Sunday, January 02, 2011

2011 :The year of consolidation?

We are two days into the new year-and perhaps the fact it began with a weekend-gave me an ample time -to reflect on the year that was!

If I were to pinpoint one factor that made a difference in 2010-it was the influence of social media. Even if we were to restrict our attention to the multitude of the new year wishes one could now interact with-it overshadowed all the traditional media one used in the past-the physical visits, phone calls, sharing of greeting cards, to the more in vogue sms/ IMs/ status messages! The advent of Facebook also means uploading photographic evidence too :)!

I had a strong suspicion that I blogged lesser last year. But I didn't realise it till a few moments ago, that it had dropped to my lowest frequency. Since the time I had first attempting sharing my thoughts on this medium in 2006 (53)! 79, 59, 62 were the number of posts in the subsequent years..it dropped down to 36 in 2010..just one in every ten days!!

Perhaps it also had to do with the fact that twitter and Facebook also came into our daily lives, and so one had to allocate the bandwidth to them too..which being more instantaneous feedback & interactive engagements, to be wonderful excuses for one to indulge in 'the break'. Blogging needed one to be in the zone -to conceive and deliver, and still hope to be relevant in the fast paced world!

Personally, the year 2010 was one where I probably made a lot of experiments-in a bid to stay abreast with the changing dynamics of the way business is being done now. Not all of them clicked, but yes, each experiment -did enhance my learning's, and have contributed to the progress made during the year.

Well, we had a new logo. A new website. Launched a weekly newsletter only to abort it 4 months later-as we realised that our engagement with our stakeholders had to be lot more than sharing some interesting nuggets. The attempt has been to go beyond the popular perception of being 'resume peddlers' to become a partner to our clients for their hiring solutions, and be in the 'insights' business.

Made a few changes in the hiring strategy for ourselves. Some worked. Some boomeranged to become gains for our clients /competition, and a couple even left the profession being disillusioned :(!

Experimented with some new business models tinkering with the established practices and build in new processes that improved the accountability, and helped us partner with our clients lot more closely (faith eventually overcoming the initial inertia!)-to vindicate our belief!

I had also the occasion to travel to the USA, Canada, Hong Kong, and Malaysia during the year and meet like-minded professionals, within our industry, (as also as interact with other established professionals), benchmark best practices and make new associations.

Was lucky to exchange notes with other entrepreneurs, be part of volunteer groups to help incubate and contribute to the ecosystem that provides more opportunities for employment & employability.

Yes, the momentum is just right. What is in store for 2011?

We continue on the journey...the milestones are etched in our mind. New alliances. New partners. More collaboration. Explore opportunities for co-creation of services to improve our impact. Orchestrate the network of relationships we have built so far.

Yes, 2011..would be the year of consolidation for most of us!!

1 comment:

knowledge process outsourcing said...

Social media evolved as it adapts to what people needs in communication, pleasure and of course for business as well.