The Online Community Report just released its Online Community Compensation Study.

Most of the study’s key findings shouldn’t come as a surprise to people working in this space: the community team employs more women than men, most team members are between 31 and 50 years old, and most have over five years of work experience. However the compensation figures are a little higher than I expected at an average of US$81k (approximately AU$95k).

I also wasn’t expecting women to be earning 91% (on average) of what men are earning. Assuming that factors like experience, industry, average company salary, position in corporate hierarchy, department within the company, importance of community role for company, etc. have all been statistically removed from this analysis — and they probably haven’t all been removed — then the lower salary for women is most disappointing.

Meanwhile, the most heartening result from the study is, of course, the job satisfaction rating which is an average of 4.2 on a scale of 1 to 5 :)

FYI: OCR’s Key Resources blog post category is a great place to look if you want to start or further develop your online community.

I’ve been working at Linfox for almost two months now and I’ve hardly even noticed. Time really does fly when you’re having fun and working your butt off, doesn’t it?

Now that my major project at Linfox is complete — we re-launched Linfox.com last week — I thought it would be a good time to do a quick recap of how things have been at work and how the Melbourne Business School MBA is helping me do my job really well.

But before I get to that…

Actually, funnily enough, the thing I found most immediately useful at my new job was not something I learnt during the MBA but is something related to the work I did in MBS’ Information Technology Solutions department earlier this year. That is: I knew how to use SharePoint really well.

In May, MBS launched its new intranet (called ‘MBS Direct’) based on Microsoft’s SharePoint technology. Just a month before that Linfox launched its own intranet (called the ‘Lintranet’) also based on that technology. Having learnt a great deal about SharePoint at MBS — and many SharePoint tips and best practices from our vendor, Bullseye — taking over from the previous Online Coordinator was incredibly straightforward and hassle-free.

E-Commerce and Information Management

As you would imagine, stuff learnt in Pat Auger’s E-Commerce and Information Management courses is coming in really handy in my new job. Here are two lessons I’m finding most useful at this time.

1. Making a business case: My boss understands how important both the intranet and public website are to the business; she is, after all, Linfox’s Group Communications Manager. People in top management, however, are more focused (as they should be) on running a logistics company, a couple of airports, and a few other Linfox Group businesses. My boss and I therefore need to demonstrate — in almost everything that we do — the business benefits of maintaining these two sites (which I am in charge of and she is the champion for).

This is where something like Google Analytics comes in. My boss can now tell her boss that, just last week, over 1,000 unique visitors got to Linfox.com via a search engine (we also know the keywords they used to get there) and that, by far, the most popular section on the site is the ‘Working at Linfox‘ one. Now the site’s only been up for ten days so there’s more data to collect before we take things to the next level (like further developing the recruitment section) but already it’s clear what one of the major benefits of having a good website is: you can communicate directly with potential employees in order to get the best and most suitable candidates to apply for jobs that you advertise.

2. Internal communications: Having spent years in IT — which in many companies is the one of the least communicative, least understood, and possibly least-liked departments — I know how important it is to communicate internally the benefits of the work you’re doing. Things are a little different in the Communications department but internal communications is still an important task for me.

For example, two phrases that I’ve found to be really useful are “it’s on the Lintranet” and “search for it”. These are important because the last iteration of Linfox’s intranet took the usual route to uselessness: it had too much stuff on it (it had become a bloated file archival dump) most of which was irrelevant (no versioning, lots of replication) and hard to find (limited search functionality). This new iteration is lean, well-organized, and has versioning, no duplication, and excellent search functionality. However, not everyone knows this.

My job, then, is to (a) keep the intranet in great shape and (b) to tell everyone how great the intranet is. My aim is to make this a virtuous cycle: if people expect it to be great, they’ll make sure it stays great — with a little poking, prodding, and policing from me, of course! So when someone asks me for something, I usually say “it’s on the Lintranet” (since it usually is) and, most of the time, they’re able to find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. If not, a simple search does the trick.

One thing that really helps me here is the direct support I get from my team. This mostly comes in the form of a line in every bit of internal communication that we do that goes something like “you can find (more information about this) on the Lintranet”.

More in Part 2

There’s much more I want to write so I’m going to split this into two, or maybe three, posts. I have yet to talk about:

• Applying people skills learnt in the Managing People for High Performance, Negotiations, and Leadership courses.
• Applying marketing skills learnt in the Brand Management and Consumer Behaviour courses.
• General skills learnt while doing the MBA; such as how to handle multiple projects, deadlines, and priorities without breaking a sweat.
• Observing how things are working at a more strategic level within the company; such how business and corporate strategy are playing-out, what leadership is being exhibited by senior management, what the company’s environmental strategy is, and how intellectual property is being managed.

But more about all this next time.

So I haven’t been posting much recently. Why? Because I have a job! Indeed, as of last Wednesday, I am the Online Coordinator (OC) at Linfox.

Linfox, for those of you who don’t know, is Australia’s second-largest logistics and supply chain company, earning over AU$2bn in revenues last year. It employs over 16,000 people, owns over 5,000 vehicles, has over 1.8 million square meters of warehousing space, runs 2 airports, and operates out of 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Yes, it’s big. Not quite as big as Deutsche Post, of course, but it’s getting there. Oh, and it privately owned. (More fun trivia on Linfox in a future blog post, perhaps…like how it transported eight elephants last year and how, every year, it does all the logistics for the Australian Formula One Grand Prix.)

Based in the Communications department, the OC’s role has two main components:

• Project management: maintaining the new intranet portal and soon-to-be-re-launched Internet site
• Internal consulting: helping departments use online communications more effectively

This job is also an excellent next step for my career: it puts me well on my way to becoming a more senior level web strategist/consultant and the Linfox brand is great for my CV.

Why am I concerned about how this job will look on my CV when I’ve only just started it? Because I’m on a three month contract so, two months from now, I’ll be back to looking for another job and preferably a permanent one. Why, then, did I take a three month contract job? Because Linfox and the OC role were not to be missed. Opportunities like this do not come along often and I’m really happy to have been selected for this one.

Of course, what this means for me in a practical sense is that I have a great deal to do in the short time that I’m here. Fortunately, having come off the MBA program at Melbourne Business School, I should be able to handle the speed, pressure, and volume of work quite well. (Thanks, MBS!)  Meanwhile, the role will also give me the opportunity to apply all that I learnt from courses like E-Commerce, Information Strategy, Brand Management, Managing People for High Performance, Negotiations, and Leadership.

So here I am. Let the, er, online coordinating begin!

And I’m done with my MBA. Actually, I was done on Friday but I took it easy over the weekend :)

This now concludes 20 months of hard work, late nights, early mornings, essays, individual assignments, syndicate assignments, case studies, class discussions, research, and exams. During this period I met a lot of great people who taught me a lot of different things. I also formally learnt a heck of a lot about many different subjects. Specifically, I took these courses during my four study terms:

1. World of Management
2. Data & Decisions
3. Managing Processes
4. Accounting for Managers
5. Financial Management
6. Corporate Finance
7. Managerial Economics
8. Economics and Public Policy
9. Business Strategy
10. Corporate Strategy
11. Implementation of Strategy
12. Managing People for High Performance *
13. Leadership & Change
14. Negotiations *
15. Marketing
16. Brand Management
17. Consumer Behaviour
18. E-Commerce *
19. Information Strategy
20. Business & Sustainable Development (half subject)
21. Strategic Management of Intellectual Property (half subject)

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Actually, it really was.

And now it winds to a close. All that’s left is my graduation on the 17th and then I can officially say that, yes, I am an MBA from Melbourne Business School, thank you very much :)

Now to find a job so I can start my next adventure…

Speaking of jobs, by the way, I received the nicest job application rejection phone call today. It was from the job I mentioned a few weeks earlier (the one I was most excited about) and, though I’m terribly disappointed that I didn’t get it, I understand that the company needed to choose the best person for the role who, in this case, was unfortunately not me. Still, out of the 200 applications they received I was one of the four people they interviewed and that’s a really good feeling. Oh well. Next time, then.

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* I received commendations from the Dean for my participation and academic achievement in these subjects. Woo hoo! :)

I would move to Seattle for this job:

I Can Has Cheezburger? is looking to hire a moderator to work in our Seattle office (Lower Queen Anne area)! You too can works for Happycat!

Moderators screen all submissions, moderate comments and help our users with the dangerous world of lolcats. This is a paid part-time (or possibly full-time position). Due to the nature of the site, moderators work non-standard office hours. You will be joining our team of 3 moderators in enjoying all the fun the Web can offer.

We’re looking for someone who lives in Seattle with a great sense of humor, a deep understanding and love of the Internets and a strong work ethic. Cat ownership is not required.

If you’re interested, email us your resume and/or cover letter at lol@icanhascheezburger.com

*sigh*

[Via Yahoo! News, via Digg]

Great post yesterday by Chris Brogan: What I want a Social Media Expert to Know. Great comments too.

To expand on his post: What a social media expert should also know is that the answers — if you re-frame Brogan’s list as a set of questions — can be different in different situations, with different companies and industries.

The social media expert might not be able to answer the questions correctly — and with a high degree of certainty — in all those situations but at least s/he should know (a) that there will be differences, (b) where to look to find the right answers for that situation, and (c) if there are no right answers, make a pretty educated guess as to what they will be.

I know this to be true, by the way, because I’ve worked both on external-facing web portals and internal-facing intranet portals and some of the answers to Brogan’s questions are vastly different in those two cases.

Still, like he says, social media experts should have answers to all those questions. In fact, I’d expect a good social media job interview to cover most, if not all, of these questions as well.

So far, I’ve applied for three jobs and have received one rejection. As any good job applicant will do, I followed-up with the recruitment agent who handled my application to see why I got that rejection.

The Feedback

I wanted to know: did I not get the job because (a) he didn’t think I could do it or (b) there were other, more suitable candidates for that position?

So I e-mailed him a couple of quick questions and got a rather encouraging reply. He said I wasn’t far off the mark with the skills requirements but that the client had wanted someone with significantly more experience in that specific area.

This is good news because it tells me that my job application targeting is generally accurate. However my lack of explicit communications experience might be an issue, especially when applying for more senior management roles.

Lessons for the Future

What I need to do in future applications, then, is be clearer about the fact that, while I don’t have formal, job-title-based communications or relationship management experience, this is something I’ve actually been doing for years. After all, you can’t be a good consultant, teacher, or trainer if you’re not proficient at both relationship management and communications. I guess I need to explain and, preferably, demonstrate that a little better.

What I should also do is phone recruiters soon after I’ve submitted my application (a few days later, maybe). That might help me catch and correct any perceived shortcomings before they reach application-rejecting levels. It’s also good to put a voice to the applicant who, till that time, has existed only as a chronological listing of skills and experiences on a piece of paper. 

All in all, the follow-up was both encouraging and very valuable. Here’s hoping I don’t have to do too many more! :)

To follow on from the Death by Blogging post I wrote earlier, read Jason Calacanis’ post on What the New Your Times’ “Death by Blogging” Story Got Right. It’s long, but it’s worth a read.

He writes:

The New York Times sees the common thread amongst these folks as blogging, but that’s a superficial assessment. The truth is the common thread amongst these four individuals–and it’s kind of shocking the New York Times missed this–is they were all entrepreneurs.

The Times would have been better off blaming entrepreneurship over blogging. Of course, there are tons of healthy entrepreneurs out there who are not dying, and a certain number of men between 35-60 die from stress on a regular basis, so the story’s premise is flawed from the start.

…

… however there is one thing the New York Times did get right: the human species inability to deal with stress.

I know where Calacanis is coming from because I’ve been there myself.

Back in 2005-06 I went through a really difficult period in my life: my mother had just died (less than three months after we discovered the cancer), I was having a hard time at work (one of my colleagues had left and I was stuck doing his job which, at the time, was way over my head), I was working evenings and weekends on a second job (finances were an issue and I enjoyed the second job much more than the first), and I hadn’t gotten the scholarship I needed for my MBA (though I did, thankfully, get it in the subsequent round). All this coupled with a mostly unhealthy lifestyle (specifically, no regular exercise) and very little drumming (which is a great stress reliever) left me burnt-out and bordering on depression.

Interestingly, it was the hard time I was having at work that prompted me to go for an MBA in the first place so at least one good thing came out of all this!

Things have changed since then (life is simpler when you’re a student anyway; especially when you’re on an international student’s budget!) and I like to think I’ve learnt a few valuable lessons on how not to live along the way. Ironically enough, the MBA has taught me a lot about how to live a more balanced life as well [1]. And now the jobs I’m applying to and the life my wife and I intend to lead are both going to be of the more balanced kind. And though I do enjoy (yes, actually enjoy) the occasional 60 hour work week, I know that it should be a deadline-approaching exception to the norm.

So thanks, Jason, for that blog post. I needed it to remind myself about what is important in life. Others need to hear that kind of advice as well. Let’s just hope everyone listens.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

[1] I learnt this primarily through some teachers and one of my career counsellors. A heartfelt thanks, then, to Gavin Lister, Amanda Sinclair, John Onto, and Brian Gibbs.

Yesterday was a tough day:

• My Brand Management final exam (on Wal-Mart) was due.
• My Corporate Strategy syndicate had to make a presentation (on Bertelsmann).
• I had tonnes of reading to do for Corporate Strategy (a case on the Foster Group) and Business and Sustainable Development (on social sustainability and the Bottom-of-Pyramid concept).

The next couple of weeks (yes, I have just two weeks to go!) are going to be tough too. I have:

• One case analysis (for Corporate Strategy) and one critical analysis (for BSD) to write and hand in.
• Two big assignments (for BSD and Strategic Management of Intellectual Property) to write up and hand in.
• One big syndicate assignment (for Corporate Strategy) to work on, write up, and hand in.
• Two exams to prepare for and then sit (for SMIP and BSD).

On the job front:

• I’ve applied to three jobs — two in internal communications (with an intranet focus) and one in external communications (with a social media focus).
• I’ve received one rejection — one of the internal communications ones — and hope to hear from the other two either this week or next week.
• I have two more jobs to apply to — both in online strategy (one of which is really exciting) — and I should get those done by tomorrow evening.

Meanwhile, my work at MBS is keeping me busy too:

• I have to finish writing a major section of the training materials (for the new portal we’re deploying across the school) by this evening. That needs to get reviewed and approved by Friday.
• I’ll probably start conducting the actual trainings (mostly one-to-one since I’m pretty much done with the group trainings) for that next week.
• I’ve already sat with one of the departments and worked through their online communications strategy. On Friday I need to sit with them and actually start implementing that on the portal.

Yes, life is busy and exciting…and quite a lot of fun, actually (which, really, is the important part).

As we’re learning in my Corporate Strategy course with Geoff Lewis at Melbourne Business School these days, corporations should constantly be asking themselves two basic questions:

1. Are we really adding value to the businesses that we own? 
2. Would some other corporate owner be able to add more value to these businesses?

And if it turns out that we’re actually making one (or more) of our businesses worse off by owning it, then why aren’t we divesting that business?

I know it’s a bit of a stretch but, at a very fundamental level, my job application philosophy is based on a similar concept. When I look at a job opening, I ask myself:

1. Can I really create value in this role — both for the company (can I do this job well) and for myself (do I want to do this specific job)?
2. Would someone else be able to create more value than I would?

If I am able to convince myself that I can do this job, I want to do this job, and I can do this job better than most others, then I apply for it. If not, there’s no point: I’ll just waste my time carefully crafting an application that matches my background, skills, and experience to the job requirements; I’ll waste the time of the recruiter who’ll assesses the application; and, at the end of it all, I won’t get the job anyway.

In fact, a couple of times I’ve liked a job opening; started writing an application cover letter that justifies why I should get that job; realized half-way through that I can’t or shouldn’t do this job (i.e. I can’t justify it); and stopped.

Of course, all this is a bit of a simplification since a lot more thought does go into each job application decision that I make but, fundamentally, that’s the thought process I follow.

FYI, among the other things that I take into consideration are: learning and career progression (short term and long term); company culture and values; company fundamentals (financial state, market position, etc.); details of the role that I’m applying for; and so on.

The View from the Other Side

The good thing is that my philosophy nicely complements the three things recruiters are looking for in an applicant:

1. Can you do the job? If yes, you get to the technical interview stage.
2. Will you do the job (and do it well)? If yes, you progress through the technical interview stages to the management interview stage.
3. Do you have a good ‘fit’ with the organization? If yes, you get a job offer.

My philosophy, then, gets me to work through a lot of this stuff before I even start my application. To give you an idea of how this works, here are some jobs that didn’t make it past one of these hurdles:

1. An internal communications job that required a lot of Knowledge Management theory and experience (that too with the latest KM tools and practices). I didn’t think I could do this job.
2. An external marketing job that had a good bit of online community work but a much bigger focus on print stuff, media liaison, and event management. I knew that others could do this job better than I could.
3. An interesting external marketing and community management job that was to be filled by a junior person (with 1-2 years of experience) and in area that I have absolutely no interest in. I didn’t do an MBA to get an entry level job and I don’t want a job in an area that doesn’t excite me (or, at the very least, one that I have a passing interest in).

In other words, when I do actually apply for a job, I am convinced that I am the right person for it. Which, I guess, is a good thing.

Any thoughts, comments?