energy.  More recently I looked at some insights from Peter Senge that seem to resonate even more now than they did 20 years ago, when he first wrote about team-based learning.

I’m starting to talk more about intentional collaboration to refer to the strategic, rigorous approach to group interaction and problem solving.  This helps distinguish it from the more casual references and idle claims.  Everything today is “collaborative.”  So how do we drive meaning into the words, and more rigor into the desired behaviors?

Here are some ideas for a more serious approach to collaboration:

  • Give collaboration a broad, compelling mandate
  • Find ways to open communication channels to get people not just talking together, but thinking together
  • Empower contributors with direction, training, and feedback
  • People are more comfortable if they know who they’re talking to; make sure they’re introduced to each other or have a published profile, to help people connect and break the ice
  • Encourage interplay of ideas across all specialties and levels, to foster diversity of thinking
  • Invest in tools that make it easy to find, share, tag and reflect on people and their ideas, key steps toward becoming a social enterprise
  • Respect everyone’s thought space by not cluttering channels with noise or trivia
  • Visibly acknowledge and reward the hard work of critical thinking and cross functional solutions; openly celebrate wins
  • Embrace and leverage the latest drivers in organizational change management, including “Switch” (linked above) and Drive by Daniel Pink, which contains additional clarity on change motivators.
  • Refuse to turn back

Organizations, leaders, and teams need to learn by doing. Trial and error need time to happen.  Soon there will be some wins.  Emerging from that, fueled by small successes, I believe organizations will find themselves increasingly motivated to take on harder problems, building a repeatable capacity for learning.

What are the other challenges that lie ahead?

Organizational silos do not dissolve by decree.  Silos and silo thinking are fueled by the organization’s culture, and can only be dismantled by a concerted, coordinated effort – from both the top and the bottom – to redefine the way things work in the middle.

The hard work of introducing collaboration also requires people to interact in profoundly new ways. It requires new kinds of relationships, placing new kinds of demands on the organization, with focus on trust, respect, open dialog, empathy, and even basic listening.  All too often, the approaches themselves fall on deaf ears.

No doubt, there’s much work ahead, but it is work worth pursuing.

Can you see a path to collaboration in your own organization? Share what you’ve seen working.  I would love to bring focus to some bright spots in this important space.

Image Credit: Pixabay

Magnetic Cultures and Twitter Chats — The Latest #TChat Recap

/7 Comments/ /by

Talk about a magnetic culture.

At least in the context of online Twitter Chats in 140 characters or less of reciprocal conversation and idea exchange — we’ve got a winner.

My fearless culture cohort in crime, TalentCulture founder Meghan M. Biro, and I started #TChat back on November 16, 2010, and have now hosted four forums.

The latest titled The Workplace Culture Audit:  Building a Magnetic Company Culture and Recruiting the Best Talent was our biggest yet.

Check out the stats here — over 250 contributors last night alone sharing over 2,000 tweets.

Our good friend Eric Leist, an Emerging Technology Strategist with Allen & Gerristen, wrote about Twitter chat madness this week.

Let’s get back to last night’s topic, though.  Meghan’s forte is company culture and here are some of her thoughts on the subject:

Companies faced with retaining their most important asset – employees = people – should focus on creating a workplace culture that accommodates not only the organization’s need to meet business objectives, but also what resonates with an employees’ need to see themselves as a key partner in the organization’s success. Let’s ensure people feel valued and respected in this equation at all levels in the organization.

 

Workplace culture is so much more than a mission statement or having a cool ping pong table for breaks or sharing free sodas in the refrigerator (these perks matter of course). It’s a powerful metaphor for the workplace that allows employees to compellingly describe where they work, what the business does, and what its value is to customers. Companies successful in creating a unique and compelling workplace culture will have much more success attracting and retaining talented people who experience ‘culture fit’ with the company.  It’s so important and often overlooked.

Right on the money.  If you don’t have a workplace culture that attracts and retains quality talent, that gets most of them excited about the why of do and not just the what, then your days in business may be numbered.

I say “may be” because cultural wasteland firms can still produce a product and/or service the market wants and be awash in huge profits.  You know, like banking, investment and financial services firms.  (Did I just write that?  Please, no e-mails or phone calls.)  Magnetic culture and business can be mutually exclusive but are oh so much better together.

Magnetic culture is organic, and although leaders help to spark it, fanning the flames comes from inside.

You can read more from Meghan on culture at Culture Brand: Create Magical Distinction to Attract the Very Best Talent.

Here were the questions from last night’s #TChat:

  • Q1: How do you define company culture and what makes it magnetic?
  • Q2: Why aren’t happy hour Fridays, flex time and nap couches enough for a magnetic company culture?
  • Q3: Why is culture a key determinant in attracting and retaining talent?
  • Q4: What constitutes fair compensation including benefits and how does that affect culture?
  • Q5: Do your talent objectives align with the business objectives?  Vice-versa?
  • Q6: How can employers make employee training/career development a priority and give culture more meaning?
  • Q7: Does “open” communication exist in your company? What does this term mean to you?
  • Q8: Why or why not is it important to have an emotionally intelligent company?
  • Q9: How are you challenging your employees (good or bad)? How is your employer challenging you?
  • Q10: How important is it for your personal values to match those of the company?  Vice-versa?

The caliber of attendees and their answers was outstanding.  Smart and savvy folk.  You can see a sampling below or search hashtag #TChat stream to read more.

A very special thanks to Monster Thinking for their support and partnership.  @monster_works and @MonsterWW will be joining the #TChat conversation live every Tuesday night with from 8-9 PM ET, 7-8 PM CT, 6-7 PM MT, and 5-6 PM PT.

We also welcome global input and hope you can join from wherever you might be. We certainly want to hear from you. We are committed to creating educational content and social community here at the Culture of Talent. Learning is continuous here and we are nothing without people. People (AKA: human capital) are the most valuable asset to any organization or community.

Thank you all again for joining us!  More #TChat next Tuesday, December 21, 2010 — The Very, Merry Cheddar edition.  I have no idea what that means, but be there.

Monster is Thinking + Join our #TChat Community

/3 Comments/ /by

Could this be any cooler or what?

What I mean is having MonsterThinking as a #TChat co-host and brand ambassador. That’s very cool. The Monster social media team supports the effort behind #TChat and our TalentCulture mission of sharing “ideas to help your business and your career accelerate – the right people, the right ideas, at the right time.”

The MonsterThinking blog explores the complex world of work and is more than just their tagline; it’s their mission. I always enjoy spending time with their talented team members at social media and career/workplace events and have personally known this company for many years and phases of their workplace culture.

I’m honored to have them on board with us. And of course, finding innovative ways to connect job seekers with the employers looking for them is what Monster’s all about. How can we not love this community of people?

@monster_works and @MonsterWW will be joining the #TChat conversation live every Tuesday night with from 8-9 PM ET, 7-8 PM CT, 6-7 PM MT, and 5-6 PM PT. We also welcome global input and hope you can join from wherever you might be. We certainly want to hear from you. We are committed to creating educational content and social community here at the Culture of Talent. Learning is continuous here and we are nothing without people. People (AKA: human capital) are the most valuable asset to any organization or community.

Read more from MonsterThinking on tonight’s #TChat topic. The Workplace Culture Audit: Steps To Building a Magnetic Company Culture and Recruiting the Best Talent.

We will see you tonight and look forward to a new 2011 jam packed with opportunity to learn and grow! Thank you for engaging with us on this channel.

Critical Thinking: Asking the "Right" Questions

/3 Comments/ /by

Originally posted by Chris Jones, a TalentCulture contributing writer. He is an IT Strategy & Change Management consultant, with a passion for driving new levels of engagement and learning in the modern organization. His research areas include the dynamics of organization culture, and more recently, the importance and implications of critical thinking. Check out his blog, Driving Innovation in a Complex World, for more

We’ve all been assured there’s no such thing as a stupid question.  If you’ve taken the time to ask, the story goes, you must have wanted to learn something.  That’s certainly a step in the right direction.

In the hyper accelerated world of social media, of course, you better keep those questions coming.  Contacts are made and broken in a matter of minutes.  Exchanges in chats or online work groups can be fleeting.  Sometimes the conversation seems to end just after its started, though hours may have ticked off the clock.  The prize, it seems, goes to those with the fastest keystrokes and the greatest brevity, the true masters of online multi-tasking.

I agree with the conventional wisdom. Those skills are helpful.  And I’d like to add to those dynamics a completely different one.

Quite simply, it comes down to critical thinking.

I’m not mandating academic degrees or journalistic analysis here, though we’ll borrow a page or two from those spaces.

What we’re talking about is putting careful thought into the deeper questions behind the points that are being broadcast so rapidly in front of you.  Challenging the ‘why?’, or the ‘how?’, and importantly, ‘under what cirumstances?’.

All of these thought processes have introduced the notion of ‘critical thinking’, an increasingly important aspect of our virtual society.  Its the very fuel of the ideas that are generated when we have a conversation.  Sadly, in our modern world, critical thinking gives way to the mechanical communication of our personal and professional lives. “Have you taken out the trash?”  “What’s the weather tomorrow?”  “Did you get the report out on time?”  We become almost robotic in our actions and in our relationships, with devastating results.  Without focus or reinforcement of an active mind, the knack and appetite for creativity can literally drain from our lives.  And our most important relationships – those with family, close friends, and immediate coworkers – are jeopardized, all due to lack of focused energy and interest.

We talked a few posts back about engagement and how to connect with those around us.  Those themes and steps remain critical.

We’ve also talked about culture, where a bias for learning and connecting in our world helps shape our attitudes.  Bringing this discussion forward, Carol Dweck, PhD, in her book, Mindset (2006), talks about “growth mindset” as a way to approach the world that brings critical thinking front and center.  I suggest you track down this book, and read it.  If you’re behind in your reading, I plan to summarize it’s main points in a future post.

Cultures of learning and a knack for engagement are a critical combination.  These initial conditions create the opportunity – if we choose to take it – to ask the right questions.  And there are dividends to those who take the time and make the effort.

So what are the right questions?  At the risk of generalizing, I’d hazard a definition that they are:

Open-ended queries that challenge the listener’s knowledge base, exposing root causes or unseen problems, and providing alternative contexts that create a spark for the inception of a new (or enhanced) idea.

The ability to change frame of reference is important.  Some of the magic in challenging our preconceived notions comes from changes in point of view.  Here are some examples.

  1. You’ve just met a person online that seems to share your perspectives, but your domain expertise is different from theirs; what introductory tweet is most likely to gain their interest and prompt a response?
  2. A well known figure is tweeting in a chat session.  Many will simply RT or respond with “love your book.”  How else might you engage them in genuine way, as a means to expand the conversation?
  3. You’re embroiled in a dispute with a coworker that is impacting your team and your relationship with this person. Do you vent to anyone who will listen, escalate to the boss, or get quality time with the person to get to the core of the problem?  If the latter, how would you approach it?

Are these the right questions?  Well these 3 certainly won’t change the world.  But they may help you get that gray matter into gear again.  In the end, perhaps there is no such thing as a stupid question or a “right” question.  But the excellent, thought-provoking questions are out there, and they take a little work.  Challenge yourself to come up with a few, and try them out on the folks who seem to care about the topics that you care about.

If you do this often, especially via twitter or blog comments (as both seem to bring higher than average appetites for engagement), I think you’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll be in conversations on topics that matter, often with people who can help make a difference.

Learning. Personal development. Progress. Who knew? Aren’t those some of the main reasons we engage with others in the first place?

Social Community: Metaphor for the Workplace. Find Your Intent

/20 Comments/ /by

Recently I wrote about models of interaction within cultures and social communities that foster progress. I’d like to push the theme a bit further and look at social communities – which are really communities of intent – and how they can serve as a useful metaphor for the workplace.

Intent is one of those words that have taken on new meaning with the advent of search and search marketing. The trick that Google mastered so well is serving up information to consumers at the moment of intent (thanks to John Battelle, Andrei Broder and others; see some older material on intent here) – intent to act, to purchase, to decide. “Intent” is not only an action the searcher takes; it is a commitment the provider of information (the vendor or service), and the search service (Google, Yahoo, Bing), make to the individual searching for information.

In social communities, intent is more than interest, more than commitment, more than an informed notion. It’s the true power behind the community, because people come to communities with a purpose, an intent. They are looking for a place to be, a place to learn, a place to grow and interact in a meaningful way.

The trick then, for companies, is to behave as social communities. It’s a powerful and new metaphor for the workplace.

In a typical workplace there are people with many different personalities, personal brands, goals, aspirations, skill sets and attributes. In a healthy workplace, meaning one that focuses on ensuring personality/culture fit between employees and the organization, people of diverse skill sets and temperaments can collaborate and succeed – because they have the intent to succeed, and the social context – the community – in which to realize their intent.

TalentCulture, for example, is a collaborative social community, a community of intent, a metaphor for the workplace. Our contributors come from many backgrounds: executive leadership,  human resources, recruiting, marketing, new media, research, public relations, law, branding, innovation, venture capital, career coaching, entrepreneurship and software technology. The shared intent is to create and share the very latest perspectives and trends on growing your business and reaching your individual career goals – using them to grow and foster innovation.

So here’s a challenge: find your intent. Share it with others. Be passionate. Be creative. Make every action resonate with the intent to do something positive, something to improve your workplace or advance the idea of what a collaborative workplace or social community should be.
And keep us in the loop.

Image Credit: Pixabay