01.27.11
Staying Socially Informed
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Staying socially informed for personal or professional reasons takes time and commitment. No longer can we read monthly magazines to stay current. We must take advantage of all of the communications opportunities available to us on the internet.
Because so many take advantage of internet communications, it is no wonder why monthly publications are struggling to stay in business. In the past, I regularly read several different monthly magazines and attended one or two conventions each year to stay current in my profession. Now, I only read monthly magazines on subjects like improving my golf game while waiting in the doctor’s office. The only professional magazines I read come to me electronically.
Most everyone will catch the latest news of the day from either their internet home page or from their smartphone. They don’t want to be the last person on the planet to be aware of some major event. Today, having this knowledge is almost mandatory to engage with your peers in non-professional conversation.
On the professional side, Enterprise Architects can choose their forum. One of the most successful social networking services for this has become LinkedIn.com. This service offers access and participation in many professional and non-professional groups. For Enterprise Architects, there are several groups to join. These groups are not for selling. They exist to help professionals better understand their profession by having dialog with others in the same profession.
The LinkedIn.com approach is basically to allow a member of a group to pose a question to the group. Interesting questions can generate multiple responses. Responses can sometimes be in the hundreds as professionals argue a particular point.
Other forms of communications for the professional include webinars and papers that are shared freely by vendors who become anxious to introduce their products. Participation in these, too, can be well worth the time. Often, the actual experiences that are shared by other business organizations can be invaluable.
Highly motivated professionals will find time to participate in social networking to stay current in their profession. Others who may be less motivated will only stay current in today’s events. Now ask yourself. For your own healthcare, would you prefer a doctor that is highly motivated and stays current or one that may only attend an annual convention to stay current? Use your answer to define what kind of professional you want to be in serving your clients.
The Enterprise Architects can see what is coming and are already preparing. They know that this will be their time. Corporations will be able to completely focus on their business, and automation will be viewed as an agile enabler. Automation will finally become the self-service contributor that the Corporate Office has always wanted it to be. –Enterprise Architects Masters of the Unseen City
Closing the Business / IT gap.
