Director of Marketing
BraveNewTalent

BraveNewTalent announced today that it has been named to JMP Securities “Hot 100: Best Privately Held Software Companies for 2013” list. Issued May 2013, the list profiles 100 of the leading private companies in the software industry as identified by the software research team at JMP Securities, a full-service investment bank. BraveNewTalent provides a professional Social Learning Community platform that enables enterprise organizations to attract, engage, and develop their current and future workforce.

The ‘Hot 100′ list is selected each year based on the evaluation of multiple criteria, including financial growth, products and services, quality of leadership, customers and market potential. This is the first time that BraveNewTalent has been included in the list.

BraveNewTalent CEO and Founder, Lucian Tarnowski commented:

 “The team at BraveNewTalent are honored and humbled to be included in the list of Hot 100.  We have big shoes to fill as we join other Hot 100 companies such as Dropbox, Evernote, GitHub and Palantir. 

I feel that we are at a unique moment in history where the way the world learns is changing with new social technologies that are democratizing access to professional knowledge.  I do strongly believe that the billion dollar companies of tomorrow will be solving the trillion dollar problems of today, and education is one of them. BraveNewTalent is on a mission to create a new model for professional learning and being listed here may take us a step closer to reaching this goal.”

 

BraveNewTalent transforms the way professionals develop by empowering informal learning through a social community platform. BraveNewTalent brings enterprise organizations and individuals together to share knowledge, exchange ideas, engage with mentors and discover great learning content. BraveNewTalent is mapping the Talent Graph around professional knowledge in order to enable organizations to increase the efficiency of deploying human capital and help members reach their full professional potential.  It is headquartered in San Mateo, CA with the engineering and product team in London, UK.

JMP Securities LLC is a full-service investment bank that provides equity research, institutional brokerage and investment banking services to growth companies and their investors. JMP Securities, formerly known as Jolson Merchant Partners, was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California with additional offices in New York City; Boston, Massachusetts; and Chicago, Illinois.

It’s easy to lose sight of the holistic workforce as most of us are so busy trying to get things done we don’t have the time to step back and think what the true organization looks like and how all of the labor resources executing work on the organizations behalf are sourced, informed, developed, motivated and aligned.  It’s also easy to lose sight because in most organizations we use different tools to track and communicate with different workforce segments and rely on different corporate functions to oversee various labor types.

As businesses are being forced to become more agile due to changing environmental factors such as capital shifts to emerging markets, changing population demographics and rapid technological innovation, the use of alternative labor sources that can be ramped up/down and changed more quickly than traditional employees will only increase.

Engaging talent to leverage your past workforce, empower your current workforce and develop your future workforce is no easy task, especially given the fragmentation of labor types and tools used to communicate.

Today, the most valuable members of the workforce learn new tools and approaches to get what work needs to get done through social channels and self-directed continuous learning faster than the organization could formally develop them.  They change jobs more frequently, often applying themselves to projects inside their organization versus tasks. They also advance their careers faster becoming versatilists that can leverage their professional networks when greater knowledge/skills are needed or specialists with deep knowledge.

Driving strategic talent engagement today requires that organizations accept and adapt to a workforce community that isn’t solely employee centric that is hyper-connected, digitally savvy, and that is moving through the organization more quickly than most historical talent management systems can support.

Communities are a cornerstone of civilization.  All of us belong to one or more, and when the community is well planned and connected it enables everyone in the community to achieve far more than they ever could on their own.  Historically, professionals were developed by their peers within their community, their skills and knowledge applied to whatever work needed to get done across neighborhoods.

Today’s modern organizations need community to connect the myriad of labor resources working as the organization, to keep them informed, to develop them in a direction that benefits all, to motivate and reward for contribution, and most importantly to enable talent management in a way feasible for the overtasked HR professional.

Where to begin? As talent acquisition and human resource leaders, what do you need to do to improve the experience of your candidates? And for that matter, what exactly is a candidate and when do applicants become one?

To answer these questions and more, join us next Wednesday, January 23, 2013, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET (10-11 am PT) for our informative webinar Talent Communities and the Candidate Experience with recruiting thought leader Gerry Crispin of CareerXroads and the Candidate Experience Awards. During the webinar you’ll learn how to improve the candidate experience by fostering communities around relevant professional content.

Sharing the right content and starting the right conversations with candidates is all part of the two-way communication that improves their experience with you and your brand. Companies that put this into practice when building talent communities will experience increased talent engagement, improved skill development and better talent identification over time.

Unfortunately many organizations today continue to broadcast job-related and promotional employment brand information to their candidates. While important, this only facilitates a one-way conversation and there’s no opportunity for the candidates to engage the organization, other than apply for a job.

The good news is that this problem can be solved by creating talent communities and maintaining ongoing two-way communication with candidates around relevant content!

Register today for next week’s webinar with Gerry Crispin and learn how organizations can improve the candidate experience by:

• Distributing continuous relevant professional content for candidate career development beyond job-related information.
• Establishing ongoing candidate engagement and development conversations around this relevant content.
• Building talent communities around the companies brand and relevant content where applicants, candidates, employees and alumni can all engage and develop with one another.

Creating talent communities, sharing content and starting conversations is all part of the two-way communication “secret sauce” for your talent ecosystem attraction, engagement and development activities over time. This webinar is a must-attend for talent acquisition and human resources leaders.

Join us this Wednesday!

It’s us.

Although it’s not to say that self-segmenting into groups of like-minded professionals inside the enterprise and out isn’t valuable for the members. We’ve been doing that for some time now and through that networking we’ve helped mentor each other, teach each other new skills, develop new ideas that improve processes and technologies, launch new businesses and generate new business for existing companies.

A recent Wall Street Journal article highlighted the fact that “employee-resource groups let individuals of similar backgrounds swap common experiences and success strategies.”

“Created in the 1970s to recruit and retain African-Americans, employee-resource groups now serve women, gay individuals, the disabled, veterans, newcomers and even Bangladeshi immigrants. Cisco Systems Inc.’s 11 groups represent 18% of more than 72,000 employees world-wide, for example.”

This was important because it gave underrepresented (and underutilized) groups the opportunity to help one another and increase the diversity of thought leadership in business worldwide.

But how successful overall has the siloed approach been, especially if executive management doesn’t participate in these groups with any frequency, or if they’re barely aware of the other professional support networks? Skilling up and mentoring one another is great, but unless it’s visible to those who can truly promote via the ladder or the lattice, then successful “Nirvana” can feel awfully fragmented, inaccessible and distant.

And how involved are the individual members in each of these groups? Do they only tap into the network with they need something? A new career perhaps? A reference? A mentor? A revolutionary business idea? A social cause to cure a long-time ill?

That’s fine, because at any given time member utilization can vary but usually runs in single digits. Plus there’s the fact that belonging to some of these employee-resource groups can be seen as potentially detrimental to one’s career — at least according to other powers that be that claim they are.

Professional communities, both online and off, usually include groups of people who have developed relationships around a strong common interest — engineering, marketing, finance, social causes. But again, when they’re private groups, they end up limiting the opportunities for the members because they wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to other groups unless they belonged to them. That means belonging to multiple groups online and off, like many of us are today, and that leaves us with what we call scarcity of attention — the more separate sites and resources and groups that demand our attention, the more our attention and participation diminishes, quite rapidly in fact.

Facebook pages, LinkedIn groups, company intranet sites, employee-resource sites, or professional association sites aren’t really a viable alternatives because the audiences can’t interact with each in the other sites around topics of interest independently of the page, group or site owners.

An engagement platform like BraveNewTalent accounts for this by being an open professional community, allowing for a high level of interaction between members of many different communities. For example, imagine that you’re an alumnus of McKinsey & Company and Booz Allen Hamilton, and now you work for IBM Professional Services – you can join and participate in all three communities in one place with our open platform.

Our research tells us is that the amount of time a member would spend in an open community platform is not only equal to the time they’d spend in each of the private communities above, it’s actually greater because it delivers a much better member experience overall. This gives you the advantage when it comes to engaging and developing your next-generation workforce. Coming up the next revolutionary business idea. The social cause that cures the ill.

Our talent engagement platform wasn’t developed solely to be a replacement for all the other disparate “group” locales out there today. It was also built to leverage and enhance the community member experience by creating a converged platform for all groups to meet, share, learn and collaborate together — to be the social tower of truth that connects all talented communities.

Happy New Year!

Learn how to build true Talent Communities in 2013!

Wednesday, January 16, 2012 1pm – 2pm ET (10am – 11am PT)

Learn why two-way communication around relevant professional content improves the candidate experience.

Many organizations today continue to distribute job-related and promotional employment brand information to their candidates. While important, this only facilitates a one-way conversation and there’s no opportunity for the candidates to engage the organization, other than apply for a job.

However, many organizations don’t even leverage their own employer branding content very well. The good news is that this problem can be solved by creating talent communities and simply sharing the right content and having the right conversations with candidates!

Register today for our upcoming webinar with recruiting thought leader Gerry Crispin of CareerXroads and the Candidate Experience Awards about how organizations can improve the candidate experience by:

• Ensuring that all candidates receive straight-forward acknowledgement and closure about jobs they’ve applied for.
• Distributing continuous relevant professional content for candidate career development beyond job-related information.
• Establishing ongoing candidate engagement and development conversations around this relevant content.

Creating talent communities, sharing content and starting conversations is all part of the the two-way communication “secret sauce” for your talent ecosystem attraction, engagement and development activities over time.

Who should attend?

• Talent Acquisition Leaders
• Human Resource Leaders
• Learning & Development Leaders

Defining the role of the Community Management is a crucial part of a Talent Community strategy for any organization looking to become a social engagement hub for their talent ecosystem.

Together with the right Content Strategy, the role of managing the community is what will bring the community alive, turning invitees into members of a truly collaborative and engaging environment of like-minded individuals.

The main responsible for building that environment and imbuing a sense of community between members is the community manager. In defining its role, there are 8 central elements you must think about. These are:

1. Strategy: Collecting data, analyzing data, setting goals for the community.
2. Growth: Increasing membership and converting new members into active members of the community.
3. Moderation: Removing obstacles to participation and increasing motivation to participate.
4. Relationship development: Building relationships with key members.
5. Content: Creating and curating content for the community frequently and consistently.
6. Events/Activities: Organizing and facilitating events and activities for community members.
7. User experience: Optimizing the community platform with tools and services that make it easier for all to participate.
8. Business integration: Engaging the organization with the community:

In the following posts we will identify which of these elements need to be applied at which stage of the community lifecycle. Follow us through RSS, Twitter or LinkedIn to keep updated.

A common mistake made by organizations is to interact with community members in the same manner they would with traditional customers or clients – which usually means not very well.

For example, the organization speaks in the 3rd person, stays formal and doesn’t clearly identify themselves as individuals. This is a significant impediment to developing and maintaining a thriving talent community. (And we’d argue significant impediment to keeping your customers, both buyers and employees.)

Here are important points to keep in mind:

• Have a clearly identifiable community manager. A community should not be managed by an unnamed brand representative. A community needs a clearly identifiable representative with whom members feel a sense of trust and connection. It is therefore important that the community is managed by a specific, named, individual.
• Speak in the 1st person. Community managers whom interact with members in the second or third person struggle to build relationships with their target audience.
• Speak informally. As with both points above, it is also important that the community manager speaks informally with members. It is far easier to build relationships with members by speaking informally.
• Show a personality. Community managers should not have bland, polite, personalities. They should have personalities reflecting those working on behalf of the community. It is good to have a sense of humor, to interact with members at their level.
• Be kind (and unflappable). The community manager should be kind towards members. This will involve helping members where possible, asking about their problems and supporting members to resolve them. The community manager should also be unflappable. S/he should not be sucked into disputes or criticisms of other members.
• Respond quickly to posts/questions from members. It is important that contributions from members receive a response (ideally within 24 hours). This encourages further contributions and shows the contributor that their input matters to the organization.
• Give praise for good contributions. A community manager should acknowledge the opinions of members contribute and thank members for contributing those opinions.
• Don’t criticize or complain. The community manager should avoid criticizing members, engaging in disputes/conflicts, or complaining to members about any topic.

In the next post we’ll be discussing the 8 elements of community management. Follow us through RSS, Twitter or LinkedIn to keep updated.

But true talent communities continue to be elusive for the enterprise. How do organizations engage and develop applicants and employees alike beyond broadcasting jobs and internal mobility opportunities?

Join us this Wednesday, December 5, 2012, from 1:00 p.m. 2:00 p.m. EST (10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. PST) for a webinar that will help to answer this question and address the benefits of building and maintaining true talent communities from the entire organization’s ecosystem of applicants, employees and alumni. Over time, online talent communities lead to improved:

• Talent acquisition
• Onboarding
• Ongoing development
• Retention
• Productivity
• Cultural unity

Our guest presenters include Leanne Chase, Director of Content and Communications for The Community Roundtable, and Marvin Smith, Strategic Sourcing Consultant with Lockheed Martin.

The Community Roundtable provides community management resources and has many diverse member companies. According to Leanne, they’ve seen an increase in the number of HR executives requesting online community information. And based on Marvin’s extensive sourcing and recruiting experience, there’s a confluence of recruiting trends to date – one of the traditional transactional recruiting activities, and the other of the experimental and transitional recruiting activities that include building and maintaining talent communities. Marvin says the key is that it takes strategic planning as and looking ahead three to five years in the recruiting and talent engagement cycles.

To learn more from Leanne and Marvin, talent acquisition, human resource and learning & development leaders are encouraged to attend our informative Talent Community Facts and Fundamentals webinar on Wednesday, December 5, 2012, from 1:00 p.m. 2:00 p.m. EST (10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. PST). Registration is free.

Have you ever felt that way? Join me tomorrow, Wednesday, November 28, from 1:00-2:00 pm ET, for a 30-minute BraveNewTalent webinar and let’s talk about it.

A few months ago, I watched an interview with Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson from Rush, my favorite band. Geddy explained how the band was criticized in certain music circles because of the above statement — “their reach exceeded their grasp” — when it came to their musical ideas, ideals and musicianship.

That is simply hogwash. That’s the way they rolled (as the kids these days say), stretching themselves to grasp the next level of excellence, which they’re still doing today (for you rock critics keeping score at home).

Does your reach exceed your grasp? And are you stretching and grasping? I sure am and that’s the way you should roll as well. Our professionals skills can become aged and irrelevant more quickly that ever before. We have to hilinaʻi ourselves and our personable professional networks today when it comes to skilling up and staying marketable and employable (or staying gainfully employed). That’s the Hawaiian word of the day meaning “rely on” from my personable professional network friend, Sylvia Dahlby.

Consider the growing trend of “big data” in every facet of our businesses and lives:

According to management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, the United States could be in a pickle by 2018, with a shortage of up to 190,000 people with “deep analytical talent” and upwards of 1.5 million people capable of analyzing data that would enable business decisions.

Based on the research I did recently for a career management book I wrote, there are lots of “big data” jobs available. There’s just not a definitive “big data” profession; the skill sets required reach across almost every business and industry. Just search for “big data” jobs using your favorite job site of choice.

Tech experts agree that math, statistics, data analysis, business analytics, natural language processing, creativity, communications skills, and Hadoop are all critical to creating big data analytics frameworks and applying them to benefit businesses. Hadoop is an open-source software framework that supports tons of data and enables multiple applications and computers to work together. Hadoop can be learned via classes or can be self-taught.

So whether it’s big data skills or front end engineering skills or marketing skills or whatever, you’ve got to own your career development. Join me tomorrow, Wednesday, November 28, from 1:00-2:00 pm ET, for a 30-minute BraveNewTalent webinar where you’ll learn about the techniques successful people use for constantly developing their professional skills:

• The importance of continuous learning
• Four steps to a successful career management and development plan
• How BraveNewTalent can help you achieve your goals

Let’s get our reach to exceed our grasp, shall we?