Over the last decade we’ve seen tremendous growth across all industries as a result of online transformation. Today online careers are among the most dynamic and satisfying of any industry.
When we think of online transformation, we are likely to think of YouTube, Facebook, Apple, and Google. Beyond these companies that are ‘first to mind’, many others now have ‘digital’ at the center of everything they do. For example, a recent MIT study found that Starbucks was able to reduce time-in-line by 900,000 hours by cutting every card and mobile transaction by 10 seconds using a coordinated online transformation strategy. Square is another example…within 5 years Square grew from a handful of people without experience in financial services to transact tens of billions of dollars each year.
However, despite huge advancements in online-led growth many organisations have not matched their technology investment with equal programs to develop tomorrow’s online leaders.
In fact, if you were to track the online career pathways of people who are Heads of Online or Chief Digital Officers you would find a set of diverse pathways, sometimes with few connecting themes. The sheer pace of online transformation occurs so quickly it often outpaces the development of structured career pathways.
So, if you want a career in online, what direction could you follow? And what skills should you develop? Everyone one or two years I return to these questions.
Here are 5 skills I believe are essential for a rewarding online career:
1. Be good at business
Sure, you could strike it lucky and launch a mobile app with 10 other friends which eventually gets so big you sell your company for $1b. Wouldn’t that be nice! It is entirely possible and never let anyone else tell you different.
But in case you want a fall-back plan (and I’m not saying you have to have one), many digital leaders operate in medium or large businesses. If it’s a medium business, the digital leader may have a team of 1 to 10 people. If it’s a large business (and I’ve worked in some large ones), this person may lead several hundred.
As a result strong business skills are a form of currency in these roles. One of the biggest tasks of a digital leader is to translate into business terms the uplift that can be achieved through online. To do this involves knowing the language of business.
2. Know online processes and tools
Online comes with its own set of processes and tools. Whether its sketching wireframes or building a prototype for the latest mobile app, there are specific techniques involved to do it well.
If I walked into a mechanic’s and told them I was going to repair a car without any training, they’d tell me I was crazy. While my iPad and Youtube might help me with a few simple tasks (checking the oil, maybe?), I wouldn’t get very far without real expertise and training.
The same is true for online careers. Which is why I take every opportunity to be involved in a new process. I put up my hand. Every chance to be involved in a new online process is an opportunity to work with others and learn. And this takes me to the next skill.
3. Collaborate
Online is a team sport. Collaboration is at its center. The best learning takes place by being involved.
The leaders who I admire most (either by reading about them or working with them), are those people who volunteer to be in the workshops, or attend user testing, or even take a blank piece of paper and sketch a prototype. Beyond having fun, this is the very best way to get to learn what makes the biggest impact for online projects.
This is no different from retail businesses who ask their employees to spend a day in stores.
Even the Economist agrees that to be a good online leader you have to learn to put your ego on hold.
4. Operate at all levels
Organisations are becoming flatter and those that aren’t yet, will be.
If you think about it, there are lots of drivers toward flatter structures: people are changing jobs more frequently which has eroded the benefit of time-based seniority; the pace of change is accelerating which means organisational structures must be more fluid; and people are given far more autonomy in their roles which reduces the need for hierarchical decision-making.
It is little surprise that online companies love flat structures. And with letters like the one David Stein wrote (co-CEO of Rypple) to Forbes Magazine, it’s easy to see why. As well as structural change, based on the learnings of 37 Signals these flat structures require a new philosophy which encourages people to become ‘master craftspeople’ instead of the ‘head of a department’.
Today people who establish influential online careers are connectors of people. They bring together people from across the organisation (and outside of the organisation where needed) to conceive of new ways to solve problems and capture new opportunities. In this capacity, there’s no place for hierarchy, because the best ideas and processes can literally come from anywhere in a company.
5. Stay on top of rapid change (aka. build your intelligence scanning process)
The world is moving faster than ever before and change is accelerating.
A good portion of an online leader’s skills are sustainable. Expertise around problem solving, documenting user journeys, analysing conversion funnels – all of these skills have a good shelf life. Other skills involved in online careers need to be ejected every few years. And some skills need to be created where nothing existed before. In most cases new technologies create this need for rapid skill change.
Consumer trends toward smartphone adoption and mobile apps are just some of the changes we’ve seen in recent years which have created enormous demand for new skills. When I think of the international banks, the concept of mobile banking through an application simply didn’t exist a decade ago. Today it’s a third or more of all banking.
I’m sure you can think of many other examples, and there are plenty to chose from. Even now technologies like Google Glass and the change toward electronic health measurement are examples of emerging technologies that will create sweeping change in the next 10 years.
So in your online career, it’s worth creating a ‘intelligence scanning’ process to identify those forces of change which could disrupt the near future. One of the ways I do this is to research industry based reports at the end of every year to help me identify shifting landscapes. Whether you use a similar system or something completely different, just by doing this you will identify skills you may need to develop to capture the next big opportunity.
If you are considering a new role or changing your career direction, you may wish to read these five factors to consider in any career decision.
1 comment
Nice article. Have a good day.