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Digital up-skilling: don't be the digital dinosaur

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Chris Le Coic is CEO at CareerSites. Chris is regarded as one of the country’s leading employment specialists, with more than 20 years’ involvement in the industry.

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Feeling like a dinosaur in this new age of digital? Fear not. There are plenty of ways to digitally up-skill yourself, says Chris Le Coic.

Technology continues to change the way we live. The manner in which we communicate and the decisions we make every day are invariably tech-related. It is inevitable then that when planning a marketing strategy, you need to be exceptionally well-informed and up-to-date with the very latest methodology to reach your target audience.

This is probably the number one challenge confronting marketing professionals in the 21st century.

The marketing and information technology departments are two of the most vital of any company as they hold the requisite skills and resources to drive a successful and profitable organisation. In order to more effectively reach their target markets, companies have quickly realised that a tech-savvy marketing team needs to work closely with the IT team in developing and executing strategies that deliver a competitive edge to the organisation. With the continual emergence of new and improved information and communications technology, you – as a marketing professional – are expected to keep yourself up-to-date with the latest and most efficient methods of communication in the digital world.

This not only aligns your marketing department to the IT team in terms of ‘lingo’, but it also keeps you and your team current with the ‘whats’ and ‘hows’ of the latest communication channels available.

Of course there is hardly a shortage of tech-savvy people in today’s tight labour market, as most graduates are appropriately informed of the world’s ever-evolving technology. Schools and universities are equipped with cutting edge technologies (computers, wireless connections, video conferencing facilities, online information, interactive online applications, etc.). Today’s children, from as young as two, are constantly exposed to online games, emails, mobile phones and other digital and interactive media.

Regardless of your educational background, you are, more than likely, highly exposed to (and in touch with) the high-tech world we live in through your everyday activities.

Companies that maximise sales potential by putting their high-tech foot forward – keeping a team that is capable of coming up with fresh ideas or improving on used ones to appeal to today’s tech-savvy crowd – will ensure the organisation’s competitive edge.

2 Comments

Creatingchange
  • Wrote on 11 May, at 07:07PM
Thanks for the encouragement Chris. As a Boomerpreneur (and not a marketer - I just cruise the outskirts of the industry). I struggle to maintain a) awareness and b) move swiftly to change my ways - and my equipment. The learning curve is like chalk on a blackboard...

I feel marketing and IT are such a more real challenge for people out in their own consulting or other SME business than they expect. We are a consortium group and still lacked the right “friends” - as opposed to large companies who provide perhaps less customised solutions, but can buy in IT/marketing advice regularly. My own interest and fascination in strategic foresight, innovation leadership and people helps a great deal, albiet often only to make me aware of what I would like to do. Sigh.

Nonetheless, my comments revolve around the outflux of 45+ year old employees from traditional roles into either franchises (where they will be marketed to oblivion or death - whichever comes first) or into their own enterprises (where they will stumble from years of reliance on internal delegation and support mechanisms). It is a brave new world for the older business entrant - don't you agree? Somehow going off to a training course on all this sounds dreadful. I decided to take a Masters instead at Swinburne doing Entrepreneurship & Innovation, and then Management Futurism... I have found it a good choice, and somehow more palatable than a ‘short course’ would be. At least I have some wonderful colleagues now to ring up and ask “what do they mean when they say ...” :-)
LukeF
  • Wrote on 13 May, at 09:21AM
Thanks for the article Chris - one of our greatest challenges as an online marketing business is to stay up to date with the latest and greatest, however a more surprising challenge for us is to tell the wheat from the chaff.

One of the disadvantages of such a free flowing medium as the web is that many buzz’s (products, memes or philosophies) come and go, but far from all are high quality or have longevity.

A colleague of mine talks about a similar phenomena which he calls the ‘cult of the amateur’, which recognises that there are now very few restrictions or barriers to having a voice online.

Search Engines can be a great way of cost effectively promoting messages, but the environment is getting more competitive daily, and advertising more expensive.

More information…
If you want to learn more about SEM / SEO you can use a free online resource that we provide Search Marketing Australia (www.semoz.com.au). We also discuss use of the web and Web 2.0 in business via our Thirdway (www.thirdwayweb.com) approach another free resource to spend a few hours reading! **Note that this site is due for full launch in a few weeks.

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