Welcome 2 the "We" Generation: Work as a Team or Perish.

 “I am always doing things, I can't do, that's how I get to do them.” --  Pablo Picasso

Years ago, when I started Pro-edge Consultants, we had 1 rule: if someone asks if we do it, the answer is always "absolutely". Today Stew, our blog editor came in my office and he asked me a question about a widget not working on 1 of our numerous blogs. I looked at him with ‘are you kidding me?’...

Why? Because for starters I have no idea. With 7 pages of passwords and usernames, and over a dozen widgets feeding into the blogs we are involved in: I am officially at technological learning curve capacity and no vacation will resolve this. This brings me to the greatest skill that any evolving professional in our industry possesses today: agility, speed and an above average processing rate. A depth of knowledge while useful only lengthens answers in this ADD universe we live in. Someone get me a coffee...

Yesterday a former CEO for one of the financial institutions in the world called me and said: “what’s this twitter thing?” Like I know, I thought and then responded: “Not sure how to use this, already I have 2 accounts but even Fred knows how to use it...so we better figure it out.” Then I added: “Once you find out call me back so we can figure out if we can make some money with this thing.” “I think it’s like Facebook” -- he commented. “Yes, that’s my inclination but Stew is supposed to train our team (a not so subtle hint). ” After years of being first in comprehending technologies, their marketing applications and even being a member of associations that are leading edge: welcome to 2009, where none of us will be able to keep up unless we work as a team.

With 2 teenagers showing me the latest hot trends on YouTube that keep me at least contemporary in my understanding of something (albeit questionably irrelevant data like surfing dogs) and regularly, leaning on DealFlow Director & Partner Kevin who is an ace at technology (*thanks for the wmlive.com recommendation for travel organization, I love it!) – the point is that nowadays there is officially no one that one can hire that can do it all. I spent another 20 minutes setting up yet another SKYPE account after getting rid of EYEBEAM and with the latest and greatest in headset technology yesterday and then ended up knocking out my speakers. Don't get me started on trying to reset Outlook to accept the flash PPT yesterday from our Art Director Rob. Thank you Wheeler for the mpeg file you just sent!

This morning I heard Fred sighing all the way down the hall, he had killed another wireless mouse. Having suggested a change of batteries yesterday, Stew ran out this morning and Fred responded gratefully with “is this all you could get?” Laughing and relieved that I hadn’t been involved in helping Fred with IT issues; technology is frustrating for everyone. Add on top of this that for every skill I seem to learn, there is a new system, an upgrade or a new technology that replaces it within what seems like hours...

Welcome to the "We" generation where one must rely on others to survive and thrive or suffer professional suicide. He Stew finish my book "WE are Smarter than ME" and let me know what it says...smile.

Comments

[Stew]

Just to update: The widget was a new feedblitz RSS feed - seems to be working. Fred's mouse was returned and he seems to be satisfied (until this one breaks). And I will certainly read the book "We are smarter than Me" on behalf of the team, to improve our working as a team...