Unleashed!

We know that our clients are online – surfing, chatting, Skyping, socializing, blogging, and vlogging. They are registering for classes, paying bills, selling stuff, buying stuff and getting driving directions. They are planning vacations, “googling” the names of old friends, updating their virus software and downloading music. They are following sports, following politics, and following reality TV. If it works for them – they are doing it online.

Whether we are involved with them online or not – their career choice, outlook, and management ARE impacted by the energy of the online world. How we approach the design of our online career services must take into account that our clients are no longer in the top-down, expert knows everything state. You see, in an effort to help clients not feel overwhelmed by information we might be tempted to narrow their searching, focus their chatting, and limit their socializing?

But what if we didn’t? What if we designed our online services to expand, in fact, unleash the potential of web 2.0 for making sense of this new world of work?

Unleash– it is such a scary word for those of us trained in “classroom management”. But it is a beautiful word when you think of its alternative – Contain. Contain the information. Contain the interaction. Contain the creativity.

Here is our challenge. Our online services need to release clients to explore, create, collaborate in untold numbers of situations but also create space for summarizing, reflection, and application. Here’s the bottom line – there is no one way to go about it. So – unleash yourself!

Just when I get a little overwhelmed by pace and volume of information out there, I get wowed by another cool tool. Here is one I have come to appreciate. It is the social bookmarking site - http://del.icio.us/.