nettworkk

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Showcase Your True Potential: How skill sharing can shape thousands of lives

Joe Yakeen Vinitha | Mentor & Business Coach

The first time I heard the word ‘trading-positions’ was during one of my mastermind sessions with enthusiastic entrepreneurs. One of the participants gave an example which used this word and I was like what… But I did not forget to learn that from her and now I do trading!

 While doing all the research, tips & trick of trading, I realized I was becoming a part of a much larger, much more humane community of sharing skills with anybody who wanted to learn just in an attempt to make their lives better. In a way to connect people through their interests on a similar ground, the difference being one person is already adept at the particular field and the others just interested to learn.

To be honest, the concept of sharing skills is not something alien. We have all grown up with it. Take every mother who has taught her child to cook or every father who helped his kid with their homework. Thanks to the internet, skill sharing has become even more popular, allowing people to connect online and benefit from a person and their skillset even though they are physically miles apart.

 As Moses de Maimon, a Jewish philosopher, better known as Maimonides, says: “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”

 Here's some more information on how skill sharing works, and most importantly, how it can benefit you, your career, and most importantly, the not so privileged.

 WHAT IS SKILL SHARING?

Skill sharing to put it in absolute layman terms is when people share their skills with others. While it can happen in a formal setting – like a classroom – it can also occur casually at meetups, community centres, and even in people's homes.

 For example, if you may be a freelance graphic designer who wants to learn social media marketing, you can agree to exchange design lessons for a tutorial in an online marketing strategy. Or, if you are a project manager looking to increase your web knowledge, you might take an online or in-person coding course.

WHY YOU NEED SKILL SHARING IN THE FIRST PLACE?

 Every person possesses a separate skill set which makes him unique. But the power of it is not keeping it confined, it's in sharing it. Call that friend who is weak in your favourite subject and help him out. Skill sharing is how we grow stronger as a team.

 It is said the strength of your team is the strength of its weakest person. So why not help them grow? There is only so much we can grow as individuals. Every sector in our lives we need a team to grow. Starting from our family, our primary and secondary education to our peer group and work life. Whether formal or informal, any successful project, be it big or small, has one thing at its core: effective collaboration,   and   you   cannot   achieve   that without knowledge sharing.

 “In our research on knowledge transfer, we have seen companies greatly disadvantaged, if not crippled, by knowledge loss. Certainly, some expert knowledge may be outdated or irrelevant by the time its possessors are eligible for retirement, but not the skills, know-how, and capabilities that underlie critical operations — both routine and innovative. Organizations cannot afford to lose these deep smarts” says Dorothy Leonard, the William J. Abernathy Professor of Business Administration Emerita at Harvard Business School.

 Here are 10 BENEFITS that you can get from sharing your knowledge:

 1.  It helps you grow

As Claudio Fernández-Aráoz put it, “The question is not whether your company’s employees and leaders have the right skills; it’s whether they have the potential to learn new ones”. We can only accomplish a certain number of goals with a limited skill set. But once we start learning new skills the opportunities for us are endless. They say you could learn something from everybody in your life. Let us make sure we actually do!

2.  It helps you stay motivated

Even among peers, skill sharing can play an important role to motivate you to get better at your skills and try to acquire new ones. Seeing your peers showcase their skills pushes you forward in healthy competition as well as a team effort for all of you to develop on your skills. We are all achievers on the inside. Sharing knowledge practices pushes you to become better at what you do while driving you at the same time to contribute with your own insights.

 3.Getting top talent access

“If you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room” the saying goes. Knowledge sharing helps you get feedback and help with your projects from those more skilled or with a different set of competences. You can always reach out to your peers – you’ll be amazed at what they can teach you in no time. Not to mention the access to upper management expertise!

4.Recognition

So many recent studies underline the importance of recognition at work – it is one of the most powerful motivators and will highly contribute to both employee retention and engagement. Sharing your knowledge with others will give your talents more exposure, thus giving the people you interact with the opportunity to identify you as a valuable expert. Helping others can help you build your reputation. And that is a valuable asset!

    5.Generating new ideas

They say two heads think better than one. When different skills and experiences collide, eye- opening ideas and solutions emerge. The creative energy of brainstorming can generate faster and more relevant solutions to your current assignments, supporting you in successfully achieving your tasks. Tribal knowledge FTW!

6.Future leaders’ discovery

Sharing knowledge can be a great tool for everyone to PR themselves. All you need to do is to be permanently connected to the hot business topics and offer your expertise every time you can. When people are open to prove their value through their competence, it’s easier to notice the ones likely to organize people and to take initiative. The leaders of tomorrow are among those.

7.Limiting the skill gap

Your team is as strong as its weakest member. By sharing knowledge and talking about certain decisions and procedures, the new guys or juniors could easily acquire new sets of skills. Create an environment where everybody is encouraged to ask questions and help professionals in all your locations and job positions stay updated with the latest information in their field.

      8.Team cementing and silo breaking

Working as a team gives employees a sense of belonging. When employees, teams, and leaders share ideas and resources with each other, the feeling that they pursue a common goal becomes authentic. The feeling of being part of a functional and collaborative team boosts enthusiasm and empowers everyone to exchange knowledge, breaking down the silo mentality. This boosts employee morale and increases their work efficiency.

 9.Sense of purpose

There is a thin line between employees “sort of doing stuff” and those that have a sense of purpose. By creating an environment where people feel like their knowledge makes a difference, they will clearly see how their work fits in the bigger mission of the organization. Work without purpose is no work at all.

10.Operational efficiency

That is perhaps the most important thing. Sharing knowledge increases the productivity of your team. You can work faster and smarter, as you get easier access to the internal resources and expertise within your organization. Projects don’t get delayed; people swimmingly get the information they need in order to do their jobs and your business fills the bill.

The “Knowledge is Power” adage is long dead as the new reality of the workforce has taught us that sharing knowledge is beneficial to everybody.

Moving one step ahead, I wonder how exciting it would be if we could also earn from our multiple skills!

HOW TO DO THIS AS AN INDIVIDUAL?

Helping others should be a natural extension of every capable individual’s responsibilities. Unfortunately, it does not come as easy as you would think. As privileged and able people, we often get too caught up in operations or our own problems to give people the help they need. However, in the last year, I’ve realized that most of my best clients, partners, and relationships have come from me helping someone for free and for a cost when required.

So how does someone share their multiple skills to the world? We’re all busy with our day-to- day lives, earning a living and eking an existence on Planet Earth.

But if you are willing, there is always some way. Helping others by sharing my multiple skills is something that brings me immense joy; hence I have shared 7 broad services which you can share with the world for free and for a cost:

    1.Professional services (Consultants, Engineers, Marketers, Chefs etc.,)

There are professional service providers as a company, but we are focusing of individuals who have these skills to offer these services. May be, you are in job offering these services, still you would want the world to know your skills for others to connect with you to receive those services form you.

 This is where a mobile app like nettworkk would help!.

 2.Home repair (carpenters, Roofers, Electricians, etc.,)

 In this ‘aggregators’ age, we have aggregators most services including food, taxi, products(amazon.com) and home repair services. Though these app provide customers with more options to choose from, the huge commission these aggregators take from the service providers really hits big on them.

 An app like nettworkk connects customers directly to you instead of them coming through aggregators.

 3.Software Services (Product managers, Solution architects, Developers. Testers etc.,)

Most of the college student eye a software job during college. Hope you agree. If you are trained in the latest software and aptitude skills, there are more chances of you getting through the campus interviews. So, there is always a huge availability of software professionals, testers and currently product managers. Interestingly, there are professionals with multiple skills, say., they are proficient in Java platform, cloud architecture as well as in big data. But they can’t be handling projects in all of them. They could only go by what their company project demands.

 It would be great if they could have a platform like nettworkk which could help them connect with people who are looking for people with these skills to offer projects.

4.Creative services (Writers, Graphic Designers, etc.,)

 It takes real skills and talent to master creative skills. Most people get into these services with seer love and passion for arts. They love colours, literature, imagination, and a sense of WOW in their work.

The speciality of creativity is that it is the basis of all innovation. Creative services need not be limited to arts but could be applied to almost any work including Engineering, Carpentry, Education... you name it!

5.  Personal care (hair stylists, massage therapists, etc.,)

Personal care services have always been close to individuals as we visit at least one personal care service in a month. Especially, working men and women. These services are always in demand and people who provide these services do it with love and care.

As they work physically close to the clients, they develop a sense of connect and client look to a particular service person if they get used to their service.

6.Health care (Doctors, Physio therapists, Nurses etc.,)

If these is a service which requires more inter connectivity with the community is Health care. As there are multiple disciplines in health care including various speciality Doctors, Physio therapists, Nurses, and various lab technicians, they all must be connected to refer the patients to the right specialists.

7.Coaching Services (Online coaching, Private tuition, Sports & Games etc.,)

The most steadily growing industry is the online coaching industry. Due to layoffs and insecure job environment, most of the professionals turn to online coaching to get themselves updated with the latest technologies, strategies, and other required skills.

Here I remember these famous words by American evangelist, Billy Graham who says: “We’re not cisterns made for hoarding. We’re channels made for sharing.” Obviously, what good is any skill if someone decides on hoarding it? The skill would die along with the person that hoards it and is not able to be passed on generation to generation.

Coaching service including sports & games have always been sort after wherever one needed expert guidance. Someone whom to they can go-to for re-evaluating themselves and fine tune their existing skills or learn new skills.

WHERE DOES NETTWORKK COME IN ALL THIS?

NETTWORKK provides you with a platform to share, showcase, and adapt skills with as ease as our day to day social media affairs. The steps for this are easy, create a profile, mention all the skills you can offer for free and for a cost and wanted services for free and for a cost.

NETTWORKK provides an easy connecting ground for people of all strata and ages to bond with each other based on their skills offered and wanted. And you get matched right on your mobile. No more advertisements in classifieds and social media ads!

Say., if you are software developer working in a software company, you are mostly like to introduce yourself as a software professional. What if you have multiple skills which you could offer for a cost. Say., you are also a competent chess player and you are willing to provide online chess training to people who are interested. You might not have thought about providing this service unless someone pokes you related to chess.

That is where a platform like nettworkk becomes essential. You can also offer free services, say., you are passionate about playing a music instrument, but not keen earning from it. You might keep you instrument playing passion live by teaching people for free or playing for free. Just to keep that passion… LIVE!

The most exciting feature of this nettworkk is that you can add as many as 10 skills which you can offer for a cost and 10 different skills which you can offer for free! Sounds exciting?

Start communicating and showcasing what you are good at, share it with the world and make a difference while you earn extra income!