This post was originally published on Aunclicdelastic in Spanish, here.
In a previous post, “Employee digital skills as key for Digital Transformation“, I enumerated what those skills were: information management, continuous learning, communication and collaboration and social networking. On this occasion, I would like to go further into the latter, social networking, and more specifically in one of its least known forms, “Working Out Loud” (WOL), taking advantage of this week being the WOL Week, seven days in which WOL practitioners introduce this practice, connect with other people who use it in their daily lives and, ultimately, encourage their use by the great advantage it provides for both personal and professional environments.
As John Stepper defines in his excellent book “Working Out Loud”, WOL is to make our work visible so that it helps others, and in doing so, working in an open, generous and connected way, building a network of people that make us more effective in what we do, and at the same time allowing us to access to new opportunities.
Under this new paradigm of work, the use of tools of the so called Web 2.0 like social networks, personal blogs, video portals, etc., where we become content creators, are certainly very helpful to communicate and share what we do. They help us grow our network and gradually earn a personal reputation which will be our main asset in a market where the management of our knowledge and our ability to communicate and collaborate with others is a key factor of our skills as professionals.
From the company’s point of view, this kind of practice allows employees to work transversely with colleagues from other areas, beyond departmental silos, and to share knowledge without the corset that often involves specific training activities. Unveil the called “tacit knowledge” of some employees, real experts in a matter within the company, that otherwise would be very difficult to convey.
But WOL is not only about sharing, but also fostering a deep reflection on what our personal and professional goals are and, by sharing our work, new opportunities to move towards our goals are generated. It is a process that takes us from defining our vision to contribute selflessly and consistently in our network to produce a change in the way we view our work. Appeals to the intrinsic motivation of people to feel more purposeful in what we do, being our current job, remember that employee engagement is a key factor among others for building the company’s reputation, or to promote the appearance of new opportunities, labor or not.
But how do you work out loud? Is it just about having a blog to write about our projects, tweet everything we do or share some finished work in Word or PowerPoint format through Slideshare, Dropbox, etc.? Yes and no. Indeed, as I said before, it is about sharing, and this includes the above examples, but not in a chaotic and disorganized way but to contribute generously and without expecting anything in return from our network; a group of people that we will have previously identified, who we follow in social networks, read their blogs, attend their lectures – we are interested in their recommended reading, etc. We hope to connect openly and with the assistance of advice, collaboration, mentions, etc. that we consider important in order to achieve our goals.
If you are already convinced that working out loud can help you but don´t know where to start, the starting point is to identify your network and later, systematically, contribute to it. There are two previous questions you need to wonder: what can you offer?, and who would benefit from that contribution?Below are some examples, but there are many more:
– Answer questions that make someone in your network.
– Make a comment on someone else’s work, an article for example.
– Share your ideas, challenges, or something that you have learned.
– Alert on mistakes in achieving something so that other people do not repeat.
– Offer to introduce someone to a third party.
– Offer your abilities and your time.
Do you subscribe to work out loud? #WOL
This post was originally published on Aunclicdelastic in Spanish, here.
