Skills of the future

Like Liam, I also did a podcast with James Brown recently (clearly he's not that fussy) and one of the questions was around what skills internal communicators of the future would need. My initial reaction was that the skills of a good communicator wouldn't necessarily change, although the techniques and technologies certainly would.

Now I'm not so sure, particularly in the light of Liam's audio-editing experiences. For the average internal communicator ten years ago, the emphasis was predominantly on print media skills. Back then the use of email and intranets was not widespread, the CIB was known as the British Association of Industrial Editors, and producing a newsletter involved paste-board mock-ups, chromalins and bromides (no, not in your tea) rather than PDFs and e-links.

Today there's a whole range of communications tools available to us, and we're all expected to be IT-literate. Hey, I even inserted my own hotlink back there.

So what do we think? In another ten years will a completely different set of skills be required for the internal communicator, or will some things always be valued (dare I mention writing skills here?).

Emma

Comments

[Timm]

The fact that technology changes accelerate exponentially will lead to the need for a meta-skill: The skill to acquire knowledge about technology. This skill is highly prevalent in Gen Y'ers, who early on have learned to shift from technology to technology: My little brother could program a VCR with 3-4 years. I predict that in 15 years, techno-shy behavior ("can somebody switch the slides for me? I don't like that presentation mouse") will be regarded similarly to illiteracy today. And it won't be unfamiliarity with a technology that is socially shunned, but the unwillingness to learn it.

[Fiona Gibson]

Interesting topic. I think there is something in what Timm has said about generations. If IC is to the noughties what Marketing was to the 90's and HR was to the 80's, then the question I'd ask is about our legacy.

Both Marketing and HR have degree courses, and people grow up (well, maybe, I'm not exactly in touch with the yoof of today) saying they want to be in Marketing or in HR. Is there an undergraduate degree in IC? There are certainly ones out there that have modules in them. Will we start seeing graduates coming to us who tell us they've always wanted to be in IC and this is their dream job?

It may not be immediately related to skills, but whoever puts together these degree courses has the ability to fasttrack tomorrow's graduates - to a position potentially, where their skills are more suited to where communications is going, rather than where it has been (and potentially where we could be left...).

Having ranted about all of that though, I think, and hope, that some skills will remain - they may not be the hard and fast of getting something out there and chatting nicely to the boys at Xerox. I hope it will be around the more progressive advisory skills and the aptitude for change.

p.s. for a picture of our current guest blogger, see the piccies on the left - class of April '06, middle row, third from the right.

[Liam]

How's your French? This looks jolly interesting....

http://www.activeside.net/fr-blog/carte-du-web

Liam

[Edna]

Great topic. I agree that technology will have a tremendous impact on the field of communications. Although Gen-Yers have an enviable knack for technology, my experience is that they haven't quite mastered the requirements of each medium. For example, sending a work-related e-mail filled with abbreviations and acronyms appropriate for IM or texting is definitely NOT cool. IC professionals need to be:

1. Open-minded enough to investigate and adopt new technologies;
2. Observant enough to recognize how employees use each tool/medium;
3. Empathetic enough to understand the different needs of their audience as generations merge in the workplace; and
4. Diplomatic enough to balance these needs with the needs of the organizations which we serve.

Not an exhaustive list, but it’s a start…

Regarding the coursework required to be a communicator, I believe that IC is truly cross-disciplinary, requiring skills from business, psychology, marketing, PR, human resources, design, IT/desktop, etc. It’ll be interesting to see if some schools start creating tailored learning tracks to better serve our profession.