Making yourself marketable in any economy

In my last two blog entries I discussed creating a personal value proposition for yourself using Twitter. In this blog entry, I want to dig a little deeper into the topic outside of using any one particular tool or method. I believe that one of the greatest lessons that we can all take from this recession is that we are all dispensable when it comes to our employment within a company to which we do not own ourselves. Knowing this, how could we all have better prepared ourselves for this recession looking back? In my opinion, the answer lies in focusing only on the factors which you can control, and that is your growth and continuing education within your market niche. You can't control if your company lets you go or the economy takes a deep dive, but you can control your ability to easily react to market conditions by means of your ongoing education. What you will start to find is that the more you begin to see the lay of the landscape within your community, the more you will begin to see how your community works and how to make it better.

Now the question becomes how do you begin your education if you haven't already (or how do you supplement what you are already doing). Here are 2 effective first steps for you to take:

1. Search for local user groups/associations/conferences specific to your niche/industry. Utilize search engines, Facebook, Meetup.com, Twitter (Twitter calls it's groups Twibes) and Google Groups to identify which ones to join. You can also find groups on Linkedin, and while I recommend joining them, they often don't meet in person because members are often located in different cities. I feel that it's important to meet other members in person, because that is how the most mutually beneficial business relationships and friendships develop. Find out who the president of the group is and who are some of the speakers that have presented over the past few months and write them down. Now register to become a member of the group so that you receive updates on conversation threads and future meetings via email. Once, you have done this, move on to the next step.
2. Identify both local and general industry news sites/blogs and subscribe to their RSS Feeds. Some of the presidents and speakers, who you have already identified in the previous step, will typically have blogs and personal websites that you can subscribe to. If you are unfamiliar with RSS feeds, visit www.whatisrss.com for an easy to understand instructions on both what they are and how to use them. Essentially RSS Feeds will notify you when any content is added to any of your favorite blogs or websites (it's almost as if you are creating your own industry specific newspaper that updates itself in real time). A good way to identify quality blogs is to utilize blog search engines (www.icerocket.com or www.technorati.com) and social bookmarking sites such as Delicous and Digg. The social bookmarking sites will allow you to determine which websites and blogs are attracting the most attention.

Once you have attended a few group meetings, created your own industry specific newspaper and developed relationships with other members of your community, you will begin to notice a few things:

1. Who the industry leaders are. They are often the most active participants community and the ones who are innovating and moving the community forward. They are also the ones who speak at the user groups/events and can be great mentors to you in the long run (Especially if you are able to meet them in person - which is why I recommend joining groups that actively meet). Speakers are always the most intriguing to me because typically if they speak at one event, they have more than likely spoken at another. They are the sought after experts who will increase your market intelligence significantly.
2. Who the local companies that are associated with your industry are and how active they are within the community.
3. How certain teams and companies utilize various best practices and industry trends.
4. How companies treat their employees and how likely they are to embrace change. Are they staying on the cutting/bleeding edge or are do they lag behind in the adoption of new proccesses and technology.
5. Who the hiring managers are at companies that may be of interest to you in the future.

All of a sudden you'll find that you have a completely different view of your community, and as I mentioned previously, areas for improvement and opportunity can be more easily identified. You can either take an entrepreneruial route and start a business focusing on an industry need (possibly with a group member that you have befriended), or leverage the relationships that you build to help you find employment when you want to make a career move. It's important to note that when a company determines that they need to hire, they first ask their team members whether or not they know anyone who would be a good fit. If you regularly attend meetings and engage in meaningful industry related discussions with the other members, not only will you make new friends, you will also be first on their list of recommendations when their boss asks them if they know anyone.

Lastly, you may want to know what to do if there aren't any groups or associations to join. My answer to you simply is to start one yourself. Use some of the groups websites that I listed above to setup your new group and try to get other members of your community to help you out. I find that more gets accomplished when you are working with a team.