New Way 2 Work

The main reason why I want to share the video below with everyone through a blog post is to further emphasize the point made about social media is the NEXT major change in the way we humans communicate with one another regarding a certain issue, topic, product or service.

In the past five years, technology has played a major part in influencing the way we functions, even in the least mechanical of human behaviors–like socializing. Today, Science Bloggers are taking a close look at how the social media explosion is affecting the world.

Forget about hard and direct selling towards potential customers. Consumers nowadays are equipped with various tools on how to make an informed decision prior to getting their butt off the chair to get your product or services. We have the not-so-old forums to help us out in our decision making through the wisdom of crowds where people of the same interest congregate in one specific platform. In the video, you will see that 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations. What does that show? We consumers prefer to hear it from someone who is just like us – the normal consumers themselves, about the product rather than giving in to those flaky advertisements on the television, radio and prints.

Social media is so much more than just people sharing ideas and thoughts with other people, it is the creation and exchange of ‘User Generated Content’ – the ability to transform broadcast media monologues into a social media dialogues. A platform where information is spread out so fast and widely that puts television, radio and print media to shame.

Socialnomics: Social Media Revolution from Erik Qualman on Vimeo.

From the numbers in the video, we could see how fast Facebook took to reach 100 million users; less than 9 months. The numbers are so high that one could only imagine how it could help out in promoting your personal brand. More and more people are coming in to tap into this rapidly growing market, even Apple. Ride the wave of evolution or lose out ultimately at the end, it’s your choice.

To sum it up, you want to be where the people are; Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn and other social media sites. Go to them rather than wait for them to come to you, the vast sea of connection is so huge that it’s all up to you how do you want to tap it.

Possibly related posts:

• 4 Social Media Questions Answered
• Despite Social Media Claims, Census is a Potential $340 Million Money Pit
• Twittering Teens? – Other Topical Questions

Recently I was commuting on one of the roads of Bangalore which also had a flyover wing attached to it. I was in the autorikshaw and the driver suddenly climbed the flyover, I was actually supposed to take the road and not the flyover. It took me a while to realize that I was not on the road but on the flyover. I asked the him, why did he do that and mislead me? He said, “No madam, this goes to the same place, and no tension of traffic jam”. I felt like a fool and kept my mouth shut and left him to lead.

I really felt that I was truly on the ’superhighway’ without traffic and reaching my destination probably 10-15 minutes earlier, or may be even 30 minutes, you know about traffic jams,

I could relate this incident to our day to day life. We are so unaware of the resources that we have, and simply keep doing something that we are already familiar with, rather than exploring a new way, especially in our work places. We do hit a road block, but still continue to do the same, simply because we cannot find a new way of dealing with the situation.

I came across a strange instance while I was working on a recent project of mine. We were a group of 3 people and all good team members. While at lunch, we were the perfect 3 idiots, but when it came to our project, we just failed to be on the same page at the same time. This caused us to loose a lot of time in reviews, discussing the same points again and again, and reorienting from scratch. I really thought we were the best knowledge workers around - all up to date in technology, gadget freaks and good social networking. Just could not figure out what was going wrong, until one day we sat down and thrashed it out. We realized that we did follow the best practices for project management, had the know-how, but just missed those little details which actually had the potential to give the project a new dimension or the required fillip.

Why did that happen, we felt? I thought, because we were not able to capture those thoughts or reactions of ours, which we felt were quite informal or off the records when the project was concerned. But guess what, that was the crux of the matter. Then we started sticking copious remarks on each others notepads, which we soon realized that we will end up something like this -

Soon we realized that we should start leveraging the technology that is available to us - the internet - where we have everything when we want and, isn’t a bother when we don’t. We wanted a tool which could help us collaborate quickly, give our individual inputs, while working together as a team. And guess what, we did crack it, we figured out that there’s not one but quite a few. It was truly an amazing experience, to see how we were just a few days back struggling to get things done and, the next instance, just in no time to have all information stored in one single place and even communicate in a better way.

This experience just took me back to my autorickshaw ride. The flyover ’superhighway’ was just there, but the only difference was that I had not explored it and just had a thought in my own mind(block) that it does not lead to where I want; the journey is sometimes better if we are lead.

It made me just wonder, how powerful could internet be?

Then was that the ‘information superhighway’ which was talked about in 1990s that bridged geographies, but is this, the one now, which is even real-time.

I worked for a large IT organization for a decade, and every single day I said to myself I need a better work life balance and also a ‘better life balance‘ !! When I told my manager I wanted to take work home, most of them smiled and assumed that I wanted to take more work!! I would wait for opportunities and forums to explain how employers can help strike a right balance when nothing is more important than life. I was not willing to spend an extra second @ work…so, I came to a conclusion that I am not designed to work like a machine resulting in poor health and lower morale.

Fortunately times have changed, I found a new job with a negotiation on my work hours. While I continue to work in an IT organization with higher responsibilities, I noticed a new change in the way I did my day to day work to achieve maximum output in limited hours. No, I was not given any training on this, I just followed the key trends to work smartly. Some tips that will come handy to get more work done in less time – Self branding: Generate ideas , it takes the least time but more thinking, and most valued by employer than hours put in. This will build you a lot of credibility with in your organization. Make use of social media – Web is truly information packed now, you can play around and get every piece of information you need easily. Use social media /collaboration tools extensively to organize your work, improve communication, collaborative approach to team work .Collaboration tools and techniques facilitate work from anywhere any time thus reducing your physical presence @ office

Become a web worker – Keep web in mind all the time, change your approach to emails. This will help stay on top of happenings inside your network /organization. Agile portfolioManagement- FollowAgile development processes for better collaboration, innovation, and results.

Work and work place continues to evolve in the coming years beyond recognition which will allow every individual to give the best …before I signing off i want you to watch this video ..you might find it interesting …

In this video Injoos team discusses how the working model has changed with the Social collaboration tools like Injoos, Twitter, facebook etc. The members provide comparison of how work was conducted a few years back in organization and how it has  taken a dramatic turn. The advantages of this new way to work include:

* Helping employees work form Anytime-Anywhere (Telecommuting is now a common phenomenon among knowledge workers)

* How purchase of Software and Hardware is now eliminated with models like SAAS & Cloud Computing

* How startups can cope with lack of funds by using these new technologies. Basically live in the cloud.

Watch the video and let me know your story.

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