Originally published 28 May 2013. This article is retained from the tCI archive. Law, policy or practice may have changed since publication.
Six months ago, Forbes magazine named ten jobs that didn’t exist ten years ago. Okay, so there’s a flavour of the US about the list but, half way between an App Developer and the Sustainability expert, came two roles that rang bells in the Consultation Institute.
One was called Chief Listening Officer, and named Beth LaPierre as having been the first such appointment. She worked for Eastman Kodak and monitored 300,000 mentions of her Company each month, using a concept she calls Digital Intelligence. This is defined as ...the management and analysis of customer data from digital sources (social, web, chat, etc) and used to activate and recalibrate marketing and CRM programs, to uncover insights and pursue opportunities to achieve business objectives.
The other was called a Market Research Data Miner, a role you might imagine would have existed for a generation or more. In reality of course, it has taken years to invent the tools and develop the processes that now enable retailers, banks and the rest of the commercial sector to piece together the gigabytes of data held on every one of us, and so to make sense of the behaviours and attitudes of the population. And, increasingly, it is relevant in the public sector.
What both of these jobs have in common is a rather close relationship with the more established activities of public engagement or consultation. The UK’s private and public sectors are both well ahead of many other countries in having adopted a more consultative culture and, for all its many faults, this has employed thousands of people to act as the organisers of such programmes.
But a career in consultation? Are we serious?
Consider this. We are talking about the understanding of complex commercial or public service environments, the techniques of data collection and analysis and the application of what emerges in the determination of policy or in significant decision-making. None of these tasks are new, but pulling them together in a coherent whole is an important conceptual breakthrough, and joins up the dots. Take Research staff as one example; it is so easy for them to become back-room boffin-type messengers, whereas expanding their contribution to the wider role of consultation/public engagement offers young people a career of much greater influence and access to the top jobs in policy-making.
Consider also the sheer range of skills that the modern consultation professional needs. It is a truly multi-disciplinary activity. And it changes rapidly. Unlike a technology where the latest technique effectively renders previous know-how obsolete and unnecessary, public engagement uses a heady mixture of old and new. In his excellent training course on Social Media for Consultation, Jon Bradley makes the case for dedicated specialists to monitor social media dialogues (as in Eastman Kodak), but note that no-one suggests that this replaces more traditional methods. Public meetings still happen!
If there is one thing that holds back the professionalism of public engagement and explains its low-profile as a career choice for young people – it is the lingering hostility in some quarters to the idea of consultation. The truth is that there are some who are totally opposed to what they see as a bureaucratic waste of time, and they may be alive and well in an office near yours! One of the biggest challenges is to convince those sceptics that effective consultation leads to better policy and better decisions.
A central motive for the Institute’s collaboration to set up the Huddersfield Centre for Communications and Consultation Research is to create a place to gather and publish the evidence that we badly need to support the profession. It should help individuals to see a career in consultation as a rewarding route to important roles in management or in the public services.
Forbes magazine is certainly right in seizing upon the word ‘listening’. It will resonate – but only if used properly. Not as a piece of political spin, but as a label to describe a complex and sensitive set of processes that needs management and effective use of the output. Really serious listening can make a difference and a career in consultation is a chance to do precisely that.
Trigger Points
- Does your organisation view consultation as a part-time cosmetic exercise or as a strategic capability requiring professional skills?
- To read the Forbes article, click here and then click the 'Continue to site' link.
- For a great insight into the new roles and responsibilities arising from the growth of social media as a dialogue method, consider attending Social Media for Consultation – For details of dates and venues click here. It covers the concept of ‘custodian of the consultation’ – really important in the context of social media.
- If you know of any graduates interested in a career in consultation, you might wish to tell them that the Institute is currently hoping to appoint two interns – with a possibility of a paid full-time role in the Autumn.
This is the 237th Tuesday Topic; a full list of subjects covered is available for Institute members and is a valuable resource covering so many aspects of consultation and engagement