ARE MY SKILLS STILL RELEVANT?
- Nancy J. Wood
- Jan 21
- 4 min read
If you are not working any more, either by choice, retirement or other reasons, have you ever asked yourself, “would I still be able to capably do my job?”
It is a sobering question that can evoke a range of thoughts and feelings. Pure relief —as in “thank goodness I no longer have to do that” to “I am sure my knowledge and skills are outdated,” to a desire to do what you used to do.
It used to be that certain careers seemed stable, at least over one lifetime.
Now, so many areas of work have changed dramatically and my hunch tells me that the fundamental cause is the impact of the wired world.
Consider an auto mechanic trained in the 60s or 70s.
I once knew of one, so good at his trade – that in his 30s he retrained as a surgeon, reapplying his superb manual dexterity and knowledge of how things (car parts or body parts) should go together. He and his cohort mechanics were trained to look with their eyes and to work with their hands to mechanically make things work.
Are auto mechanics of the 60s and 70s irrelevant today?
I would say, yes, unless they have retrained and are computer savvy or repair only vintage cars. Today, auto mechanics must know how to use computers in order to diagnose the problems. They must have strong reading writing and keyboarding skills.
Likely the same holds true for the Mr. Maytags of the world.
I have often wondered at what point the auto mechanic who became a surgeon had to retrain again, as surgery and all of medicine has become dependent on various computer-driven tools and assists. How about nurses who trained in the 70s?
In my case,
I evolved from a career in marketing (in home sewing - an industry that has been dying a slow death) to a career in communications and public relations. I knew that writing was one of my core skills, as was diplomacy, so at 30, I returned to college to specialize in communications.
I worked for various organizations as a communications generalist.
In the roles, I developed strategies and plans to communicate a myriad of topics to various stakeholder groups. Twenty years ago, the groups were generally employees, customers, shareholders, media and the general public. Oversimplifying, we would go to our communications “toolbox,” select, create, edit and then post or fax: letters, newsletters, media releases and so on, tweaked for each group. There was a heavy emphasis on print, which by the time I left the industry in the early 2000s had migrated to email and the web.
Pragmatically, I was relatively successful because I had good instincts about when and what needed to be said, or when it was better to say nothing.
I knew how to: use the “tools” of choice, and get things done. I was an early adopter of the then new tools – fax, voicemail, internet, and email.
Though we always seemed to work under time pressure, it was nothing like I imagine it to be today in a world when Twitter and other forms of “social” media dominate and scoop messages.
I still have the experience and instincts to know when a message needs to be communicated and when and how to effectively solve a customer service issue. I continue to try to better understand the business application of podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other tools along with highly segmented interest groups, or stakeholders, but feel it eludes me. I do not have the raw instincts when it comes to social media.
When I was trained as a communicator, we had some control over “the messaging.”
Today’s generation of communicators do not have that luxury and in fact must be on watch 24/7 to ensure they are fully in tune with what others are saying about the organizations they represent. I specialized at a time when we had cell phones and pagers, but not smart phones. I specialized at a time when the world was not overflowing with writers. Writing, at least for business was a specialty.
If I was asked to return to work today,
I could still write speeches or media releases or letters to shareholders and some of the more traditional communiqués, but could I be creating a communications strategy or managing customer relations 140 characters at a time? For the moment, I think not – but perhaps that is just the new challenge I need.
As Marshall McLuhan once said, “We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.”
Though he died many years ago, this is another one of his prescient insights, at least as it relates to the profession of communicators.
Assuming you had an interest in returning to your previous area of work, if you got the call tomorrow – would you be able to meet the challenge?
By Nancy Wood . First Published in Island Gals Magazine . 2013 . Volume 3 . Issue 3
