Why We Need Peers

Aug 24, 2010 | blog

Untitiled by johnkoEver take a minute and think about all the people in your life? Often we recognize so few – mostly family and friends. In life, though, there are many, many people who we interact with, are influenced by, and work with.

The people we know and interact with bring so many things to our lives. What we think, how we do things, the way we learn. It’s these things that expand our horizons and allow us to grow as individuals.

Our peers are not only our friends and coworkers. They are clerks at stores we visit and buy things from. They are our mail carriers and delivery people. They are our representatives in government, and teachers in our education system.  They are leaders in business, and in faith. They are the women and men who protect our country, and help us in emergencies.

Each of the people bring something unique, something special to the mix. Knowledge, leadership, compassion, guidance, strength, or camaraderie – our peers provide all this above and beyond our friendships.

In short, our peers make up the communities we participate in, both offline and online, which give us all such great resources to do great things together. I’m grateful to have so many people in my life, and to have the privilege of learning from them and with them.

Photo credit: johnko

Learn From The Truth

Mar 23, 2010 | blog

Truth by slowdevil Sometimes its hard to listen to someone telling you the truth.  Deep down you know they’re right, and that’s why you don’t stop them in their tracks.  You know you need to hear it even though you don’t want to.  It’s good for you.

The reality is that we often need to have our perceptions reset, and that means we need to listen.  It also means that we need a network of closely trusted peers that can tell us we’re full of it, and be able to remain close because of it.  If you don’t have that kind of network, then you haven’t been working hard enough in your personal social networking efforts.

Learning that the great idea you have is crap, or simply needs a few easy tweaks is as important as the ideas themselves.  The ability to listen to people who care about your success and take that knowledge forward to make what you do better is a learned skill that true professionals embrace at every opportunity.

One of the things I learned from SXSW this past week was that I had been neglecting a portion of my network.  Many of the people I had connected with years ago, I hadn’t kept up with and my future has been impacted because of it.  That was my realization of truth, pointed out by a friend while in Austin.  It’s not a mistake I’ll make a second time.

Now, what have you learned this week from a friend?

What have you done to help a peer succeed?

Picture courtesy of slowdevil.

Defining Your Role

Dec 2, 2009 | blog, leadership

I want you to succeed.

Whatever it is you’re passionate about and want to do – I want you to succeed.

For many of us it’s our career.  You know that 9 to 5, Monday through Friday effort that allows us to support our families and obtain our dreams.  Yeah, that one.

There is something that I wanted to share on that front, and hopefully it’ll help a bit.  I want you to define your role.  Define your role in your department, and in the organization as a whole.  It could be in the company you work at today or the one you want to work for tomorrow.  You need to take an active part in defining what you offer, and what what you bring to the mix.

Don’t allow yourself to be typecast or pigeonholed.  Letting other people define the boundaries of where you’re supposed to participate or allowed to participate is unacceptable.  You alone have that right.

You have the ability set boundaries and goals.  You have control of the decisions that move you forward or backward.  By defining your role, you establish your voice.  By being vocal and establishing a presence, you have the means to share your perspectives and expertise in any situation your role lands you in.

Its not easy and it can be a little scary when first starting out, but the rewards are unending.  Its also up to you to fulfil the role you define, but that sholdn’t be difficult because the definition of success and failure is also within your control as well.

Take that step to define your role in life, in work, and in the success that you want.  Without figuring out what you want from your efforts, and what you want for your family, it’ll take a lot longer to get to your definition of success.

I want you to succeed.

Photo Credit: yeah buddy!

Building Internal Community

Oct 2, 2009 | blog

'every day' by torugatoru Doesn’t it seem like we talk a lot about social media as a tool for sales or marketing?  It certainly is a great channel for that in the right context, and the right usage.  I’m curious how many folks who talk about building a community for their customers have thought about building community for their employees.  Take that external viewpoint and turn around… apply it internally… what do you think could happen?
The idea is nothing new, and actually pre-dates "social media" by a long time.  We’ve all been part of special groups within other organizations.  I’m sure the companies you’ve worked for have had groups that range from bowling leagues to cross-functional project groups, to cost-reduction purchase management councils.  Groups take many different forms, but these examples don’t really represent "community" as we use the term for social media.
I was reminded during the "Behind The Firewall" chat on Twitter last night (#btf every Thursday at 8pm CT) that IBM had done a lot of this work in the late 90s using Lotus Notes.  That was probably one of the first packaged tools available that allowed for both free form and structured interactions.
Businesses have been looking for ways to build more productive teams.  Social Media, er… I mean collaboration, (no they’re not the same, but many folks confuse the issue – we’ll roll with it for now), is one of those methodologies that can accomplish multiple tasks.  If you remove the technology portion for a minute, and the marketing perspective, you can start to focus on solving business issues.  This is where social media can prove it’s adaptability to an organization.

Building community inside most large organizations is difficult, but no more so than building community in a public forum.  You have several different interest groups, and numerous points of view in every organization, these aspects and others make up the great diversity that companies can draw on to power their internal communities.  Building collaborative environments that allow for socialization of profiles and interaction enables employees to find like-minded folks elsewhere in the company.  These folks are having conversations about work, life, projects, challenges, problems and much more.  These conversations already take place at the "water cooler", in the cube farms, on the loading docks, in the lunch room and anywhere else employees feel comfortable talking.

That’s the key to it too, comfort level.  Providing an environment that people can speak their mind can be a larger productivity boost than a time waster.  Create that space using social media tools & ideas, and let folks have a venue for conversations about work, conversations about non-work life, and a anonymous sounding boards that let folks give feedback and even vent frustrations a little bit.

Collaboration is a key piece of the puzzle to be sure, but make sure to include the social part too.  "Social" is not a four letter word, and is not exclusive to non work life.  We all socialize professionally at work, collaborating on increasing sales, and satisfying customers in one way or another.  If everyone is "on the same team", how effective is that team without getting to know each other better?  Let those relationships grow organically within the employee population rather than trying to mandate it.  You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Photo credit: torugatoru

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