Having a ‘real’ job helps you to define yourself.  You might be a graphic designer, a chemical engineer, a nurse or gardner.  But when you are a consultant, the question “Who are you” is largely up to you to define.  This is the challenging (yet exciting!) situation I have placed myself in. Doing this for one main, steady company and doing other projects on the side (which is what I have been doing for years) is MUCH different than all contracting and consulting.  What a fun time it has been so far!

When I talk to either one person or a large hall of people about what I do, I get so excited!  The possibilities for them are HUGE!  Most people, because they don’t understand all this, do not realize the impact and savings of time, money and other resources that they would see.  And when they finally take the plunge it is wonderful to see their eyes light up and get just as excited as I am.  It is even better when they experience, first hand, the effects and become a hero in their organizations.  Maybe that is what I do – I create heros.  Hmmm.  I need to think about that more!

Selling myself, however, has never been my strongest attribute.  I just want to get in, do a great job and show them how to make some real gains.  My ‘proof in the pudding’ is my work, not a hyped up sense of self.  BUT, I do realize that to be able to be a part of those projects I have to so some selling.  So I have taken a stab at defining myself in a more generic way.  I have decided to do it as a post instead of in a doc that I horde myself.  Feel free to make any comments.

Where is my focus?

Primary focus: Using social media and social networking for performance improvement and customer communication.

Secondary Focus: Using social media for marketing; creating performance improvement solutions including learning environments and curriculum; creating and delivering the training (standup, eLearning, etc.).

What does the Primary Focus look like?

• Education on how social media / networking can drastically increase performance improvement and customer communications through keynotes, conference sessions, workshops, webinars, trainings, writings
• Setting strategy – Working with key stakeholders to identify
  • Goals / objectives
  • Resources
  • Culture which will help or hinder project
  • Roles & responsibilities
  • Skills and abilities of employees
  • Current vs. future processes / procedures
  • Timelines, milestones, tasks and measurements of success
• Implementation
  • Managing the project
  • Creating the environment culturally
  • Creating the environment technically
  • Educating all involved on all levels
  • Marketing (internally & externally)
• Ongoing management and support

How have businesses benefited from this?

• Increase in
  • sales
  • time to ‘onboard’ a new employee
  • innovation and idea creation
  • the customer ‘working’ for the company for free
  • finding and exploiting new and untapped markets and industry potential
  • finding necessary information
  • finding the experts in a given subject
  • communication with and between employees
  • communication with customers
  • finding answers to questions
  • brining out and storing the knowledge and wisdom of employees and customers
  • working and more efficient processes
  • focus on direction for employees and customers
  • customers supporting themselves and each other
  • customer feedback
  • effectiveness of training
• Decrease in
  • customer support instances and time/instance
  • number of meetings and meeting time
  • number of emails
  • redundant tasks (duplication of efforts)

Current Side Projects

• Director of the Social Learning Special Interest Group for ASTD’s Cascadia chapter
• Co-Host of the  Social Learning Strategies and Trends Podcast (iTunes link)
• Creator & co-administrator of the Social Learning Question of the Day on Twitter (@slqotd)
• Finishing a master’s of Instructional & Performance Technology from Boise State Universtiy with a thesis on using social media / networking as an EPSS (Electronic Performance Support System)

I am pretty blessed to work with some pretty smart people.  Those in the industries of social media, search engine optimization and marketing (SEO / SEM), Learning and eLearning  and hardware & software.

So, that is who I am – my self reflection.

I work with some people who are self-proclaimed masters at people manipulation.  And it truly is a talent (when used correctly).  That is just not me.  I am much more black and white.  I am a bad liar and manipulator.  The uncomfortableness is apparent on my face when I try – so I don’t.  But watching this shows the power (hopefully used for good) of subliminal messages.

Originally taken off a tweet from Tony Karrer pointing to a blog by Teemu Arina, this Youtube video amazed me.  (I guess it shouldn’t, but it does.)

How might we use this same concept – or something similar – to ‘sell’ social learning to executives?

Image by Steve Keys via Flickr

One thing I am not is a natural salesman.  I have given it the old college try in past lives, but it was not my cup of tea.  Until I found that if I LOVED the product (like I do this) I can sell anything.

At the beginning, after having this social learning idea in my head for awhile, I realized that what I needed to do was sell it.  So, I tried.  I told people what social learning was, how it might work and why they would like to use it.  It took some time, but I realized that I had this all backwards. Let me explain…

The first time I tried to introduce social learning to an organization, I created a plan and took it to my boss.  He asked a few questions and said, “I like it.  I like it a lot.  But we would need to explain this to the president.  He wouldn’t get it like this.  Redo it and come back.”  So, I did.  I tried to explain it a different way and went back.  Again, his reaction was, “Still good stuff, but the president won’t get it.”  So, for the third time I restructured it, tried another way of explaining it and gave it to my boss.  His reaction this time surprised me.  He said, “Oh, now I get it! I love it!  That is exactly what we need.  Let’s talk to the president about this.”

I suddenly realized that my boss was just being nice the first two times.  He could tell there was something there, but from my explanations he couldn’t put his finger on it.  It wasn’t until I talked about something that was near and dear to his hear and applied social learning to that, that he finally got it.

The first two times I explained WHAT it was, HOW it worked and WHY we should do it.  What I needed to do was the opposite: WHY / HOW / WHAT. But to even deliver the first part I needed to understand why he wanted to hear about it.  Only at that point could I deliver an effective ‘WHY’.

When we talk about they WHY, they listen.  Then we tell them how we can help them with the “HOW”.  Then comes the “What”.  But often times we don’t even need to tell them the ‘What’ at this point because they make up their own ‘What’.  I don’t care what they call it.  Just as long as they know why it will help them and how it may work.

Previously I approached explaining social learning leading with a noun instead of a verb.

When we start with a verb we are stating what it is doing, the action, state or relation this thing may have.  There is the real value.  Nouns don’t intrinsically have value.  That something is expressed by a verb.

I know this almost seems like a rudimentary grammar or sales lesson, but it is an important point.  We must teach the WHYs behind social learning.  Teach the verbs.  Then let them apply it to their situation and their circumstances and they will understand it.  Too often I have watched people get caught up in the ‘What’ only to find that they are not having success.

So to help you articulate what social learning is, we will cover the 11 WHY’s in the following posts, all focused on the verbs – focused on what social learning does.

Do you have any short “I did it wrong” stories you can share?

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