5 ms·

If you have to turn to social networking to figure out how to do your job, you're probably not very good at your job.

by jcnnghm 17y ago

andrewljohnson 17y ago
I would say just the opposite - if you don't turn to your network of friends for help with your job, you're probably not very valuable. I know how to do many things, but when I encounter a difficult problem, I will often turn to IM to query my expert friends, if not for answers, then to give me a sanity check on the approach I come up with. This is especially true for start-ups. It's great if you work at Google, where you can get help from thousands of expert engineers. But if you are a two-man start-up team, you need to look outside for help a lot more.
- bigiain 17y ago
  I think it's even more meta than that. There's "asking everybody you know how to do the bits of your job you're expected to know how to do", which is bad. There's also "having a network of friends who are specific subject matter experts, and knowing which ones to ask in specific cases", which is _enormously_ powerful. There's also a much smaller group of people who have such large and diverse social networks that they can ask pretty much _anything_ completely indiscriminately and get the right answer (look at jwz's blog for his "dear lazyweb" questions). If I had an opportunity to employ one of _them_, I'd jump at it...
- jister 17y ago
  I would say it depends on what you're asking help for. If you turn to your network of friends asking them how to do your job then that that's a different story. To IM your friends is one thing and to open Twitter and Facebook is another. Some companies do allow their staffs to access those sites but others don't. In this situation, as an employee, you just have to be responsible.
  - andrewljohnson 17y ago
    Some companies are dinosaurs, and I would never work somewhere with Draconian internet policies. It's perfectly reasonable to Tweet or post a Facebook message, or send a private message via either of those sites to ask someone for help, assuming you're not giving away confidential information.
starkfist 17y ago
If you've got the right friends in your network, it doesn't matter.
howardtharp 17y ago
I don't think of it as turning to a network instead of knowing something. I think of it as turning to a network instead of Googling. (We all look up stuff constantly. Price-checking, deadline checking, version validation, tactics, etc. We probably don't appreciate how often we do it.) I have one staff-member who is a prominent member of a significant open source project. This person knows a LOT. So do my other staff-members. But the project member turns to his IRC window/mailing list, and gets answers really fast. Plus, he feels certain and comfortable because he typically trusts the answers he gets. I won't say he's "better" than his peers, but this network, which he has put in a lot of work to earn, has definite value to him and us.
NathanaelB 17y ago
Hi, I'm the author of the article mentioned. It's a reasonable assumption to make that I'm just a shell with no knowledge that relies solely on my peers to prop me up and get the job done - however I think the level of network utilisation required if that were the case would be categorised as "abuse" and I would fairly quickly lose all my friends and colleagues. The other thing to consider is that the network of peers I have available to me has been built up through sometimes years of social activity and sharing - do you really think my network would support me if we didn't have that mutual trust? I respect their knowledge and skills and they respect mine. That's why we're colleagues. My peer network includes some of the smartest minds in my professional globally - you don't build up a network like that without having some skills and knowledge of your own to contribute back into the network. What you describe is NOT a network but a ball-and-chain arrangement. Finally - and I don't mean to boast but it needs to be said so we're clear - I'm well respected on my own merits as an experienced and knowledgeable professional independent of the wealth of external knowledge I have access to. Obviously I'm just talking for myself here so I can't substantiate any counter-claim that people who regularly access their peer networks probably ARE good at their job but I would like you to consider a more optimistic stance.
ryoshu 17y ago
Three real world examples that have happened to me in the last 2 months: - tasked with doing PL/SQL (something I've used once in 13 years) I asked a PL/SQL programmer friend about how to do x. - tasked with performance tuning a database (I'm not a DBA) I asked a friend who has commit rights to the OSS DB project what baseline values I should start with given x, y, and z. - tasked with determining the feasibility of using RFID for a project (something I did one time, four years ago), I asked a friend that sets up RFID systems for a living if the project was feasible. Those questions took less than 5 minutes for each friend to answer, versus the incredible amount of time it would have taken me to do the research to find the answers -- and still not have the experience that my friends do. In turn, each of those friends ask me questions about platforms that I have experience with and they do not. This goes back to the idea of "shit you know you don’t know." (http://jangosteve.com/post/380926251/no-one-knows-what-theyre-doing http://jangosteve.com/post/380926251/no-one-knows-what-theyr...) Knowing what you don't know and knowing people who do know the answers is incredibly valuable to an employer.

If you have to turn to social networking to figure out how to do your job, you're probably not very good at your job.

by jcnnghm 17y ago

If you have to turn to social networking to figure out how to do your job, you're probably not very good at your job.

I would say just the opposite - if you don't turn to your network of friends for help with your job, you're probably not very valuable. I know how to do many things, but when I encounter a difficult problem, I will often turn to IM to query my expert friends, if not for answers, then to give me a sanity check on the approach I come up with. This is especially true for start-ups. It's great if you work at Google, where you can get help from thousands of expert engineers. But if you are a two-man start-up team, you need to look outside for help a lot more.

bigiain 17y ago
I think it's even more meta than that. There's "asking everybody you know how to do the bits of your job you're expected to know how to do", which is bad. There's also "having a network of friends who are specific subject matter experts, and knowing which ones to ask in specific cases", which is _enormously_ powerful. There's also a much smaller group of people who have such large and diverse social networks that they can ask pretty much _anything_ completely indiscriminately and get the right answer (look at jwz's blog for his "dear lazyweb" questions). If I had an opportunity to employ one of _them_, I'd jump at it...
jister 17y ago
I would say it depends on what you're asking help for. If you turn to your network of friends asking them how to do your job then that that's a different story. To IM your friends is one thing and to open Twitter and Facebook is another. Some companies do allow their staffs to access those sites but others don't. In this situation, as an employee, you just have to be responsible.
- andrewljohnson 17y ago
  Some companies are dinosaurs, and I would never work somewhere with Draconian internet policies. It's perfectly reasonable to Tweet or post a Facebook message, or send a private message via either of those sites to ask someone for help, assuming you're not giving away confidential information.

starkfist 17y ago

If you've got the right friends in your network, it doesn't matter.

howardtharp 17y ago

I don't think of it as turning to a network instead of knowing something. I think of it as turning to a network instead of Googling. (We all look up stuff constantly. Price-checking, deadline checking, version validation, tactics, etc. We probably don't appreciate how often we do it.) I have one staff-member who is a prominent member of a significant open source project. This person knows a LOT. So do my other staff-members. But the project member turns to his IRC window/mailing list, and gets answers really fast. Plus, he feels certain and comfortable because he typically trusts the answers he gets. I won't say he's "better" than his peers, but this network, which he has put in a lot of work to earn, has definite value to him and us.

NathanaelB 17y ago

Hi, I'm the author of the article mentioned. It's a reasonable assumption to make that I'm just a shell with no knowledge that relies solely on my peers to prop me up and get the job done - however I think the level of network utilisation required if that were the case would be categorised as "abuse" and I would fairly quickly lose all my friends and colleagues. The other thing to consider is that the network of peers I have available to me has been built up through sometimes years of social activity and sharing - do you really think my network would support me if we didn't have that mutual trust? I respect their knowledge and skills and they respect mine. That's why we're colleagues. My peer network includes some of the smartest minds in my professional globally - you don't build up a network like that without having some skills and knowledge of your own to contribute back into the network. What you describe is NOT a network but a ball-and-chain arrangement. Finally - and I don't mean to boast but it needs to be said so we're clear - I'm well respected on my own merits as an experienced and knowledgeable professional independent of the wealth of external knowledge I have access to. Obviously I'm just talking for myself here so I can't substantiate any counter-claim that people who regularly access their peer networks probably ARE good at their job but I would like you to consider a more optimistic stance.

ryoshu 17y ago

Three real world examples that have happened to me in the last 2 months: - tasked with doing PL/SQL (something I've used once in 13 years) I asked a PL/SQL programmer friend about how to do x. - tasked with performance tuning a database (I'm not a DBA) I asked a friend who has commit rights to the OSS DB project what baseline values I should start with given x, y, and z. - tasked with determining the feasibility of using RFID for a project (something I did one time, four years ago), I asked a friend that sets up RFID systems for a living if the project was feasible. Those questions took less than 5 minutes for each friend to answer, versus the incredible amount of time it would have taken me to do the research to find the answers -- and still not have the experience that my friends do. In turn, each of those friends ask me questions about platforms that I have experience with and they do not. This goes back to the idea of "shit you know you don’t know." (http://jangosteve.com/post/380926251/no-one-knows-what-theyre-doing http://jangosteve.com/post/380926251/no-one-knows-what-theyr...) Knowing what you don't know and knowing people who do know the answers is incredibly valuable to an employer.