It’s all about community. It’s true. It really is. Are you searching for a new position? If so, the answer lies in your community. Are you trying to build your business? That next great referral or lead will almost certainly come from your community. Are you looking for that next great idea? It’s out there. Just ask your community.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, reading, and research into three areas lately: job search (especially in this market), social media and innovation. Most of us get the connections between looking for a new job and social media. If you read the TIME cover story about Twitter http://tinyurl.com/nh3kky, you are aware of some of the ways social media is driving the development of some truly innovative communication and research tools. And I’ve written (and so have many others) about the need to be creative and innovative if you’re looking for work in this economy. (You can read more about that in a post here from May 13, 2009 – Networking for a Job – What to Do When Traditional “Networking” Fails http://tinyurl.com/qbeo7u)
There is a very clear thread that runs through all of these topics and ideas. It’s the value and importance of community.

JOB SEARCH

We know the single most effective tactic to locate and identify the best job leads comes through our contacts and connections. Some of us call the process of adding contacts making connections “networking.” [The negative connotations of that term could fill many blog posts, and I’ll save that for later.] I sense a lot of people in the job market are “networking” very effectively. They find people to talk with about opportunities, organizations, etc. But are these same people looking at this process in a broader and more permanent context?
I hope so, because meeting new people and having conversations with a single goal in mind (job lead, sale, consulting referral, etc.) is short sighted. I attended a terrific social media workshop in April. Another attendee said, “You need to build your network before you need your network.” I loved this simple and elegant way to state this idea.
Social media has clearly changed the job search playing field. TIME magazine’s cover article for the week of June 8, 2009 was about the huge impact Twitter is having. Other sites like Linked In and Facebook provide quick access to our contacts and connections like never before. But – the key to success using social media is to quit thinking about simply being “on” Linked In or Facebook. You have to be “in” Linked In and Facebook. In another article from the on-line version of TIME from June 8th, Barbara Kiviat tells a great story about Brian Ward. http://tinyurl.com/ndkak6 Brian lost his job, and using Facebook and Twitter, found a new job in a matter of days. But here’s a telling passage which includes a quote from Brian:
As the sole breadwinner for his wife and three kids, Ward knew that he had to get a new job quickly. He found himself unemployed at 5 in the afternoon; by 8 that night, he’d called four people he knew in Ohio who did the same sort of computer work he did, as well as his college buddy Lyell, down in North Carolina. “I’d been using Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn, but in a very passive, extracurricular way,” says Ward. “I knew Lyell was big into the Twitter scene. He immediately began blasting information out to contacts he had, sending them back my way.” Over the weekend, Ward updated all of his online profiles. He uploaded a fresh résumé to LinkedIn, the professionals’ networking site, and sent out a message to all 200 of his Facebook friends, letting them know he was looking for work.
One of them, a pal from high school, wrote back Sunday night. He now worked for a tech company in Louisiana, and asked if Ward would be interested in being put in touch with the Web-development group. Ward eagerly agreed and had a phone interview the next day. “Here I was four hours into being unemployed and I already had a phone interview,” he recalls. “I was like, Wow, this is going to be impressive.”
Brian had obviously been maintaining a decent network on Facebook and Linked In, and he realized he really had to hit his connections to generate action. None of this would have possible if Brian decided he needed to sign-up at Linked In and Facebook the day he lost his job. While he describes his involvement as “passive”, he had 200 Facebook connections and at least a few of them were ready and willing to help him. It’s a great endorsement for the power of social media, and Brian’s story tells us why we need to stop thinking g about “networking” in terms of transactions – how many people, how many meetings, etc.
Looking for a new job – in this market for sure – is much easier if we are engaged with the communities around his – like Brian. So if networking is only about looking for a job, you are missing out on a great opportunity to become – on a permanent basis – a member of new communities where your involvement can make a difference.

SOCIAL MEDIA

I am not an early adopted of social media – far from it actually. I started this blog in late 2008, joined Linked In only after clients were asking me about it (Aug. – Sept. 2008), and set up a Twitter account (@cosbornsspbpi – just in case you want to follow me) a few short weeks ago. So – now I’m becoming a bit of an evangelist within my organization for the power of social media. How did this happen? In a word – I learned something very valuable.
Social media as a series of web-based applications standing alone doesn’t mean diddly-squat. But social media as a means to become part of a broader community is amazing. I admit freely that it’s taken me months to become aware of the communities to which I now belong. But now I do my best to be active, offer ideas, share information and add value to my colleagues, friends, followers, etc. here, at Linked In and Twitter. I also utilize my connections to assist clients and friends who I meet in my daily work –in some part by using social media.
Am I surprised that I now see myself as part of “communities” separate and apart from my physical communities? Well – yes. I am surprised. But I am truly part of newly emerging “communities.” Now if you go to a traditional definition of “community,” maybe these communities within social media venues aren’t really communities. After all, we’ve traditionally defined community as having a “place” and a physical component. But what if we defined the term “community” differently? Maybe community is a collection of people drawn and bound together by common interests, needs and commitments to be engaged. If this is a workable definition, then the groups to which I belong at Linked In, my networks at Facebook, my followers and the people I follow all constitute communities. I think – no – I know I am part of communities within these spaces. And that’s a very comforting realization.

INNOVATION

Read anything out there on Twitter, or social media more broadly and you will learn quickly just how much true innovation is emerging. One very visible example has been the information coming out of Iran after the disputed election of this week. The broad media couldn’t get anything out. But images, ideas and information were still available – on Twitter. I saw an article recently in Business Week that claimed American innovation was dead. http://tinyurl.com/oasorr Right. With all due respect to Michael Mandel, the thinking he exhibits in his article is exactly what CAN be wrong with organizations. But Mandel is focused on only one thing – money. What did innovation “earn” that we can benchmark and measure? Well – ironically – that’s hardly innovative or creative thinking.
Innovation can’t be forced, rushed, hurried, put into a box, kept neat and tidy or benchmarked. Americans are enormously innovative, but Mandel missed it all because he’s too busy looking for a traditional measurement that Wall Street might report about the Fortune 500. Instead, innovation has been bubbling up all around us. Just in the past 10 years or so, Americans introduced the world to “America Online, Netscape, Amazon, Google, Blogger, Wikipedia, Craigslist, TiVo, Netflix, eBay, the iPod and iPhone, Xbox, Facebook and Twitter itself.” Stephen Johnson, TIME, June 8, 2009. Innovation is here all right, it’s just not where traditionalists are looking.
But look at the list of amazing innovations cited by Johnson. Most of them – if not all of them – are about connections and community. These innovations are helping us see the world – as it happens – on our own terms. And these innovations are helping shape a whole new way of thinking about and being members of communities.

SUMMARY

Well – I certainly blew the 140 character limit at Twitter. Sorry. But I wanted to gather these ideas into something a little more cohesive than a series of short notes.
Communities matter and are enormously important, and it does NOT matter where we find them or even if they exist is a physical space. Communities exist because WE make them exist. We belong to them. We shape them , and we frame them. So for your job search or next career move, gather ideas, information and help from your communities. For your next research exercise, seek information and inspiration from your communities. And most of all – be “in” your community, not “on” one or simply “at” one.

You Call This Progress?

We are seeing clear examples of why personal branding is important in this job market. A good way to think of your brand is to ask yourself, “Why would an employer buy me or my value proposition over a competitor for the same position?”

We use the term “personal brand” to communicate a fundamental concept related to job searching or career changing. Basically, your brand is another way of expressing your unique and personal value proposition.

How do you define your brand? First – think about what you do best, and a great way to figure that out is to answer this question. What stories do you most want to tell during an interview? For these stories, identify:

1. What motivated you in the situation?
2. What did you enjoy most about the outcome or actions you took?
3. Are there any recurring themes across several “first choice” interview stories?

For instance, maybe all of your best stories revolve in some way around building relationships or solving customer service problems. You most enjoyed the feeling you got from seeing rough relationships smoothed over. From these elements, you might be able to start fashioning a personal brand around being a world class client relationship professional who is the “go to” person for the most difficult customer and client issues and problems.

Let me use myself as a possible example. I really get a charge out of seeing that “ah-ha” moment when I explain a new concept to someone and they get it. I enjoy trying different things, and I like to be a part of start-up projects and initiatives. From this snippet of information, we could start building a brand around driving new concepts into implementation.

Once you get a solid handle on your “brand,” the next challenge is to get that brand out there. Take a look at the post here about what to do when traditional networking stalls and the pages on job searching issues facing baby boomers for some ideas about how to get that part of the process off square one.

We are seeing some progress – albeit slow – in the job market. Yes – the broader economy keeps shedding jobs, and most experts agree that we are likely to see several more months of significant job loss. But – there are glimmers of hope, and we are seeing many of our clients getting interviews and fielding job offers.

How are they doing that? In a word — networking.  They are building and utilizing connections and contacts to personalize their interest in the positions they are targeting.

But there is also a lot of frustration building out there. Some of our clients are seeing “many people are overworked . . .  too busy or too self-absorbed” to offer a lot of help. I met with another individual – a networking meeting, by the way, late last week. And he told me he was totally frustrated with traditional “networking.”  He’s finding people are generally very busy and don’t know anything about jobs openings.

So – what do you do when traditional networking no longer works? The answer is – keep networking, but try something different and don’t ignore social media.

First, quit thinking about locating jobs.

Wait – isn’t that what I’m looking for? Maybe.

Try instead to identify work you can do, and then you have to be able to explain the value your work can generate. The client I mentioned whom I met last week has a great background in an interesting niche. He is a redevelopment tax credit professional. Redevelopment – along with the whole construction industry – is more than a little flat. But – once again – there are people and organizations involved in current and on-going redevelopment projects. He’s going to approach a few targeted organizations with this proposition – the work of identifying and then successfully pursuing tax credits can be time consuming – especially if you are not an expert – so he can generate value for the organization by performing that work for them. He is willing to take a percentage of any tax credits earned.

So think about how this approach changes the “job/employment” equation. The target organizations don’t have to find money for additional payroll. They realize a gain, and share the gain with the person bring this added value to them. So you’re not approaching somebody about additional payroll expenses. You’re offering to add value.

Look for work, not jobs, and identify the “why” for organizations to use you to do this work.

Second, dive into social media. Yes, it can feel a bit overwhelming for those of us not used to Linked In, Twitter, texting and Facebook. But – guess what? The current world is rapidly moving in that direction. It’s not a fad. In fact, it’s going to become more and more theway people and organizations interact and communicate. There are 35 million+ people using Linked In today. Millions use Twitter. Millions more use Facebook. How many people used these tools 10 years ago? Zero. None. Not one person. They didn’t exist. We don’t know what will be next, but rest assured the “next thing” will build upon the current thing. So you’d better get involved in social media right away.

But it’s not enough to simply be “on” Facebook or Linked In. You need to be “in” those communities, because that’s what they are. These sites collect people into communities based upon mutual interests and needs. That means you need to make a commitment to participate in these communities by asking questions, answering questions, offering value and advice and not just out there asking about jobs. Once you are a trusted member of these communities, you are likely to reap the benefits that come with trusting relationships – opportunities and referrals.

I’d love to hear your networking horror stories and what you’re doing about it.