Management: What if Your Job Was More Like Facebook …
Kung Fu Drafter
You would have to been a hermit of the black belt degree to not know what Facebook is. Since Facebook has filed for their IPO last week, all the tech world has been abuzz with chatter, speculation, and dollar signs. Whether you are an “active” lover of the social media giant, or look down your nose at it (like we do) there is no denying that Facebook is a disruptor of all sorts.
What’s the Value
Since the beginning, Facebook has dedicated itself to enticing its user-base into sharing all of their personal information. Hobbies, kids' names, relationship status, and baby photos are all among the building blocks that form Facebook’s walled garden. All in an effort to provide advertisers with better demographic information.
Why? So advertisers can better target ads at you. The logic being that ads which are more relevant will be more welcome and therefore more effective. Who wouldn’t want to do away with annoying ads that have nothing to do with your personal interests?
We are Signal Broadcasters
So Facebook wants to know about our hobbies, kids' names, relationship status, and baby photos? But is that so unique? Do we only “generate” that information, those “signals” when we log into the big blue site? Or are we constantly shedding those information cues? Of course we are!
For most of us the two places we spend the bulk of our time is at home and the office. So if we are signaling and collecting signals from those around us at home to make our lives better and richer and Facebook is doing it online, then why aren’t our businesses?
What if Work Were More Like a Facebook Advertiser
Facebook faced (no pun intended) to the problem of collecting data from a massively diverse population. Coincidentally they faced a similar problem of helping a diverse ecosystem of advertisers reaching their market. To solve these issues, Facebook began listening and noting what the interests of individuals were through interactive activities. This helped them to aggregate information to provide information, advertisements, and more activities that were tailored to individuals thus increasing the likeliness of these people paying attention and interacting.
Is that really so different from your engineering, architectural, or design office?
For example a small to medium civil firm has a population of employees that is diverse with varying interests and goals. Some employees may be deeply interested in the green movement while others are focused on the application of new materials in design and still others are laser fixated on governmental rules and regulations. These are broad signals that are generated daily.
We don’t hide them, we flaunt them. If you were to stop and think of a coworker, most people could name that person’s hobby, age range, and number of kids with little effort. A bit more thinking and you realize you know a great deal about the people who work for you and who you work with. So why not use this information to better target them?
The Hybrid Resource / Investor Scenario
Our company workforces are normally referred to as “human resources” and we think that is an ugly phrase. But they are also investors who, on a daily basis, pay into the equity of our businesses. They not only want to have a job, they want to succeed and will be more likely to interact with pay attention to projects that are aligned with their interests.
Sounds a little like Facebook advertising, doesn’t it? Facebook wants to know about you so it can bring you things that you want to interact with. So shouldn’t your being doing the same?
Imagine the diverse nature of the job types available to a civil firm. So why are firms fixated on being a “X” firm that hires “X” industry employees? Why are we not fixated on being a diverse firm who listens to its workforce population in order to pursue and deliver jobs that are targeted to its population interests and passions?
Wouldn’t these jobs, jobs that align with our interests, have a greater depth of passion and interaction? Wouldn’t that naturally lend itself to a greater degree of attention, success, and quality. Isn’t this the way we raise a commodity service in a price-sensitive economy to a premiere value status?
Win Win When
Maybe we are just being pie in the sky thinkers. Many “old-school” business people would say “If you go to work for a civil firm you should be a civil person so whatever work comes in should be fine.” Maybe they are right. Or rather they would have been right in the late 19th century. But 21st-century America is an increasingly diverse, information-based economy populated by intelligent information workers.
We know there is more to every “type of business” than the same job we do over and over. Designing the same road, laying out the same roof, changing the dimensions on the same sheet metal panel isn’t enough to attract and maintain talented, skilled labor. Diversity and challenge that allows people to make a difference in this world on their terms is what does that.
Maybe, just maybe there are companies who view “human resources” as real resources. Resources who are signal generators broadcasting their passions and strengths in a plea for projects they can make a difference both in their world and their firm. Maybe some day every company will collect signals from their information workers the way Facebook listens to its users …
- KFD -
Image credits: Wikimedia Commons, Facebook, Ken Banks, and Jean Jacques.
Reader Comments (1)
Great post guys! Interesting perspective.