Random musings of Scott McGregor

Recently I’ve been coaching several people recently on how to get a job in this down economy, and I would like to share them with you as well. The people I have been coaching with these techniques include new college grads and non- grads seeking entry level positions, as well as more experienced candidates ranging from early stage careers in technical roles and marketing to mid level and senior management level positions.

My background as an innovation and disruption expert
If you have followed my work, one of the things you know about what I do is that I look for (and coach others on finding) disruptive innovation product strategies that allow a start up to invent important new and fast growing markets that they become the leader of, or disrupt the balance in existing markets so that they become new leader and drive the incumbents out of the market.

Disruption strategy methods can be applied to every kind of business
While most of the companies that I have personally participated in have been applying these product strategy methods to the Internet, Software and Mobile Industries, I have taught these methods to people in all business sectors, consumer and enterprise, high tech and low tech, products and services, and they have found these methods equally valuable in all those settings.

Applying Disruption Strategy approaches to Job Searching
In fact, I think these methods can be applied to any business or market, and today I’m going to talk about a strategy that comes from applying them to an area that you may never have considered as being open to innovation or disruption. Today, I want to talk about what can happen if we turn those same disruption strategy methods to give an individual job seeker a disruptive advantage in the online job market.

Disruption enabled new job candidates beat experienced job candidates, by getting to jobs before they do.
What does a disruptive job search strategy mean? Think of it this way: If you are a job seeker, today there are many other people out their competing to get the jobs you want. If you have a great resume, cover letter, and interview skills, are the most qualified applicant and are always the first person to get a job offer for any job you apply to through a job site like Monster, Career Builder, or Craigslist, you are the current market leader that other job seekers are losing out too. It is these successful people that other less successful applicants need an new approach that will allow them to disrupt the playing field to their advantage — to find jobs the current leaders can’t — because those jobs aren’t yet advertised on Monster, CareerBuilder or Craigslist and to overcome the advantages they may have in qualifications and a great resume, by creating a new path to hiring managers that doesn’t depend on a better resume. Note that such a strategy is disruptive in another way as well — it creates a new way for recruiters to package candidates and get them in front of hiring managers before their competitors, and especially before Monster, CareerBuilder or Craigslist.

Finding the niche market that the current market leaders don’t serve well
To figure out how to disrupt the traditional online job search market we start by looking for the special situation where some customers are ill served by the existing products. That special situation that we’ll focus on is a job market in which there are lots of highly qualified candidates seeking every job that is advertised. And what makes the current system ill suited to hiring managers in such a hiring climate is the large number of resumes that need to be screened and interviews that need to be held to fill a position.

Our task: find alternative ways to reach overburdened hiring managers
In our disruptive approach we’ll look for an alternative way around that hiring manager problem that allows job seekers who use the disruptive approach to bypass the existing job site channels where they are at a disadvantage by using to alternative paths to hiring managers.

SOLUTION: Two alternative ways to reach hiring managers

A bad economy makes hiring managers hang back from announcing jobs
The current economy makes it necessary for job seekers to take a different strategy than what works when the economy is good, and the ways that might be the way most people have found a job in the past. The key thing to realize is that right now most employers have way too many resumes, and feel overwhelmed and don’t want to see more resumes. In fact they want to see fewer resumes, and zero is just about ideal! So many of these overburdened hiring managers don’t even want to post a formal job opening on their own website or on a paid job site or on Craigslist. They’d rather fill that job through an informal process that avoids having to read a ton of resumes.

Busy Hiring Managers May Wait to Post Jobs Until After They Know Who Will Fill Them
When that happens you obviously can’t find these jobs by looking for job postings. And you can’t assume that because a company doesn’t have a your job title posted that they don’t have that job — even if they have lots of other jobs posted. That’s because it isn’t the company that is overwhelmed, it is the hiring manager that the job would report to who is maybe hanging back from filling out a requisition for a job. In fact, at times like these, many hiring managers won’t even fill out a job requisition, that is “create a job”, until they know they have already identified the candidate they know will fill the job. That way, as soon as the job is posted and the resumes start coming in, the manager can hire the identified candidate and skip reading the rest of ton of resumes that inevitably flood in because they have now already filled the job that was just posted.

Entry level jobs yield the most overwhelming stacks of resumes to weed through
The more resumes the hiring manager might get, the more likely the job is actually to be filled like this. And the jobs where the most resumes are likely to come in for will be entry level jobs. So this is very relevant for you and Sean.

More qualified candidates who miss out feel frustrated
Naturally, this is very frustrating for job searchers who think they would have been better job candidates, if they had only known about the job. And some of them probably would have. But each of these job searchers has to make a choice: they can be among the many people who continue to post resumes and wait for companies to search for them, and apply to advertised job openings on website and job search sites — and complain when they miss out on these jobs that aren’t really posted until the person who will be hired is already identified. Or they can be one of the people who deliberately or accidentally stumble into these not yet created job opportunities.

The person who gets hired is the person who solves the current problem first — and the current problem is the huge stack of resumes to review!
If getting a job that’s perfect for you is more important to you, even though other more qualified people may have been ignored, then you there are steps you can go through to deliberately get a job this way. If getting a plum job based on “who you know, and who knows you” even if other more qualified candidates may exist makes you feel guilty, then you might want to stick with posting resumes and applying to blind ads. But keep in mind that doesn’t necessarily mean the best qualified person will get the job, someone else who uses the informal processes that i describe below, with lower qualifications than you, but a willingness to go through the who you know and who knows you network, might get it instead. Because in the end, the best candidate for the job in the hiring manager’s mind is the one that minimizes the manager’s effort in finding and guiding the new hire, and who makes the greatest contributions to solving the hiring managers problems. And right now, problem one is getting some work problem solved without having to read a lot of resumes.

Two ways to find the jobs that have not yet been posted, or even created
When hiring managers are hanging back like this, the way to get the job is to get to the person through an informal process. There are two ways to do that which I know can work.

Strategy 1) YOU find the hiring manager: job networking
The first approach to find jobs that don’t yet exist is often called “job networking”. The trick here is to have a bunch of informal meetings with people. The wrong way to go about informal job networking is to ask people “Do you have a job, or know someone who does?” That won’t find you hidden jobs. It will mostly get you a bunch of “nos“, and you’ll quickly exhaust all those sources of leads. But a slight twist will actually get you more “yeses” and more useful leads.

How to ask for a job networking meeting
Phrase your question this way instead. I’m interested in learning about jobs as a “(your target job title)”. I’d like to talk to someone who does that job now, has done that job in the past, has managed people doing that job, or who has worked with people doing that job. I’d like to speak to them and learn a little bit more about the field, the companies in that field and the typical problems they face in that job as part of my preparation for a job search in this area. Do you know anyone I might speak to about such things?”

Focus on discovering needs, not a job
You don’t want to tell people that the purpose of the meeting is to find out if they have a job or can get you a job — that puts them on the spot if they don’t have one; or even if they do have one, because they don’t know you yet and aren’t prepared to deal with a job discussion until they’ve first screened you. Instead, you tell people that the purpose of the meeting is for you to collect more information about what it is like to work in that field, and what people hiring people in that field currently need. This last word, Need, turns out to be the trick that can make job networking work magic for you. The trick is to focus on understanding individual hiring manager’s needs and offering to help with them.

You aren’t imposing by asking for a meeting — you are offering the person a chance to show off their expertise
Everyone loves to tell people about how they got the job they have, how they succeeded and what they do — it makes them feel important. So when you ask to meet with someone to learn about their experiences in the business, you aren’t wasting their time! People like to have meetings with other people who are interested in hearing all about their successes (and about all the secret booby traps they’ve avoided, or discovered).

Give people the permission to complain about their problems
Everyone also has needs — some of which aren’t being well met at any given time. People like to tell other people who are willing to listen all about these needs too — in hopes that other person will know of a solution they had not heard of. A lot of people are reluctant to talk about their problems because they don’t want to come across as complainers. But when you ask, well that’s a different story! Also, when you speak to someone working in that field, tell them up front that you are happy to share any useful information you might learn from your meetings, or to provide them similar leads if some day they are looking for a new opportunity.

Shifting gears: become a solutions provider
So you want to find out the needs of people who hire for the job you want. You want to find out about those needs from potential hiring managers, or from the other people who work for them. Contrary to what you said when you first started asking for these meetings to prepare your job search, once you have this knowledge, you don’t go into job search mode — you go into solutions provider mode!

That’s what turns out to be the trick to getting these jobs that don’t exist yet. People are reluctant to give you their valuable time if they think you are going to ask them for a job they haven’t created. But they are eager to give you their time if they think you might tell them about solutions to the problems they have.

Don’t ask for a job, let them propose a job in order to capture your solutions skills.
The strange thing is, that in telling them some of the solutions to their problems you are also indirectly telling them that you know how to solve those problems. When they know that you know how to solve these problems, you personally also become a solution for them. Not only would hiring you mean their current problems could be resolved and they could focus on something else, but you could solve similar problems for them in the as well in the future. Once they have that realization, that’s when THEY are suddenly going to think about creating that job just for you, and the ability to skip having to interview other people will be a big plus!

Company problems vs. Hiring Manager Problems and Generic Problems vs. Peculiar problems
Note that you can’t shortcut the previous steps by looking at the job description, or what the job title is. Those are generic problems. They are usually problems that hiring companies have. But companies don’t actually hire — it is the hiring managers inside the companies who actually make the decisions.

The hiring manager that is going to make the decision does have those generic problems, and they might be the first ones they think of when writing a job posting. But they aren’t what the hiring manager is thinking about when they are making a hiring decision. All the candidates whose resumes passed the first screening, and solve those generic problems. What makes the hiring manager choose a specific person out of the set of multiple qualified candidates is their ability to solve the manager’s immediate short term problems that are peculiar to this manager at this moment.

Imagine the job you are seeking is “web designer”. When the hiring manager is describing the job, they may be thinking about someone who already knows JavaScript and has created interactive webpages before — so they can start right to work. So that’s the generic problem or skills the manager puts on their job description.

But what the hiring manager is thinking about when making a hiring decision are the peculiar problems that they have right now. Maybe they lost their previous web designer because the job required the web designer to work without some off shore graphics developers in Malaysia who sometimes don’t seem to follow directions in english that well. The previous web designer found that frustrating and quit. So, the peculiar problem isn’t just getting interactive web pages working, but getting them working with beautiful graphics that having been coming from this offshore group.

There might be many alternative solutions to the peculiar problem.

A web designer who is also a talented graphic designer might do both web design and graphic design well and thereby make the offshore group unnecessary.

Alternatively, A web designer who speaks Malaysian, might communicate more effectively so this problem doesn’t reoccur.

The manager may not be attached to which way the peculiar solution solves the problem, but they sure want to be certain that the peculiar problem will be solved.

Be the solution to the peculiar problem
And if one candidate seems to appreciate that peculiar problem and shows the manager they have a solution, that candidate immediately become the least risky selection for the manager to make. And given that the manager doesn’t want to spend more time reading resumes and interviewing people, the first known solution to the peculiar problem is likely to result in a quick end of the job search and a quick job offer. There is no need to keep searching for candidates with alternative solutions — it is time to implement the first one and get back to productivity now.

Show off your ability to solve their problem
Because the hiring manager hasn’t gone through the formal steps to get a new job requisition filled out, they might not know if they will be able to get the budget for such a new job, or get it approved, if it requires higher level approval. But they probably have the authority to invite you in for a day to see if you can help with a peculiar problem they have. Ask them if they would like you to do that. If they seem concerned about the cost, tell them you appreciate that they took so much time with you, and the opportunity to get to know more about their company, their department and what it is like to work for them. Tell them, that you won’t charge them for the 1 day of work, but that what you ask in exchange is that if at the end of the day they like what you did that they agree to write you a short testimonial and introduce you to other people in the industry who might hire someone like you. It is a rare hiring manager who will say no to that offer. And think about this: when it comes time to make a hiring decision, would you want to do that based on a resume or interview or would you rather make a decision base on observing the person at work for a day? Seeing is Believing!

Ask for a Testimonial and a referral: If this manager can’t hire you now, get them to help you find the manager who will!
At the end of the day, if you’ve made some progress on the hiring manager’s peculiar problem, ask for that testimonial and referral. Tell them that while you understand they don’t have approval to hire a person for this job on a full time basis, that you like them, and that if they want your continued help on an knocking off the peculiar problems that have been troubling them, you are willing to do that on a consulting and part time basis while you look for the full time job. Tell them, that if an opening should be approved while you are searching you would love to consider it, because now you have had the experience of working with them for a day. Now you aren’t a job seeker — you are the problem solver that they are wanting.

Need more help on getting meetings with potential managers using this approach?
Get more information on how to create these problem solver images in the minds of managers, click on the following link to get a copy of Anthony Parinello’s excellent book “Selling To VITO (Very Important Top Officers).”

More jobs are being filled through networking that through job sites.
My friends in the recruiting industry are telling me that 60-80% of all jobs are being filled this way right now — and it is the way I have filled most of my jobs over my career. Often I just have a name of someone I got from a friend of a friend. The purpose of the meeting is very informal, just to find out more about their job, their company in general, and their views about what is happening in the industry.

In asking about their job, I often ask them about what their current problems are. Then I usually say something like this, “I have some ideas about how to solve some of the problems you mentioned, that I would be happy to share with you”. I also ask, “are these kinds of problems widespread in your industry?” and “Do you know other colleagues who might have these problems, because I have skills at solving these problems and might be able to help that colleague.”

Usually, if they really don’t have the budget or can’t hire me now, they will introduce me to other people who have similar problems. They’ll win brownie points with that other person, and may be able to hire me later and would like me to feel they are a great manager. Or if they can swing the budget, they’ll say “Well, I didn’t have an opening when we started the talk, but if you can solve that problem, I might be able to get approval to hire you.”

Ultimately I’ll find myself in front of some colleague who will say to me: “Really? you can solve this particular (and peculiar) problem for me? Can I hire you temporarily as a part time consultant to solve this problem?”

And I say sure. Then I solve their problem, and they get to know me and I get to know about other problems that I can help with. If I like working with them, I’ll tell them about the other things I can help with when i am done with my current project, and if they also like me this has always led to a full time job. If we don’t like each other we found out quickly and cheaply for both of us.

Strategy 2) The hiring manager finds YOU!
That brings me to the second way to get a hiring manager who is hanging back to find YOU! If they are busy, shorthanded and overwhelmed (and avoiding the idea of thinking about being even more overwhelmed by more resumes!) they aren’t going to be searching craigslist or monster to find you. Maybe they should be. But they aren’t going to be.

The manager who isn’t seeking people to do jobs, is searching for HOW TO solve their peculiar and general problems
What the hiring manager is thinking about is how to solve that problem without hiring someone, since going through all the steps to get approved for hiring someone and then doing all the resume reading and interviewing is such a hassle. . And to find solutions, they are likely to likely to do an Internet Search for published advice on how to solve their problem. That’s the hook in this startegy. Since they aren’t looking for your resume, but are looking for a solution, you post a solution for them to find. Then you let them realize that hiring you to solve their problem is even less work than learning HOW TO solve the problem is even less effort on their part than spending their own time (as a busy distracted newbie manager) trying to apply that new knowledge expertly.

Make search engines like Google help managers seeking solutions find yours!
This is where you can make the power of the internet search engines work for you, so that the hiring manager finds YOU and not competing candidates for the job. Since these are hiring mangers who aren’t looking for job candidates, they won’t be searching Craigslist, Monster or Careerbuilder. And they won’t find the people who could compete with you for a job and who might even look more qualified based on the resume on those sites.

Instead, you’ll post your solutions are going to be on the non job sites that Google will find. Places like public blogs (syndicated with RSS), or Audio podcasts on iTunes, or videos on YouTube. Those solutions will also contain a pointer to your web page. And that web page won’t just be a resume, it will be a portfolio site showcasing other How To solutions you have authored, as well as your past successes and testimonials from people you have benefited.

When they find your solution, they have also found you!
Now, when these managers are looking for solutions to their problems, they will also find you in the course of searching for those solutions.

How do you get started, and become findable?

Create How To Tips
The trick is to just start creating content about various generic and peculiar problems that you have solved before and give some simple HOW TO tips on solving them. The form of this content (text, audio, or video) isn’t as important as that your HOW TO solutions are published on the web and found by search engines. You can write these tips in text such as a blog, or facebook page, or email newsletter that you syndicate through RSS. Or you can just talk your way through them in audio in a podcast. Or you create a short animation and save it as a You Tube video. Any way you do that you, you’ll wind up listed in an internet search engine. Now when the hiring manager goes looking to find a SOLUTION to one of their problems, they are likely to find YOUR How To tips.. And through your how to tips, they will discover YOU! And now, while they might not have searched for your resume, they know you are a potential source of solutions for the job they haven’t yet created! (and they still don’t know about, or have the time or interest to discover other candidates resumes on Craigslist, Monster or Career Builder.

Short is can be sweet!
These content pieces don’t have to be long — in fact short and sweet (2-3 paragraphs or 10 steps in text, or 2 minutes of Audio or Video are often preferable. Let people experience several descriptions of simple but common problems, so they see the breadth of what you know. If their problem is deeper, let them ask for consulting help.

If this still sounds complicated and daunting, do not despair. Click on the following link to get David Wood’s book “Get Paid for Who You Are” which does an excellent job of taking you step by step through how to do just this kind of way in a quick and easy way. If you want even more help, David’s Get Paid University site provides a wealth of support.

Sidebar: Why are we getting spammed when we post our resumes on job sites and what to do about it.

Why we post on job sites like Monster, CareerBuilder and Craigslist
We post our resumes on a public job site in order to let all potential employers know that we are looking for a job. This way, we don’t have to know which employers we want to work for; we let them find us. It is very low effort on our part.

When posting on job sites actually generates useful calls from employers
Posting our resume in a general job site mostly only works when there are too few active job seekers for the number of job openings employers want to fill. When that happens, employers must go looking for additional potential employees, and that’s when they are willing to spend time searching for people like us, and when it is cost effective to pay the fees that paid sites like Monster and CareerBuilder charge.

Why employers are responding to our resumes on Monster, CareerBuilder and Craigslist right now.
When there are a great many job candidates applying for each only job opening, like in today’s economy, it isn’t sensible for a company to do such paid searches. Since right now employer sare already getting more resumes than they want to review for each opening — and that’s just counting the resumes that are coming in unsolicited via their company’s own job pages on its own web site. With so many resumes, employers don’t want to spend the time to do an external search for additional potential employees, and they certainly don’t want to pay for information that they can are already getting for free when people apply through their own company website.

Even if cost were not the issue, it is less work to just review and select from the resumes you are already getting through your own web site.

This is why you and I will probably not get very many useful contacts from employers simply by putting our resumes on these sites. Instead, we will have to identify potential employers and apply on their sites.

So, who does want to purchase our information from job sites?
But if employers don’t find it cost effective to pay for contact info from extra potential employees, then who DOES find it cost effective to pay for your contact information — people with jobs that NO ONE wants to apply to, and people who are selling a service– such as a college. These are people who can’t get your information more cheaply another way, and are willing to pay for your information (either in actual dollars on a paid job site, or in time and effort on a free site like Facebook or Craigslist).

Why we are getting spammed when we publish our phone and emails on Job sites
The people who most are most willing to buy your information are people who want to sell you something that you aren’t searching for. That could someone who wants to sell you a college degree, or someone who wants to sell you on a job that NO ONE is applying for. Or it could have nothing to do with jobs at all.

How to avoid getting spammed
To avoid getting spammed like this, the best way is to do our own research to identify prospective employers we want to work for, and apply on their own web sites, rather than wait for them to come to us. Better yet, use networking to find a path directly to the hiring managers (even the ones who don’t at present have a job req) and let them know about your problem solving skills! Since companies don’t want to share your information with competitors, targeted contacts like this usually won’t result in your information being shared with anyone else.

Good luck job seekers!

This post may be freely reproduced in whole or in part for non-commerical purposes when printed with attribution or a link to the www.smcgregor.com/blog website under a creative commons license. For commercial use, please contact the author for permission.

One of my mentors, Ted Nelson, co-inventor of hypertext, is noted for saying: “Everything is deeply intertwingled”.

On May 14, 2010, I personally experienced this kind intertwingling in a profound way. It was as if some sort of quantum entanglement of strange attractors separated distantly in time and space, were suddenly connected in a single moment and place.

This is the story of that experience.

Two seemingly unrelated events, happening half way around the world from each other, occurring within minutes of each other, became connected by a text alert. But the brain being the amazing pattern seeking (and pattern generating) engine that it is, my mind quickly connected these events in several more interesting ways.

The first event
The first event was a blog post by someone I had never had any prior contact with. Writing from his home in Israel, author IAMRONEN posted his May 14, 2010 blog entry, referred to a design exercise I invented while developed my Disruptive Innovation New Product Design course little more than 20 years ago. It was a productive time for me, for my both course and my first child were born that year. Here is what IAMRONEN wrote:

When I was working as a software designer – we would sometimes run into clients that would ask for a “per-screen” quote. My partner would then answer that we aren’t Samsung – we don’t manufacture screens. Usually when people, especially developers, hear “design” they think about screens, graphics, usability, user experience. While all these are a part of design they don’t touch on the most important part of design (which also happens to be the part I do best and love doing). This post may hopefully shine some light on what that is.

If you’re a developer (especially an open-source developer), you’re reading this and you haven’t yet read “The Inmates Are Running the Asylum” then get the book now. It’s easy & fun to read, and may open up new avenues of thought for you. If you were to read only one book on software design – this should be the book!

Update: I came across a comprehensive preview of the book.

Here’s a quote of one relevant paragraph:

“It might be counter-intuitive in our feature-conscious world, but you simply cannot achieve your goals by using features lists as a problem solving tool. It’s quite possible to satisfy every feature on the list and still hatch a catastrophe. Interaction designer Scott McGregor uses a delightful test in his classes to prove this point. He describes a product with a list of features, asking his class to write down what the product is as soon as they can guess. He begins with 1) internal combustion engine; 2) four wheels with rubber tires; 3) a transmission connecting the engine to the drive wheels; 4) engine and transmission mounted on a metal chassis; 5) a steering wheel. By this time every student will have written down his or her positive identification of the product as an automobile, whereupon Scott ceases using features to descibe the product and instead mentions a couple of user goals: 6) cuts grass quickly and easily; 7) comfortable to sit on. From the five feature clues not one student will have written down ‘riding lawnmower’. You can see how much more descriptive goals are than features.”

I am guessing the guys at Diaspora are going to start by building an engine. The question is do they know what kind? For a private car? jet airplane? semi-truck? tractor? generator? Or something else altogether? They’re all “engines” – but they have different purposes and different qualities designed to fulfill their purposes.

How can you know you are heading in the direction you want to go? What do you do to stay on course when you reach an obstacle that forces you to take a detour? You need a lighthouse or a north star – something that calls to you, something that shimmers for you in the dark, something you can look to, something you can aspire to.

You may get there and rejoice. You may get there and realize you really wanted to go somewhere else. You may only get close and realize that is enough for you. You may have to move away from it in order to get closer to it. You may find new places on the way. You may lose interest and decide to go somewhere else. All these movements gain a coherent and supportive context when you have an anchor, something steady to which you can relate, something that can be perceived as getting further or nearer…

The alert message arrives
Although I had never read IAMRONEN’s blog before, this post immediately came to my attention, because I get Google Alerts promptly whenever people post about me and my work. What was particularly unusual about this post is that I haven’t been alerted to any online discussion of my “Name that Product” exercise from my Innovative Product Design course for many years.

So it was really delightful to read IAMRONEN’s blog and to see the author quote Alan’s description of my exercise, and hear that it still excites readers. Even after all these years, it also remains my favorite exercise to run in my classes and lectures, as well.

The second event
But what was even more amazing was the timing, coinciding with the second event. May 14th, 2010 was also the date my first child was graduating from Marygrove College.

Talk about Synchronicity! The alert actually came in on my iPhone while I was sitting through the reading of the names of each graduate and the awarding of their degrees. Now, I think while most parents find the moment when their child’s name is read riveting, the reading of all the other graduates names can be rather boring if you don’t know any of them. So, while I waited for my daughter’s name to be read, I checked out the alert and read the blog article above.

Rosie Rios’ commencement speech
The connection of the content of this post to both the past origin of my course exercise with the commencement speech in the immediate present was eerily meaningful. And the timing of the arrival of this alert synchronized so perfectly with the events that were unfolding at the graduation makes the coincidence of these events all the more salient: US Secretary of the Treasury Rosie Rios, the invited speaker, had just delivered the commencement address to the graduates urging them to take up the challenge to invent new solutions to the world’s major problems and reshape our world and our economy for the better.

The Scots-American Inventor Imperative
That’s the same challenge that my own grandfather urged on me 40+ years ago when he told me that I had an obligation to create innovations to reshape the world for the better. The Scots-American Inventor Imperative he called it. And it is what set me forth on a career devoted to new product innovation.

Moments after receiving the alert and reading the blog, I heard them call out the name of my daughter, Taylor McGregor, who graduated that day with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, Magna Cum Laude. Taylor was an amazing scholar held the college’s presidential scholarship for 7 semesters — a longer tenure than any previous recipient. She had also just won a half dozen other academic awards, and had a very impressive art show. I couldn’t be more proud of her.

The Motor City connection
There was something oddly appropriate about the location too. That’s another interesting part of the intertwingling effect, I referred to earlier.

The graduation took place at Marygrove CollegeDetroit, Michigan — home to the US Auto industry, and the hotbed of innovation 100 years ago. The automobile — in all its variants from family sedan, to truck, to tractor, and even riding mower, are now ubiquitous — which is what made it such an illustrative example in my design exercise.

A tough job market for new graduates
Unemployment is high around the world and around the US. But the local economy in Detroit is suffering even worse than most parts of the country. It is a tough environment for a recent graduate to find a job as a web designer, graphic designer, or photographer. Taylor, has recently won several awards, which should make her job search easier than some of her classmates, but even so, she realizes that opportunities are not as bright as they might be elsewhere, and she’s open to jobs in other cities.

A weakly recovering economy in Silicon Valley
Meanwhile, I’ve now returned to Silicon Valley, the US home to innovation for the last 30 years. But even Silicon Valley and I are suffering deeply in this recession. I’m looking for a new opportunity as a CTO, VP of Product Engineering or Product Management in an Internet company or start up. Things are not as bleak for start-ups as they were a year ago, but they aren’t particularly healthy either. Hopefully, I can help improve the odds of success for my next employer or consulting client.

Reflections
These strange connections have given rise to a great deal of reflection on the enormous changes in the the last 20 years, in the world in general, in my life and my daughter’s life, and yet also the comforting persistence of same basic principles that drive great product design and innovation that remain the same, all the while the products they create morph the world at an ever increasing rate. I see my daughter and I standing on opposite ends of our careers, each facing the same uncertain economy but sharing a passion for great design and an appreciation for the power of education as an enabler of positive change.

Whatever cosmic connection is responsible for stimulating IAMRONEN’S own reveries on this important day, I am indebted to it, and to IAMRONEN, for reminding me on this day how much my contributions in educating others are still timely and appreciated. Whether reading of the continuing power of an exercise I taught to a few hundred people several years ago, or reading of the millions of people who now jump on line to web conference instead of jumping on planes, it is a constant source of inspiration to know one’s past contributions have made difference in peoples lives, large and small. It is why I get up each morning and keep doing what i do!

If you are in the innovation game, in Silicon Valley — high tech innovation central — you have to expect a lot of change, market turmoil, and financial ups and downs. But 2009 was harsher than any year we have seen before here in the valley. And it has take an emotional toll on many of our best and brightest. But we aren’t quitters here. Here in Silicon Valley, we create the change we want in the world. So in wishing us all greater prosperity in 2010, I thought it would be useful to review what made 2009 so tough and look forward to what we can do, or at least what I can do for you, to make 2010 better for all of us.

But first, if you are someone who wants to stay in the innovation game, and stay at the top of your game, you have to keep your creativity skills sharp and your attitude upbeat. To all those readers who found 2009 challenging, I offer you two humorous holiday videos that I created for two of the companies that I have been involved with in 2008 and 2009. If you like them, please share them with others. We can all use a pick me up!

• “Happy Holidays in Silicon Valley” for SWIFT Design Group, a Management Innovation Consulting practice.
• “Festival of Lights” for XooXooX, A Web Advertising Service That You Control.

What made 2009 so hard in Silicon Valley, and who was affected? Here’s a sampling of the kinds of people among my friends and colleagues who will be glad to see 2009 behind us.

Investors

If you were an investor, it was hard to predict how much “dry powder” you might need to set aside to help keep alive a start-up while the economy is stuck in slow gear.

Self Funded Entrepreneurs

If you were an entrepreneur and didn’t need funds, a recession can be your friend when it shakes out new competitors and causes established market leaders to focus internally on cost cutting. But unless you had deep pockets and were self-funding your start-up, or were already cash positive, you’ll eventually need to raise some cash.

Debt Financed Entrepreneurs

If you were an entrepreneur and did need funds, it is always tough to raise money, but 2009 was worse than usual. Even if you had some income, the credit crunch in the first half of the year made it tough to get debt financing as well. Your own customers were having trouble paying their bills, but without at least debt financing, you couldn’t keep the customer by extending payment terms.

Equity Financed Entrepreneurs

Equity financing for star-ups wasn’t any easier. Not only did investors have no idea how long it would take for markets to rebound, but they also didn’t know when/if IPO markets will re-open and larger companies will go into acquisition mode. And any investments that they had in the stock market were under performing, and probably showed a loss early in the year.

Consultants

If you were a consultant to start-ups, Your client base was cutting back and cutting contracts. They didn’t have cash to pay you but you can’t keep afloat on all 100% equity deals. Large numbers of laid off executives were competing for an ever shrinking set of consulting opportunities.

Employees

If you were an employee, chances are that you felt very uncertain about your job. Whole companies were crashing. Acquisitions often resulted in transfer of products, but layoffs of the acquired team, part of the acquirer’s team or both. Sales were often down so much that no amount of belt tightening could reduce expenses sufficiently to match the new lower income numbers, so layoffs were inevitable.

The Unemployed

If you were a victim of a layoff in 2008 or 2009, 2009 was a difficult time to find a new job. The number of people on the unemployment rolls in the valley exceeded 10% and because many people had exhausted benefits or were no longer looking, quite a few analysts estimated that actual number of people who wanted to work in Silicon Valley, but couldn’t find a job, may have reached 20%. And the average amount of time on the unemployment rolls drifted upward of 6 months on its way toward 1 year of unemployment!

Here’s hoping that 2010 will be better.

Here’s what I am hoping for in 2010: a new consulting gig, or an executive role with a young (but funded) Internet, web and software Startup in Silicon Valley. As always, my goal is to build innovative strategies, teams and processes that create disruptive innovations that pioneer new markets. I enjoy all the steps of this process beginning with conception and product design and engineering all the way through successful product introduction, growth and resulting in product leadership in the new market. I’ve done this before several times, and I expect to do so again — I don’t know where I will do that right now, but I’m hoping to begin this accomplishment in 2010.

If you had a tough year in 2009, I hope 2010 is more prosperous for you too! Let’s renew our friendships and see what we can do for each other. Let’s reach out to new friends and see what we can do for them. The economy is just what we all collectively do. So if we all believe in and help one another, we will have that turn around we all want.

My offer to you:

If you are a CEO or senior executive at a start-up or innovative technology company and you need some help turning your advanced research into a market leading product, building a top technical team or product management team. I’d love to help you achieve that success.

If you are an investor with a promising young company that needs some seasoned management experience and startup expertise, I’d love to explore what we might accomplish together.

If you need consulting help in how to increase innovation in your company in general, or to lead a skunk works project to develop a radically different product or process, I can help you accomplish that.

And if you are a talented software engineer or product manager or product marketing manager who thrives to on innovation and start-ups, let’s keep talking: I always like to bring great talent to my employers, clients and companies. And who knows, maybe we’ll find we have the talent to found a new company ourselves.