As some readers may know, I have written in the past of the growing issue of people working in their own ways , at their own rhythms, in their own style and so on (for example, a year ago here at AppGap in "I’ll Do It My Way – The Mass Customization of Work") … much of which has been enabled by the use of software and the Web in so many areas of the workplace. Also, many of my friends into social computing around the world … like Harold Jarche, Euan Semple, Jeneane Sessum, Bruce Stewart, Johnnie Moore, Anne Marie McEwan, Ton Zijlstra, Rob Patterson, Jenny Ambrozek, Matthew Hodgson, Bertrand Duperrin, Olivier Amprimo, Dave Pollard, and others I have neglected to mention .. have been tracking and writing about this growing phenomenon in their own ways.
I got this (below) in an email newsletter from Dominique Turcq, an ex-McKinsey strategy consultant, ex-SVP eStrategy for Manpower, and a founder of France’s BoostZone Institute, and one of the thought leaders in France regarding the impact of social media on business strategy, structure and operation.
As Dominique notes, it’s quite interesting that this launched during the beginnings of what promises to be a large and enduring period of employment-loss-and-reorientation.
Executives, HR professionals and line managers may be able to learn a lot from understanding better how people network, tell each other about opportunities, what they actually think about certain kinds of work, and so on. So, too, may many people looking for work who are not yet used to the dynamics and occasional magic of online social networks.
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MyPath, a Career Destination – Manpower’s Web 2.0 Experiment
In this Beta world, in the middle of a crisis touching employees and employers, when so many ask themselves questions about their career, Manpower is launching a very open Beta experimental destination called MyPath.
It is fundamentally a community site and a career management destination with tools allowing one to identify his her skills, finding others to share ideas with about jobs and career advancement, etc. It is open because it is for everybody and not only for "candidates" looking for jobs. Actually it could even be an interesting destination for employers to recommend their employees to go to (instead of job-boards where few employers would recommend their employees to hang around …).
It is still an experiment in beta format, still only mostly oriented toward North America, still lacking some size and content (was launched today) but one can already see the potential such a destination can have for the World of Work.
I would suggest that you go, you register and you comment anywhere on the site. From a social media perspective and from a World of Work perspective it is extremely interesting. In particular because, differently from all existing employment-related destination sites, it does not aim at forcing you into a job posting (for employers) or a job search (for individuals) but it is here to help individuals to build their career.
The fact that Manpower launches this in a crisis period (the staffing industry is in devastation) and with the real aim of helping individuals to better find their way into the World of Work is a great example of corporate social responsibility at work.
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Jon, thanks for sharing the Manpower link and the mention.
Your post made me think about how far the term “social” has come in business. I’ve heard Valdis Krebs describe how when he first started applying “social” network analysis at IBM in the early 90’s there was push back from senior executives. The methodology was rebranded “organizational” network analysis and projects progressed.
Last year I had the privilege of interviewing Serena Software’s Kyle Arteaga about their newsmaking move late 2007 in migrating their intranet to a Facebook Group. Kyle highlighted their discovering the positive impact more knowledge employees had about each other through becoming “Facebook Friends” had on working relationships.
http://snurl.com/72tll
We’ve come a long way from early concerns about computers handicapping personal relationships to seeing the latest generation of collaboration tools and people networking platforms enable human connections and value creation in ways I certainly never imagined.
Hi, Jenny .. thanks for stopping by.
Yes, I remember Valdis describing that change in perception / orientation … so little and so simple it makes you wonder, huh (no, not really 😉 ?
Kyle highlighted their discovering the positive impact more knowledge employees had about each other through becoming “Facebook Friends” had on working relationships.
Well, imagine that .. who’da thunk ?