If you see yourself as a tech leader, be willing to put your money where your pen is
MY FRIEND, who is a Vice-President with a technology start-up in Bengaluru, called me the other day with a problem. His company was growing fast and he needed to recruit aggressively. He was finding it hard to attract star programmers and architects he needed — his company was no Facebook or Google to get the best knocking at the door. He needed the same, if not a better, caliber of people as Google, and he needed it fast.
He decided that he would need to hire a full-time
recruiter, whose job would be to attract, hire, and manage talent by
creating a unique differentiated positioning for his company. He called
me to seek my advice on how to best define such a role, as it went
beyond that of a conventional recruiter. I told him that I knew exactly
the kind of person he needed — someone like a Morgan Missen, the Talent
Manager for FourSquare in San Francisco. So, who is this Morgan Missen,
and why did she come to mind when my friend talked about his hiring
issues?
Morgan Missen is a brand by herself. In a short
span of eight years, she has spent in the tech world in SFO; she has
built a strong network with the best of the best software engineers,
product managers and UI professionals — people who are the building
blocks for product companies anywhere in the world. She knows where to
find them, and more importantly, what they are looking for. She
brainstorms with the product folks in her company to figure out how to
create the best environment for them to work in.
In today’s hyper-competitive market for tech talent, Morgan happens to
be running one of the most critical functions in an innovation driven
company— how to get the best into the door, and inspire them to produce
the best they are capable of. No wonder that she is listed as one of the
top women in tech on Tumblr! She figures in all forums with CEOs,
Venture Capitalists and Founders. She has redefined the lowly
tech-recruiter role, which is typically very transactional, into a
highly strategic talent-management role, by seeing the bigger picture
and delving deep into the nitty-gritty of execution. It is rumoured that
Ashton Kutcher , one of the key investors in FourSquare, personally
called and convinced her to accept the FourSquare job offer!
SNAPSHOTS
- If you are a doctor, consider your patient as a partner. Pool all the data and then come up with a diagnosis and treatment that you discuss with him/her before implementation
- In the new world, we are going to be valued for how best we use the ubiquitously available info; process it into knowledge and act on it to produce results
This is but one example of how roles, along with
hiring qualifications, are changing in the 21st century. When Twitter
and Tumblr came along a few years ago, not too many people realised that
it would completely change the role of a journalist as we knew it
before. Today, you get news, that too breaking news, on Twitter from
people who have never thought of themselves as reporters. Well-written
analysis on new products, services, financial transactions, political
upheavals, natural disasters, policy issues, etc., are available on a
variety of blogs written by amateurs — folks who are extremely well
qualified in these subjects, and write very well too!
Recently, one such person decided to write a
post on the acquisition of Instagram by Facebook, and put it up for sale
on Gumroad.com for $1/download! A recent Pew Research Centre survey
found that 37 percent of American internet users or 29 percent of the
population, had ‘contributed to the creation of news, commented about it
or disseminated it via postings on social-media sites like Facebook or
Twitter’.
What it implies is that, in today’s world, if you
want to be a journalist, you need to think and act very differently from
yesteryear journalists. Take the case of Michael Arrington. As the
editor of TechCrunch, an influential tech blog, Arrington initially
stirred a hornet’s nest when he combined investing with reporting. But
looking back, it’s apparent that Arrington was only an early precursor
of the change that would sweep the publishing world. Are you willing to
put your money where your pen is? Are you doing such a thorough job of
evaluating the business and product you are writing about, that you
don’t hesitate to invest in them if there is an opportunity? Let the
readers decide if they find what you write credible or not, with full
disclosures, is the new mantra.
Today’s journalist has to do a lot more
research, and dive deeper into issues, to build credibility and hold an
audience; just the fact that he is affiliated with a big name
publication, or the impression that he is supposedly neutral will not
get him page views any longer! Yet it is a great opportunity for many
who once aspired to be journalist, but got stuck in other professions as
it happens invariably in India! Go ahead and start writing —if that is
what you always wanted to do — you never know where you will reach one
day. Tomorrow’s best-known journalist might just be a lawyer or a
marketing executive today.
Even medicine, the holy grail of all
professions, is not immune to this transformation. Yesterday’s doctors
were no less than God. Their words carried weight, and often were taken
as the Gospel Truth. Ask any doctor today, and he or she will tell you
how the tables have turned. Patients come armed with information
gathered from a variety of sources, most of all, the internet. Eight in
10 internet users are hitting the web to get their health-related
questions answered, according to the Pew Internet and American Life
Project. They question the doctor’s diagnosis and they pick holes in his
treatment strategy. This, of course, enrages many doctors who still
hold the opinion that patients should quietly listen and do as they say.
However, if you are a doctor in today’s world,
the wiser reaction would be to change the way you work. Is it possible
to consider the patient as a partner, a very interested one at that,
listen to him with respect, pool all the data together, and maybe then
come up with a diagnosis and treatment, that you discuss with him and
then implement. What if you communicated directly with patients, online,
cutting out today’s red tape.
This, by the way, is exactly what Jay Parkinson,
a doctor in Brooklyn, New York, did in 2007. He opened up his Google
calendar to his patients, so that they could enter their appointment
time online. He made housecalls. And he kept in touch with his patients
using all the available communication media at his disposal, like Skype,
phone and email.
His practice grew rapidly, and he then went on
to build a product, HelloHealth, that all other doctors can use to work
with their patients in a more transparent manner. In today’s world, it
is better to be proactive, and seize the opportunity to move ahead
rather than get thrown out by the winds of change. The first step
towards this is the ability to step back and take a look at what you do,
and what you need to change, in the context of the new environment.
Every role and every profession will, hereon, be
changing in the next decade. Salman Khan, the erstwhile Wall Street
executive, is the world’s numero-uno school teacher today, credited with
causing an earthquake-like upheaval in education with his Khan Academy!
He has no particular teaching credentials, and neither is he part of
any big-name institution! But his lessons, hosted on
www.khanacademy.org, were viewed by 3.9 million unique visitors as of
2011, with students coming from Bangladesh, India, Finland, and many
other countries besides the US.
Prasad Bharat Ram, the erstwhile R&D head of
Google India has set-up Gooru.com, an online education portal that one
can use to easily access in one place, all the educational content
available on the internet.
Now, with so many lessons, exercises, and many
other forms of content becoming available for free on the internet,
teachers are trying to figure out how they can add value by going beyond
what is available on the net.
Can they co-opt the online lessons into their
teaching process, and then build a layer of individual attention that
they and only they, having the student close at hand, can provide? Yes,
but it requires re-orientation; it will require teachers to spend more
time understanding what’s out there, understanding each student, and a
willingness to partner with them to help them learn better.
I can go on and on. This scenario is playing out
in profession after profession across the world today. Technology, the
ubiquitous availability of information, and the explosion of new
communication media, are, together, fundamentally altering the nature of
work and professions as we know them today.
Very few of us are going to be immune from the
effects of this relentless change occurring around us. We are no longer
going to be valued, and respected, for the ‘information’ we possess or
hoard. That is becoming more and more freely available now.
We are going to be valued for how best we use
the ubiquitously available information, how we process it into
knowledge, and act on it to produce results. Time for each of us to take
a hard look in the mirror…hopefully, there’s a Morgan Missen staring
back!
