I’ve worked for 2 global organizations in my career and you come to accept your source for data to come from within the company. Changes in the economy and the information age have forced us to learn new ways to ‘farm’ new data sources. The last few weeks I have been engaged in a launch of a new IT services and solutions practice which reminded me of just how important it is to keep learning – and search for more when you know less.
“I still read the newspaper”
There I admit it – yes I still read the newspaper every morning (the Wall Street Journal). I saved the article on “The Search for Serendipity” by L. Gordon Crovitz (Monday, April 5, 2010). He makes the case that while the information age “have given us access to endless information from diverse sources, many of us focus on narrow topics.” He positions the role that a newspaper has in delivering relevant news and how editors present these varied topics. The reader needs to pick and choose their topics. Something that is missing in today’s endless streams of data. I am interested in a narrow set of topics for what I do, and it seems I also want to select how to put random topics together. It is that search for serendipity that I want on a daily basis.
“What I like and dislike about Social Media”
In my current role we are evaluating the use of Social Media to promote our IT services and solutions. In a recent webcast on Social Media “Online Marketing Innovation” http://bit.ly/b7oxIl – the presenter was Seth Godin, a well known marketer; we have about five years to learn how best to uses these tools. He pointed out that the next generation of consumers and decision makers has all grown up on Facebook. That the shift in advertising has changed. In the past it was the job of Marketing to get out the message via advertising. Consumers now have the power and products now need a following – a reason to want these new services and solutions.
In the area of IT services for Life Sciences and Healthcare nearly all of our competitors have common services. So the focus is on the creation of distinct ‘solutions.’ I am glad to say we have developed two new solutions, and that’s where Twitter and Blogs can help. I am personally not too sure about Facebook, at this time (still learning – will see). I hope to leverage these tools to create a subset of ‘followers’ who believe our solutions have purpose and are unique to this industry. I hope to write about this in future postings. I do see value in the use of Twitter and Blogs.
The need to learn
Coming up with ‘differentiation’ for any product or service for any industry (in my opinion) requires a focus on ‘innovation.’ The world continues to evolve at a rapid pace. I am not too sure what it will be like in five years. I have too much to do to think about that, so my focus is on ‘continuous learning.’ I came across a wonderful posting from Todd LaRoche entitled “What did you learn in school today?” (October 23, 2009) I would recommend reading this posting. Coming up with new ideas is not easy. We all need to learn something new each day. Hope this helps…..
Thanks, Jim