To those of you who are joining me for the first time, I am sharing my journey into the world of social media. In the first two blog posts, I shared my experience with setting up the first course in the Great Supervision Series, Building Confident Supervisors.
In case you missed the first two posts, you can catch up here:
1. Journey into Social Media: Getting My Feet Wet
2. Journey into Social Media: Embrace Creative Innovation
This time, I thought you might like to hear three lessons I’ve learned about building an online team of professionals and the tools I’ve discovered that keep us moving forward.
Lesson 1: Consider using Google Chrome, Google Calendar (you can forward messages to other calendars) and as I mentioned in a previous note, Google Drive. They are set up for working with teams online.
To begin with, teaming up with people from all over Canada and other parts of the world is challenging. I am managing different time zones, comprehension ability, skill and transferable knowledge. Fortunately, free calendars like Google Calendar automatically reflect the correct time zone when you set up an appointment.
Lesson 2: Don’t be afraid to ask friends and colleagues for recommendations on job postings.
My team was hired online. I set up job descriptions and posted on Upwork, a global freelancing platform where businesses and independent professionals connect and collaborate remotely. I invited people to apply, vetted applications and held interviews. However, networking and getting referrals is still the way to go. In fact, I successfully recruited three people through word-of-mouth. My Online Community Leader, Rosemary Stephanson, came through a friend on Facebook. She is wonderful! More on her in another email.
Lesson 3: Even when your online team is skilled in their area of expertise, their task is their focus. You need to bring it all together. No one understands your business as well as you do.
My team starts at different times on different tasks, so all is good and we work efficiently and effectively together. In my dreams! My frustration sets in around communication. No big surprise, here, since I have typically had minimal opportunity to connect visually (55% of the message is visual) and verbally (38% of the message is the tone of voice) so I’ve been relying on words (7% of the message). I consider myself to be a better than average communicator when I have all three areas at my disposal. However, written communication is not my strong suit. Yeeeesh, I can be all over the place, unclear and off-topic sometimes, which leaves the other person going, “What?!” Definitely not ideal. Now, however, I am learning to slow down and focus on the message rather than writing it while my mind is on other things. In addition, I make sure that each message is short and to the point.
Notice that I said “learning”? So you don’t fall prey to my ramblings, I’m going to end my story here today! Next time, I’ll pass along tools for keeping your virtual team organized and on task.
With gratitude and warm wishes,
Karin
P.S. Have you or a member of your team started our 30 Day Social Media Challenge yet? At the end of the Challenge, you’ll be entered to win your choice of either:
a) 1 FREE registration for any of the upcoming 2017 – 2018 Great Supervision Classroom Trainings listed on our website on the day the contest closes.
b) 1 FREE registration for Great Supervision Online 1: Building Confident Supervisors.
CLICK HERE TO START THE CHALLENGE! (Details are here too.)