Web Strategy Jobs in Australia

Ameel Khan June 10, 2009

In order to get what can loosely be called a 'web strategy job' in Australia I did quite a bit of research and analysis on how different companies hire for that position and I thought it might be useful to share what I've learnt. This serves two purposes:

Others who are looking for jobs in the same area might find my analysis useful.

Those who know more about this area than I do can improve my understanding of it.

Here's hoping this blog post accomplishes a bit of both.

What Do You Mean by 'Web Strategy Job'?

So what exactly does a 'web strategist' do? Well, it depends on the industry and company that job is in. In general, though, a web strategist is someone who takes care of everything a company does online. This includes:

managing the company's online presence (website, intranet, social media presence, etc.)

figuring out what the company should be doing in the online space over the next few years; i.e. creating a web strategy and making sure it is aligned with the company's business, marketing, and communications strategies

implementing that strategy

This job can be in different departments and at different levels of seniority within a particular company. To explain this further I have come up with the How Companies Build Their Online Presence table (below). The columns on this table represent company size and the rows divide companies into those that consider their online presence to be strategic and those that don't (yes, this is an artificial, binary division while, in reality, there is a range here). [1]

The text in the cells describes the solutions that these companies implement in order to build and maintain their online presence (yes, I am generalizing here). The jobs that I spent the last few months looking for are the manager-level web strategist/online manager positions described or implied in the green coloured cells.

How Companies Build Their Online Presence

Interestingly, over the last year, I have worked in companies in all three of those green-coloured areas:

Shell is a very large company that uses its online presence strategically (both internally and externally)

Melbourne Business School is a medium-sized company that uses of its online presence strategically (and increasingly so)

Linfox is a large company that doesn't use its website strategically but makes very good use of its intranet

Melbourne Water sits in the strategic row and is a large company.

Where the Web Strategist Fits in All This

As mentioned earlier, the web strategist jobs in those green-shaded boxes exist at different levels within different companies. That is why, over the last few months, I applied for jobs that spanned a range of tasks, skills, and seniority levels. In some small companies, for example, the primary driver of the web strategy is the specialist consultant hired on a 3-6 month contract. In some larger ones, the strategy is driven by a small group of people who are, in turn, led by the web/online manager.

There are pros and cons to being in each of those positions. For example, a short-term specialist-level consultant may not have the time, influence, or opportunity to have a major impact on a company's overall web strategy. That said, this consultant sits outside the internal politics of that company and can be more blunt and direct about what that company needs to do without having to worry too much about what people think of him. A full-time online manager in a large company, meanwhile, many find corporate inertia working against her for the first six months but, once things get moving, will benefit from it. And because this manager knows the inner working of the company, she may get things done more quickly and more effectively.

The sweet spot for me was to get a middle management position in a good-sized company that made good, strategic use of its online space. There is huge potential (and lots of fun to be had) in this role because companies in this position are often quick to move and are willing to make a real impact online. Fortunately for me, this is exactly where Melbourne Water sits.

What About the State of the Job Market?

Of course, all this analysis is useless if it doesn't help you get a job - particularly if no one is hiring for the position you really want to get. Because of that, I was also looking for less-than-perfect jobs or jobs on the periphery of where I wanted to be. The idea was that I would work towards the role I really wanted.

Speaking more generally: One good thing about this type of job is that every organization needs a website regardless of how the economy is doing (and Australia's isn't doing that badly). As a result, web strategists, website managers, and specialist online consultants are still getting hired. And though there are very few perfect jobs out there (and many companies are hiring less senior people to do the same job that more senior people were doing last year) I did come across a whole bunch that were great places to start. Read my previous blog post for more on that.

Further Research

So that is a summary of what I have learnt about web strategist jobs in Australia over the last couple of years. I encourage you to do your own research on this topic. To do that, I recommend the following three things:

Subscribe to online job feeds from Seek, MyCareer, CareerOne, and SixFigures. This will teach you a great deal about the state of the job market and will help you adopt the lingo that hiring managers and recruitment firms use to match candidates to open positions.

Talk to people who are in the industry and find out more from them. This is particularly useful if you are targeting a narrower segment in the market (e.g. web strategy jobs in the education sector). Also read their blogs, interact with them online, and get in touch with them through LinkedIn or your own networks (then meet up with them for a coffee or something).

Talk to recruitment agents who recruit in this area. I mentioned three firms and three recruitment agents in my previous post but there are many others - you just need to find the ones that work best with you.

And when you learn stuff, blog about it so all of us can learn from your experiences.

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[1] The words 'strategy' and 'strategic' are used very loosely in everyday speech while, in actual fact, they mean something very specific. Let me clarify that here: when you say something is 'strategic' you necessarily mean that it is relative to your competitors. Take your website's 'Contact Us' page. If, along with your office address, you were to give your office's Melways Map reference, this would not be considered 'strategic' because this is common practice. If, instead, you embedded a Google map that showed your office's location exactly (assuming, of course, that your customers found this useful and that it helped your business) this would be a 'strategic' move since few companies tend to do that and this gives you an advantage over your competitors. Note, however, that if you had decided to include that Google map without considering your competition, it would simply have been a 'plan'. A 'strategy', on the other hand, is action taken specifically with your competition in mind (i.e. in order to gain an advantage over them).

My Job Search: Stats & Lessons

Ameel Khan May 28, 2009

My perseverance has paid off: after applying for 33 jobs over an 8 month period, I am now the new Websites Manager at Melbourne Water. I'll write more about this job in a later blog post but right now I want to present the stats I accumulated and the lessons I learnt during this process.

Active Job-Search Period

The 8-month period during which I was looking for a job featured the following non-hiring periods:

the global economic downturn - 2 months, from mid-October to mid-December

the Christmas holidays - 1.5 months, from early December to mid-January

my trip to Pakistan - 1 month, from early February to early March

So, for all practical purposes, I was unemployed and actively looking for jobs for about 4-5 out of those 8 months before I got hired.

Types & Levels of Jobs

The 33 jobs I applied for during this period were of these types:

By management-level jobs (13) I mean those that involved project management, stakeholder liaison, team management, and strategic planning.

By specialist, consultant, and business analyst jobs (15) I mean those that involved working as a knowledge or domain specialist within a larger team. The specialized skills required for these jobs included SEO techniques; web writing and online production skills; social media awareness; requirements-gathering experience; a consulting background; and general website/intranet redevelopment experience. Naturally, all of these skills were also required for the management-level jobs that I applied for.

By junior-level jobs (5) I mean those that I turned out to be overqualified for. In most cases this happened because the company in question didn't think the online channel was of strategic value to them and was therefore looking for a relatively junior person to create their web strategy and maintain their website and intranet. In most of these cases I withdrew my application once I found out more about the job.

I very nearly got one of those specialist-level jobs but the company I was interviewing with instated a hiring freeze (due to a newly-announced restructuring plan) the day after my final interview. The interview had gone really well, though, and I was confident that I would had been selected.

Also, those 13 management-level job applications include my successful application to Melbourne Water.

Reasons for Rejection

The reasons I was given for not getting 32 of those jobs included:

By too little experience (3) I mean the job was too senior for me. In one case, for example, I was told I didn't have experience in working with ad agencies on large multi-channel marketing campaigns.

By experience mismatch (3) I mean I had enough overall experience but the company was looking for someone with a slightly different set of skills. For example, they were looking for more sales/marketing oriented people than technical or communications oriented ones.

By cultural mismatch (4) I mean I had the right experience and skills but I wasn't the right person for that particular job, team, or company.

By too much experience (5) I mean I was overqualified for the job. I usually discovered this during the preliminary phone discussion with the recruiter at which point I would withdraw my application.

By job already filled (3) I mean that, by the time I applied for the job, the company had already hired a candidate (either on its own or via another recruitment firm).

By no answer (8) I mean I simply didn't get a response for the company (2 cases) or the recruitment agent (6 cases) to whom I had applied. In some cases I got no answer even after telephoning them a number of times and leaving messages asking for a call-back.

By no good reason given (3) I mean I got a generic and completely useless reason for my application being rejected. For example: "Thank you for your recent application for the above position; we have now had an opportunity to consider all applications. Very careful consideration has been given to your application and whilst you have many relevant attributes, unfortunately, on this occasion your application has not been successful." In some of these cases I asked for further detail but I almost never got any.

By too many candidates (1) I mean the recruitment firm had already filled its quota of interviews for that particular job.

By hiring freeze (1) I mean the company stopped its hiring process before making an offer of employment because senior management instated a hiring freeze.

Finally, I interviewed for seven of these jobs:

Twice I got rejected after a single interview

Five times I got rejected after multiple (usually two) interviews

One of the experience mismatch jobs and three of the cultural mismatch jobs were the ones that I went through multiple interviews for. The fifth was the hiring freeze one.

How this Fits with my Job Application Philosophy

In my opinion, these are fairly decent statistics. I say this because they reflect my job application philosophy which includes the following heuristics:

Only apply to those jobs you think you have a good chance of getting. This is, of course, based on the job ad, an optional detailed position description, or simply a verbal description of the role.

If, while writing the cover letter, you find that you're not convincing even yourself that you can or really want to do this job, abandon the application.

Don't apply to too many 'reach' jobs that might be just out of your skills and experience range. You'd only apply to these types of jobs if you though you could grow into the role quite rapidly.

Don't apply to too many 'backup' jobs for which you are qualified but from which you won't gain anything other than a little more experience and line on your CV. You'd only apply to these types of jobs if the hiring company had a great brand, was one you really wanted to get into, or was one in which you could see yourself getting promoted through relatively quickly. For example, if Google offered me a junior-ish job I'd jump at it!

Take the time to tailor both your resume and cover letter to match the requirements of the job at hand. Assuming, of course, you fit the basic requirements in first place.

Do your research on the company and make sure that (a) you can do the job, (b) you want to do the job, and (c) you would work well in that company.

What Have I Learnt From All This?

Aside from the obvious "it's no fun to be looking for a job during an economic downturn" I have learnt that perseverance, smart application techniques, and patience all pay off in the end. I have also learnt that it's crucial to look for cultural fit between you and your potential employer and that it's important to identify both good and bad recruitment consultants and recruitment firms.

The perseverance bit is important because I've learnt that lesson the hard way. This is now the third difficult hiring period I've been through in my life. The first was back in 1998 when Pakistan and India tested nuclear weapons because of which the number of overseas work and study visas awarded to Pakistanis was slashed considerably. The economic sanctions that were subsequently imposed on Pakistan didn't help the local job market either. The second was when the dot-com bubble burst in the US in 2001. I was working for the Pakistan branch of a Silicon Valley consulting firm at the time and had just received my US work permit visa. My plan had been to go join that company in Silicon Valley but, instead, I quit my job and started working for a Pakistani firm instead. This actually turned out to be a fortuitous occurrence because that Pakistani company was the one that got me into creating web strategies and developing and using Content Management Systems.

Having patience is also important because in the past I have made one or two hasty career decisions that, in hindsight, I wish I hadn't made. I don't actually regret having made those decisions because I love where I am in my life and in my career. It's just that I could have been further along my career path had I not gone with the first option that came my way.

I have also learnt that cultural fit between employer and candidate plays a key role in the hiring process. I already knew this in theory, of course, but it's good to see it being played out in practice as well. I am really happy, for example, to have received a few specific rejections because I realized that, even though I could have done the jobs themselves, I wouldn't have had fun doing them. This is also why I rarely get disappointed or upset when I don't get a job that I've applied for. This is particularly true if I've had a couple of interviews with that company and, as a result, know quite a bit about my manager, my team, and the company in general. Also, I generally interview well and am honest about who I am during the the recruitment process. So, if after multiple interviews the company decides they don't like what they see then they're probably right in not hiring me because I wouldn't fit in there.

On a more practical note, I have learnt that it is important to quickly identify ineffective or bad recruitment consultants and recruitment firms and then stay away from them. This is easier said than done, of course - especially if those recruitment firms keep advertising good jobs! The flip side of this is that it's important to identify good recruitment consultants and recruitment firms and then stick with them. For example, I had excellent experiences with Michael Page (specifically with Angela Van Hazel), Hudson (specifically with Sarah Blaney), and RDBMS Resource Solutions (specifically with Jessica Burns) and I would highly recommend these firms and those recruitment consultants to anyone who is looking for a job.

What Now?

So the current job search phase in my life has ended. My contract with Melbourne Water is for 13 months, however, so I'll be back to looking for a job within the year...but that's okay. The more time I spend in the industry - getting to know companies and building networks of contacts - the easier it will be for me to get my next job.

Meanwhile, though, I'm going to work hard, do a good job, and have a lot of fun. I've been at Melbourne Water for just over a week but I already love the place and the people who work there (cultural fit rocks!). The future looks bright.

Ask a Manager: Why You Didn't Get Hired

Ameel Khan April 29, 2009

Alison Green from the Ask a Manager blog recently wrote a good article in the US News & World Report called ‘Why You Didn’t Get Hired’:

The job looked perfect for you. The description matched your experience and skills so perfectly, you could almost visualize yourself at your new desk. But now you're staring at a rejection e-mail and can't figure out what happened.

The article makes a good read, particularly in the current hiring climate. Though, if you’re at all familiar with hiring, getting hired, or the recruitment industry then none of what’s in there will come as a surprise to you.

Why This is Useful Anyway

Still, the article gives a good checklist to go through before applying for any job. I know that I self-select myself out of a number of potential job applications for some of the reasons listed in the article.

For example, I can tell when I’m under-qualified for a job and, unless I can clearly and succinctly justify why the company should take a chance on me despite my (apparent) shortcomings, I don’t bother applying for that role. Note that I’m not underselling myself by doing this, I’m simply being a realist.

Taking Self-Selection a Step Further

Indeed, before I apply for any job with a company I’m not very familiar with I learn all I can about the company and its employees. Naturally, a lot of my research is online since that’s the area I work in but my research has, in the past, included locating people who work for that firm and, through them, finding out first-hand what the culture there is really like. And I have, on occasion, not applied for an open position that I was qualified for after completing this research and realizing that I wouldn’t be a good fit there.

My research continues well into the interview stage, by the way. For example, just by looking at the office and the employees who walk by when you’re waiting in the reception area can tell you a lot. Specifically, it tells you what the company values and what it prides itself on. To give you an example, one organization I interviewed at had a huge world map on the wall with a dot representing where all its major offices were (over thirty of them across four continents) and a set of clocks that were set to the local times of major regional offices. Obviously, being global was important to this company. This kind of information is not only useful for the interview but twice I’ve realized early on that these weren’t places I could see myself enjoying working at. (The proudly-global company wasn’t one of them, by the way.)

Later, during the actual interview, I try to figure out which of the items in the job’s position description are important, necessary, optional, and added bonuses as far as the interviewer is concerned. If you’re lucky, your interviewer will tell you their preferences explicitly. If not, you have to figure it out from the company introduction and the overview of the role than they often give you at the start. Figuring out what they really want from you becomes particularly challenging when, for example, you have multiple interviewers who have differing priorities. And these priorities could differ both from each other and sometimes from what’s written on the position description itself.

For example, I once went through a three-round interview process and made it down to the last two applicants but got rejected because the head of the department – i.e. my potential boss’s boss – preferred a web strategist with a marketing agency background over one with an IT background (despite my MBA). My potential boss, on the other hand, really liked me because he had a marketing agency background and so he was looking for someone to complement his skills, not reinforce them. Indeed, he said exactly that during my interview with him. So when I highlighted my technical background during my final interview – this one with the head of the department – I ended up giving her a specific reason to reject me. Still, what I loved about this company was that they were clear about why I didn’t get the job and they were willing to state this reason openly and unapologetically – something that a lot of companies don’t do, even if you ask them.

So What Have We Learnt?

The point of this post, then, is two fold. First, if you didn’t get the job you thought was perfect for you, there are two reasons for this: (1) there was someone for whom this job was even more perfect or (2) you figured wrong and the job wasn’t perfect for you in the first place (i.e. maybe you were under-qualified or over-qualified, maybe you didn’t fit the team culture, maybe you underperformed at the interview, etc.).

Second, it’s crucial to debrief yourself on why you didn’t get that job. And be honest because sometimes the reason you didn’t get the job is you (i.e. you messed up the interview, you didn’t have an accurate understanding of what the job was about, you weren’t qualified anyway, etc.) and not the company (i.e. they didn’t understand you completely, they were too quick to reject you and probably didn’t read your entire resume, they’re just plain wrong, etc.).

Final Thought

Actually, if I could add one more thing it would be this: Don’t get disheartened.

I’ve had my fair share of job rejections over the last few months but I’ve also rejected tens of applicants who applied to jobs that my company advertised and for which I was the hiring manager. I’ve actually been in situations in which I’ve had three applicants who I know can do the job equally well – with some minor, mostly inconsequential differences among them, of course – and I’ve had to reject two of them. And, on occasion, I haven’t had a clear-cut, easily explainable reason for why I chose one over the others. In other words, the applicant I hired basically lucked out.

So when I’ve been rejected for a job I really wanted and knew I could do incredibly well – this has happened to me twice in the last year, by the way – I’m pretty sure it happened simply because I was unlucky that time. And I know that it’s only a matter of time before things go the other way and I’m the one who gets lucky. Of course, I just hope this happens sooner rather than later!

Making Checklists can be a Life Saver

Ameel Khan April 9, 2009

Smashing Magazine just published an excellent article by Lee Munroe that lists ‘15 Essential Checks Before Publishing Your Website’.

Pre-launch checklists are crucial because they sometimes save you from making the silliest of mistakes. I myself maintain two such checklists when working on website projects:

The first is a general pre-launch checklist like the one Munroe is talking about. I customize that to include all the specific features and functionality of the site that I am working on. Indeed it starts to look a little like Dan Zambonini’s ‘Ultimate Website Launch Checklist’ that Munroe refers to at the end of his post.

The second is a gaps and deviations checklist. This is a list that gets created while I’m working on the site and it covers gaps or deviations that I noticed while working on the site but wasn’t able to address at the time.

A gap could, for example, be something I wanted to add to the site before the launch but wasn’t able to do before, say, showing the latest iteration to the client. Instead of trusting myself to remember this gap later on, I log it into the checklist. This could be something like: “Add image between paragraph 2 and 3 on About Us > Company History page”.

Deviations, meanwhile, include crucial and non-crucial items. Crucial items are those that will cause problems once the site has been launched. These include things like “Remove hardcoded URL to video file on home page” or “Remember to tell ISP about new domain redirect for web server”. I clear all of these items off the list before going through any other checklist. Non-crucial items are those that we can launch with but the editor, designer, or generally obsessive-compulsive person in me would like to fix before we do. A non-crucial deviation item could be something like: “Re-crop image on Contact Us > Branch Locations page to remove tree branch on right side”.

My gaps and deviations checklist is usually quite short and often I find that I’ve already fixed a lot of the things that are listed in it. But still, it’s a useful one to have; particularly if you’re as obsessive about everything being perfect at launch time as I am!

Pathways for Finding Information

Ameel Khan October 16, 2008

My previous blog post was about the importance of a website's About Us section. And, though I didn't mention it explicitly there, I should say that the whole point of an About Us section is to build trust -- which, as we know, is all-important on the Internet -- because, the more your site visitors know about you and your company, the more they will tend to trust you.

However, the broader point of that blog post was to say that the language used on websites -- in both text and hyperlinks -- plays a major role in getting information across to site visitors. Of course, that isn't the whole story. There are two other elements of a website that are equally important:

The site's design -- which is the way in which elements are laid out on the page, the colours and images that are used, and so on.
The site's information architecture (IA) -- which is the way the site's content is logically structured.

Information Architecture

I won't talk about site design here, but I do want to address the importance of a good IA. First off, a good IA is one that is "logical", not to someone as knowledgeable about the company as you, but to someone who knows nothing about the company. It's important to remember this otherwise IAs tend to get very convoluted very quickly.

Also, a good IA isn't all that useful if you don't complement it with a good site navigation system. This can be in the form of a left or right navigation bar; a top navigation bar; a nested, multi-level, or drop-down menu system; or a combination of all or any of these. As long as it's easy to use and your hyperlink text is simple and clear, you should be okay.

Three Basic Pathways

Within your IA, however, it is my opinion that you need to provide three basic pathways to help site visitors find the information they're looking for.

First, you need deep links on the site home page that point to the most important or most frequently used site content. Often this feature is implemented via a 'quick links' box placed in an eye-catching location (such as in the right column, just under the top navigation bar).

In some cases, the links in this box may be dynamically generated (by the Content Management System) based on actual site usage in which case this is called a 'popular links' box. Sometimes webmasters will include both 'quick links' and 'popular links' boxes on their site's home page.

If you want to help your visitors out even more, you'll include a 'relevant links' box in your sub-pages as well. This list can be set manually (on a page-by-page basis) or may be generated dynamically based on content meta data (e.g. other articles on this topic or by this author).

Second, you should have cross links (i.e. links to other parts of the site) on the 'About Us' section's landing page to help users figure out where to go to next in order to find the information they want. These should link to information about the company itself (i.e. general 'About Us' information) and to pages that talk about what the company does. As a small example, look at my 'About Me' page for this blog and notice all the links within the text.

Third, you need a comprehensive 'Site Map' page to help clear any IA confusions that visitors might have. That is, should visitors be unclear about where in your website a particular piece of information will be found, this page should clear things up for them. And the bigger your site is, the more important this page becomes.

A Godsend and a Cop Out: Site Search

There is one more thing that you need to do to help your site visitors find the information the want: your site needs to have a great search engine. This is both good and bad. It's good because, if you implement it well, it's a really useful tool. It's also bad because it lets webmasters get away with a poorly thought-out IA. That is, even if your IA is crap, people might still be able to run, say, a Google search on your site to quickly get to the information they're looking for.

Regardless, to do site search properly you need two things: well-structured HTML pages -- ones that have good titles, text, and meta data (i.e. keywords, summaries, tags, etc.) -- and access to a good search engine (or you need to implement SEO practices so Google does all the indexing for you instead).

And There's More...

There is, of course, much more you can do to make your website go from good to great. For example, it's important to have an FAQ page, a 'Contact Us' page, a featured news/article/story/page section (often on the home page), a good footer, useful breadcrumbs, good images and graphics, and so on. But I won't be talking about all that here.

The point I wanted to make here is that your site's IA (and the information pathways within it) is as important as the language you use on the site itself. Hmmm...maybe I should review the five telco sites again, but this time focusing on their IAs. Maybe later :)

The Importance of Effective Online Communication

Ameel Khan October 16, 2008

Jakob Nielsen's 29 September Alertbox newsletter talks about the importance of the About Us section on a company's website. In my opinion, this is the first section you should look at when establishing (or, as is often the case for me, re-establishing) a company's online presence.

Nielsen points out that, unfortunately, not everyone gets this section right:

Task success for finding out what the company or organization does actually dropped, from 90% to 81%. In place of a frank summary of the business, marketese and blah-blah text ruled the day on many sites.

And it's not just "blah-blah text" that's bad, often there's no text at all: just a big list of links that leaves you wondering where you should go next.

Some Australian Examples

Since Nielsen's research was US-based, I thought I'd do a quick check of some Australian websites to see how they measured up in this area. Since I wasn't going to do a scientific study like Nielsen's I figured I'd pick an industry and take a subjective (though knowledgeable) look at the the sites of the largest players.

I picked the telecommunications industry and looked at the 'About Us' landing pages of the five big telcos in Australia:

Optus has the worst page of the lot: 'About Optus' has no text, no explanation, and the none of the links in the main content area actually tell you anything about the company or where you could possibly go next to find the information you're looking for.
Vodafone's 'About Vodafone Australia' page does have some text...but it doesn't tell you anything either. You have to go to 'Company Information' > 'Company Overview' and then decipher the marketese to figure out what it is that Vodafone does (and even then you're not quite sure).
3 has a pretty bad page too: all you can tell from the 'About 3' page is that "It's good to be 3" and that this company seems to be Australia's first 3G network -- though, even then, you have to click on the 'Find out more about 3' link to be sure. At least they have a clearly-worded 'Find out more...' link that tells you where to go next for more information.
Virgin, meanwhile, has gone to the other extreme: its 'Company Info' page is chock full of words which is somewhat intimidating at first sight. Fortunately, the writing on this page is short, crisp, and clear. Strangely, the top three links in the left navigation bar ('Company Info', 'About Us', and 'Our Story') all point to this same page.
Telstra has a great page. Its 'About Telstra' page quickly tells you what the company is about, what it does, and what it wants to do. To complement that, the left navigation bar has clearly-worded links which makes it really straightforward to dig deeper for more information. And I love the "No one else can do what Telstra does." tagline :)

I guess Nielsen has a point, huh? :)

Seriously, though, have the web strategists (or webmasters or online marketing people) at Optus, Vodafone, and 3 not read something as basic as, say, Steve Krug's 'Don't Make Me Think'? I guess not.

Social Media in Management

Ameel Khan September 1, 2008

CIO Magazine's Sue Bushell has written an interesting article, called 'Management 2.0? That'll Be The Day', on the challenges that CIOs -- and companies, in general -- are facing with the advent of social media technologies in the workplace.

In his book, The Future of Management, Gary Hamel suggests that organizations today face a new set of business challenges that the existing management model does not match. The drone worker of yesterday is giving way to the engaged and vocal employee of today who expects a company culture that replicates the collaborative nature of Web 2.0 — in other words Management 2.0

The name Gary Hamel will, of course, be very familiar to anyone who has done any MBA and has studied the (frequently incorrectly-used) Core Competency concept.

The article is long but useful as it gives managers a lot to think about and hopefully look into:

Managers have a general sense of what Web 2.0 tools are — especially when it comes to applications they’re familiar with like YouTube, Facebook, or Linkedin. But they still struggle to understand these technologies, discover their real business value, address the risks and figure out how to best use them.

This, by the way, is where someone like me would come in: I know both management (theory and practice) and technology (uses and implementations) and can help senior management come up with an implementation of social media that enhances project management, decision making, and internal communication and collaboration.

The trick is that social media integration in an enterprise needs to be a long-term project and not something you hire a consulting firm to do for you in a few weeks. It needs to grow experimentally, possibly slowly, and from the ground-up. And while it will probably change a number of times as it develops -- which means it's not something you can really plan for in advance -- you can start with a few basic governance rules (who does what and what everyone is in responsible for), some content guidelines (that cover privacy, security, and intellectual property), and a simple usage policy (like the two-word "be careful" policy that is often a good start).

Speaking of governance...

Challenges of the Multi-Generational Workforce

The discussion on how to manage a multi-generational workforce -- which is an issue for many managers these days -- reminds me of a blog post on banning Facebook that Toby Ward wrote on the Intranet Blog about a month ago:

Beware of Facebook! It will crush your productivity and hijack your employees!

[...]

Employees prefer to be treated as adults. Judge their performance and actions instead of counting their minutes spent doing "productive work."

Trust me, the threat and problems stemming from a ban far exceed the embrace option. Prescient Digital Media’s Julian Mills last week highlighted the findings of one recent survey that warned of the perils of banning Facebook:

39% of 18 to 24 year-olds would consider leaving if they were not allowed to access sites like Facebook and YouTube
A further 21% indicated that they would feel ‘annoyed’ by such a ban
The problem is less acute with 25 to 65 year-olds, of whom just 16% would consider leaving and 13% would be annoyed

Of course "consider leaving" doesn't mean they actually will leave but it does mean that they probably won't join your company in the first place. Especially if they announce your blanket banning policy on the Facebook group about your company that you didn't know existed.

I know that I, for one, wouldn't want to join a company that bans sites like Facebook or doesn't let you blog, read blogs, pay your bills, read the news, check your e-mail, or basically have a life outside work while you're at work. Limiting YouTube usage makes a little more sense since there's a bandwidth cost associated with online video but, even then, it shouldn't be banned outright.

As Ward said in his article, companies shouldn't be taking the Taylorist approach to management. Of course you'll get employees who'll take 30 minutes to make themselves a cup of coffee or spend an hour on Facebook every now and then -- but that's okay as long as they (a) get their jobs done, (b) don't stop others from getting their jobs done, and (c) don't use-up too many freely-provided company resources (like bandwidth or, for that matter, coffee).

I guess all I can conclude with is that, with the advent of social media and the existence of a multi-generational workforce...well, the next five years are going to be really interesting

My Elevator Pitch & Unique Selling Proposition

Ameel Khan August 27, 2008

As I wrote in my previous blog post, I met with another recruitment consultant from Hudson this morning. In order to introduce myself to her, I did some work on my elevator pitch and further developed my Unique Selling Proposition (USP). In fact, I typed all this up and and gave her a printout of it. And, since I'm applying for an Internet-related position and the best place to learn more about me is indeed online, I added a section on that too.

Here's what I came up with:

(Extended) Elevator Pitch

Experience: Six years of experience in IT consulting and management, over five of which were spent in the strategic planning, technical development, business integration, and marketing of websites, web portals, intranets, and social media sites. Overall, eight years of work experience.

Training: MBA from the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne Business School (see list of courses in this blog post, which I also included in the printout).

Immediate career goals: A management or consulting role that involves the alignment of business and marketing strategy with online strategy. This could include the formulation (i.e. research and analysis), implementation (i.e. administration and management), or further development (i.e. testing and advancement) of such a strategy. An online strategy includes internal and external marketing and communications and the use of social media to communicate with stakeholders internally and across the value chain.

Unique Selling Proposition

Uniquely positioned between IT, marketing, and senior (strategic) management – with a background in IT and experience in all three areas
Management and consulting experience in small start-ups, large multinationals, local and global non-profits, and government organizations
Have been developing websites professionally since 1997; specialize in the use of social media
Possess excellent written and oral communication skills; have experience in teaching and training

Online

Website: /ameel
Professional blog: /acme
Personal blog: /randomtangent
LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ameelkhan
Twitter stream: http://twitter.com/ameel

Comments?

So what do you think? Does that sum things up nicely?

Career Update

Ameel Khan August 27, 2008

My contract job at Linfox finished recently (I'll write more about that when I continue my MBA-at-work blog post series) so I spent the last week watching the Olympics (which was awesome). Now that I've had a nice break, I'm back to looking for jobs.

An Unsuccessful Job Application

Actually, I did interview for a job during my last week at Linfox -- the recruitment consultants at Hudson are very efficient -- but, after three rounds of interviews and reaching the final stage of the process (with just two candidates in the running) I didn't get end up getting it.

This was unfortunate because it was a good job, at a good company, and I really liked the people I would have been working with. Oh well. Such is life.

The Silver Lining

It's not all bad, though: this was only my second serious job application since completing the MBA -- i.e. an application to a permanent position that I really wanted to get and could then see myself growing with over the following year or two -- and, in both cases, I reached the final stage before being dropped. [More on my job application philosophy here]

What this means is that I have what it takes to do these kinds of jobs -- that is, I have the 'can do', 'will do', and 'fit', as my interviewers from both companies told me -- it's just that one of the other applicants was more appropriate for that particular role at that particular time. In other words, that applicant's Unique Selling Proposition (USP) was more suited to that role than mine was. In the job I just applied to, for example, the winning applicant had the marketing agency experience that the company wanted.

This is good: this means the company is paying very close attention to the people it is hiring and, when it happens that my USP is the most suitable for that role, that company, and that team, I'll win out over the other applicants and will know that the company did it for all the right reasons.

Next Steps

So, what next? Well, the people at Hudson have me on their radar -- in fact I met with another recruitment consultant of theirs this morning -- so I expect to get a good lead from them (they're very good at what they do). Hopefully that lead will come sooner rather than later.

Otherwise, I continue to look for jobs online and continue to network for openings in the hidden job market. Let's see how things go. If you know of anything I might be interested in, please let me know. Thanks.

MBA Skills at Work: Part 1

Ameel Khan July 18, 2008

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.

I Have a Job!

Ameel Khan June 8, 2008

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!

Ameel Khan May 6, 2008

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:

World of Management

Data & Decisions

Managing Processes

Accounting for Managers

Financial Management

Corporate Finance

Managerial Economics

Economics and Public Policy

Business Strategy

Corporate Strategy

Implementation of Strategy

Managing People for High Performance *

Leadership & Change

Negotiations *

Marketing

Brand Management

Consumer Behaviour

E-Commerce *

Information Strategy

Business & Sustainable Development (half subject)

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.

- - - - - - - - - -

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

Job Rejection Follow-Up

Ameel Khan April 13, 2008

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! :)

Living a Dangerously Unhealthy Life

Ameel Khan April 13, 2008

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.

MBA, Job Application & Work Update

Ameel Khan April 9, 2008

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).

My Job Application Philosophy

Ameel Khan April 4, 2008

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:

Are we really adding value to the businesses that we own?
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:

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)?
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:

Can you do the job? If yes, you get to the technical interview stage.
Will you do the job (and do it well)? If yes, you progress through the technical interview stages to the management interview stage.
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:

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.
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.
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?