Research has consistently shown that high-performers – in terms of both career success and contribution to their organizations – have personal networks that are different from others. Observing people’s personal networks is one of the best ways to predict success. Building on ideas and references from an earlier post I made, here are some useful ways to understand high-performance personal networks.
CHARACTERISTICS OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE NETWORKS
People who are high-performers in their organizations and build successful careers have been shown to have different personal networks to their peers. Their personal networks have the following characteristics:
• Diversity. Their networks are highly diverse, across organizations, personal background, gender, hierarchy, area of expertise, and personality.
• Awareness. They are aware of who in their organization and beyond has particular talent, experience, and expertise.
• Visibility. Their own capabilities and expertise are visible in their organization and beyond. Others are aware of what they can do.
• Dynamic. They recognize that their personal networks need to and will change over time, and they make the time to create new relationships rather than simply maintaining their existing pattern of relationships.
• Investment. They continually take the time and effort to invest in their networks, both in maintaining existing relationships from their past and immediate work environment, and in building new relationships.
ENERGY IN NETWORKS
Energy is created in networks by collaborating to achieve worthwhile outcomes. When people interact with an energizer, they feel energized about possibilities and opportunities. When they interact with a de-energizer, they are more likely to feel deflated and unenthusiastic. Energizers are the real leaders in an organization, by creating positive momentum and activity.
There are six key behaviors that create energizing relationships:
• Have and communicate a compelling vision. Energizers can effectively communicate that there is something worthwhile that people can achieve together, and that it is achievable.
• Seek and acknowledge quality contributions. Energizers don’t think or say that they have the answer – they always actively seek out the best possibly contributions, and acknowledge those contributions to the group’s efforts.
• Interact constructively. Energizers focus on issues not personalities, and always look to build positively on people’s contributions.
• Make and fulfil commitments. Energizers do what they say. They recognize that if people see that others are doing their part, they will feel compelled to do theirs. However if people see that others are being slack, they will find no energy to do their allocated tasks.
• Give genuine attention to people. Energizers pay attention when people are speaking, listen to comprehend, and engage with others. They are interested in people and what makes them tick. They give time to people and their feelings, and do not treat them solely as a means to an end.
• Connect others. Energizers are alert to opportunities to introduce other people. More than trying to connect themselves, they see where people should be connected, and they make those valuable connections.
One of the great things about helping people enhance their personal networks is that it benefits both the individual and the organization. I am now consistently seeing leading organizations focus on helping their staff develop their personal networks. One of the best ways to use the characteristics of high-performance networks above is as the basis of a workshop, something which can also be done on a large scale at an offsite meeting. Done well, this builds people’s awareness of their current behaviors, and helps identify specific activities that will enhance their networks within their organization and beyond. Far better is to perform a social network analysis on the organizational group, so people have the data and comparisons to see how their networks are currently structured relative to their peers, and what they can do to enhance their own success.
A significant body of research has been done into energy in networks over the last few years. If you’re interested in delving deeper, the best starting point is What Creates Energy in Organizations, a paper by Rob Cross, Wayne Baker, and Andrew Parker that appeared in MIT Sloan Management Review, Summer 2003.
Reflections on EconSM conference
By Ross DawsonA few quick reflections on the EconSM conference before hopping on a plane… The event title, the Economics of Social Media, was certainly what attracted me, making this the first conference I’ve attended as a delegate rather than a speaker for probably five years. Just about the most pressing single issue for the media industry as a whole is what the business models will be for the emerging space of social media, neatly encapsulated in the event theme. In addition, Rafat Ali’s PaidContent has clearly established itself as one of the most authoritative publishing sources on the space.
It was great to find several hundred people in the one room where you could assume a high degree of understanding and knowledge on social media. There is something indefinable yet recognizable about a social media geek (or suit). The cast of attendees, let alone speakers, was very impressive, representing most of the really serious players in social media, including the large mainstream media organizations.
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EconSM: Social media meets news
By Ross DawsonThis was a great topic and a very interesting discussion, though it didn’t break new territory. One of the key themes was the perennial of what will be the business models for “serious” journalism. While the panellists all referred in some form to the “clinical depression” that the newspaper industry is finding itself in, there was also much optimism on the opportunity of creating and distributing quality content at low cost. The panel was heavily weighted to establishment players, giving the discussion the tone of incumbents. What was touched on but not really covered was the business models supporting the nexus of mainstream and social media. There are a wealth of new models for monetizing participation that go beyond plying people with ads, though not a word on these. Moderating user generated content was another key issue, with legal issues, taste, and keeping value for audiences. However the mechanics and costs of moderation were not covered. As with the last panel, we got some solid discussion, but few answers. Selected comments from the panellists:
“The zeitgeist in the newsroom is awful. We need to stop bellyaching and do something about it.”
“Journalists got snotty about bloggers. They deserved the slaps they got. We think there’s a place for traditional journalism to go against social-generated media. They’re complementary. The feedback mechanism of the blogosphere is pretty good for filtering user-generated news. As long as it’s transparent and relevant, it’s good to have it out there.”
“Newspapers have to stop rolling over and playing dead.”
“I was speaking to the 12-year old who runs Google News; he was saying that people don’t care where people news come from. I think people care where news comes from. It’s not just established brands; there are some great new brands, like PaidContent.”
“People still want a high quality product. Younger people still read the New York Times, just from the website rather than the paper.”
“The cost of putting up our site is so low, but we’re still high quality. It should be very easy to cover that in sales.”
“Google News is a parasite on the system, but it’s a useful parasite. Sam Zell is completely wrong.”
“We feel that free is better. We want to be part of the conversation. I wouldn’t dream of not being free.” (Referring to the WSJ’s new venture D: All Things Digital.)
Kara Swisher, Wall Street Journal
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Economics of Social Media – the role of Hollywood
By Ross DawsonI’m at the Economics of Social Media conference in LA. It’s now the third session, Social Media meets Hollwood. I’ll try to review some of the earlier discussions later.
The session was primarily about how mainstream media is complemented by social media, by building conversations about broadcast programs and among their viewers, and also how they are now creating social networks in their own right. On the former issue, it seems like a real no-brainer to facilitate conversations about programs, to build relationships and access. It is very interesting that networks are now presenting themselves as experts in building social networks, and making that a core part of their offer to advertisers. If they (or probably just a few of the existing mainstream broadcasters) can indeed leverage their existing relationships and expertise into this new space (as brought out in George Kliavkoff’s comments), this will provide a solid safety net and platform moving forward.
Here are some snapshost of issues raised by the panellists (not 100% verbatim).
“Anything that can do to raise rating, we’ll do. The more that people do online to be engaged, the more time they’ll spend watching the show. There were concerns that the online activities would cannibalize, but the opposite has been true. It’s helped ratings.”
“We’ve found that charting conversations about programs before they start accurately predicts their success.”
“If we have a sponsor who wanted to access a particular market, and there isn’t an existing social network, we’ll build the social network which will be underwritten by the marketer.” (There will be an announcement shortly on this)
George Kliavkoff, Chief Digital Officer, NBC Universal
“As discussion starts on our site, it radiates out to other parts of the web. It’s very powerful.”
“There are lots of launching pads for everyone.”
Alan Citron, General Manager, TMZ.com
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Robots, aged care, and emotional bonding with machines
By Ross DawsonNewsday has an interesting article out titled Independent at any age, examining how the elderly now have increased options to lead independent lives rather than being shunted off into homes. While most of the article deals with the issues such as occupational therapy and visiting programs, the final section moves on to how robots can assist senior citizens to live independently. I was interviewed on how robots are being used in health care generally, particularly in Japan, and quoted in the last section of the article:
I have written before about robots in aged care in Japan, therapeutic robots such as Paro the seal, Japanese robot otaku, and other similar examples. The point I was making in my interview for this article was that the primary role of robots in aged care – at this stage in any case – is practical, such as dispensing drugs, finding lost objects, calling for help, assisting people to move around, and so on. Many people think of robots as humanoid, but in fact most robots have no need to look like humans, and it is usually not functional to try to do so. There is an entirely distinct application for robots, which is emotional bonding. In this case again, trying to make robots look human makes the task far harder. We find it difficult to build emotional ties with something we can distinguish as a machine, which is trying to look and act human, and failing. However we can definitely build emotional bonds with furry toys, especially if they respond to our stroking and voices in ways similar to small animals. Many people love R2D2 from Star Wars, which is distinctly uncuddly, certainly not humanoid, but endearing in its behaviors and interaction. The whole space of emotional robotics will rapidly evolve, driven initially by the value for the elderly, and soon after in child care and the family home. Clearly robots are not substitutes for humans. Yet before long we will consider it commonplace for people to have emotional bonds with robots.
The state of social networking software for the enterprise
By Ross DawsonSocial networking software is at the center of technology hype, with MySpace, Bebo, Cyworld, Facebook, Piczo and many others attracting extraordinary valuations. Yet social networking is not just about friends and personal networks. Applying social networks in the enterprise is a sweet spot that has massive potential value. At the heart of the issue is how you tap the true potential of an organization, by bringing its most relevant expertise and resources to where they can be of most value. It’s worth reviewing the background to the space, given recent developments, and also because it remains a very high potential space, which will evolve substantially further over the next years.
In 2003 there were three major vendors of social networking platforms for the enterprise: Spoke, VisiblePath, and Contact Networks, while Interface Software integrated similar functionality into its CRM application InterAction (since bought by Lexis-Nexis). All three vendors showed great promise, which in all cases has yet to come to full fruition. The original intention of each was to suggest the best path through your contacts to the person you wanted to meet. VisiblePath and Contact Networks focused on applications entirely inside the enterprise, with the value proposition centered on being able to identify who within your organization could best introduce you to key contacts at prospective clients. At the time Boston Consulting Group also introduced an internal application that provided similar functionality, listing who inside the firm would be most likely to be able to introduce you to the people in the marketplace you wanted to meet. Spoke had a unique model at the time, providing both social networking applications inside the enterprise, as well as a public version of their application. If you signed up, Spoke indexed your Outlook, and established your “relationship strength” with all your contacts, based on a complex algorithm including how often you emailed each other, how quickly you responded to emails relative to those of others, use of attachments, and much more. As such, instead of providing just a “degrees of separation” between you and others, as with LinkedIn, it recommended the strongest path of relationships between you and the person you wanted to meet.
By providing both a public platform as well as an enterprise version, Spoke provided a far richer scope of connections for both groups to tap. Spoke was the gold sponsor for the Living Networks Forum I ran with Business Development Institute in New York in December 2003. To illustrate the ideas of the living networks, we set up Spoke on screens around the venue and got people to register on Spoke before the event. This meant that attendees could explore their network connections live at the event. For example two people who met at a coffee break could go to a screen and find out who they knew in common, and discover the overlap and potential of their personal networks. [Disclosure: while Spoke sponsored my 2003 event, I have had no contact with them for over two years.]
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Interview on client relationships in the management consulting industry
By Ross DawsonMichael McLaughlin, editor of Management Consulting News, recently interviewed me about how consultants can implement knowledge-based client relationships. A couple of brief excerpts from the interview are below – go to the full interview on Management Consulting News for the rest, in which I discuss trends in the industry, managing procurement professionals, the role of brand, consulting firm marketing programs, and related issues.
McLaughlin: What is a knowledge-based client relationship?
Dawson: It struck me early on that knowledge is the real heart of the value consultants provide. I don’t mean just the knowledge of the consultant, but the way that the consultant applies it so that the client learns or is transformed as a result of the engagement.
I distinguish between black-box consulting relationships and knowledge-based ones. In a black-box relationship, the client engages the consultant to come up with solutions, processes, or implementations and, hopefully, a result is achieved for the client. But, at the end, the client is none the wiser.
In contrast, a knowledge-based relationship has a higher degree of interaction and, as a result, the client actually learns to change. Maybe your client becomes better at making decisions, or managing processes, for example.
McLaughlin: If you look out over the next few years, how do you think the profile of a successful consultant will change?
Dawson: One of the driving forces in the economy is increasing specialization. As time passes, consultants will need deeper specialization.
Clearly, that in itself is of limited value. In part, increased specialization implies that greater collaboration within a firm will be necessary to succeed with clients. But as individuals, we need both an area of deep specialization and carefully selected areas in which we have a generalist understanding.
The importance of the individual practitioner, whether you work solo or you’re a specialist within a larger firm, is waning. The ability to work effectively in teams will continue to be the real driver of success.
Personal networks are another factor that has been important in the past and will continue to resonate. Clients are increasingly seeking out consultants, not just for their expertise, but for the consultant’s access to the unique insights of others in their networks.
Read the full interview.
40 biggest players of Australia’s digital age
By Ross DawsonB&T has just launched Digital Media magazine, “Australia’s journal of the new media revolution”, with the cover story on their inaugural issue: “40 Biggest Players of Australia’s Digital Age”. I am named as one of the 40 biggest players in digital media in Australia, saying about why I matter (no this is not from my PR release :-)):
I’m probably an odd one out here, with most of the others on the list the more obvious CEOs of digital media companies such as News, Fairfax, Yahoo!7, and Sensis, and leaders of major advertising and online marketing companies. I’m certainly happy to be recognized for the work I’m doing here, particularly since I don’t work only in the digital space, and I focus much of my attention and energy in the US and elsewhere. However my intention is to live up to the billing, and do a lot more this year and beyond to help shift how business in Australia thinks about and taps into our marvellous digital world.
Real estate and the power of mashups
By Ross DawsonYou’ve got to love this. For those who doubt the power and value of the internet, have a look at the map below, which shows the density of single women across San Francisco, together with their earnings. For example, in Pacific Heights near Alta Plaza Park, more than a third of the residents are single women, with average incomes of over $80,000. Or if you’re looking for eligible husbands, go to Property Shark where this map was taken from, and click over to find the distribution of single men and their earning capacity across the city. There are any number of other choices available on the web site to gain insights into where you want to live in any city across the US.
Source: PropertyShark.com
The first famous locational mashup was of course Chicago Crime, which in 2005 started using Google Maps to create maps showing where crime was occurring across the city. Not surprisingly, among the first users were those selecting where to live in the city. In our Future of Media Report 2006 we showed that 47% of mashups were based on mapping, indicating the power of location in bringing together disparate data sets. Google Maps unleashed the domain, and now it has spread far beyond. Almost all real estate websites now use mapping mashups – this is something of great value available online that high street real estate agents don’t offer (though they’d better get access to something quick if they want to continue to get people coming in off the street). Zillow has quickly become one of the top property sites by providing estimated valuations, Trulia has some great heat maps of recent property sales activity, RealEstateFu shows trends in Bay Area housing prices over a number of years, and many others explore different facets of how to decide where we want to live.
The characteristics of high-performance personal networks
By Ross DawsonResearch has consistently shown that high-performers – in terms of both career success and contribution to their organizations – have personal networks that are different from others. Observing people’s personal networks is one of the best ways to predict success. Building on ideas and references from an earlier post I made, here are some useful ways to understand high-performance personal networks.
CHARACTERISTICS OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE NETWORKS
People who are high-performers in their organizations and build successful careers have been shown to have different personal networks to their peers. Their personal networks have the following characteristics:
• Diversity. Their networks are highly diverse, across organizations, personal background, gender, hierarchy, area of expertise, and personality.
• Awareness. They are aware of who in their organization and beyond has particular talent, experience, and expertise.
• Visibility. Their own capabilities and expertise are visible in their organization and beyond. Others are aware of what they can do.
• Dynamic. They recognize that their personal networks need to and will change over time, and they make the time to create new relationships rather than simply maintaining their existing pattern of relationships.
• Investment. They continually take the time and effort to invest in their networks, both in maintaining existing relationships from their past and immediate work environment, and in building new relationships.
ENERGY IN NETWORKS
Energy is created in networks by collaborating to achieve worthwhile outcomes. When people interact with an energizer, they feel energized about possibilities and opportunities. When they interact with a de-energizer, they are more likely to feel deflated and unenthusiastic. Energizers are the real leaders in an organization, by creating positive momentum and activity.
There are six key behaviors that create energizing relationships:
• Have and communicate a compelling vision. Energizers can effectively communicate that there is something worthwhile that people can achieve together, and that it is achievable.
• Seek and acknowledge quality contributions. Energizers don’t think or say that they have the answer – they always actively seek out the best possibly contributions, and acknowledge those contributions to the group’s efforts.
• Interact constructively. Energizers focus on issues not personalities, and always look to build positively on people’s contributions.
• Make and fulfil commitments. Energizers do what they say. They recognize that if people see that others are doing their part, they will feel compelled to do theirs. However if people see that others are being slack, they will find no energy to do their allocated tasks.
• Give genuine attention to people. Energizers pay attention when people are speaking, listen to comprehend, and engage with others. They are interested in people and what makes them tick. They give time to people and their feelings, and do not treat them solely as a means to an end.
• Connect others. Energizers are alert to opportunities to introduce other people. More than trying to connect themselves, they see where people should be connected, and they make those valuable connections.
One of the great things about helping people enhance their personal networks is that it benefits both the individual and the organization. I am now consistently seeing leading organizations focus on helping their staff develop their personal networks. One of the best ways to use the characteristics of high-performance networks above is as the basis of a workshop, something which can also be done on a large scale at an offsite meeting. Done well, this builds people’s awareness of their current behaviors, and helps identify specific activities that will enhance their networks within their organization and beyond. Far better is to perform a social network analysis on the organizational group, so people have the data and comparisons to see how their networks are currently structured relative to their peers, and what they can do to enhance their own success.
A significant body of research has been done into energy in networks over the last few years. If you’re interested in delving deeper, the best starting point is What Creates Energy in Organizations, a paper by Rob Cross, Wayne Baker, and Andrew Parker that appeared in MIT Sloan Management Review, Summer 2003.
Insights from network analysis of the Australian media industry landscape
By Ross DawsonNetwork analysis provides powerful insights into how social groups, organizations, industries, and economies are structure. More pointedly, it also can help identify the leverage points that will enhance strategic positioning and improve outcomes. Over the last few years of my work in the network space, I have focused primarily on social networks and organizational network analysis, however I have also spent time on applying network analysis to industries, and in particular strategic positioning within industry landscapes.
I first came across Laurie Lock Lee in the mid 1990s when he was working at BHP, and one of the first people worldwide to apply social network analysis to enhancing organizational performance. We’ve shared much thinking over the years, and on occasion worked together. Laurie has fairly recently left his role at CSC, and set up a consultancy, Optimice, together with some talented colleagues. Check out the interesting resources on Optimice’s web. Last year Laurie did the fascinating media industry network analysis that we included in our Future of Media Report 2006. Laurie has followed up on that work by writing a great paper, New Ways to Explore Australian Media Ownership Opportunities and Threats. In it Laurie explores how network analysis can be applied to understanding the media ownership landscape in Australia.
Laurie uses the data on media ownership maintained by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, and without any special industry knowledge, begins to pull out some very interesting insights. The first chart below shows the network of media ownership, from which it is clear that there are two quite distinct networks. The central tightly-connected cluster is comprised of a few television stations, related radio stations, and a diverse array of owners. Outside this central group there are a string of highly centralized clusters, such as the Macquarie group on the top left, that are connected by one or two common properties or owners. Two owners – Southern Cross Broadcasting and Tri-com Radio’s stake in Consolidating Broadcasting (WA) are responsible for linking the upper and lower parts of the industry network.
Australian TV and Radio Media Ownership Networks
Source: Laurie Lock Lee, Optimice
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