Design, Science and Technology

Robin Good: The Institute for the Future and the University of Phoenix have teamed up to produce, this past spring, an interesting report entitled Future Work Skills 2020.

 

By looking at the set of emerging skills that this research identifies as vital for future workers, I can't avoid but recognize the very skillset needed by any professional curator or newsmaster.

 

It should only come as a limited surprise to realize that in an information economy, the most valuable skills are those that can harness that primary resource, "information", in new, and immediately useful ways.

 

And being the nature of information like water, which can adapt and flow depending on context, the task of the curator is one of seeing beyond the water,

to the unique rare fish swimming through it.

 

The curator's key talent being the one of recognizing that depending on who you are fishing for, the kind of fish you and other curators could see within the same water pool, may be very different. 

 

 

Here the skills that information-fishermen of the future will need the most:

 

1) Sense-making:

ability to determine the deeper meaning or significance of what is being expressed

 

2) Social intelligence:

ability to connect to others in a deep and direct way, to sense and stimulate reactions and desired interactions

 

3) Novel and adaptive thinking:

proficiency at thinking and coming up with solutions and responses beyond that which is rote or rule-based

 

4) Cross-cultural competency:

ability to operate in different cultural settings

 

5) Computational thinking:

ability to translate vast amounts of data into abstract concepts and to understand data-based reasoning

 

6) New media literacy:

ability to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms, and to leverage these media for persuasive communication

 

7) Transdisciplinarity:

literacy in and ability to understand concepts across multiple disciplines

 

8) Design mindset:

ability to represent and develop tasks and work processes for desired outcomes

 

9) Cognitive load management:

ability to discriminate and filter information for importance, and to understand how to maximize cognitive functioning using a variety of tools and techniques

 

10) Virtual collaboration:

ability to work productively, drive engagement, and demonstrate presence as a member of a virtual team

 

 

Critical to understand the future ahead. 9/10

 

Curated by Robin Good

 

Executive Summary of the Report: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapolloresearchinstitute.com%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Ffuture-work-skills-executive-summary.pdf 

 

Download a PDF copy of Future Work Skills 2020: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapolloresearchinstitute.com%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Ffuture-skills-2020-research-report.pdf  

Via Robin Good, janlgordon

It's been said that if you want something, go find people who have what you want and ask them how they got it. Margie is a perfect example of someone who is successful, knows how to build community and definitely creates and curates consistent content.

Here's an excerpt from her latest post on curating:

This is what we're doing on scoopit!

I also ask people to let me know what they were reading that they liked. A lot of people took advantage of this opportunity, and when I did my round-ups I would credit those people by saying, “Xyz brought this post to my attention…” This helps you build your community on a lot of different levels, it exposes you to content you might not otherwise have seen, and you get to network with the new bloggers, too. It worked out pretty well for me in terms of teaching me the ropes of the online world.

My advice to you

If you want to get started curating some content, there are lots of different paths you could set your feet on. The most important thing is to make sure you keep it manageable. Like most facets of the online world, curating content can very quickly begin to eat your life. So here is what I would try:

Via janlgordon

I’m sure a lot of you guys have looked into curation software available ...

Obviously with the radically different price points they all do different things, but here’s the gist – a whole lot of this you can do for free.

 

Step One – Define your Parameters

Define your parameters by where you want the goods to go. Make sure everything is accessible from the beginning so you can leverage your curated content efficiently from the start.

Step Two – Choose your Weapons

e.g. Timely.is; G+ and FB

 

Step Three – Be Intentional with your Schedule

I can’t speak to your industry/niche but I can tell you that when I do my curation at somewhere between 6 and 8am EST I find a goldmine of posts that are brand-flipping-new

 

Step Four – Be Crazy Time Sensitive

I make sure to only curate content that is timely [less than 1% of the time curate something more than 24 hours old]

Open up a google search and type in “content marketing” at the beginning of my day, and set it to the last 24 hours.

 

Step Five – Be Consistent

As long as you are curating the same general stuff over and over it will work for you.

Notice: Steps 1-5 are all about the setup or protocol. Steps 6-9 are the actual daily work.

 

Step Six – Prepare for Battle

Open windows to the following places:

Google search
Timely.is
WP dashboard to my curation site
Google +
Facebook
Twitter
I also have a Word document open

 

Step Seven – Get Rolling

e.g. search for the term “content marketing” in the last 24 hours as shown above; grab 5 or 6 posts that are relevant and make tweets about them and put them on timely/buffer/scoopit

 

Step Eight – Natural Overflow

Doing twitter first thing after curation is great, if you have the time.

20-30 minutes after you have your automated posts in place to interact with your feed, clean out the spam tweeps, follow back the real people, etc.

 

Step Nine – Use what you Learn

Use your curation is as the basis for your own blogs

Not regurgitation, but rather letting your new-found knowledge fuel your next post. Or, add to the list of blog ideas you have on a running list somewhere.

 

Setting aside this 45 minutes a day to get the most relevant pieces of content your industry has to offer can not only fill your feeds, but it can also fuel your entire day. And it should, because you should be talking about the latest things in your industry.

 

Great ideas by Amie Marse - http://bit.ly/HfET6B ;

Via maxOz, janlgordon

I selected this piece by Ross Dawson for The Future of Journalism blog. Ross is one of my trusted sources and he continues to shed light on the future of journalism.

 

My commentary:

 

I see clear parallels between journalists and content curators and believe these are at least partly demonstrated by the points I have chosen to quote and particularly the smaller portions I bolded. I look forward to clear and growing collaborations . We have much to learn from each other.

 

Ross also points out the trend towards personalized and local news delivery and suggests that journalists will need to understand how social curation works. And for me, this is the key to the overlap between the established profession of journalism and the still developing discipline of content curation.

 

Ross sets the tone by stating:

 

"There are eight aspects of news that its audience will value, be prepared to pay for, and that will provide a viable financial foundation for quality journalism in the emerging media environment."

 

The article delves into each of these.  Here's what particularly caught my attention.

 

**Timeliness is becoming ever-more important in a world ravenous for immediacy.

 

**Investigative reporting will retain a central role in society. Increasingly this will involve data analysis, and often harnessing information and insights provided by many citizens.

 

**Insight, through adding context, analysis, and synthesis to news, is where some of the greatest value lies, particularly in business and political journalism.

 

**Those who can provide this insight, be they domain experts or journalists with the requisite breadth of experience, will always have a bright future.

 

**The skills required to present information, ideas and data in a visual and highly aesthetic format will shift far closer to the heart of what it is to be a journalist.

 

Curated by Jan Gordon covering "Content Curation, Social Media and Beyond"

 

Read full article here: [http://bit.ly/zn9rpM]

Via janlgordon

"Civicboom is an online platform designed to facilitate content-driven organizations and individuals to work together in generating rich media content.

 

Content-seekers can place a request for specific content. Then, by using the Civicboom mobile app (Android), or by uploading to the plug & go site, a content-creator can respond with rich-media directly to that request.

 

All incoming rich-media content is then managed by the content-seeker, and directed to a customizable plugin to be embedded on a website."

Read more about it here: http://thenextweb.com/media/2011/11/12/civicboom-this-open-platform-lets-organizations-request-content-from-their-audience/

 

Sign-up here:  https://www.civicboom.com/

 

Via Robin Good, janlgordon