Creativity wanted!

The second part of the Online Networking Award finished with the task on reflective writing. I am lucky one, as I believe I have always to say something and I do not experience difficulty in finding the words to describe my opinion or position. I have started my own blog and there I had a dilemma. I have got caught into restrictions, how and what I have to write about. After more than 10 years of my career in different countries I have noticed that universities and other educational institutions tend to make the same mistake and the gap between theoretical and practical knowledge is not getting better. I would like to challenge the University of Leicester in getting closer to the corporate world and finding out their needs. The university will not help students in finding jobs, if you force them to act according to certain rules. The corporate world needs creativity and solutions out of the box. And “reflective writing” should not be defined step by step. Let them be brutally honest and challenge you as well. Let them make their ideas into reality.

The second part of Online Networking Award has presented the social media tools, which I was using a few years ago and it added to my disappointment with the content of the award. The exercises who should be getting an employment based on their profile in social media were very simplistic. Personally I use only LinkedIn and Facebook as my social platform. However in practice I have learned to select very carefully which part of my personal information should be public and which should remain secret long time ago. Facebook is strictly dedicated to my personal life and friends with meticulous access restrictions, while Linkedin is my professional “I”. Twitter is one of the social media tools that are not so much relevant and I find it time consuming. Try to imagine being an executive and using your time on tweeting. I do not believe that my shareholders or the board would be happy about that. I would hire in this case a PR professional to do it for me.

In my opinion the second part of the Online Networking Award could have named the different social media tools, introduce to the basics of creating a good social media profile, but I lacked again good and solid examples. I lacked a provocative material that would boost discussions. However, there was an element that I borrowed in the course material. It was the 7C’s of Digital Literacy. I wish the whole second part of the Award would be going into details of 7C’s. As the participants of the Award happened to be so different in their experience and age, it was a perfect opportunity in finding the differences of views and approaches and share intercultural issues.

Creating and curating will be my 2 main C’s in the future to make my professional profile more visible and making the basis for my self-employed future, when I feel that I gathered enough experience in the corporate world and feel competent to teach others or help on their way up on a corporate ladder. My own webpage is my next project and milestone in structuring and building my digital profile. The Award made me acknowledge that it is never too early to stand out.