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I read an interesting post by Lance Wiggs yesterday called the Grandmother effect is starting for facebook. For which, as I understood it, the basic premise was in reference to an earlier prediction of his:-

It’s very hard to predict what and when social networks will succeed and fail, but there is probably a simple test to determine the point of failure—and it’s almost certainly related to the date that your mother joins the network.

This lead to some interesting comments and conversations and attempts to stereotype to which I responded:-

However you label us, those of us that have been on FB more than three years are pretty much “over it”.

My mum joined early 2010, in fact I signed her up & while I won’t be leaving, I now use FB primarily for social marketing purposes (work) rather than social (play).

“…more and more young people will begin to leave because the choice has become between having your information on Facebook or getting hired for a job…”

Integrity. [This is the point I shall return to]

While I understand the sentiment, that its either one or the other, I think it fails to recognise that FB has set the standard for a future in which (I predict) [online] networking will increasingly support Gen Y in their search for meaningful work – be it paid and/or unpaid.

Gazing into my crystal ball I see [online] networking will become more “we” less “me”. The future is one for connecting, sharing & collaborating for greater collective and social purpose.

Now apparently my lack of clarity about networking, from my very “online” perspective required  a lengthy response about: what networking is and what tools are available online and raised several points to which I have agreed to disagree.  That said,  I wanted to return to the issue of integrity.

Integrity, Credibility & Talent Profiles

Integrity is a founding personal and company value. In efforts to keep it simple we state that we value  INTEGRITY: “We keep our promises, treat people fairly and value open and honest communication.”

The only real danger we face in being on Facebook while looking for work is that it allows us to be judged in the act of being less than “professional”  which can impact our personal and professional credibility.

Being human, we have multiple sides to our personality.  Sometimes the personality caught on camera and shared online can be generally unflattering, misconstrued or taken out of context.  Unfortunately, the truth remains that first impressions or the wrong impressions can be difficult to overcome.

Here at Worknow, we provide tools to allow people to create online networking profiles on the basis of their talents, skills and work experience.  A testament to who you are,  in the work sense.

Without say, that unflattering photo -  me “on it” in the playground across the road to celebrate the arrival of a good friend from London – messing with our professional credibility.

Living Values

Today I took the time to focus on balance in my work & life. This investment of time has made me immensely grateful for my beautiful family and friends, the amazing team I am a part of, for my health and happiness and great community I am a part of. This is indeed a beautiful life. There is happiness and fulfillment in living our values

• BALANCE : work / life – future / present
• GRATITUDE : We are thankful for our blessings and embrace both rewarding and challenging circumstances with open hearts.

We, Gen Y, have the information, insight and connections to harness ourselves some rather impressive purchasing power.

Already we use tools like Trade me, to help establish market price and demand. Price Spy to inform us on competitive retail pricing and of course, there’s the ever present forms of social media (facebook, twitter, blogs) that we use to seek out recommendation from the people we trust.

Gen Y … are serious, independent information seekers who expect to interact with products and companies online as a matter of course,” … Their decision process begins and ends online, where they seek information, recommendations and validation…Collaboration is another Gen Y trait. As part of their consideration process, they seek recommendations and validation. Favorite tools include social networking, peer marketing, online support networks, text messaging and blogging. Source

There are always new tools or combination’s of existing tools entering the market. Tools like Bid Rivals, cashing in on the established Trade me culture and auction frenzy around low price deals. While here at Worknow  we’ve set out to provide people a more cost effective way to connect with service opportunities.

In a world awash with online and mobile tools, it’s no longer a question about HOW to connect, it’s about knowing with WHOM we connect.

We humans are social creatures, so finding and connecting with other people – in part nature and in part need – is a process that is continually refined and enhanced.

Today’s online world has become a social space for seeking out and facilitating human interaction with the growing power of social search seen with the launch of twitter lists.

Literally, millions of lists created to organise diverse topics – Dunedin (location) Distiller (Group) Volunteering (Industry Sector) – as a collection of who, rather than what.

Worknow, connecting talented people with work opportunity

We’ve combined tools to help people find and connect with work opportunities based on their talent profile.  A community marketplace using the familiar bid, buy and feedback system to help people find and bid for work on paying projects and offer time on volunteer work opportunities. As a community member you can use social networking tools to:-

Register your talent profile, today.

Building relationships with talented, passionate people is one of the most inspiring parts of my startup journey

Meeting talking and learning from others, whether supported and applauded or challenged and questioned is integral to achieving our vision to become a world class business that helps people and affects change.

Each and every person I find, connect and work with adds value to our idea, creating avenues from which to discover and explore new opportunities and challenge our thinking.

I am especially thankful for my two co founders, Jamie & Josh, without whom I would not be in a position to be pursuing a vision I am truly passionate about. And stoked on pursuing the path of entrepreneur alongside other talented people from both The Distiller and AIESEC communities.

The entrepreneurial mindset is surround yourself with great people

Worknow is a community and marketplace to help people find, connect and work together. Register with our talent community today to connect and collaborate with other inspiring, talented people .

The Importance of Values

A wise person once offered me a very simple piece of relationship advice

“…make sure you talk about and discover what you each value…”

Now, I took that advice and to my dismay discovered that this guy that I was into thought “democracy” more important than my most fundamental life values.

This simple revelation was a turning point in that relationship and eventually, try as I might to think “…perhaps it didn’t matter…” the ever widening gulf between our personal values led to the demise of said relationship.

Lesson Learnt.

Finding Common Ground

As a new venture team, one of the most important activities our team undertook was taking the time to sit down and share with each other our goals, our dreams and our values and discuss what we hoped to achieve with Worknow.

We came up with a list of guiding values and our statement of intent which is simply:-

to create a world class business that helps people and effects change.

We also took the time to discuss our strengths and potential weakness’ which, as you may know, have more in common than many people expect and through this process discovered that we are a very strong team.

People. Our Greatest Strength

I can say with confidence that out team is one of our greatest strengths, we are talented, motivated, skilled and experienced but more than that we are aligned. We found our common ground and the shared purpose towards which we, as a team and individuals, aspire.

But it is not just our team that I mean when I say people are our greatest strength. It is everyone that we come in contact with during this process.

In order for our business to work we need to discuss and discover what other people value and aspire to achieve. And in learning these things find a common ground upon which to collaborate and achieve shared goals.

It’s starting to get a bit text book right, but honestly the more people we talk to the more feedback we get, the more questions we are asked and the easier it becomes to clarify and refine exactly how we will achieve our goals.

Worknow Community People

We are gathering a community of talented people that seek new more collaborative and flexible ways to work together because we believe networking technology can help foster and harness the collective potential of existing communities and distributed groups.

Integrity of Communication

I came to odds once, with a baby boomer manager, who directed me to “spin” some benefits in a communication to  potential clients that I had been working with.

“It’s marketing 101,” she insisted, when I defended my copy as being honest and direct. There were no benefits for the client that I could fathom and when I raised this point she urged that I had best “learn how to spin” marketing copy.

“So you want me to learn to lie,” I thought.

In response I told her that I valued open, honest communication and while I was happy for my draft to be altered, I would not put my name to a communication that I did not support or believe.

Now, we both cared about the project but that I did not “comply” with her direction was solely a values based decision. I did not want to comprise my being open and honest  to learn how to “spin”  invented benefits for our clients.

I perhaps naively thought such values would be respected but as time showed,  she saw me as creating barriers to getting work done rather than being a person of integrity.

Baby Boomer vs Generation Y

In retrospect it is very clear that our generational differences, Baby Boomer vs Gen Y were at the root of our conflict:

[Gen Y are] are less afraid to confront and discuss issues with their peers and their superiors.

And how does this freedom and authenticity translate into the business world? It doesn’t.

It would crush the carefully constructed hierarchical structure to pieces. It’s a strange and obscure network of relationships that determines the real power in businesses.

If everything is said candidly and openly, this network loses its function. People lose their power. Read Source

Gen Y’s need for Authenticity

Because Gen Y want to feel that we work to contribute to something meaningful in this instance the idea of  inventing the truth,  a.k.a lying, was in stark contrast to my personal need for authenticity yet to my manager it was a learned and acceptable way to convey one’s point.

• For me, voicing my personal values, was part of being true to myself  but perhaps my manager considered it  insubordinate and a threat to her authority.
• For my generation (and other people)  working together  involves connecting and collaborating but many of the old school still adhere to the hierarchical methods of directing and controlling which were once the status quo.
• Consequently, to challenge my managers perspective, and assumed authority to direct my “compliance” was to risk my position within the heirarchy.

However, what must be understood about Gen Y is that our need for authenticity is a much stronger driving force than the false sense of security promoted by “employment”.

We are a generation willing to take risks, for ourselves and the things we believe in, which is a symptom of our stronger entrepreneurial tendencies.

Gen Y Perspective

While I am not exactly objective about the scenario related here it is simply a means to discuss what I see as the generational mindset difference between “manager employee” relationships of the past and the more entrepreneurial, collaborative teams of our future.

To qualify my point of view, I recognise that in some industries “employment” will always remain the most effective form of getting work done, retail for instance.

But I believe it is time to recognise that many forms of work in our knowledge economy  – web development, design and many creative tasks – need no longer operate as a manager employee relationship.

Indeed, contract outsourcing this type of work will increase productivity and save companies time and money by facilitating a more flexible, motivating work environment for people with specialised talent and skill.