LinkedIn for HR Professionals

I was recently invited to speak to a group of HR professionals on “Web 2.0 and Global Career Possibilities”.

Here is the transcript of my speech:

Gbenga Ogunjimi is my name: I am a Social entrepreneur, Recruiter, Conference speaker and Web 2.0 visionary. Of all the things that I do, I am here to talk to about the Web 2.0 component.

I start by saying exactly a decade ago I started a career in social services, 5 years after my career took another dimension and I found myself in social entrepreneurship. Just about 3 years ago I embraced Web 2.0 as an empowerment strategy, I was so thrilled with the possibilities in this that I made about 75% of my enterprise empowerment programmes to be focused on Web 2.0

My task today is to show us all how Web 2.0 can realise job opportunities as well as our critical goals as professionals, consultants or entrepreneurs.

So what is web 2.0? According to Wikipedia it means Web applications facilitating collaboration.

Never in the history of the world has there been an opportunity to collaborate as it is today. Ladies and gentlemen, you and I are blessed and privileged to be the generation that has witnessed the transition of a divided world become compactly connected.

And of all the facets Web 2.0 I just want to talk about the intense explosion of social networking sites. In our every glare we watched Facebook hit 350m and LinkedIn 50 million. Right before our very eyes, we are seeing these tools redefining business, governance, social services, governance and even recruitment.
My frustration however is that in a network of this magnitude most people and sadly HR professionals too see it as play grounds rather as collaboration centers.

I know that we all of different goals but somewhat converging interests – we all are gathered as HR professionals. Some of us are here to learn how they can realise their dreams of building their own next Phillips Consulting or KPMG, some reaching the pinnacle of their careers in HRM. Others are here to figure out how to internationalize their professional pursuits; internships abroad, become HR consultants to not just corporations but governments, and some to use their HR expertise career to change the world by pursuing a social cause.

Ladies and gentleman whatever our goals are, would you mind for me to introduce to what can realise them all?

Please meet LinkedIn, the 21st recruiting platform.

I not too ago was introduced to this platform and I still remain in awe of the possibilities of this single network.

Did you know that?

• All fortune 500 companies of America have presence on LinkedIn
• The major Nigerian companies across banking, telecoms and oil sector are there
• This network has over 50 million quality professionals worldwide and more people join everyday
• On the network you have access to presidents of countries, corporations, head of HRs, and all

But to make the most of this network, you have to understand the 4ps of social networking:

Purpose – Ask yourself why am I here and what are the biggest goals of my life?

Profile- Display this purpose, goals as your Web identity.

Participation- Share and contribute by starting conversations in groups you can elicit collaboration from the locals of that geography.

Persistence- Value proposition; network has left the realm of serendipity, coincidences, luck, chance or act, networking is essentially a science.

I conclude my quoting myself from a blog a recently published titled the Web 2.0 approach –

“Now is the time best to dream: when the whole wide world is within reach and resources vast. And all it takes for these dreams to happen is a shift in paradigm; a shift in thoughts, and action, a shift to a whole new approach – a shift to the Web 2.0 Approach” – Gbenga Ogunjimi

Ladies and gentlemen the whole wide world is now within your reach, embrace it!

Thank you.

The Web 2.0 Approach

On a Skype conference call on 04/11/09 were
Kemi Fadojutimi from Washington DC USA,
Bankole Kings from Maryland USA,
Alao Yusuf from Frankfurt Germany
And myself, Gbenga Ogunjimi from Lagos Nigeria

Prior to this day, none of us had seen each other yet we had reached out to connect and collaborate on a common cause: A new Nigeria.
For us all the vision of a new Nigeria surpasses the tasking demands of our everyday lives, and transcends our diverse identities; age, gender, social class and economic status. This compelling vision as it were became the gluing force that had bounded our hearts, and melted our distances.

Our motivation to this cause was rooted in our coming to terms with the timelessness of the saying -“Evil prevails when the righteous are doing nothing”, and our understanding that right in our hands lie the executive power to once and for all decide the destiny of millions of Nigerian youth stuck in destructive idleness and bleak hopelessness.

In championing this cause, we did not converge in any of the conference halls in the cities we were, rather, we converged in “a hall without walls”, we converged on the Web. A venue that symbolizes the required approach to realise New Nigeria; a universal, time-tested approach, an approach I call:

The Web 2.0 approach:
• An approach that breaks down silos and opens up the global gateway of innovation and collaboration.
• An open-source approach that empowers the individual to freely volunteer his significant contributions knowing that they count.
• An illimitable approach that cut looses passion and imaginations, and allows for healthy competition of ideas on a global scale.
• An anti-tribal approach that seamlessly harmonizes our collective strengths and voices without regards to where we come from.

It’s a decade now that DiNucci’s prophecy of Web 2.0 has continued to manifest: first was its tipping point with the TIME’s Person of the Year: You recognition in 2006, and now in 2009 is the intense explosion of social networking websites. What this underpins for the new Nigeria is that the individual’s empowerment has left the purview the government, and the country’s limitations. What it means is that the Web is now the touch point at which empowerments is springing forth.

Development agents can now expand the frontiers of their saving the world dream knowing that more help wait them on Kiva.org. Entrepreneurs can now cut their creative juices loose knowing that someone on Sta.rtup.biz is willing to collaborate. The young professional can now stop coping and hope again because she knows all it takes is a winning LinkedIn profile. High school grads can now stop praying and start claiming dozens of tuition free universities across Europe. Even politicians can now think twice before they err as no amount of PR dollars can clean up once it get to Facebook or Twitter.

We qualified ourselves for the cause of a new Nigeria not on the ground of the dexterity of our skill-sets but on the profundity of our mind-sets – a boundless imagination that stretches beyond the staggering limitations of the country. We are collaborating with the realization that if Nigeria must change we have to change our complaisance to the critical issues that hold us back: we have to take on personal responsibilities.

For me, since the beginning of the year I have taken on the responsibility of evangelizing the immense possibilities of Web 2.0 business model to entrepreneurs of all sizes in the country. I have taken this gospel to schools and nonprofits, advocating that everyone can now possibly become the best versions of themselves. I have also taken this campaign to professionals in corporate Nigeria with 6 figure jobs and even the aspiring without.

All I have been saying is - Now is the time best to dream: when the whole wide world is within reach and resources vast. And all it takes for these dreams to happen is a shift in paradigm; a shift in thoughts, and action, a shift to a whole new approach – a shift to the Web 2.0 Approach!

GOODBYE CHICKENS, THE DUCKS ARE COMING

Every morning in Africa the Chicken crows to signal a dawn of a new day, as the day breaks she gathers her little chicks behind her and in her leadership they unquestionably follow. This is unlike the Duck because for reasons best known to her, she trails the leadership of her baby ducks.  
Part of these reasons, I think is to instil the values of responsibility, accountability and leadership at a tender age: To seed a Yes You Can mindset. 
I can only imagine this as a Duck mantra - I wholeheartedly believe in you still; although with certainty you will slip, and sometimes slumber, and stumble as you search your way through the sapping situations of life, but know that the price you are paying for the gains of tomorrow far outweighs the pains of today. And this is the reason I have yielded to your leadership at such an early age. 

The above depicts the conflict of ideas in the leadership of Africa. A clash of thoughts between the old-school generation of Chicken leaders who unashamedly believe leadership and innovation are synonymous with age versus the new school generation of Duck leaders whose source of ideology is the maxim of Albert Einstein - “the significant problems we face cannot be solved with the same level of thinking we are at when we created them.” 

Year in year out, Africa’s ruling elite class continues to cling on to an obsolete season of Chickens and fiercely resist every attempt of the Duck generation to emerge. 
Why? Could it be they hate this change to happen, or are threatened by the possible resultant effects? After all, we have seen what the Ducks can do when giving the chance in Corporate Africa.  
We see Ducks build globally competitive enterprises amidst far reaching avalanche of obstacles. 
Whenever the door of opportunity to compete on a parallel field in any part of the world, field, or human endeavour is opened, repeatedly we’ve seen the African Ducks rise to triumph.  

As Nigeria continues to painfully take in the scoff and slap of the world on her Chicken dominated leadership- Obama’s preference of Ghana, G-20 snob among others. Now is the time to trade this dispensation of Chickens for the long held back era of Ducks. As the country comes to terms with the futility fixing its international brand without examining what happens within its borders, may she also cut-loose millions of her Duck population in hibernation and eagerly awaiting their season of manifestation. 

“To every leader there is a season”, Peter Drucker, the father of managerial Ducks rightly opined, so are a swarming generation of Ducks preparing to outface the long overdue season of Chickens in Africa. To all the Chickens like Mugabe, El- Bashir, Mr. 7 points agenda and his team that see power is their birthright, ready or not, take it or leave it, the Ducks are coming real soon!

The Nanosecond Networlders

I recently had the honour of reviewing The Nanosecond Networlders: Changing Lives in An Instant Forever - A Modern Business Fairytale by Melissa Giovagnoli and R. David Stover. 

Below is my review:

Revealing! Captivating! Compelling!

It uncovers the source of opportunity and explains how to unlock it every single day.

The Nanosecond Networlders: Changing lives in an instant… forever identifies and contends that values-driven networking is the intersection between (internal) intentions and (external) collaboration. The authors establish that the principle of Networlding remains an efficacious key to building synergies and making the most of our formal and informal networks. 

By moving a step beyond Tipping point and 8th Habit, and standing in sharp contrast to conventional networking techniques: Networlding is the 21st century ‘technology’ of turning adversarial situations into real opportunity regardless of cultures, personality types, work environments and enterprise visions.

When searching for an entrepreneurial opportunity, the wisdom of The Nanosecond Networlders is to subordinate this pursuit to cultivating relationships that align with ones core values, resultantly a mutually beneficial opportunity would evolve via collaborative effort. 

Nanosecond Networlders see the formidable adversaries around them not as a test of their human competencies nor the resilience fighting spirit, rather as a compass to reach within and draw from an ever increasing strength of values to overcome. In the very midst of a clogging darkness they shine, because they know how to; they have found the learnable knack of deciphering the overpowering force of shared-values, and leverage these values toward collaboration in every relationship. 

For a start up entrepreneur pitching to investors, a team leader demanding group alignment, single parent frustrated by her teenager’s unyieldingness; regardless of who or where we are, this book shows us how to turnaround the lingering drawback from realising our intended goals and getting the unreserved buy-ins we’ve always longed for.

The Nanosecond Networlders unpacks how to create your opportunity, and ignite the hidden genius dimensions both within and around us!

You can learn more about the book on this website

 

Geography is a big deal!

 
31st December, 2006 my entire family and a network of intercessors were in a fierce prayer: battling to save the life of my sister and her about to borne baby in a caesarean operation. She was already cut opened when power was abruptly interrupted. In desperation, the hospital staff that tried to put on the generator ruined the ignition, sadly again the backup generator had no fuel. We couldn’t find a hosepipe to get out fuel from the other generator or the cars around. All through this fiasco she was under sedatives, stuck between heaven and earth while we kept battling her life and the baby within. Sorry I didn’t tell you where this was – Lagos Nigeria! 

Stories like these are classic in my geography, our maternal mortality rate is unbeatable in the world. Thank God, our prayers prevailed but had we lost them both to the epileptic power situation in the country or the inefficiencies of the hospital staff, someone surely will recite the cliché - “God gives and he takes, who can question him?”  

Last Sunday I listened to my pastor preached that “geography has nothing to do with fulfilling destiny”, and was of this view until now. It is not I have acquiesced to the barriers associated with my geography but the lately realization that my exception doesn’t change the reality. Geography unquestionably plays a big role!  

I certainly agree with him and Andrew Carnegie that “no individual or race is improved by arms-giving”, but agree more that “the best means of benefiting the community (a geography) is to put within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise.” Sadly true, not all geographies have access to these ladders. 

I listen to the podcasts of ecorner.stanford.edu and wistfully see an awesome ecosystem for sustainable entrepreneurship in that geography: an unparallel synergy between students, angel investors, venture capitalists and Silicon Valley. No wonder the inventions changing today’s word like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo… are all coming not from mine, but that geography. 

Are those from other parts of the world less creative or entrepreneurial in their thinking? Are they all destined as consumers and not inventors/entrepreneurs? Is it their choice not accessing infinitesimal seed funding at every window of opportunity that opens to them? 
Don’t they practice the principles of imagination, positive thinking and affirmation when Western immigration fences them out the global mainstream of career and enterprise aspirations?

The fact that some of us are insulated or have found a way out of the limitations of our geographies doesn’t unmake the formidable adversaries still holding most of our people back. Right from the times of Slavery in Africa, Apartheid in South Africa, Racial discrimination in America, Marginalization of Niger Delta (Oil producing area) in Nigeria, The Holocaust in Germany and even Genocide in Sudan, some pretty few have always found a way of escape. 

I end this blog with the words Robert Ashton.co.uk when we began changing the way the West sees the Nigerian enterprise landscape: 

“Say Nigeria to the average Western businessman and his eyes widen and his chequebook closes. They get too many dodgy spam emails from Nigeria to take the country seriously. Sure there are kidnappings, armed muggings and unsafe aeroplanes – but you find those all over the world!

Geography is a big deal! 

Re:The Immensity of one

Below is Janet's response: 

Hello Dear Uriel,

It's wonderful to hear from you, and what a lovely letter...and blog! I am truly touched by your thoughts and also deeds, and delighted that I could be of such help to you. You have made immense strides and done us all proud with your activities, commitment, and leadership. It has been a pleasure to watch you grow and spread your wings! And you have truly proven yourself to be a model for "the immensity of one" (I love that phrase)!!

I will close on that note with greatest thanks and immense appreciation, and look forward to reading your blog from now on...and not just when it's about me :)))!

With infinite blessings and millions of cheers, and know that I will love you too, throughout all the years! Your MM 4-ever, Janet

The Immensity of One

What makes entrepreneurial dreams happen? 
What exactly actualises the ideas of visionaries against all odds? 
My answer to this lingering curiosity of mine is what I call The Immensity of One -The significant relationship that makes all the difference. Malcolm Gladwell calls this the power of a connector. 

My immensity of one was my relationship with Janet Feldman, my first mentor in social services. For years I have strived relentlessly to overcome the drawback of my country’s borders to my enterprise vision. The internet couldn’t do this. It sure creates borderless opportunities but the immigration barriers of West attempt to fence strivers (from my part of the world) out of the prosperity of a flattened world. 

What else can a striver do when his name, colour and nationality hold back his dreams and mute his voice? 
How can she shine when darkness of ubiquitous proportions clog within and outside?  
Again I say reach out for the immensity of one. 

Among many doors that Janet opened, I will forever remain grateful for GK3, Malaysia: 
This was where I won the Global Young Social Entrepreneurs’ Competition, signed my very first international partnership contract and profiled on an international magazine. It was at GK3 had an epiphany with my reality as a social entrepreneur and a launching pad to a global stage; where my dreams suddenly came within reach and subsequent successes are resting upon. 
Amazingly, my enterprise was just spotlighted by TakingITGlobal.org, thanks to GK3. 

Janet Feldman, GK3 I dedicate this blog to you both because you are my immensity of one! 

The Uncertainties of a Searcher

This is my very first time blogging and I hope I haven’t missed out too much. Lol

I’m young social entrepreneur running www.landmarkinternship.org 

I stand on the threshold of the next significant chapters of my entrepreneurial quest: 
I can see ahead my deepest dreams for my enterprise unfolding and opportunities vast, and behind me I see once impossibilities that I overcame, but within me I feel the uncertainties of a searcher, striving in faith toward a dream of colourful tomorrow. 

Keeping the dream alive is not a fun:
Everyday life on the streets of Lagos Nigeria echoes to me to retract from this path, the ticking of time brings the nagging fear of unsung entrepreneurs beaten, chewed and spat out by life. My daily share of the inevitable adversities of an entrepreneur scoffs at me but nonetheless I have chosen remain resolute to this calling.

As I occasionally slip into the thought to retracting, I get encouraged by the words of my spiritual father and mentor when I left my last employment to pursue this enterprise full-time: 

“Gbenga, I congratulate for now walking the talk but can I inform you ahead that the journey of entrepreneurship is the journey of the unknown, but God that has called you would keep you.” 

I have also found faith in the lyrics of The Prophecy of TY Bello’s Green land album: 

The prophecy: 
How can I give you up? 
I am the one that chose you, I am the one that did. 
How can I let you fall, you know I won’t? 
You should see life through my eyes, 
I knew that I would love you long before time began. 
You should never, ever, ever, doubt me, I have never told a lie
I will keep my promises to you, everything I said I will outdo. 
You know my word is life, my word is integrity.  

So should I eventually allow my feelings hold sway, please hold me accountable and say big shame on me for letting my today’s feelings hold my vision for tomorrow captive.