blog.devongroup.com

What goes up, down and sometimes around? For many people, it’s their career path! That’s because career development and job satisfaction aren’t necessarily contingent on upward mobility. Whether it is changing the specialization of your career or moving to a new industry, discovering where you excel, what excites you and a rewarding work culture may require taking a non-linear path.

 Yet for many people, making career changes can be scary. To gain confidence in her decisions as she navigated the world of work, Nancy Rachman, vice president of Nickelodeon’s home entertainment division, relied on her mentors for encouragement and support.

 “I learned early on that the spirit and culture of an organization would make a big difference in how I would learn and grow and enjoy my job,” she said. “I also learned that a mentor isn’t necessarily one person who is guiding you throughout your career. I’ve had a few different mentors, each of whom taught me invaluable lessons and provided insight on how to handle my career and my job.”

Rachman initially entered the workforce working for a non-profit organization but then headed back to graduate school for a business degree in marketing. Prior to joining Nickelodeon, Rachman held positions at well-known companies such as Clairol, Disney and Revlon.

While working for the non-profit organization she met her first mentor who taught her about honesty in how she approached her career.

“He was at a senior level and took an interest in my career and how I was developing,” she explained. “He pulled me into a higher level position even after I told him I really wanted to leave and go to business school. I remember him saying ‘I don’t care if you’re only going to be here for six months – I want you to do this.’ Not everyone would have done that, but he showed me that it was OK to be upfront and honest and helped me thrive in that industry.”

After business school, Rachman accepted a position with Clairol and met her most influential mentor, Joan Bluestone Landorf. In addition to receiving advice and guidance, the women forged a friendship that has sustained multiple moves as well as career and life changes.

“We really bonded and she has always given me fabulous advice – some of which I still quote to this day,” said Rachman. “She also made me feel very comfortable in the changes I’ve made in my career and understanding that everyone’s career will take different turns because of life events or things that you want, and that in the end, you’ll be in a good place.”

When Rachman was offered a position with Disney, she again turned to her mentor to seek advice.

“I feared failure,” she said. “I thought what if I move to California and it doesn’t work? Having a mentor was calming to me and she made me feel good about the decision to go – regardless of the outcome. Change is hard, and having someone to go to made me comfortable to make changes.”

Since arriving at Nickelodeon eight years ago, Rachman has kept in touch with her former mentor and though she describes herself as “currently deficient in recent mentors,” she has found supporters at Nickelodeon to trust and exchange ideas.

“For companies, mentoring in the workplace is smart because it helps to retain people,” she said. “Every work environment has its challenges and you want to give people the resources to adapt, do well and thrive. It’s also a good benefit for the individual to have someone who listens, gives good advice and lets you air your frustrations. I used to think you needed to have a mentor for life but what I learned is that you meet different people along the way and find different mentors depending on where you are in your life and career.”

February 5th, 2010 | Tags: mentoring | Category: The Magic of Mentors | Leave a comment

Bruce Peterson never dreamed he’d have a 17-year career at the nation’s largest retailer. His plans were to go into the field of engineering, but a job bagging groceries in a Detroit supermarket changed the trajectory of his professional life. It was there he became enamored with the produce business, encouraging him to pursue a general business degree instead.

Peterson worked for a number of supermarket chains, but it was an interview with Sam Walton that led him to become the produce director at Wal-Mart, spurring a long-spanning career with the company.

“When I joined Wal-Mart they had six supercenters and when I left they had 24,048 and 42 distribution centers,” he said. “During my career I got exposed to a variety of things in merchandising and procurement however what most people in the industry know me for is my reputation for nurturing.”

Nurturing and mentoring is part of Wal-Mart’s corporate culture. Peterson participated in a formalized program that required associates to mentor three people that didn’t reflect the same gender or background. Peterson recognized the influence others had on his career and wanted to “give back” and help others.

“I don’t know any successful person in any field that doesn’t recognize that he or she had some very fortunate things happen in their life,” said Peterson. “Because of my title and job responsibilities I got to interact with presidents of companies and people that were extremely influential in terms of business, politics and academia. Many of them weren’t necessarily mentors in the formal sense of the word, but they helped me progress and grow in my career.”

At the Detroit supermarket, Peterson encountered his first mentor who influenced his presentation style and views on people, much the same as Sam Walton.

“When you talk to many people, you can tell they have something on their mind other than their conversation with you,” he said. “Sam made me feel as if there was nothing more important than spending time talking to me – as if the fate of the company depended on what I said. I know that wasn’t the case, but that’s how he made me feel.”

This ability to focus on people was something Peterson carried throughout his career. Peterson learned from Walton how he thought about business and customers. A contemporary at Wal-Mart who went on to hold the CEO post at Starbucks was also influential in how Peterson approached professional and interpersonal interactions as was his last manager with the company, Doug Degn.

“Doug’s philosophy of business was those who do, teach,” said Peterson. “He had a tremendous influence on my leadership style. He once said to me ‘your peers are your peers for a reason.’ It helped me look for the good in people. Sam was great about that, too. If he went into a competitor’s store he never spent a moment looking at a dirty floor or what was out of stock on the store shelves. Instead, he looked for what they were doing right and what he could learn from it.”

When it comes to mentoring others, Peterson often shares this advice: find something you love and pursue it.

“I don’t know many people that achieved high degrees of success that hate what they do,” he said. “The other thing is be open to going where there is opportunity. Rarely do people have the job they want, making the money they want in the location they want. When I went to work for Wal-Mart there weren’t a whole lot of people who wanted to move to Bentonville, but lucky for me, I was willing to do that.”

Today, Peterson manages his own consulting company, Peterson Insights, and works with executives at organizations in the produce and perishables industry. As part of his practice, he instills the value of creating a culture rich with mentoring.

“When I ask people ‘what differentiates you from your competition,’ invariably the response is ‘our people’,” said Peterson. “But when I ask them if they set aside budget for development and mentoring, the answer is typically no. I don’t understand how organizations can take this approach. If you say your greatest asset is the people that work inside your organization, you need to invest in developing that group.

If business were static, I wouldn’t worry much about mentorship. But business is anything but that; regardless of what business you’re in, your business is different today than it was yesterday and is going to be more difficult and complex tomorrow than it is today. You need to invest in your people. One of the greatest ways to do that is by taking people that are growing or that you’ve identified as future leaders in your organization and connect them with people who are already successful. If you want to inspire better performance, you need to pass that along.”

January 29th, 2010 | Tags: mentoring, professional development | Category: The Magic of Mentors | Comments (1)

Winston Churchill once said a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. When Laura Hills, vice president of Marketing for CyberShift graduated college, the country was in the midst of an economic cycle in which it was difficult to find a job that matched her education. Much like the job-seeking graduates of today, she needed to look to sectors that were thriving and take advantage of those opportunities.

As a graduate with a mathematics degree, when the opportunity arose to work in the field of computer sciences, it seemed like a natural connection and Hills entered a trainee program at a software company specializing in HR technology.

“We were being groomed for promotions from within and it was my first experience with professional mentoring,” she said. “I worked side by side with senior professional services resources who were providing HR consulting services to some of the largest companies in the U.S. I was able to build a solid foundation in the industry because I learned both the knowledge of the software application and the practical business requirements they addressed. I moved up the chain from analyst trainee through more senior levels in management relatively quickly over time.”

A senior practice director impressed upon Hills in the early years the importance of challenging herself to achieve a high standard of excellence by setting the bar higher.  She created a work environment rife with education opportunities and, under her tutelage, Hills learned how to meet high expectations, which enhanced her own management style and enabled her to perform better.

“She challenged me to a level of excellence that I didn’t know I was capable of achieving,” said Hills. “It helped me establish my own personal set of standards, enabling me to advance in the organization because I developed a reputation for high quality work.”

Hills recommends people entering the workforce today seize the opportunity to learn whether it’s in a formal, professional training program or by seeking out managers that demonstrate admirable leadership characteristics.

“Mentors are out there,” she said. “But people need to be committed to going a little further either in working with someone before office hours or later in the day or by taking on extra projects. People are willing to help.”

It’s not just young people that benefit from the guidance of a mentor. At every age and every job level there are opportunities to learn and be mentored. Later in her career Hills joined a global organization with worldwide operations. This required new skills such as understanding cultural nuances and navigating the individualized requirements of different geographic markets. Although she was in a senior position, she found a mentor to help strengthen her skill set.

“I worked with a general manager who had extensive international business experience.  He had lived in other countries and spoke eight languages fluently,” said Hills. “I possessed the skills and understanding of the business discipline but he shared a great deal about the business acumen by global standards. Just when you think there isn’t more to learn, you learn there’s so much more.”

Hills credits her mentor with opening doors for her and enabling her to contribute to the organization in ways that might have previously been limited. Since she had such positive mentoring experiences, Hills was eager to mentor others and seeks out opportunities to help people.

In her role as vice president of marketing at CyberShift, Hills is a proponent of programs that create learning opportunities for young adults such as a teaching event that CyberShift sponsored to promote financial literacy on the Rutgers campus last fall. In addition to helping students from Workforce Outsource Services understand their paycheck and make smart financial decisions, it helped foster connections to help these students experience success in the workplace.

“The young people attending this event understood that to rise in the workplace they needed someone who would be there to help them,” she said. “The students saw that it was more than just a one day class on financial literacy but the opportunity to make contacts with people that could mentor them along the way.

Being a mentor doesn’t have to be a full time job. Sometimes it means being a sounding board or sharing your experiences with someone. Our company philosophy supports interns and bringing in people at all different levels. Finding someone with innate talents and the right attitude and energy level, one who is willing to go the extra mile and wants to succeed is important for both professional and organizational growth. There are so many different opportunities to be mentored and to mentor others. It’s a rewarding experience.”

January 11th, 2010 | Tags: HR, HR technology, leadership, management, Marketing, PR, SaaS, workforce | Category: The Magic of Mentors | Leave a comment

Welcome to the first Carnival of HR for 2010! It’s the time of year when many people say out with the old, in with the new and HR bloggers are no different. This week we’ve got people saying goodbye to old comforts and hello to new change. While some are making predictions about where we’ll go and what lies ahead, others are generously sharing the wisdom they’ve gathered with resolutions and tips and tricks to make the workplace better while optimizing worker productivity. If the blogs contributed are any indication of what’s to come in 2010, I’d say we’re in for a great year.

The Devon Group is delighted to host this edition of The Carnival and thanks everyone who contributed a post. Without further adieu, step right up and let the fun begin!

Susan Heathfield, at About.com Human Resources Blog, covers Your Top 10 Favorites from 2009 as well as the top ten trends of the decade. This must-read list highlights the most popular articles and resources on the site based on reader access. 

Naomi Bloom, at In Full Bloom, says farewell to her old sail boat and ushers in the New Year with a new craft on the horizon in Change Management: Mar-Lin Night’s Last Sail.

Sharlyn Lauby, at HR Bartender, is also vying for change and notes that it’s time for some R-E-S-P-E-C-T while urging others to stop Calling People Out.

Mary Jo Asmus, at Leadership Solutions, serves up some great tips for Cultivating Talent, noting that great leaders understand that nurturing talent takes time and patience.

Gautam Ghosh, at Gautam Blogs, discusses Five Things Social Media Taught Me, and why social media is an integral part of HR.

Kelly Dingee, at Fistful of Talent, shares some other Lessons Learned, especially in the arena of Internet sourcing and recruiting.

April Dowling, at PseudoHR, tells The Tale of Two Candidates – Making Margaritas. Here, she explains why even in HR, when work hands you lemons, it’s up to you to turn a negative into a positive and make margaritas (And what’s more uplifting than an icy cold glass of medicinal lemonade!).

Trish McFarlane, at HR Ringleader’s Blog, shares some favorite quotes in What Dr. Seuss Taught Me about Succeeding in Business and how many of his quotes can be applied to the business world.  

Evil HR Lady is also starting the New Year by sharing some Things I Learned on Vacation. Who knew you could get Betty Crocker brownie mix in Egypt and an HR lesson at the same time!

Mark Stelzner, at Inflexion Point, presents On Life, Death and Work, a thoughtful tribute to his grandmother and a lesson to make the world a better place than you found it.

Michael Haberman, at HR Observations, notes that there’s a connection between Consumer Trends and HR, and that HR professionals can use this insight to better understand employees.

Ben Eubanks, at UpstartHR, tells you how to get Immediate Value from Joining a SHRM Chapter.

Bill Kutik, at Human Resource Executive Online, observes there is Collateral Damage in Software Battles between vendors, selection consultants and analyst firms. Still, he concedes, each of those industry segments can provide assistance to HR leaders looking to buy the right software.

Laurie Ruettimann, at Punk Rock HR, discusses Ethics, Hostile Work Environments, and St. Wenceslaus. In addition to getting people to think about reporting unethical behavior in the workplace, she shares a great story and an early lesson on why doing the right thing is always the right answer.

Dan McCarthy, at Great Leadership, presents 8+ Team Development Models. Team development is usually used when an interdependent team needs to improve the way they work together to achieve shared goals.  What’s your favorite approach to team development?

Wally Bock, at Three Star Leadership, talks about What Your Team Members Want from You. Leaders take note – everyone wants to work for a winning team!

Drew Tarvin, at Humor That Works, takes a humorous look at Why New Year’s Resolutions Suck (But Why You Should Make Them Anyway).

Chris Young, at Maximizing Possibility, writes My Prediction for HR and Talent Management in 2010. Last year he astutely predicted 2009 would be the year of adding value. This year he predicts that HR will begin to fully understand and articulate the value it brings to their organization and be seen as real “players” by those in senior management.  

Mick Collins, at InfoHRM, shares his own predictions in Human Capital Measurement Predictions for 2010. Will 2010 be the year of measurement, metrics, analytics and planning?

Rudy Karsan, at Kenexa Blog, observes that as the world grows in complexity, the job of the HR professional becomes more difficult. Businesses needed to have laser-sharp focus and work at being Proactive vs. Reactive and use HR tools in an optimal manner.

Erik Samdahl, at Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), presents survey findings indicating Few Companies Have Employee Retention Strategies for an Economic Uptick. How is your organization effectively addressing ways to retain workers when the economy improves?

Gireesh Kumar Sharma, at Talent Junction, notes that a good performance management system is necessary for any organization to improve the performance of its people in High Performance Companies Focus on Performance Management.

Tony Marzulli, at Workscape Institute, offers this tangible advice in The Shifting Sands of Performance Management Success, “Make sure that better communications between managers and employees are in place and leverage technology to manage employee performance daily, not annually.”

The team at TalentedApps discusses why We Shouldn’t Promote People Based on Merit, highlighting some research that indicates randomly promoting people results in a more effective organization. Instead, they challenge HR people to use HRMS data to dig a little deeper for indicators of future performance.

And finally, Cathy Missildine-Martin, at Profitability Through Human Capital, presents A New Year’s Resolution for HR Volume 2, a collection of thoughtful resolutions aimed at reducing costs, improving performance and increasing profitability. What are your priorities for 2010?

The Carnival of HR compiles the best advice and resources that HR professionals around the globe are offering every other week. Whether you’re a regular reader or contributor, we’re glad you’re here. That’s it for the first Carnival of HR of 2010.

Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to stop back or follow us on Twitter @devongroup, @melissaprusher and @jeanneachille!

January 6th, 2010 | Tags: 2010, blogs, BPO, business process outsourcing, call center, change management, content development, customer satisfaction, HCM, HR, HR Carnival, HR technology, HR Technology Conference, HRO, industry analysts, Marketing, recruiting, SaaS, social media, social networking, software development, staffing, talent management, Twitter, Web 2.0 | Category: Industry Experts | Comments (10)

As 2009 gives way to a new year, many organizations are jump starting their plans to hit the ground running in the first year of the new decade. While traditional marketing vehicles still remain critical for promoting a company’s products and services, this past year saw the rise of Web 2.0 technologies, and the explosion of social communities like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. In 2010, as companies small and large extended their global reach and strive for competitive success, they’ll need to continue embracing social media and new tools for communicating with prospects, suspects, customers, analysts and influencers. To reach a widespread and diverse audience, creative social marketing will prevail!

To sharpen your marketing focus, capture mind share and generate leads, here’s what you need to know for the upcoming year: 

No one can afford to be “dabbling” in social media anymore. Whether it’s Twitter, LinkedIn or Ning, everyone needs to have social media as part of the marketing mix. Move it out of the “experimental” column and into the regular marketing mix and start demanding metrics and ROI.

Process will take center stage. More channels, greater precision in messaging and a more open approach to customer and stakeholder conversations all mean more work – and more opportunities. While creativity still matters in marketing, good old fashioned project and process management — the ability to respond consistently and appropriately to a wide range of situations and opportunities — is at the core of program management today.

Brand ownership matters more than ever. There’s a pervasive thought attendant to the growth of social media in marketing: Customers “control” your brand, and your role is simply to follow their lead. This isn’t just wrong; it’s a quick way to destroy years or even decades of brand value. Companies need to be proactive in communicating their key messages and look for ways to preserve their core brand identity and values while expanding and adapting to fit new opportunities. Henry Ford had it right when he purportedly said: “If we asked customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.“

Global marketing gets granular. Social media and word-of-mouth marketing has put global-reach messaging in the power of the small to medium enterprise market. Embracing these platforms can help organizations reach a number of influencers and buyers across borders. Although communication consistency is a key, organizations need to be sensitive to different cultural nuances in how their messages are perceived, particularly as they communicate across social media channels.

Smarter decisions will be supported by analytics. Marketing efforts need to be measurable, innovative and sustainable. Understand what you want to track – number of followers, a specific campaign or Web site traffic – and add more tools to your inventory to track social media metrics.

The first decade of the century saw economic recession, accelerated corporate global expansion, the rise of smart communications from GPS technology to texting and social networking and a sea change in how we work as more people work remotely. There’s no doubt the next decade will bring rise to faster communication with more applications driving new relationships and more opportunities to connect.

As we say goodbye to 2009 and welcome 2010, marketers are fully empowered to control the message as social media changes the game from raising brand awareness to empowering organizations to communicate directly with customers to drive sales acceleration. At The Devon Group, we’ve incorporated social media into our marketing strategy since its inception and keep our fingers on the pulse of new trends to help our clients create, collaborate and communicate. If you’re interested in supporting your 2010 plans with marketing best practices that get results, contact me.

To our blog followers, we wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. See you in 2010.

December 18th, 2009 | Tags: branding, social networking, Twitter, Web 2.0 | Category: Scallops | Comments (2)

December 11th, 2009 | Tags: associations, Marketing, mentoring, PR, social networking | Category: The Magic of Mentors | Comments (1)

There may be some truth to the sentiment ‘it’s lonely at the top’. However, for today’s CEOs, the more work and responsibilities they take on, the more they need a sounding board and input from mentors to navigate management challenges such as staff retention, brand building and work-life balance. At Saks Fifth Avenue Inc., the luxury department store retailer, Chairman and CEO Stephen Sadove has built a distinguished marketing and consumer products career spanning more than 25 years with the support and guidance of mentors.

“I went to graduate school, got my MBA and decided I wanted to go into a career in marketing and joined General Foods,” said Sadove. “In some ways it was like a post post-graduate education because there were some of the best and brightest thought leaders in the business community working there. In the first number of years I learned a tremendous amount about consumer marketing.”

Sadove described the working environment at General Foods USA (now Kraft Foods, Inc.) as “extremely collaborative” and during his time there he held various positions of increasing responsibility including executive vice president and general manager of the desserts division. While a formal mentoring program wasn’t available, Sadove learned from peers and other senior leaders and received support and advice through informal mentoring opportunities.

“There were quite a number of people who took me under their wing and helped me acquire skills that contributed to my professional growth,” he said. “Mentoring happened informally either during lunches out or sharing common interests. There was a lot of camaraderie and networking that went on and it enabled me to learn from a number of people and through their accomplishments.”

After leaving General Foods USA, Sadove joined Bristol-Myers Squibb Company in 1991 as president of Clairol. In the following years, he assumed positions of increasing responsibility, culminating in his appointment as president, Bristol-Myers Squibb Worldwide Beauty Care and Nutritionals where he led Clairol to become the number one hair care business in the United States, relaunched the Herbal Essences brand into a $700 million business, and completed the sale of the beauty care business to Procter & Gamble for approximately $5 billion. In January 2002, he joined the management team of Saks Incorporated as vice chairman and in March 2004, he assumed the additional post of chief operating officer. In May 2007, Sadove was named to his current post of chairman and chief executive officer.

In addition to learning from others’ experience and accomplishments, mentors played a pivotal role in guiding his career as he faced various challenges and frustrations.

“Early in my career I was at a career crossroads and had been thinking about alternatives and remember a mentor giving me sound advice,” said Sadove. “I thought it was time to leave but my mentor helped shape my thinking in terms of what was the best way to approach the situation and I ended up staying. It worked out much better from a career development situation.”

While every career has its challenges, the expectations of a CEO are intense. They’re expected to run the business, create strategic vision and long-ranges plans, build a strong team and enhance shareholder value. So who does a CEO turn to when they need support? Often, it’s the board of directors or CEOs from other organizations.

“As CEO, your board of directors plays a role as a sounding board along with CEOs from other companies who face similar issues and challenges,” said Sadove. “There are also outside organizational development consultants who can offer an alternative viewpoint. In the retail industry, we’re in the eye of the storm in the recession, and high end retail certainly had a tough road in the last year. In many ways the CEO is the chief cheer leader yet has to be realistic about everything while keeping an organization motivated. In an environment like this I have relied on my mentors as a sounding board to discuss ideas, vent frustrations or get a new perspective.”

Sadove doesn’t just rely on his peers, board or leadership team to get a fresh perspective on the business. To understand what’s happening with the culture of the company and ensure individual objectives align with corporate goals, Sadove also reaches out to junior members of the staff.

“You can learn from everybody,” he said. “I get a good sense of how we’re communicating and what the tone and culture of the company is when I talk to junior people in the organization. If you only talk to people at the top you get a very jaded view.

In any organization and at every level, mentoring is an important component of personal learning and development.”

December 4th, 2009 | Tags: brand building, leadership, mentoring, professional development, retail, retention | Category: The Magic of Mentors | Leave a comment

New sourcing strategies such as crowdsourcing enable organizations to take advantage of collective social intelligence to foster innovation. Read on to learn how crowdsourcing – the application of Open Source principles to fields outside of software – will continue to develop as a viable business model.

Carl Esposti, principal, Everest Group

Tell me about your background and your company, massolution, a division of Crowdsourcing Corporation.

I’ve spent 20 years in the sourcing advisory space. That’s a collective term for different types of sourcing models and includes things like outsourcing, offshoring, and captives (i.e. company owned operations). Ten years were spent working on the supply side of the industry and the last ten have been on the advisory side, predominantly helping Fortune 500 companies look at the options for sourcing and identify target candidates and parts of their businesses that they could source in different manners.

At the moment, I wear two hats. I’m a Principal at the Everest Group, one of the premier global sourcing advisory firms. About a year ago I started Crowdsourcing Corporation, doing business as a company called masssolution. That is a business focused specifically on the area of crowdsourcing. It’s looking at the viability of crowdsourcing and trying to understand how the crowdsourcing business model is being embraced both by enterprises and the general population.

What do you see as the fundamental difference between outsourcing and crowdsourcing?

Outsourcing is more at a process and function level where crowdsourcing is at a task level. Instead of sourcing business functions or business processes to a single entity, as is typically the case with outsourcing, crowdsourcing involves the sourcing of discreet tasks or work packages, to a community of people – a crowd – and the best performing or most qualified individuals within that crowd are selected to perform the work.

Crowdsourcing properties tend to organize around different types of expertise and applications. For example, a major application of crowdsourcing is in the area innovation, which splits down into research and development, and into the area of idea generation, product design and optimization. Another is the area of engagement. For example, companies like Starbucks are using it to engage their community to build relationships with consumers. There is a whole set of crowdsourcing applications around the world of creativity. That breaks down to things like photography, journalism, travel, and graphic design. There are also social applications of crowdsourcing where people are participating in projects such as green initiatives. There’s another group of crowdsourcing applications around the category of knowledge – Q&A, market intelligence, and prediction markets. There’s also crowdfunding which are communities of good causes or entrepreneurs seeking to reach a community of potential investors using crowdsourcing as a method of fundraising. They are all publicly accessible applications and within each of those applications are a large number of companies that have communities and technology or functionality within their sites that enable people that have requirements and needs to connect with people that have the ability to fulfill those needs.

Crowdsourcing has gone from the fringe to the mainstream seemingly overnight with many experts saying that this is the year of crowdsourcing. What’s driving the trend? 

If you look at crowdsourcing, Jeff Howe refers to it as crowdsourcing “in captive” and “in the wild”. When he talks about crowdsourcing in captive, he talks about it being used for focused applications, sometimes around a commercial business model and often at an enterprise level regarding their internal and external stakeholders. When he talks about in the wild, he’s referring to a more open application where the crowd is formed from the global population of Internet connected individuals. The majority of use at the moment is the explosion in the wild. That’s being driven largely by the prevalence of technology that supports it and allows it to happen. Individuals are realizing interactive capability through Web 2.0 and are able to form communities and interact in a way like they’ve never been able to before.

There are some great examples of crowdsourcing dating back 350 years. In the 18th century there was a competition in the U.K. called The Longitude Prize. It was a reward offered by the British government to somebody who could invent a simple and practical method for the precise determination of a ship’s longitude. An individual was awarded a prize of over 14 thousand pounds for inventing this instrument.

So Crowdsourcing as a phenomenon isn’t new. What’s different this time is that we have a mobile and disaggregated workforce. The relationship individuals have with companies now is very different. Instead of it being a static workforce where you are physically located within your company and have a job for many years, people are much more akin to working for many companies, on a flexible or contract basis, working from home, working off-shore in different locations etc. With that type of workforce, combined with the fact that this technology is now not only available but is pervasive, somebody in Manila or Budapest or wherever, can participate in a project that is being executed on a global basis. It’s enabling organizations and entities to determine that it’s very easy to connect individuals and form these communities on a basis that isn’t constrained by traditional physical boundaries.

A recent Business Week article asked if crowdsourcing represents the beginning of the end of creative organizations or if it heralds the beginning of something bigger and transformational for business in general. What’s your take?

Crowdsourcing augments the possibilities of how corporations currently source ideas and source work. Instead of relying on the thoughts, ideas and capabilities of a limited workforce, it enables organizations to remove restrictions and see what other ideas can come out of that.

I spoke to a client recently, a creative agency that had a limited bench of about eight people – a creative director, some graphic designers, and a couple of account managers. That traditional type of business model is constrained from a cost point of view and it’s also very limited by its bandwidth. They started engaging crowdsourcing as a way of generating ideas for their own creative team. Instead of a creative person having to sit down for a given project and spend eight hours coming up with a number of options, they can very cost effectively crowdsource a lot of input through a much larger community at a very low cost very quickly.

I can see organizations over time developing a set of competencies that enables them to capitalize on crowdsourcing vehicles. Instead of it diminishing the value of an internal function, whether it’s a research function or a creative function or whatever, it can be a vehicle and option to leverage and provide additional value, changing the remit of internal functions within these corporations.

It can be seen as transformational, even if it’s not significant in terms of the volume of work that might get sourced externally through companies. Think about it from the perspective of saying instead of 20 researchers coming up with my new ideas I can now use 100,000 researchers to come up with my new ideas. Simply in that aspect it’s not going to change the necessity for internal functions to be able to mange this stuff and still own the R&D function. What it is going to do is it’s going to take the lid off the ideas and options and possibilities relative to the ability for a broader community to be able to think about how to move a business forward.

For companies making the shift to open innovation, what technologies and best practices should they have in place? How can they ensure the biggest business return?

There are a large number of established platforms with existing communities that have established brands. Any organization first and foremost should look at those platforms and should consider experimenting and taking a step into the world of crowdsourcing as a result of something that is tried and tested. There are a number of other branded or white label applications that are ready built and externally supported that companies can use on a usage or license fee basis. That’s another significant opportunity for companies that want to take a step in this direction without taking the investment risk or technical risk of building their own platforms.

A lot of companies have an external online presence, but their presence is really a silent audience because in some instances they don’t invite or enable participation. It’s been proven that the community actually appreciates having a vehicle where they can interact within their own peer group as opposed to just the representative of the company itself. Different types of functionality enable communities to interact and participate, share ideas, upload content and interact with other community members. That is something that typically is a more rewarding experience for these consumers or community members.

However, you don’t build community just by providing technical functionality that enables participation. You have to nurture communities. A lot of work is being done now to look at the best practices relative to the development and nurturing and building communities. It doesn’t just happen; participants need to feel that they are part of something of value and they need to believe they’re not being exploited or taken advantage of. They need the benefits of community interaction in order to be able to fulfill some of their development or altruistic needs. The whole area of community development management is an absolute specialty and a key area if not more important than the investment in the technology itself.

Tell me about your personal experience with crowdsourcing or relevant examples in the public domain.

My personal experience with using crowdsourcing has been primarily in the areas of branding and graphic design. I was building another business and started using crowdsourcing as a way of building our graphics, materials and identity. I suddenly thought the process of crowdsourcing was far more interesting than the business I was building, so I decided to abandon the business plans I had and started investing in crowdsourcing itself.

In terms of how crowdsourcing is being used, companies that have used it successfully include Threadless, Netflix, Gold Corp, and Proctor and Gamble. Crowdsourcing is in is infancy and it’s being experimented with by a few corporations but it’s not even common vernacular at the moment. If I ask 10 people and one person has heard of it it’s a surprise. In order for crowdsourcing as a business model to be better understood and ultimately be better adopted, people are going to need to know more about it in terms of who’s using it, how is it working, what are the lessons and best practices where is the capability and expertise relative to the people that understand how to put it in place and deliver it.

Crowdsourcing.org is going to be an authoritative portal on this as a business model as opposed to a site you crowdsource through. We’ll build this site and a community and other analysts will realize it is part of a broader sourcing set of possibilities. By that time we’ll have our environment and best practices and our community established. Crowdsourcing.org is under development. For more information, email carl@massolution.com.

November 30th, 2009 | Tags: associations, crowdsourcing, outsourcing | Category: Industry Experts | Comments (1)

An instructor of HR technology at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Steve Boese’s first experience with mentoring happened not in the classroom, but in a large corporate environment.

“Like many people coming out of school, I didn’t have a compelling love for any one aspect of business and wanted to try various things to figure out what would suit me best,” he said. “I went to work for AT&T, which gave me the opportunity to get involved in a lot of different areas of business.”

It was there Boese gravitated towards Information Systems, particularly HR technology, and benefitted from the guidance of a mentor.

“At the time we didn’t identify it as a mentor relationship, but that’s exactly what it was,” said Boese. “The CFO of our division took a few people in the department, myself included, under his wing and gave us practical day-to-day advice for surviving in what was a very complex and political environment.”

Most beneficial was sharing strategies and approaches that enabled Boese to understand how to survive in a corporate setting. The lessons that proved invaluable were learning how to evaluate information and effectively manage relationships.

“This was at a time when the printed memo was the typical mode of business communication and this person taught me to evaluate information in the context of who else had that same information,” he explained. “It sounds crazy today when we think of how accessible information is, but back then that wasn’t true and it really mattered who else had that same piece of information. He really taught me a lot of practical advice.”

Another important lesson Boese learned was the art of effectively managing interpersonal relationships. His mentor taught him that dealing with people as individuals would result in better relationships because everyone’s perspective is shaped through different experiences, backgrounds, motivation and fear.

Later in his career Boese worked as a consultant to Oracle and discovered other mentors who taught him how to excel in this new role.

“When I transitioned to the role of consultant, the training I received was centered on technical and product training, but we didn’t receive training on how to be a good consultant,” he said. “What I learned from my mentors were the skills and capabilities needed to manage the relationship with clients. They helped me understand that there’s more to success than having a technical skill.”

While Boese found mentors inside the organizations where he worked, he recommends others not limit themselves to the confines of their employer, but to explore social networks and local organizations or participate in business networking groups.

“It’s as simple as introducing yourself and letting someone know you admire their work and are looking for some help,” said Boese. “It might feel funny to come right out and ask someone to be your mentor, but most people feel good about helping others. Relationships develop from mutual respect and many of mine started with a phone call or email asking someone for their perspective.”

A key benefit of mentoring relationships is getting viewpoints or validation on your own perspectives. To help with decisions or to bounce ideas, Boese has an informal board of personal directors.

“I’m in the middle of an important decision point in my career and have consulted with three people that I consider on my personal board of directors,” he said. “Each has given me perspective and insight that the others did not and has contributed something unique to my repository of knowledge and information.

Mentoring is really important for personal development. I should probably start something in my classes that helps students with their career aspirations. A lot of people may be intimidated by launching into these relationships, but support from an authority is a good thing.”

November 20th, 2009 | Tags: HR technology, mentoring | Category: The Magic of Mentors | Comments (1)