Evolved Thinking

Friends, reader(s) and people who tolerate my rantings from time to time …

If you know anything about me, you’ll know that for better or worse, I’ve had my fair share of jobs. Trust me, it’s nothing I’ve ever wanted to be known for, but it’s an unfortunate truth borne out of a bad economy, bad choices or the dreaded “bad fit.”

So what the hell does all of this have to do with my headline?

My ability to feed my family and/or avoid crashing on one of your couches for any extended period of time is almost entirely due to social media engagement and networking … with a dash of reasonable skill in the areas of marketing strategy, social media engagement & content creation. And thus … the tie in to my headline.

Social Media Club PDX is bringing Social Stallion Joshua Waldman to town to show you how to discover those hidden job nuggets using social media tools and ways to pay it forward in true “You-Tweet-my-Back, I’ll-Tweet-Yours” fashion. Here’s the title and some eloquent prose from my social chum @unclenate, Prez of @SocialMediaPDX:

“Job Searching With Social Media For Dummies” author Joshua Waldman

“For anyone looking for a first job, exploring a career change, or just setting up for future success, social media is a proven platform for facilitating connections, demonstrating passions and interests, and ultimately landing the job. Joshua Waldman, author of “Job Searching with Social Media For Dummies” enables you to harness the power of the Internet to research and identify job opportunities, and create a strategy for securing a position.”

Other nuggets include:

• creating effective online profiles and resumes to sell your strengths
• maintaining your online reputation (and ensuring that employers who Google you like what they find)
• understanding electronic etiquette
• using the power of personal branding
• building your brand online
• avoiding common pitfalls, such as jumping into filling out a social media profile without a strategy
• getting to know Twitter, the only real-time job board with literally thousands of jobs posted daily
• using social media sites to uncover opportunities in the “hidden job market” ahead of the competition

This is your chance to meet some really cool and connected people as well as escape the job or the people you hate — for three whole hours! Just sign up already!

DETAILS
January 18, 2012 at 6:00 PM | $25 Online, $45 @Door | Limit: 100

Collective Agency
322 NW 6th Ave
#200
Portland, OR 97209

Looking for a job? Stop! That’s your first mistake.

Those who know me or follow my social media escapades are all too familiar with my recent prowess for landing coveted marketing positions in what I’m told is a bad job market in a state with one of the worst unemployment rates in the country.

What’s my secret? I stopped looking for a job. I look for people who work where I want to work.

How’s that workin’ out for ya?
Trust me, this isn’t something I wanted to be known for in the marketing world or among my friends and family. In fact, the joke has become, “Yeah, we know you can get a job. Now, let’s work on keeping one.” No office pools or stop watches, please.

Truth is (and this has been true for every job I’ve ever had), I hope my  most recent position — as the Director of Marketing and Engagement at Attensa -- will be the last job I will ever need.

Now that I am, at least for the moment, gainfully employed, I feel like it’s my duty to share with you some of the things I’ve done over the last two years to survive two gut-wrenching layoffs and a “thank you for playing” pat-on-the-back/kick-to-the-curb after a predecessor came back to grab his old job.

But let’s take a moment to grieve
Getting cut loose sucks. If you’re like me, you take it personally. As a sign of failure. You wallow. You plot against perceived enemies. You become a complete idiot who loses focus on the real problem at hand. Um, Mr. Bitterman/woman..You need to pay for stuff.

Even so, getting downsized, made me question everything about myself and my chosen profession. It led to a momentary lapse of reason where I was going sell scintillating haiku on a warm beach somewhere.

And then I just got pissed.

Mostly at myself for my pity party. Anger begat focus, which quickly led me to the people I trust. Today, more than any other time in my lifetime the trite“It’s not just what you know, it’s who you know” is an absolute truth.

No employer wants to sift through 800 resumes only to come up with a candidate that can sell himself or herself well in an interview. They want proof that you can do the job. And, in the age of social media, online recommendations and online fact checking to ferret out B.S., this is where you can and should plug in to not only serve your own interests but help others serve theirs. So, if I were in your shoes right now, or if I am ever again, here’s what I would do:

5 Tips for Landing the right Job in a Bad Economy

Tip 1: Be  good to people in good times and bad — Got a job? Help others find one. Got a skill, but out of work? Help someone in your network in need — even for free if asked. You will be seen as someone who is genuine, hardworking and willing to do whatever it takes. It gets remembered and reciprocated.

Tip 2: Search for a Company. Not a Job — Pretty basic advice. You know people who have jobs. Some of them want to see you succeed in life. Find them online, offline and in person to discuss how your skills could be of use to their company — if in fact you think you actually want to work there.

Tip 3: Look for people and organizations in your community (online or offline) that need your help – Let’s face it. You need some good juju. I’ve also found it reaffirming to have someone tell me they appreciate me and think I’m awesome after a recent career disembowelment.

Tip 4: Beat LinkedIn like a Rented Mule — If you are not on it, get on it. Fill out a profile right now. If you are on it, learn to use it. Check for updates, high-five people who announce new gigs and search for places you want to work and the people you know who work there.

Tip 5: Know your strengths and expose your weaknesses -- This is key to finding yourself a good professional home. Fudging your ability to meet expectations to land a job will get you back to the breadline in a hurry. I’ve gone so far as to ask people to rip me in recommendations to give future employers so they know exactly what they will be getting. Trust me. I don’t want a bad job anymore than the employer wants a bad hire.

For what it’s worth…the position you are in is brutal, but survivable. If I can help you, I will. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or Twitter to talk about it.

Keep your head up.
Mark

Here’s a “Director’s Cut” for a post of mine born on Feb. 16, 2011 at nonboxpdx. Viva la verbosity! -ME

Want to know what your company has in common with cultural powerhouses with iconic products  like Nike, Apple, Virgin Atlantic, Legos and Porsche?

As it turns out, not much.

That was my key takeaway from the latest book trumpeting design and deep customer analysis as the way to the promiseland of sustained revenue and consistently unleashing products that people crave.

Thankfully, former Business Week Seattle bureau chief Jay Greene uses Design is How it Works, as a platform for showing the uninspired that creating a product or a company that taps into the Id of people is as simple as embracing failure and financial losses, changing organizational processes to bring Design Thinking into every discipline in a company from the C-suite through R&D and on down through the ranks,  and doing deep ethnographic and psychographic research on probable users of your product before embarking on your next build.

Sound a bit daunting?

It is. which is why IDEO’s Tim Brown notes in the book, that when people tell him of their aspirations to be like Nike or Apple, he counters “You don’t have the nerve.” That is the greatest part of Greene’s book for me. The corporate moguls and design luminaries he interviews call a spade a spade. You can’t be Nike. You aren’t Steve Jobs or Jonathan Ive. You haven’t got the discipline, the reputation or, frankly, the balls.

The headline of this post is inspired by every client or boss who has uttered phrases like “We want to be known as the Apple of the (insert industry segment here).” Or…”Our products are best-of-breed innovations and we need to create the same experience and culture Nike does to drive demand and loyalty to their products”

Never mind that the industry segment is sewage treatment technology or the product is road salt. Make it pop, sucka! How many of you design professionals can relate to John Barratt, president and CEO of Teague in Seattle:

“I can’t tell you how many how many product briefs we get saying we want a product that’s as good or better than the iPhone,” he says. “That’s a five-alarm brief for me..those folks just don’t get it. An iPhone is not a product. It’s a manifestation of a culture.”

It’s that kind of no-bullshit take on the power of design to transform a company and an economy that makes Greene’s book so endearing, refreshing, and such a swift read.
For those of you who still think you’ve got what it takes to check your egos at the door, throw caution to the wind in the face of financial pressure, and actually find out what your customers want instead of what you can give them, here’s something you should know. Good design isn’t what you think it is.

• It’s not an emotive image with pithy text and a dope beat from a band named Mooseknuckle.
• It’s not a box made of hemp fiber in the shape of condor’s nest that was — be honest – an afterthought to hold your clever “Must-have” eco product.
• It’s not even the promise of a new piece of software that reports it will solve world hunger with a user interface you’re sure is so easy even a chimp can use it.

It’s how a product works in the hands of your customers. It may be easy to use or pleasing to look at, but if it doesn’t solve a pain it’s a waste of time and money. “If there’s no pet peeve, there’s no product,” says Alex Lee, president of OXO.

Thus, the title of the book absconds with the Steve Jobs quote: “It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

Whether that’s the tried-(or trite?)and-true of form following function, an evolution of tired phrases like “out of the box thinking”or new fangled concepts like Design Thinking permeating all disciplines to foster organizational creativity — the bottom line is you need to know your customers better than they know themselves. The only way to do that is to get your hands dirty and actually engage with them where they will put your product to use. The book gives some great examples of how and where to do that in the profiles on OXO, REI, Nike and Lego.

So, for me, the book is a call to get your head out of the freaking clouds or at least out of your own building.  It’s time to stop aspiring and start perspiring. There’s plenty of work to be done learning about what your customers need to cure their pet peeves. Build those products and they will come.

And, instead of leaving you with a cheesy movie line platitude, here’s a more actionable treat from Jay  Greene himself when I swapped a note asking for him to clarify design thinking and discuss ways all companies can infuse their operations with the principles of design thinking:

“Like industrial designers, design thinkers use creativity and empathy to help them craft something that has an emotional connection with customers. They prototype concepts and collaborate with colleagues to test theories and come up with novel approaches to new products. The difference is that design thinkers apply those concepts to businesses, such as software-as-a-service, that people don’t typically think of as being design-focused. They use anthropology, sociology and psychology to study customers in order to understand their unstated and unmet needs. They prototype strategies and experiences much the same way that companies model early versions of physical products. So if you’re looking for strategies for companies to implement to create iconic products, design thinking would be a great place to start.”

Here, here!