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.
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:-
Showcase your talents, skills and work experience, your values, interests and more…
Search and be found, based on the information you choose to share
Connect, communicate and collaborate with people of common purpose and vision
Build your online CV and living work history, a testimonial to your talents, skill and experience.
Business Week recently lead with a story entitled The Lost Generation discussing the effects of the existing job crisis on young people in the USA.
the continuing job crisis is hitting young people especially hard – damaging both their future and the economy…studies show that an extended period of youthful joblessness can significantly depress lifetime income
As today’s figures show, youth unemployment is also a problem here in New Zealand. Yet, suggestions around creating a sub minimum wage to encourage employers to take on young people does little to empower or improve their future earnings potential. It simply undervalues their time, skills and talent and feeds into the downward spiral of lower lifetime income.
We see ways to empower young people, support Gen Y’s potential, harness their talents and help them discover their place in the workforce
“…We seem to have focused wrongly on building CV’s rather than building businesses…” Sam Morgan
We currently have a wealth of talented young people preparing themselves to be employed rather than cultivating talents which could drive economic growth through the creation of new business and new jobs.
Things are changing on the education front but we believe there is opportunity to provide additional tools to help young people transition from study to work.
The solution we are offering incorporates work experience, education and elements of the traditional CV
1. We want to encourage Volunteer Work Experience as a means to build confidence and valuable work skills so we are facilitating a system of Time Trade (a.k.a Time Banking) to encourage, recognise and reward volunteer activity.
2. A Peer Mentoring Community connecting Graduates with recent Alumni who can share with students of the same / similar discipline their experience of the study / work transition and highlight the real life opportunities available in the marketplace.
Where to look, who to talk to, which skills are important etc. Existing examples include the future in tech initiative to which we hope Time Trade could be applied as a tool for rewarding their career ambassadors.
3. We are using social networking tools and talent profiles to allow young people to build a living work history, a CV with a wealth of testimonials to their talent, skill and work ethic. A talent profile against which they can also be matched with volunteer and paid work opportunities.
Youth unemployment is a major issue but it’s reassuring to know that there are many community based organisations stepping up to help keep young people engaged in productive activity despite the fact of high unemployment.
For a couple of months now I’ve been hunting down job positions, advertised on Seek or Trade me, that I recognise as having contract potential and “applying” for jobs that match my talent, skills and experience – just not in the “traditional” sense of a job application.
Web Wizard Wanted
We require a tertiary-qualified, web savvy, graphic-skilled, customer-focused IT guru who is dedicated to effectively deliver quality online information to our clients and their customers. Our Web Wizard will have skills in the following areas:
Client-side development
Web Communication
Multimedia web scripting
Server-side development
Ability to build and maintain web sites to the highest level.
Ability to design and re-design web site in a co-ordinated approach with marketing, branding and sales focus.
Strong IT background.
Well developed and demonstrable graphic art skills
Demonstrable ability to effectively communicate with people inside and outside of the workplace.
Client interface.
Capacity to work on a virtual Greenfield site.
Must have “The Geek Touch” blended with passion, drive, creativity and ambition to succeed and work towards the next career level
This job opens up a new box of toys to let the Web Wizard’s creative juices flow, and includes animated advertising elements, video streaming, blogging, interactive magazines and advertisements, installation and maintenance of all screen advertising and links, uploading the latest media news as it breaks, uploading the daily newspaper and associated company magazines, and establishing a platform for viable and positive online commercial trade…
Using my CV & cover letter to promote contract outsourcing as the most effective way to get work done.
Dear John,
I read on Seek that you are looking for a web wizard, a talented creative, marketing and people person with technical development and design skills.
Kia Ora, my name is Renee Lee and I am an intelligent, motivated and hardworking young women with a passion for helping people, providing solutions and making things happen.
I’m looking for a part-time contract role that will allow me the flexibility to pursue the development of my own company which supports and promotes more flexible ways of getting work done. Therefore, I offer for your consideration an alternative to the current full-time position you described.
If I may, based on my seven+ years in online business development, I venture to suggest that you split the role between two or more performance based contractors.
Performance based contracting would allow you to achieve superior results, within the same budget as you suggest and would effectively:
Allow you to employ the talents of two or more, marketing, design and development specialists
Delineate responsibility for performance to improve focus, output and productivity
Provide a performance incentive
Expand your available talent resources
As a business catalyst, I can provide you a talented team of online specialists to fulfil the work requirements you outline within your budget…please keep me in mind should you consider a collaborative, talented, team approach an effective and efficient means to accomplish the work you envision for this role. For more information please feel free to check out some links that reflect another part of the work I do:-
Thank you for taking the time to consider a more flexible approach to achieveing the results your require. I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind reagrds,
Renee Lee
Co Founder & Catalyst
Worknow Ltd
+64 21 18 300 50
+64 3 455 3901 www.worknow.co.nz
Changing the employment mindset is going to take a whole lot of time and letters of rejection but I can handle the rejection because every seed planted is a potential future collaborator.
There’s an old school mantra that advises “do not underestimate the competition” because knowing your competition is necessary in order to build strategic advantage. Yet from a Gen Y perspective, many of those same competitors are potential collaborators.
If we were to offer a mantra of advice in regards to competition it would be to “seek opportunity to collaborate rather than compete” which makes it ever more frustrating that the older generation, people we would also like to collaborate with, continue to deny the talents and capabilities of my generation.
Even an over educated, under experienced MBA student knows that success comes from being able to climb the greasy management pole. You don’t do that by trumpeting that you know it all or that Facebook is the interface proxy for enterprise applications.
Try that in this economy and you’ll be at the head of the queue when the next round of pink slips are distributed (sic). You can only know that from having worked in enterprises, experienced the nuances of management practice and negotiated the politics of power. Source
This comment completely fails to recognise that management hierarchy’s are not the future. While they might have worked for the industrial revolution, entrepreneurship, collaborative, mobile, networked teams are the future of our knowledge economy.
Political Hierarchies vs Collaborative Teams
Sorry, old guard but we don’t actually need to climb your “greasy management pole” because with today’s technology we can connect and circumvent your traditional hierarchy’s to collaborate and build businesses of our own.
Rather than politics, power and vainglorious titles we aspire to work together as co-founders in recognition of our interdependent need for each others talents, skills and trust.
Our entrepreneurial spirit makes us increasingly willing and able to take risks, our education has armed us with knowledge and insight and today’s technology allows us to connect, share and collaborate in new, more effective ways.
Dismissing the fact that we are tech natives, and assuming that we need to be “employees” fails to recognise that we are creators of our own future.
Love us or hate us 10 years from now we will represent almost 40% of the New Zealand workforce. Perhaps it’s time to accept that aspects of our work ethic, like our collaborative spirit, may be the best form of work organisation for a knowledge based economy.
I am a fan of the solution orientation of think small as a way to address national issues and this morning, reviewing the ever popular issue of “The Recession” I came across the following solution which necessitated a supportive yet alternative response, except I ran out of room there to comment so decided to share my thoughts here…
Some graduates may have found lately that in their respective field they cannot get a job. As the economy is as it is, companies are more reluctant to hire even experienced staff as they do not feel they can afford it, which unfortunately means it’s very difficult for an inexperienced university graduate to get a job. To this end, it may be wise if you are in this situation to consider going back to university and doing a post graduate degree, not only will it give you something to do to fill your time, but it will also give you that advantage over other candidates when the economy settles down and companies are looking to hire again.
My Comment
“We are already the most highly educated generation in the workforce (+) yet the study work transition dilemma still exists. Further education doesn’t solve the problem for graduates it merely postpones it. Wait to be hired!? Guys, we need to think Entrepreneur vs. Employee. Why wait in line to be employees when we can determine our own future?
While education is undeniably an advantage the issue which compelled me to comment is simply that the problem as stated “it’s very difficult for an inexperienced university graduate to get a job” is not solved by telling them to continue on the same path, further education.
We need education applied in combination with our natural strengths our entrepreneurial spirit and tech know how.
As a combination we then have:
With education – the knowledge to create and transform ideas;
With entrepreneurship – the ability to risk and achieve and;
With technology – the tools to find connect and work together in new collaborative ways
Why be dependent on traditional “employment” when we can determine our own future in the workforce by becoming the next generation of talented entrepreneurs vs. employees? With the right team and a good idea building a company need not be as risky as it has been made to look. Begin by finding and connecting with talented others, somewhere like a talent community
With John Keys announcing a $152 million package to create new work, education and training opportunities for unemployed young people we’re feeling even more confident that our vision around helping the youngest working age generation transition into work will find support on many levels. Well, we hope that it does but at the very least we’re reassured to learn that our mission aligns with the concern of our current Prime Minister who said yesterday:-
I am concerned for our young people.Those aged 18-24 are the fastest growing age group on the Unemployment Benefit, representing a third of all those who receive it.
The number of young people who wanted a job but couldn’t get one has more than quadrupled in the past year, leaping from less than 4000 in June 2008 to nearly 17,000 by June this year.
My concern is that for a young person starting out in their working life, a long period of unemployment could be very damaging. Source
Quid Pro Quo: Using Time Trade to Encourage Young People to Volunteer
When we looked at solving problems relating to work it was quickly evident that young people are the demographic most in need of solutions. So we got together to identify ways we could help them transition from study to work.
Lacking the work experience needed to gain value from our contractors’ marketplace we focused instead on ways that we could help them build the necessary work expereince, skills and references.
By incorporating unpaid work into our formula and encourage volunteering through the concept of Time Trade, we identified ways to:-
1) provide a measure of value and recognition for the development of a peer mentoring scheme, using time credits.
Enlisting alumni to mentor upcoming graduates about work life and career paths. Those graduates, in turn, trade their time to perhaps tutor fellow students who in turn again volunteer in their community and build valuable work skills.
2) provide incentive and reward to encourage more young people to volunteer, using time credits.
We believe volunteer work develops a service orientated work ethic and skills that assist the study to work transition. Some of the skills we know volunteers can develop include:-
Leadership & team building skills
Relationship building skills
Communication skills
Negotiation skills
Creative thinking skills
Organisation & time management skills
As Social Development and Employment Minister Paula Bennett points out encouraging Gen Y to become involved in our communities creates win-win situations. Her comments about the Community Max Scheme could as easily apply to Worknow:-
“This is all about providing opportunities – we see this as a very positive approach to addressing youth unemployment while helping fund useful community projects… I believe this is a win-win situation.”
Where we differ is that we intend the growth of youth volunteers to be a permanent fixture of tomorrows communities hence the development of out Time Trade platform.
One of the most valuable life lessons learned while building this company is that “…money does not define the limits of what is possible…”
I would not be here today if I’d let a complete lack of funds prevent me from pursuing our vision of this new venture. Or if I feared the stigma of being “unemployed”. By choosing to build my future using the only resources that are truly mine – my time and talents – in collaboration with others, I’ve discovered the freedom to follow my dreams and trust my intuitions. While I may be poor in terms of money I’m undeniably blessed and rich in the things that money can not buy; love, happiness, hope…
Our company, Jamie Josh and I, are living proof of what can be accomplished when people are willing to invest time and talent in lieu of earnings. We hope time trade and the use of time credits will help us all to redefine the value of work to include some of the values that define us as humans; our capacity to love and care for other people, animals and our environment. To share knowledge, collaborate and stand up for the things we believe in.
Every time we reward an act of helping with a time credit, we are declaring that the monetary economy does not have the power to define what real work is, that market price is not the only measure of value and that money does not define the limits of what is possible. Edgar Khan in The Time of Our Lives
I’m inspired by thought leaders like Edgar Cahn because here at Worknow we break from the definition of work as either “employed or unemployed” choosing instead the role of aspiring, social entrepreneur and incorporating the idea of time trade – into a company built to help people find and connect with work – so as to give equal value to both volunteer and paid work opportunities.
We hope that our intention will become more evident when we launch the beta site because Jamie’s created some funky elements, in the navigation and site design, to allow people to easily switch and identify between time trade and paid work options. They are after all two sides of the same coin because as my father used to say “…there’s more than one way to skin a rabbit…”
10 years from now we will represent almost 40% of the workforce and slowly but surely people are beginning to accept that aspects of our Gen Y work ethic, our project orientation for instance, are more suited to work in a knowledge economy.
AUSTRALIA’S pre-eminent demographer, Bernard Salt, has stepped into the debate on whether Gen Y is work shy by declaring they’re not lazy but they have to adapt in the downturn.
“In fact they’re incredibly hard-working within the areas they are interested in. In fact they work quite assiduously when they are engaged by a particular project,” he said.
While always nice to see people portraying “Gen Y” (Gen We as I like to call us) in a rare but positive light it remains evident that Mr Salt still expects us to conform to the norms that he works by. Norms that perpetuate the myth that happy and worker are divergent states of being.
“With the global financial crisis the wheel is turning and it’s time for Gen Y to adapt,” he said.
“It’s important for Gen Y to realise that work is not a form of entertainment. You should not be jumping out of your skin for eight hours of work.” Source
Fair call, it’s not a party but what Mr Salt’s discussion fails to recognise is that there exists other options to remaining an unhappy, under challenged, albeit adaptable employee.
Gen We Entrepreneurs
Research indicates we have an entrepreneurial spirit that makes us increasingly willing and able to take risks. As the most highly educated generation we are armed with knowledge and insight and chomping at the bit to apply it to work life.
Those that expect us to be so desperate for employment, during this recession, that we will just adapt to be more like the old guard was at work, may be disappointed to find we are indeed well equipped to adapt but simply not as dependent on traditional “employment” as previous generations have been.
Today we recognise that we always have the option of working for ourselves. With the right team, building a company need not be as risky as it has been made to look. With today’s networking tools is it’s becoming second nature for us to find, connect and work with each other
Worknow, like Trademe, for services on a networking platform.
Six months ago I did not know either of my two co-founders. I met Jamie by applying for a house on Trademe. Josh and I connected through shared networking circles – Intersect Facebook and Twitter.
Today we are evidence of the collaborative teams and new ventures being established using networking technology to connect talented, passionate people.
We encourage and support a more entrepreneurial work ethic by providing tools to help other people connect with each other to create solutions, new knowledge and work opportunities.
Time Trade aka Time Banking is simply about spending an hour doing something for somebody in your community.
In recognition for your contribution you receive one Time Credit which you can then gift or trade, with other members of the community, in exchange for their talent and time. It’s a simple idea, but it has powerful ripple effects in building community connections.
Here at Worknow we are building an online system to automate the transfer of time credits between Community Members. Our Time Trade system comes online August 2009. For more information check out these links:-
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.
