So what's your networth?

Search engines like Spock, pipl and PeekYou are clear indications that people searches are becoming BIG. Not the lost-touch-with-my-fifth-cousin-or-schoolmate-from-grade-2 kind of searches. But searches for people. People you might work with. People you might consult for your business. People you might fund. People who've been referred to you.

If you're in the Internet space - developing internet technologies, or marketing them, then your resume is not a standard 2 pager. Its what shows up when you type John Doe in Google, and soon all the beta-people search engines. And what you discover there.

Online Community Management

Seth touched upon something of immediate relevance in this blog.

In India specially, this is a relatively new and still evolving concept and career opportunity. But it ranks pretty damn high on the exciting-and-dynamic-work quotient! Here's my two cents:

the Internet functions differently than more traditional markets. Lets say, when I go to buy soap, I'd pick it up and smell it first. With furniture, I want to run my hands across it. When opening an account with a bank, I want to look into the representative eyes and 'feel' if he really believes what he's saying himself. There's something tangible that aids my decision to buy. I use my senses (sometimes one, sometimes all) to finally go ahead.

The Internet wipes out all of that. Sorry, no touching, no feeling, seeing, smelling, sensing . Faceless sellers sell to faceless buyers.

In this case, the work of the Online Community Manager is firstly, to be as human and humane as possible. Develop (systematically and regularly) the image of a 'real' person(s) dealing with customer communication. And here's where his know-how of technology (as Seth points out) will come in handy.. how to personalize as much as possible while still handling large numbers? Design an 'About Us' section with loads of information about the people behind the product/service: What do they look like, what do they do? How do they spend their free time? How many kids do they have? Establish again and again (and through as many channels/points of contact) that these people are ordinary, human beings like you and me.

The other important responsibility of such a person is: communicate in ways that makes users feel they have an emotional stake in the product/service's life. This is the only way things get viral: when people are emotionally connected to something/someone. Then they talk. Involve your users and don't do lip-service to that. Let their be evidence that their opinion counts. (Eg. someone makes a suggestion which is not implementable right away. Shoot an email, acknowledging the suggestion, saying thank you, where you're at wrt to engg/tech and why its not possible right away. And when you DO implement the change, mail again saying 'hey we put it up. What do you think?')

Its a new and exciting place to be, there's a lot to learn. And by gosh, its fun!

Two companies I know are looking for Online Community Managers are Pinstorm and MangoSpring

My first BarCamp

Other than a mostly male turnout, I didn't know what else to expect. Barcamps are unconferences with a lot of geek talk, so I surely had my apprehensions. Fortunately this one covered a range of non-techie discussions, from human resource management to legal information for startups, from open source education to an online TV guide.

Here's what I walked out thinking:
Engineers, geeks, programmers are brilliant creations of god - talented and driven. Whats more, the more experienced ones know intuitively what the market needs, what gap will be filled their new software product/services idea. And usually they are bang-on.

The problem?

They know their stuff. They KNOW they're sitting on a brilliant concept and can translate that into a workable prototype. Its what they do, what they're passionate about. But a business (a successful one anyway!) needs much more... expertise about the market dynamics (where is your target audience?), legalities (entity, incorporation, IP) communication-programs (how will you talk to your target audience?), recruitment(who will carry out these functions?), business intelligence (what is the revenue-model, how will you raise money, how will you best use it?)....

I'd like to be involved with bringing together this expertise to BarCamp like events, where geeks can find opportunities to evolve their engineering ideas into workable, monetizable businesses.