Dr. Neil Hair

I recently had the pleasure of serving on a panel of RIT forward thinkers for the Wallace Center at RIT. Liz Lawley, Enid Cardinal, Ryne Raffaelle and Mike Johansson gathered with the purpose of identifying top practices or tips for forward thinking. Several gems were shared including;

1. Consider your network sacred – it holds all of the answers to future problems if you engage or follow the right people.

2. Forget local news – focus on whats happening internationally in science and technology and make a daily commitment to it.

3. Shower, drive, day dream, and find yourself in waiting rooms more often. The down time of these daily events and activities can provide great 'thinking time' to ponder problems and solutions.

4. Play more! See exploration of new things as a form of play time. Give yourself an hour and invest in exploration of new software, worlds, techniques, stuff.. low risk, low investment, high potential ROI.

5. Learn to spot patterns of conversation in social networks – who shares common insights on issues that are not normally related or connected to each other? A great way of spotting higher level patterns of thinking regards new concepts.

6. Have FUN more often thinking about the future. Pontificate – naval gaze – identify common problems that might be solved by a little additional investment of time and energy.

7. Fail more! Its ok to FAIL. Failure shows us what the limitations of a system are, and how we might pick ourselves up and succeed more often.

8. Join the dots more. Plan on paper, problems towards possible solutions. Think about goals. A goal-less life is an unhappy life (or is it?).

9. Don't allow yourself the luxury of the 'I have no time to think about the future' argument. You have plenty of time to watch TV, read books / magazines, surf the net.

10. Think backwards. Chart a position in the future. Picture it – and then work backwards. Like setting goals, backward scenario planning can do wonders for forward thinking.
 

Several high profile stories recently hit the social media airwaves. One – a chap being sued for keeping his twitter followers by a former employer, and another for having ticked the 'career opportunities' box. Crazy times it seems for those of us who believe in the power of a well built, nurtured network of like minded individuals! It seems that there are an increasing number of potential pitfalls in this space. A few thoughts on how to avoid the main issues;

1. Personal versus private. Should I accept my bosses facebook friend request? Should I friend a prospective hire? Should I stay 'friends' with an ex-employee? Some a little easier to answer than others and we see many turning towards two or more facebook accounts as a way of segmenting content for different 'markets'. A classic marketing problem is it not? Likewise Twitter, where do I draw the line between being a professional and being a passionate home-brewer for instance? A balance is perhaps the answer here. Be mindful of the fact that the boss might get a little twitchy if you keep posting pictures of your mates stag night in Prague (especially if your mate is the boss!), but being a class A bore with no social commentary on any personal branded account leaves Jack a very dull person, who quite rightly deserves to spend his days smelling of elder flower.

2. Personal network versus professional network. Whereas the point above relates to content, this point relates to intended use. Personal networks can be extremely helpful in solving work related or personal problems (I need content ideas for a social media presentation in NYC versus I need a ride into NYC!). So too can professional networks that are perhaps less interested in what you had for dinner and more interested in the sorts of challenges you're facing in the work space. Again, I think a balance is needed, perhaps you start with two and migrate from one to the other as you get more comfortable with the nature of your relationship with the said individual. Perhaps the chap in the news could have avoided legal issues had he made it clear to his followers that he was changing his position and how they might continue to follow him – if they so chose to do so. Perhaps things could have been different had the employer made it clear in its governance policies that twitter accounts set up on behalf of the company were regarded as corporate real estate. Perhaps these issues could have been avoided had the poster included his alternative feed @someothername.

3. On the issue of that pointless 'interested in career opportunities' box. Lets talk semantics for a second. What on earth does that statement mean? Interested in a better job? within the same company? interested in a multi-million dollar account that might advance the career somewhat? Interested in getting some advice on how to be more competitive generally? WHAT does that statement mean? One could also argue that ones CULTURE and the nature of the semiotic that is the little box – REQUIRES someone to put a tick in it so it looks better on screen! (ok, maybe a little off base with that one but a lawyer might have fun trying to argue it). Irrelevant anyways – how on earth do you think head hunters operate? they sit and wait for the little box to be ticked before pouncing? The common sense assumption is that EVERYONE may or MAY NOT be interested in career opportunities – what ever that might mean. Nuff said.

4. Control. AA double edged sword. You facebook friend your boss and block your wall or restrict content. What does that say to the boss? Better yet – ask the question of your company openly – what is the policy on personal versus professional use of social networks? You don't want to offend anyone – or be honest – lets face it, you don't want to see pictures of me drooling over cats and kittens when you hired me to be in charge of multi-billion dollar acquisitions. Or better still, have a one rule policy that you stick with personally, regardless of how pally you are with a team mate – no work friends on facebook. Follow me on twitter and or linkedin which is more related to the content and context of my job.

5. Strategize! Think about what it is that you want to get out of your networks – of all shapes and sizes. What image are you trying to project? The personal branding concept. This should guide your actions and activities.

6. Common sense. It trumps all of the above. Some things just shouldn't be shared with social networks (the love of Barry Manilow for instance).