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Greetings!
Until last month, I
was the last 20th Century guy standing. I hated all computer technology,
and remain in awe of the universal dial tone. I saw a movie, recently,
where Angelina Jolie is a shift supervisor for the phone company in the 1920's,
literally rolling from operator to operator on roller skates. Now that's
my kind of technology!
But, my son Nicholas
converted me, and here I am e-mail news lettering and blogging away-and wait
till you read the other technology announcements below! One of my old
friends, Tim Lawler recently wrote me, and I quote, "I can't believe ole Pat
got into the 21st century in such a big way!!" So, I can claim to have
hated technology passionately, and now...I've flipped. How about
that?
The 80/20 Flip
I'll
guess I've seen 3 or 4 technology revolutions in recruiting, so far. In
1993, when I first started serving recruiters, fax technology was still
finishing up its new conquest, but was already in place. My great friend,
Mike Gionta, bugged me so much about this in 1994, that he finally forced me to
buy my own first fax machine. At MRI's Global Conference a week ago, I
learned about the 5 year cycle from 1993 - 1998, when e-mail was finally
introduced and that would be the first revolution I witnessed in full, although
I was not paying a great deal of attention to it while it occurred! The
second, online job boards, was probably the scariest for recruiters, but no one
has gained more from them than recruiters. Third was the
database/candidate & client tracking software wars which, for MRI at least,
seem to have been won by PCR. And now, the fourth is the social
networking revolution.
As these waves have
hit, there's been a profound transformation in the relationship of recruiters
to technology itself. Whereas recruiters used to be, if not last on the wagon,
they were at least often late to the party. Now, recruiters are, if not
leading the way, surely in the van guard. In this article we'll discuss
the emotional side of this, and tie down on some tactical and most important
some strategic outcomes of this great flip.
Where recruiters used
to fear technology with 80% of their hearts, and desire new technologies with
only 20% or less, they've now flipped. To my view, recruiters now desire
technology mastery with at least 80% of their heart and only lag behind, hating
technology with about 20% of their emotions, or less. That is awesome
news.
To get started, I'll
share a bit of my own news-in case you haven't heard-it is my distinct delight
to share a pretty big victory with you. Here's a picture taken at Global
a week ago now...
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Evan Davis & Shamah Howell Congratulate Pat on his Award!
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It was a wonderful experience receiving MRI's 2009, Best In Class
Consultant of the Year award. I loved every minute I got to spend
meeting with both old and new friends. It's great to share this moment
with you, and in fact, if you'd like to read more about that, do check out
these postings at my blog:
Additionally, if you've already joined Facebook, you only have to search
for my name, Pasquale Scopelliti, or click on the profile badge below and add me as a friend...
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...I've included
some awesome pictures of my son Anthony and me enjoying an outing of local
swordsmen, here in the DC area. And, you'll see that I claim to be the
last 20th Century Dinosaur to convert to these 21st
Century methods.
Facebook for Old-timers Like Me
But, what if you haven't joined Facebook yet? If
not, you soon will. You might even want to just surrender and do it right
now. And if you've never been to Facebook before, and don't know anything
about today's world of social networking, that really is okay, I promise.
One of my clients, John Broderick, basically held my hand in signing up at
Facebook a couple of months ago. Before that, I'd never been there,
or to any social networking web site. It is free and easy and offers,
strangely enough, compelling values. But, for old timers like me, how do
you even get there? It's so easy. There are probably better ways,
but me, I just put Facebook right into Google's search box, and voila, here's
what comes up...
Welcome to Facebook! | Facebook
Facebook is a social utility that connects people with
friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook
to keep up with friends, ...
I'd love to add you as a friend there and I'll do my best to
welcome you into this new world if you're not already there! Just click
on the link above, or like me, punch it into Google, and you're about to find a
whole new way of understanding what's going on all around us. Here's the
thing for old timers like me to try to wrap our minds around. Everyone
got into e-mail, pretty easily, for the following reason. Of course it
was free. But, beyond that, typing an e-mail does not stretch a 20th
Century mind much further than using a typewriter used to. And, sending
an e-mail is not very different than sending a regular, old-fashioned letter by
the good old US Postal Service, it's just instantaneous. So, e-mail
remains the ultimate killer application of the Internet, because it simply
automates-and makes it free, instant and easy-the same function we all knew so
well. Social networking has similar precedents in our everyday
lives. But, it takes your Internet experience to totally new places,
unlike anything you've ever accomplished by the old ways.
If you ever posted anything on a bulletin board in college or at
the local grocery store, you've experienced a little bit of what today's social
networking sites replicate. But, you have to add the experience of
sharing a photo album. And also, perhaps, another related experience is something
like buying furniture and taking control over a given amount of physical space,
like making your office your own, or even buying and decorating a home.
But, you have to add the competitive/cooperative arts of making friends in
school or neighborhood, as well as working out what you're going to do in order
to build your reputation and win your spot in any given community.
It Helps to Read All Instructions
The most important previous experience you can relate to was just
learning your abc's and numbers, as a small child. You have to bring a
simple readiness to let the world you're entering guide you in new
learning. It will teach you, and you will find your way. I know
that many of Nico's skills were honed by computer games. I could never
make the leap. But, I have watched him and the one thing I can see the
clearest is Nico's total comfort clicking on things and finding out what they
do. Me, I'm always afraid I'm going to break something. But, you
can't break the Internet. If you get some place you don't want to be, you
just click on and out you go again, no problem. Also, Nico continues to
teach me the same lesson again and again, that he's been trying to get me to
understand for about 10 years now. Read all instructions. Actually
read them. Don't let your mind wander when you read the screen.
Read everything on the screen and don't rush. The instructions are your
teacher. Do what she tells you to do.
Yes, thanks again, Nico, don't stop pushing me forward! And,
I am also promising Skip Freeman, who keeps inviting me to join him at Linked
In, that I'll get that project tackled within the next week or so.
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Yours in honor
and faith,
Pasquale
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P.S. You won't want to miss the second edition of the TheConsigliori.com Newsletter coming out in the next few days. It's called "Internet vs. Telephone: The Real Answer is Convergence".
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