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“Where others see problems, I see opportunity,” said LinkedIn
co-founder, Allen Blue. He said so in
quiet conversation and later to a larger audience. His statement is worth reflecting on.
Allen made his remark first in a conversation I struck up with
him at a reception being hosted by the U.S. Ambassador in Amman, Jordan, and, later,
during a presentation at MENA-ICT, a high tech conference for the Middle East
and North Africa that we were both attending.
Allen was speaking in the context of a discussion we were having
about worldwide youth unemployment. He
noted that from his vantage point within LinkedIn, he saw there are still many companies
looking to attract young talent. Not
surprisingly, Allen saw LinkedIn as a platform that could play a larger role in
matching the need for talent with the need for work.
He offered that he wanted to see LinkedIn attract more members
from outside the traditional white-collar skills pool that currently gravitates
to LinkedIn. This would certainly be a
disruptive change that could let LinkedIn become an even more central social platform
for job hunting and talent recruiting.
For example, within the construction industry within the United
States, there is a dire shortage of skilled labor. Proactively encouraging those with skills of
all sorts, including skilled laborers, to create a LinkedIn profile could make
progress in larger ways.
This vision may seem purely self-serving for a LinkedIn
co-founder, but, having witnessed first-hand the sort of passion that
accompanied his description of a next iteration of LinkedIn, I can assure you
that Allen’s vision is one that is genuinely concerned about converting “problems”
into opportunities in a global fashion.
We all need to do more of the sort of thinking that Allen is
doing. We need to consider more how to convert
“problems” into opportunities. This will
require “disruptive” thinking.
Small Startups Can Be Big Stuff, Especially if Matched with Mentors
Another point Allen mentioned in his discussion of LinkedIn is
the ready pool of “mentors” that the network has that could loan crucial
guidance to young talent.
Startups don't need to be high tech and huge to be meaningful
and important. A startup is important when it lets people follow their passion
and make a living at it, while bringing a new product or service to others.
While walking the conference hall at MENA-ICT, in Amman, I came
across a table where a few people people were sharing candy they made, really
good candy. They were having fun doing it
and making a wonderful product. They
were still trying to figure out how to expand their market beyond the one they
had in Amman, which was already enjoying what they were making.
This candy-making startup shared some chili toffee they had
made. It was awesome. So think about this. A few people, who might otherwise be
unemployed, get together with a modest amount of funding and create a business
making really good candy, something new.
(I’m thinking of their line of a chili toffee they shared!)
Now, you may already have had such candy, but
I assure you, not this candy.
This is
what makes entrepreneurship so special: it enables people to follow their passions, bringing something new or special to the marketplace - and creating new jobs in the process! Experienced business leaders could help accelerate this startup and many, many others, as Allen suggested.
Big startups are everyone’s dream. Small startups, however, can be even more
important when they give even more people the opportunity to pursue their passions and make a living in the process.
Another young person there was trying to advance his startup idea
of tapping into Gamification to improve workforce efficiencies. The idea could improve the quality of care in
the healthcare industry. He thought
himself limited by geography. With the right mentorship, as Allen suggested, such boundaries wouldn't be boundaries at all.
1. We must all think more about how to convert
to “problems” into opportunities.
2. Improving networking across skill sets would help match more talent to jobs, as Allen's future view of LinkedIn envisions.
3. Providing more mentorship would accelerate startup growth and success.
4. Even "small" startups have big potential for creating jobs and bringing new and better goods and services to market.
5. A startup economy may just be one of the best ways of creating jobs and economic opportunity in world where unemployment is endemic.
In short, our
future depends on more "disruptive" thinking.
