Three skills for living in a social media world

Mark Schaefer has a great post at {grow} listing three careers that will be in high demand at companies living in the social media space.  I think those ideas translates into skills we will all need to work on – Three careers that will dominate social media (and it’s not what you think)

Journalism – the ability to be a good story-teller. The best blogs I read are from people who are really good at telling a story – grabbing your initial interest, developing an idea, and taking you on a journey.

At the individual level, we need to be better story-tellers.  The intermediate step on that journey is to be better writers.  The first step in that direction is to practice. 

HR/change management – the ability to create change, adjust to a rapidly changing world, and help others develop that ability. This skill will be critical at the organizational level, which means the HR department has a role to play in nurturing those skills organization-wide.

At the individual level, all of us will have to be able to handle change and be flexible.  Learn to adapt. As the Maryland Association of CPAs says, our learning needs to be greater than the change around us:   L > C

Statisticians – in the past, data was hard to find so statisticians would go out and extracted data from the world with an eye-dropper. Today data is more like a full-open 1.5” firehose pumping 100 gallons a minute.  Getting just a gallon of water in that stream is a challenge.  Having the ability to find relevant data and comprehend it will be a key skill.

At the individual level, we will all need to become more astute at pulling information and knowledge out of the data. See my related post on moving up the value chain.

Great post on the high-value careers in a social media world. I think it’s a good description of the skills each of us as an individual will need to work on. 

We may have a predominate skill set, but we will need to brush up on all three. 

We may be employed full-time as an expert in one specific area, but to thrive, I think we need to have a basic competence in all three.