Building a platform (and thinking about Google's Knol)

From Seth Godin's blog ...

At the end of November, I flew out to give a speech to 350 Google folks. They had invited me to join a panel on the best way to for Google to work with partners.

My riff (I only had about 8 minutes... gotta hate panels) was to point out that AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo and others before them had had the same challenges in building an environment that attracted partners and media companies. (I had run companies that worked with each of them). The question it turns out, is always the same: do you have a platform that I can build a business on?

Obviously, a lot goes into that calculation. It’s not just tools and technology. It’s attitude and predictability. It also involves a threshold, an attainable goal that separates insiders from outsiders.

Take Hollywood, for example. There are literally tens of thousands of people and organizations that have built a business around the movie-making platform. The major studios provide a predictable, profitable place to make a living. Screenwriters, technology companies, advertising agencies--they know that they can depend on the system, and even better, they realize that once they’ve paid some dues, they can profit over time by getting better gigs, more reliable income streams, etc.

Wal-Mart has done the same thing with the businesses and vendors that count on them. They have created a series of rules and procedures and over time, it gets easier and easier to make a living working with them.

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How to Fill the Talent Gap

From the Wall Street Journal Online, by Douglas A. Ready and Jay A. Conger

"Global companies face a perfect storm when it comes to finding the employees they need.

It's no secret that global companies are finding it harder to fill critical jobs these days. They're struggling to land top recruits in emerging markets, for instance, and haven't prepared people in their own ranks to step seamlessly into management slots.

Companies are racing to find solutions, but most of them are making a crucial error: They're treating these problems as separate issues. At most multinationals, a host of problems in recruiting and developing talent are converging to create a perfect storm -- a crisis that could derail the company's growth strategies.

To meet the challenge, companies must rethink how they hire, train and reward their employees, placing those tasks at the heart of their business plans. In doing so, they have an opportunity to address all these separate problems with a unified plan, rather than waste time and resources attacking each of the issues individually.

We arrived at this conclusion after researching more than 40 companies to gain a better understanding of their concerns in recruiting and developing. We wanted to identify what steps companies were taking to excel in these areas -- to see what it would take for a company to become a world-class talent factory.

As a part of our research, we identified five common problems in recruiting and development".

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Apples are Square

I don't often recommend books, but there is a new one out which you might find interesting - "Apples are Square", by Dr. Susan Smith Kuczmarski and Thomas Kuczmarski.

From their website:

"For centuries, leaders have been operating within a “control and compete” mindset. But the times are changing. More and more, at the helm of successful companies, you’ll find a different sort of leader. Collaborators, not controllers, they are “square apples,” bold men and women who dare to create success by reshaping the workplace in unexpected ways. In Apples Are Square, innovation consultants and celebrated authors Dr. Susan Smith Kuczmarski and Thomas Kuczmarski share with you the secrets of how to become a square apple in your organization.

To develop their groundbreaking strategy for success, the authors interviewed 25 leadership pioneers from many different work settings - media, the arts, government, sports, education, and business, including Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist; Mary Ellen Weber, former NASA astronaut; and NFL star Chris Zorich, whose personal story inspired the title of this book. With the tools in Apples Are Square, you’ll be able to take any bruised environment and reshape it into a positive force."

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