Rethinking

The creativity of a Kansas State University professor recaps our influence on information, text, content in the Web 2.0 world.

As career counsellors, we have to simultaneously consider how we experience and influence the web AND how our clients are experiencing and influencing the web.

The design of career services online must take into account the power a client has to drive his or her own experience with whatever content we use online. At the same time, our designs should integrate ways for clients to realize new meaning in their lives through the creation of their own content.

The professor said it best...it's going to take some rethinking.

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/.

"If we could just put it online..."

Look around you and consider something in your office or home that just plain works for you. Form and function come together in perfect partnership and simply meet your needs. The colour, the dimensions, the weight looks and feels just right AND it works! I was asked to consider this question years ago. It is still, hands down, my old sweatshirt. I got this favourite sweatshirt in college. And while it has certainly lost some of its original "attractiveness", I still love it. For me, for my needs, it represents perfect design.

What makes a good design?

Asking this question is key when you are considering e-career counselling. In an effort to reach more clients and geographically distributed clients, many practitioners find themselves uttering the words "If we could just put it online". As a career counsellor, I don't mean "information technology", but the "information" and "processes" that we work on with our clients.

Here are 11 essential questions for considering the initial design of your "it".

1. What do you want to achieve with "it" online?
2. What is "it" - information? activities? chats? email? videos? group forums?
3. How much is there of "it"?
4. How do you want "it" to look?
5. Will "it" all be online or will some of "it" be face-to-face?
6. What do your clients expect from "it"?
7. How will your clients engage with "it"?
8. How will you communicate with your clients about "it"?
9. Who will support clients to make meaning of "it"?
10. How will you evaluate that your clients understand "it"?
11. Where will "it" be stored and secure?

Technology, with all its bells and whistles, opens the doors to fun new ways to support career development experiences for our clients. Using those bells at the right time, for the right reason is design.

I'll be honest, I can't wear my sweatshirt anymore without thoroughly embarrassing my son. So, I'm looking to redesign it for future use. Check out this link to put your old sweatshirt to good use. http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf808493.tip.html

From Information to Interaction

Do you remember working as a career practitioner before the internet? I remember scouring newspapers and magazines for articles I could share with my clients to help paint a picture of the labour market and the changing workplace reality. Once the internet was launched – all the information I could want was at my finger tips. Now, we have come to rely on the internet for job leads, economic information and career profiles. Can we even imagine working in the careers field without the internet?

Communication technologies now offer us an opportunity to stretch our approach and go beyond seeing the internet as only a source of information and consider its interactive capabilities for career learning and counselling. In our field, we have an opportunity to explore innovative ways of using online spaces in career practice. By utilizing interactive tools, in safe and secure web environments, we can create a new dimension – a new space for conducting career counselling with clients.

I have been involved with online education and counselling since 1997. During this time, I have completed Masters level and Doctoral level studies related to online learning, career development, adult and workplace learning. I have a keen interest in understanding how these disciplines come together and interact to provide opportunities for the delivery of career services online. Professionally I have developed a virtual learning environment and my organization has been delivering online career programming to clients for over 4 years. Now, we also help individual practitioners and other organizations to integrate online services by using our technology and co-developing programming models to meet their business and service needs.

Through this blog, I look forward to sharing some of the best practices we are developing in online career services, posing questions and curiosities that my team and I are grappling with and hearing from many other practitioners from around the world that are exploring and integrating e-career services!

Why e-Career Landing?

Are you a stairs or an elevator person? I have to admit that I love elevators. Unless a physically superior friend is with me, I’ll choose the elevator every time. I have even been guilty of taking the elevator at the gym! When I do have to take the stairs, it’s not surprising to know, the landing is what gets me through. You know the landing, that platform between flights where you can secretly catch your breath or, in my case, stop and pretend you have to tie your shoe before changing directions and tackling the next flight of stairs.

Over this past decade I, along with my colleagues at Training Innovations, have been climbing what has felt like a huge flight of stairs. Fueled by a curiosity, motivated by client needs, and sustained by access to new technologies, I didn't mind there was no elevator to take us to the top of a new practice. As far as our research showed us, we were among only a few career practitioners birthing the practice of e-career counselling. That meant, forging ahead and building a new path – step-by-step.

I still love landings. Times when we can pause and reflect on the steps we’ve taken in research, steps we’ve taken in design, or steps we’ve taken in forming best practices. It’s in those moments when we can take a deep breath, celebrate, and gain energy to tackle the next flight.

After thinking about it – landings of all types are pretty cool in my book. Afterall, the landing is my favorite part of an airline flight! Once safely on the ground I’m either on an adventure or just home from one. I've had the opportunity to be sharpened by career practitioners from many different worlds - college career centres, private practice, HR offices, and high schools. Each one on an adventure to understand clients better and the world of work.Then there are those landings created as conversion sites or gathering places to collect logs before processes them. New ideas - pile them on. Best practices - pile them on. New tools or techniques - pile those on too! This gathering place is cleared for all to benefit from those commodities. e-Career Landing is for pioneers in career development looking for a place to land during your adventure, refuel during your climb, and gather new insights. We look forward to your visit and to hearing your story of e-career counselling.