The Fourth Skill
11 Jan
Back in 1997, a colleague of mine at the firm I worked for at the time wrote a report called The Third Skill. The premise of the report was that, while there were people in firms with marketing skills, and other people with IT skills, what firms needed in order to capitalize on the emerging New Media opportunities were people with a third skill: The ability to combine marketing and IT.
Roll to clock forward to 2010, and while the term new media might not be commonly used, interactive or online marketing skills — while not quite a science — are commonly found in many organizations.
What we now need is a fourth skill. The ability to combine marketing, IT, new media, and……and what? I’m struggling to find the right word to capture the needed skill set. I’m tempted to just plug in the word “social.” But that’s too broad a term.
What firms need now are people who can combine an understanding of marketing, technology, the online channel and things like customer service and community building. I’m struggling to come up with a label because customer service and community building are separate skills in and of themselves.
The new skill boils down to knowing how to talk to people and how to get people to talk with each other.
If you think marketers have this skill today, you’re wrong. Marketers (if they’re good) know how to craft marketing messages. That’s not a conversation.
Customer service people (if they’re good) know how to talk to people, but that doesn’t mean they’re good at building community, at marketing, or at understanding technology.
There’s a fourth skill that’s needed in firms today, and while some (if not many) firms are experimenting with — or even committing whole hog to — social media, the fact that they’re using social media doesn’t mean they have the skills internally to capitalize on the promise of social media.
What I’m hoping to do with this post is shift the discussion. Personally, I’m really tired of hearing all the preaching that firms need to adopt social media, create social CRM strategies, or whatever. I’m also seen enough links to stories that tell me that YadaYada Corporation launched a Facebook page or is on Twitter.
I want to know how firms are driving bottom line results. I want to know how they’re changing their organizational structures, position descriptions and staffing levels. I want to know how firms are creating the fourth skill.
I use the word genuine ‘authenticity’ for the word, Ron. People have it but have been trained that the scale of the message is more important.
I disagree.
With the inundation of mass media concepts and advertisements and circle back to hyper-local authentic conversations is more important than ever. The good news is that it is easier to be authentic at scale with the social tools that now exist.
Glad you’re blogging again.
I wouldn’t disagree one bit that authenticity is an absolute critical, but often missing, component of today’s business environment. But — and I realize I might be mincing words here, and apologize for doing so — I think of authenticity as a trait, not a skill set. The result of having the Fourth Skill is the ability to be authentic. But I’m not sure if that’s the skill itself. Maybe it is. Just not sure.
“The new skill boils down to knowing how to talk to people and how to get people to talk with each other.”
Not sure that’s a new skill — sounds to me an awful lot like PR… Twitter, blogs, FB and the like are just new vehicles for the corporate propagandist…
I think that’s behind the whole messiness here — everyone is trying to reinvent the wheel and is convinced that “social media” require some sort of new skillset or marketing practice. It doesn’t. PR people have been charged with knowing how to talk to people and lighting the fire to get them talking to each other (in a positive manner) since the beginning….
PR people just need to make sure they excel at understanding and directing the use of these vehicles or find a new line of work.
At the risk of pissing off every PR person out there, I would assert that among the various marketing-related functions, PR has the least ability to demonstrate the new skill I’m trying to define.
PR has been a one-way communication: Outbound. To have a “conversation” requires the ability to respond to inbound communications. On top of that limitation is the fact that, for some types of firms or industries, the focus of PR communications is not even the end consumer, but the press or other influencers.
There is at least one thing I do agree with you 100% on, though: There’s a whole lot of messiness here.
I hear ya man…
But I’d qualify that to say that BAD PR is one-way communication. And, unfortunately, there are a lot of bad PR people and programs out there…
The smarties in the field, on the other hand, are some of the world’s best listeners… They don’t get into the papers by yelling into a speakerphone; they do so by understanding the big picture and telling a compelling story about how they fit into it (and how they are moving the discussion fwd)… Just my [admittedly un]humble opinion
Before everyone bashes the crap out of ads, PR and other forms of “one-way communication,” please remember that the primary purpose for mass media marketing is to generate awareness. No one is going to “have a conversation” with you if they don’t know about you in the first place.
There are different tools to be used at different times for different objectives. Anyone who says “ads don’t work,” “marketing is dead,” or “you MUST do social media” is not considering the strategic implications unique to each organization.
You mentioned that you are averse to incorporating social into this definition but social networking might be close to what you are seeking. You can alter this greatly to define consumer social networking, corporate social networking, etc. I liked the post that discussed creating a dialogue because that’s what marketers in a traditional sense did not attempt in the past. If you implement a network it inherently has two way communication built into it and ideally, connections will be made within a group where valuable conversation will develop.
Trying to define this person or skillset, I think you may be discussing the new and improved CIO. One that is not so much IT based but also has the sales and marketing background to best leverage information and connections.
Is this a new position? Or a new skill to add to an existing position (if so, which one)?
Perhaps what you want to include is the ability to connect.
Communications is part of that, but ultimately, you’re looking for someone who has the desire and ability to link ideas and people to build relationships and community.
Ultimately, being social means being a good host, understanding the behavioral profiles of guests in conversations and having the presence and network to build the situational context to generate results.
A background in Consumer Behavior? As in the Psychology of why people do what they do. Personality types, buyer behavior, etc.
Not sure it’s a skill you’re looking for or an attitude.
Organisations that act as though they have the 4th skill are those that are genuinely care about people or customers.
Which is very different from calling yourself a customer-centric company.
Before embarking on a career in marketing services I held down other service sector jobs as a student. I worked in bars, restaurants and in customer-facing roles in a supermarket. Some people make these jobs look very difficult. If you are naturally inclined to put yourself in other people’s shoes, however, you can make these jobs look very easy.
I think what’s missing in too many organisations is this innate sense of caring.
If they really cared they would completely overhaul their internal structures and lines of reporting.
Yes all this social media stuff is relatively new to many companies. But show it to someone who naturally puts themselves in the other people’s shoes, to someone who takes pride in delivering excellent service and they don’t need to be taught how to make the most out of dialogue enabling channels and technologies. They just get it.
@Joe (and to a large extent @Jeffry): No question in my mind that the CIO (and the CIO organization) needs this new skill.
But as JP asks, “is this a new skill to a existing position or a new position?” I think the way really new and important stuff happens in firms is that it starts out as something separate — a distinct position or department — and then over time migrates, merges, and morphs into existing areas.
@Valeria: I’d agree with you. If social = ability to connect, then the skill I’m looking to define is social. I don’t think that many firms think explicitly about this as a capability, and simply figure that by implementing or using the technology, that they’ve acquired the skill.
@Phil: There’s definitely an attitude that I’m looking for here (I think that’s what Brad Garland was alluding to w/ his comment about authenticity). But attitude is hard to measure. I want skill (or skill set) because I want something testable and measurable.
I guess one could argue that the other “skills” I’ve listed aren’t very testable or measurable.
Ron, et al -
I went to the David Meerman Scott lecture at HBS last Thursday night. In the Q & A he was asked, with different words, the same question you are on about with your search for people who “[know] how to talk to people and how to get people to talk with each other.”
His suggestion is to add journalists to the marketing group. The reason, Scott contends, is that journalists know how to quickly, concisely tell a story that is relevant to the reader. This will build followership in the Social Media space(s).
A marketing or a PR person will tell a story about a company or its products. Drone, drone, drone. More brochure-ware in a spiffier package.
Ron maybe you need to make up a word? I know what you mean. It is sort of like putting some flesh or human quality into the mix. There are aspects of human nature that we know exist because we are human but to define them is difficult. We experience them which seems to be enough.
How does a business define its nature? Most important it needs to know why it exists and what it needs to continue to exist. Organizations take on cultures based on the mix of people who work for the company and also the people who deal with the company. That mix makes it unique and somehow that fourth skill needs to tap into that. The closest I ever come in comparison is that of a conductor that takes those that play the instrument to weave the music together. You really have to be bold to create something were that culture can grow. How you change an organization is tough because of all of these variables. Experience, knowledge, sound business practices, wisdom etc.And just when you think you have the magic answer….something changes.
Social media isn’t going to go away. But it will evolve and change, again.
The word that immediately came to mind for me was “mediation”. Granted there is no “dispute”, but it can involve bridging the gap you’re speaking of.
I like to think that what we are looking for is a Brand Spokester. A person that understands that everything that has to do with brand is based on the complete experience that they have with that brand beyond any marketing, PR, retail experience. This postiion should encompass how an organization would behave if it had conscience and was in anyway human and lives to deliver the brand promise in the most genuine way possible. I agree with Gene, this have everything to do with corporate culture and the people you have at your disposal to deliver this through every channel that currently exists.
Here a good post on ad agencies struggles with the new media norm.
http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/2009/09/21/advertising-agencies-and-social-media-a-culture-clash/
Generosity. which means taking care of you. You. YOU.
Open to connect, eager to listen. it is an old skill often forgotten but it has never been more essential than now.