For social media, by social media, using social media — and a fabulous resource — we have The New PR wiki:

This wiki is:

• a repository of relevant information about how the PR practice is changing
• a collaboration tool for PR professionals and people interested in the practice of public relations
• an open space where anyone can ask questions, post ideas, or start a project.

According to the McKinsey Quarterly article How Businesses are Using Web 2.0: A McKinsey Global Survey:

Asked what might have been done differently to make the previous investments in Internet technologies more effective [forty-two] percent say they would have strengthened their companies’ internal capabilities to make the most of the market opportunity at hand.

That would mean hiring people like web strategists and community managers…w00t!

Also according to this survey, companies in the retail, high tech, and telecommunications industries had the most respondents say that they were planning to increase investment in social media over the next three years.

Oh, and they’re using them as much for internal coordination as they are for customer interaction.

This bodes well, at least in theory. Now to put it into practice and get myself a job…(yes, I’m using blog posts like this as a motivation tool!)

One of the (many) things I’m doing these days is exploring the social media space in a lot more detail.

I’ve actually been a part of numerous Internet-based communities over the years so I know a great about social media already [1]. I also keep up with the latest news, trends, and studies.

Still, if you’re not working on something full-time, you miss out on a lot of stuff — like when you read the news article or blog post about the study instead of the actual study itself. So these days I’m doing some more research.

Among the many cool things I’ve found is this bunch of presentations on social media on Slideshare.net.

There are some that give you an overview and lots of information about social media:

• A good one to start with is Social Media & Marketing: Evolution or Revolution by Alex Wong
• One of the most comprehensive is this presentation called Social Computing: The Impact of Emerging Technology on Consumer Behaviour and Marketing Strategy: by Forrester’s Brian Kardon
• Another good Forrester one is on European Social Computing by Rebecca Jennings
• Here’s one by Nedra Weinreich on using social media to promote health and social issues called Next Generation Social Marketing

There are some presentations that talk about social media from a marketing and branding perspective:

• This is short one by Francois Petavy on User Generated Content and Brands
• Here’s a more comprehensive one, again by Forrester (do you get the impression that Forrester is doing a great social media job itself?), this time by Charlene Li called Big Brands & Facebook: Demographics, Case Studies & Best Practices

There are some that give practical advice on using social media:

• Here’s one from Mike Stopforth on 10 Lessons Learned from Social Media Campaigns
• This is a really comprehensive presentation from faberNovel Consulting on Social Network Websites: Best Practices from Leading Services, which was the topic of some research that faberNovel conducted in 2007

And then there are some that talk about social communities:

• Here’s one by Emanuele Quintarelli on How Web 2.0 Will Change the Way Business Gets Done
• This is the one by Jeremiah Owyang (Forrester again) called Online Community Best Practices that Laurel Papworth had some issues with
• And, if you’re into open source and more technical communities, here’s a comprehensive one by David A. Eaves called Community Management: Open Source’s Core Competency 

There are many more, of course — just click on one of the tags to see more on that topic — but these are the ones that I found most useful (so far).

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

[1] When I sat down to think about it, I realized that I’ve been an active Internet community member for over 13 years! Here are some relevant milestones:

• I got very active on Usenet back in 1995 when the Internet first became affordable to the general public in Pakistan (ah, the good old days of Windows 3.11, Winsock, Netscape 2.0, and 2400 baud modems!)
• I started my first mailing list in 1996
• Also in 1996, I became very active in network gaming, IRC, as well as many other mailing lists
• My first stint as a server administrator, webmaster, and message board owner/moderator came in 1997
• By 1999, I was training people on how to use the Internet and was giving presentations to the local ACM chapter on computer network security basics [94kB PPS file]
• In 2004, I created my band’s website and message board (which was a really fun community to grow, by the way)
• Also in 2004, I started evangelising content management systems and other web-related technologies to the development sector; in fact, here’s a presentation I gave on open source content management systems [503kB PPS file]

The next milestone is being played out now; that is, I started my first sustained blog in 2007 (after having gotten rid of my first, let’s-see-what-blogging-is-all-about blog about 3 years ago!).

Now that I’m getting more involved in the social media space (and not just from an informed user’s perspective), I’ve found a couple of really interesting articles on this topic on the web.

Marketers Don’t Have a Good Handle on Social Media

The first is one by Michael Bush in Advertising Age in which he reports on a panel discussion on “Making Social Media & Marketing Work” at the Ad Age Digital Marketing Conference.

The article’s title summarizes it very nicely: Marketers Struggle to Get a Firm Grip on Social Media and it makes a good read:

If you just happen to be one of those people who think they have social media and marketing all figured out, don’t tell Eric Plaskonos. He believes they’re “fooling themselves.”

Ad Age also has a primer on the challenges of social media for marketers.

Australian Marketers Lag Further Behind

The second one is by Jenni Beattie in Digital Ministry called Ad:Tech – Brand Marketers Still Looking for Digital Marketing Solutions [via Trevor Cook, via Lee Hopkins].

She writes:

Let’s start with a few figures from the recent Ad Tech Conference in Sydney:

• 68% of delegates in the Digital PR session said they didn’t have a digital pr strategy
• 59% of delegates in the Conversations session said they didn’t have a dialogue with their brand customers.

It is clear from this that many brand marketers in Australia are still yet to dip their toes in the water of online engagement/social media and that they are looking to the industry for leadership.

This is both good and bad news. Bad that there’s a lack of awareness for digital PR and for online engagement with customers in Australia. But also good in the sense that there’s a huge opportunity here for a good social media marketer (PR person, brand manager, community manager, etc.).

In that respect, I disagree with Steve Rubel when he says that “hiring someone just to “manage” social media is a luxury that companies will integrate into broader marketing communication roles.”  In Australia, at least, we don’t seem to have reached that stage yet (and Jeremiah Owyang seems to think that this is true in the broader global context as well).

I suspect that Rubel is a little ahead of the curve on this one. Yes, eventually social media interaction will become a standard operating procedure for marketers and, in general, for companies — much like e-mail has, for example — but we still have a long way to go. And judging from Beattie’s article, that’s particularly true for Australia.

I’ve spent the last few months trying to pull together three things in order to get myself a good, fulfilling job:

• An idea of the kind the job I want to do once I complete my MBA
• A list of jobs that I can do; based on my education, experience, and abilities
• A list of jobs that are available in the market, specifically in Melbourne

And the last few days — the Easter break here in Australia — have helped me get a better handle on things. Here’s an overview of where I am right now.

What I Want to Do

Over the last few months, as I’ve learnt more about myself and have acquired industry knowledge, the set of jobs I want to do has changed. Well, technically, my job preference order has changed to:

1. Marketing and communications — either for a web-related project, product, or services company or for a company with a significant online presence (either internal or external)
2. Consulting (internal or external) –  general technology consulting but preferably focused on web portals and intranets
3. Business and project management — focused on web-related projects, products, or services

Originally, my marketing and communications preference was at #3 — with consulting at #1 and management at #2 — so this is a pretty major shift.

What I Can Do

There are two reasons for this shift. First, I am in a reasonably unique position in the job market because I possess technical know-how, business know-how, and marketing know-how and, importantly, I have demonstrable experience and expertise in each. [I don't mean to blow my own horn here by talking about how great or unique I am, but the fact is that there aren't many people with this particular skill set in the market these days. My being where I am now is actually a case of carefully thought-out career moves and a bit of luck.]

Now this skill set is good because, except for the most narrowly-defined project management roles (for example), most senior-ish roles require you to be proficient in each of those three key areas. What this means is that I can quite easily aim beyond the regular business analyst (BA), project manager (PM), or consultant roles that I would have gone for had I, for example, done a MS in computer sciences instead of an MBA.

The second reason for this shift is that, basically, I realized that by looking at BA or regular PM and consulting roles, I was aiming too low. I came to this realization after looking at countless job ads and thinking to myself “sure, I can do that job quite easily…after all, I was doing the same thing two years ago.” 

The only jobs that got me really excited were the ones with a bit of challenge: the ones that gave me an opportunity to learn and grow and to fully apply myself. And the thing is, with the exception of a few brilliant consulting/PM/BA roles, most of the jobs I found both fun and challenging came from the marketing and communications side.

Which actually makes a lot of sense.

Where I Want to Be

Loosely put, my medium-term career objective is to be someone in a senior management position who liaises effectively between the business, technology, and marketing sides of a company and strategically carries things forward by effectively leveraging each of those functions and departments. In plain English: I want to be the senior manager guy who speaks and understands tech, business, and marketing and can get the three departments to work together to kick some ass.

Now the thing is: I have experience in technology, business, and marketing but, increasingly, for web-related products or services the key skill for a senior manager to have is that of marketing; particularly marketing that involves social media and community-building.

See, no matter how good a project or service you have (the tech side) or how well thought out your strategy is (the business side) if you don’t get your market positioning, integrated marketing communications, and community-building right (the marketing side) you don’t get very far. And this is particularly true for web-related products and services. This is why forward-thinking companies are looking to hire people in two specific roles: the Social Media Strategist and the Community Manager (as explained by Forrester Reseach’s Jeremiah Owyang). That, for me, is really where the challenge and opportunity lies.

It also helps that, while you can find plenty of people to work on the tech and business side (either that or you outsource development or hire a consultant), the talent pool for social media people is quite small.

But, there’s a problem: the reason for that small talent pool and the reason I specifically said forward-thinking companies is because there aren’t many of those jobs out there, especially ones based in Melbourne.

What Jobs are Available

A handful of social media jobs are, of course, advertised — I mentioned the Community Liaison role at Lonely Planet early on in my job search and there was an ad for an Online Content Manager posted today — but the good ones are few and far between and I presume a lot of them remain in the hidden job market. Also, in most companies, community management and social media strategy tasks are still not seen as separate job positions but as responsibilities assigned to a marketing manager.

Increasingly, then, I’ve found myself looking through the marketing and communications sections of various job sites because that’s where these jobs are listed (often ‘under internal communications’ or ‘marketing communications’). But, again, there just aren’t that many out there.

The Upshot

What does all of this mean for me? Well, now that I’ve narrowed down what it is that I really want to do, two things come to mind: 

First, I need to be very watchful for good social media jobs — even more so than I was for regular biz/tech jobs — mainly because (a) they’re not always advertised as social media jobs and (b) most specialist social media job sites don’t cover Australia (not that any Australian companies post jobs on the ones that do). Fortunately, here we have people like Laurel Papworth who blogs about the jobs that she hears of. Let’s hope she keeps doing that and that the other Aussie social media bloggers that I read follow suit!

Second, I need to start talking to Australian social media people about the kinds of jobs that are available here. They, more than anyone else, will know what is happening and where the industry is going. I guess this blog post is a first step in that direction. I also have to keep on top of all Australia-based social media events, networks, and meetings — and there are plenty of those around.

The best part: I’ve finally found an area that greatly interests and excites me, and though I know it won’t be easy to find and get the job I want, I suspect I’m going to have a lot of fun doing it anyway.

As ever, I’ll keep posting updates on this blog.

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

FYI: Connie Bensen, the Community Manager for ACDSee, maintains an excellent community / social media resource listing on her blog. If you want to know more about everything I’ve just talked about, take a look at that site. Also be sure to check out Jeremiah Owyang’s web strategist blog.

I followed up on the management job openings I posted yesterday by phoning Sean Smith from Michael Page. It turns out that most of these job openings have a 2-4 week lead time associated with them — tending more towards the 2 than the 4 — and so, obviously, I’m out of the running for these particular ones.

What I mean by “lead time” is that, if you want to be in the running for a particular job that’s been advertised, it’s best to either (a) apply almost immediately after the job is posted or (b) already have your information on file with the recruitment agency that posted the job. Of course, it’s best if you occupy the top-of-mind position with the recruitment consultant that’s handling that position. That way, you’ll be one the first candidates they think of and try to match to the role.

I’ve heard from other people that other recruitment agencies — and companies in general — have the same 2-4 week lead time for the jobs they advertise. What that means for me is that I can’t start applying for advertised jobs for another month or so. Bummer.

Let’s just hope, then, that my job hunt, instead of being nice and predictable, turns out to be a brilliant and wildly exciting photo finish!

So far, most of the job openings I’ve talked about on this blog have been for business analyst (BA) or consultant roles. Last week, thanks to Michael Page, I came across two job openings for project management roles that seem to suit me — i.e. my interests, experience, qualifications, and career progression — better.

The first is for a job with “one of the premier employers in the Information Technology and Internet space”:

E-Commerce Manager

Working across various e-commerce solutions your role sees you managing and consulting across your designated countries online solutions portfolio.

This includes managing all portal products and online product streams.

And the second is with “one of the most successful and longest standing players in the web” and, specifically, for “one of the best ranked sites in Australia”:

Product Manager – Web

Working as a Product Manager, you will be responsible for the day to day management, enhancement and innovation of leading products for the web. You will work with a talented team of creative and technical staff and have full ownership of a particular product stream with the business manager.

Your role will see you utilizing your extensive knowledge of the web and product life cycle management to provide best practice process and methodology across all new and existing products in your command.

I’m tempted to apply to both, even though I’m still eight weeks away from the end of my current study term. Of course, before I do that I’ll phone Sean Smith, the recruitment consultant in charge of both of these openings, and ask him about the closing date and expected start date for these jobs. Here’s hoping he says two months.

Now that I’m close to graduation, I’ve gotten myself a spot on MBS’ Class Profile Brochure.

The brochure is a quick, personalized overview of the latest MBS graduating batch; i.e. not just a class profile summary of the latest incoming batch. It’s an e-book with eight student profiles per page and will be available to recruiters and employers who want to learn about MBS and its students.

It will give recruiters and employers a good overview of the students who will be graduating soon (i.e. students’ skills, experience levels, backgrounds, languages spoken, etc. — more so than what recruiters can currently access) as well as a means to directly contact the students they are interested in (via e-mail).

This is particularly useful to those companies — notably international ones — that can’t visit the campus to make a presentation or talk to students directly. It’s also a great way for MBS to show off its incredibly diverse student body.

Here — with a munged e-mail address and my Commander Khan avatar instead of my professional photograph — is my profile:

KHAN, Ameel – Pakistani; 32 ameel.khan@edu.mbs English (MT), Urdu/Hindi (Fl), Punjabi (I) BSc (Hons) Computer Science, LUMS (Pakistan) 6 years in IT consulting & management; 4 in development, business integration & marketing of web portals & intranets

Content & Governance Consultant – Melbourne Business School - Conducted business analysis & planned governance for new school intranet Intranet Migration Coordinator – Shell Australia - Conducted project management tasks across teams in Australia, India & USA - Managed the migration of a 2,000+ page US-based intranet portal Manager Tech & Portal Services – Pakistan Development Gateway Foundation - Managed multiple national portals in the development & government sectors - Managed a popular disaster relief info portal after the 2005 earthquake General Manager; GMAT, GRE, SAT Instructor – The Princeton Review, Pakistan

 

FYI: In the language area, ‘MT’ stands for mother tongue, ‘Fl’ stands for fluent, and ‘I’ stands for intermediate user. Meanwhile ‘LUMS’, which is in the previous-degree area, stands for Lahore University of Management Sciences.

So, er, does anyone out there want to hire me? :)

As I cross the three-months-left-to-graduation mark (4 February to 4 May), a number of good job openings have been posted online. Among these, the following three are the most interesting.

Business Analyst Online Projects:

Business Analyst required with 1-3 years experience preferably in an online environment to work with Media Communications organisation. They are looking for a highly motivated, meticulous individual who shares the passion of producing the highest quality and innovative web solutions to clients. [via Seek and ITCom]

Portal Business Consultant:

The Portal Consultant is responsible for gathering requirements for their country customers and developing solutions to meet their business requirements, managing the projects through the development phase, and developing launch strategies and training in support of these systems. [via Seek for realestate.com.au]

Business Analyst / Project Officer Information and Intranet:

Work for a leading government organisation that is seeking a Business Analyst / Project Officer Information & Intranet to be responsible for business analysis of processes and systems whilst providing analytical knowledge and quality support to the business for the HR information system. [via IT Wire and Hudson]

Each of these job openings is for the kind of work I want to do — i.e. more consulting and strategy work than technical work — and, had this been early March instead of early February, I would probably have applied for them as well. One more month to go…

Eight Black’s Simon Chen wrote a really good article today on what a Content Management System (CMS) should be. He argues that, for a company considering a CMS solution for its website, “buying into a stand alone CMS is just not logical.” Instead, open source CMS’ like WordPress are the way to go.

I agree. In fact, in my last job in Pakistan, I spent a couple of years trying to convince firms working in that country’s development sector (both government and NGOs) of exactly that. I didn’t use WordPress, but I did use, among others, applications like Mambo, Joomla, Drupal, Typo3, phpBB, Alfresco, Moodle, MediaWiki, as well as countless plug-ins, add-ons, components, and modules. Each CMS has its own strengths and weaknesses, of course, and some are designed for specific things (you can’t do much else with the message board system, phpBB, for example) but all of them do their job quite well. [Good article on how to choose an open source CMS]

And, though over the last year I’ve worked mostly with commercial systems like Intranet DASHBOARD (iD) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS), I really do think that open source systems are a great way to go for most small companies and, increasingly, for medium-sized companies as well. It’s only large firms that need much more than just a CMS solution that truly benefit from all the other features that systems like iD and MOSS bring with them. In fact, I’d almost feel silly using something like MOSS in a small company environment. That’s like having a 40-seater bus as the company car for a firm that employs 15 people.

Anyway, my point is that Chen makes a good point, though it is worth it to look at much more than just WordPress.