Worknow_Aotearoa_NZ

Pursue your talent | live your dreams.

July 2010: Another year older, wiser and closer to living out some childhood dreams

Ever since the Jetson’s introduced me to holograms I’ve looked forward to the day that a similar type of technology would be within my reach. Over the last month several things happened that bring me closer living this dream. It’s exciting times.

Instead of going into the detail about how my life rocks what I would like to say is that the freedom I have gained ~ as an aspiring social entrepreneur ~ to choose how I apply my talent and time to this life, is my pursuit of happiness. I am blessed to have in my life many talented, beautiful people that inspire, challenge, support and love me.

Life is beautiful | live your talent | pursue you dream

I’m not saying that applying your talent to pursue you dreams is  easy, where would the fun in that be? And  although I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t envy my income at the moment, as cliche as this is, happiness is not something money can buy.

You can choose the work that you want. By creating an online talent profile with us and sharing your talents, your values and your passion with the world you too can begin to discover the beauty of living your dreams.

Catch22: Work Experience Required

You’ve got a great education, you’re keen to learn, you want to work and contribute to society yet it seems that to get the job that you want you need work experience, which first means you need to get a job

The transition from study to the workforce can be difficult even when you know exactly what is is you want and how you plan to get there.

Yet it is the minority of students that emerge from study that well prepared. More often than not, our work prospects and aspirations are about as clear as mud.

Talent vs Degree

I worry that our education system does not adequately prepare people for the realities of the workforce and that the career guidance taken up does little to inspire in young people the pursuit of the dream.

In fact in some cases, being sent off to talk to the local branch of some national or multinational company that has a internship programme that matches your degree, might be the completely wrong direction in terms of matching one’s talents and values.

As was indicated during a conversation I recently had with a final year commerce student (FYCS) – Majoring in Economics

Renee: So you’re final year right?, what do you wanna do next year? Work?
FYCS : Not really sure yet,
Renee: You can do anything you want, you know
FYCS:  I’m kinda interested in writing…
Renee: Yeah cool, I majored in journalism. What do you think is you greatest talent?
FYCS:  I’m not really sure…
Renee: Everyone’s got talents [usual expectant pause] ok then …how about looking at it like this. If you could have any job in the world what would you do?
FYCS: Writing, or design, maybe advertising?
Renee: So I’m hearing, something creative right?
FYCS: Yeah, but its not really my major”
Renee: Your major doesn’t really matter, it shows that you have discipline and you’ve already learnt the most important lesson, how to learn. Being able to learn, being able to solve problems you can take those skills anywhere. You can choose to do a job you will love.”
FYCS: But I worry about my grades”
Renee: Your grades won’t matter what matters is work experience. Find a company that you want to work with and offer to volunteer. It’s a foot in the door and I reckon volunteer work experience will trump your grades
FYCS: Thinks about this for a nanosecond and smiles
FYCS: You’ve just made me shift my idea of what I could do from here to here (indicating with hands an expanded vision)

While the above tale is unlikely to be a completely accurate replay – there were umms & ahhhh’s, frequent head nodding and gestures -  it’s the outcome that mattered.

It’s amazingly encouraging to have seen and heard someone gain even just an ounce more hope for the future. Score 1 to me! in favour of the pursuit of talent vs degree based career paths.

Volunteer Work Experience

We see volunteering as a highly effective means for young people to gain work experience, develop work ethic and build work skills.

Some of the skills volunteers can develop include:-

* Leadership & team building skills
* Relationship building skills
* Communication skills
* Negotiation skills
* Creative thinking skills
* Organisation & time management skills

Most importantly it is a testament to one’s willingness to work which, in my work experience, counts for a whole lot more than grades ever will. Welcome to the workforce people.

Four Simple Steps Towards Your Dream Job

It may seem too simple and idealistic but it’s worked for me. I love my job and would like to see more people living the work life balance that we enjoy

1. Identify you talents, your passion, your interest and values as it is these qualities when combined with work that will put you on the path to a job that you love!
2. Create you talent profile and list your talents, passion, interests and value and using the magik of the interweb we will match your talent profile with volunteer work opportunities
3. Put yourself out there to work and learn more about what motivates and inspires you
4. Gather  references that testify to your work experience so you can expand your options & pursue the dream then repeat

Pretty simple really. It’s about mindset and taking action don’t let others define your future for you. Start working towards you dream job, begin now.

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.

“…Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go…”T S Eliot

“…Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing…” Helen Keller

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.

To build a world class business that helps people and effects change.

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And what you do serves as the proof of what you believe,”

HOW Worknow

On the basis of our shared values; recognising each others talents and working together in a spirit of trust and collaboration.

1. EXCELLENCE : We aim to be number one in our field and constantly strive to improve.
2. SERVICE : Helping people is our passion, exceeding expectations our reward.
3. INTEGRITY : We keep our promises, treat people fairly and value open and honest communication.
4. COLLABORATION : talented people, working together for the benefit of each other
5. BALANCE : work / life – future / present
6. GRATITUDE : We are thankful for our blessings and embrace both rewarding and challenging circumstances with open hearts.

WHAT Worknow

Work Now is a community marketplace to help people find volunteer and paid work opportunities. Join our talent community and create your talent profile to connect with people and work opportunities.

Discussing Time Trade recently, we were asked whether we believe Gen Y are as concerned or involved with volunteering as we might hope.

While we might not have as much cash to give, yet, I and others I know volunteer our time and talents to help with work as diverse as marketing to community gardening, environmental action to peer support.

Personally, I think we are as active, if not more than older generations but that much of our work goes unrecognised because we tend often to work together of our own accord (rather than under the umbrella of established charitable causes) by using  networking tools  to connect, collaborate and work together.

With Time_Trade we  provide recognition and a measure of the value (T) Gen Y contributes as volunteers. Evidence of a generation, although often labeled selfish and self-centered, that are as passionate about causes and helping others as those before us.

The fact is, as the social networking phenomenon shows, many Gen Y’s are highly connected and community orientated.

Anyone seeking to engage Gen Y needs to recognise that as digital natives one of the most effective ways to communicate with us is through online networking because these tools helps us save time and achieve the work-life balance we seek.

In addition to work we may also be juggling study, friends, family, sport, other paid and unpaid work commitments.  Hence the need for a more flexible, increasing mobile method of communication

Although Time Trade developed primarily as a tool to provide recognition for Gen Y volunteers Time Trade has the potential to help charitable oranisations achieve more with less money by maximising existing resources and:

1. empowering people that might only otherwise be recipients of charity and
2. encourages people that may not normally volunteer their time and talent.

We also understand that Time Trade can not replace the need for money so by implementing the bid, buy and feedback process we also offer the opportunity for individuals and organisations to source the best value service suppliers.