Communivations

The recession of 2008-9 will be seen in retrospect as the birth of the Age of Transition. People like my wife, who worked for one company her entire career, will be an anomaly from this point forward. According Seth Godin in his new book, Tribes, he believes that “stability is an illusion,” and through his work experience and working with brokers on the NYSE on managing change and transition, that we live in a world that is forever in ‘beta.’

Godin goes on to say that ‘humans need to belong’; thus his thesis for the book Tribes.

My thought on that is that instead of being called human beings, we should actually begin thinking of ourselves as ‘human becomings.’

Social media provide us the tools necessary for us to not only ‘track’ our own progress and journey, but those that are in our community and tribe.

Still, social media as a stand-alone won’t and shouldn’t be viewed the end-all killer app. Nope, you still need skills besides being a twitterati. You also need to have some topographical understanding of the business landscape.

Our work with a number of NYSE members took that approach, and by using an assessment tool provided by Saville Consulting called The Wave, we provided those attending the workshop with a road map and a personal assessment that allowed them to more effectively navigate their job performance and even life after the NYSE.

Most tools were developed twenty years ago or more. With a deeper understanding of one’s own strengths and weaknesses, the individual possesses a higher probability of performing above average at a minimum.

The Saville Wave™ Professional Styles and Wave Focus Styles assessment provided a personal framework that identified not only areas of opportunity, but also the type of corporate environment that would allow them to flourish.

We are just beginning to understand the potential that social media can offer; now we are tweaking our own social media marketing metrics in order to represent with accuracy.