The cover article on BusinessWeek Magazine  (issue 1/18) focuses on the current and future state of the workforce in the US.  An excerpt from  "The Disposable Worker" ..... this recession's unusual ferocity has accelerated trends—including offshoring, automation, the decline of labor unions' influence, new management techniques, and regulatory changes—that already had been eroding workers' economic standing. The forecast for the next five to 10 years: more of the same, with paltry pay gains, worsening working conditions, and little job security. Right on up to the C-suite, more jobs will be freelance and temporary, and even seemingly permanent positions will be at greater risk. "When I hear people talk about temp vs. permanent jobs, I laugh," says Barry Asin, chief analyst at the Los Altos (Calif.) labor-analysis firm Staffing Industry Analysts. "The idea that any job is permanent has been well proven not to be true." As Kelly Services CEO Carl Camden puts it: "We're all temps now." Wow, when you read that who the heck wants to work for any company.  Do yourself a favor and read the entire article it's chalk full of insight and realities that are bound to slap you between the eyes if your dreaming of working for one company until you retire. So why is this good news?

If we look back through the years at the voice of companies and customers it would generally go like this.  For decades companies have had access to mediums to get their voice out there.  Radio, Television and print were all used by companies to announce their message. By sheer brute force companies would broadcast out and customers generally didn't have a voice. Sure a customer could complain, even boycott, but overall the power was with the companies. Then the Internet came along and the customer had access to a medium that was equally accessible by both company and customer.  For the first time customers had a voice, a channel, that could be amplified to the same volume as companies. Forums, blogs, user groups, reviews, videos, pictures and most recently social networks are being leveraged by customers to be heard across the world. Don't Filter Your Voice That bring us to the next stage of voice. That voice is yours.  Your voice as a business owner, entrepreneur or employee. I'm not talking about some voice that's filtered as though it went through the marketing department.  I'm talking about the unique, unfiltered voice that you use to talk with your customers.  Notice I said with and not at.  That's the next stage of communication and marketing on the Internet.  Business owners, entrepreneurs and employees communicating WITH their customers.  While we certainly have had several ways of doing this before the Internet such as the phone or face to face, none is more far reaching and cost affective than the Internet.

If you could go back in time knowing what you know now, would you?  I mean let's say you could flip a switch and go back five years. What would you have done differently in your business, career or personal brand? We all would have done something different for certain. That's human nature to second guess our self. What I'm suggesting is to stop looking in the rear view mirror and focus on the road ahead.  Especially the signs along the way. In hindsight, the signs are usually really big and really bright along the road.  However, if you are not currently paying attention to them you will look back five years from now and think what could have been. Here are seven of the current signs you better be engaging in your business, career of personal brand.

What do you do if you have a great idea, but it requires competing against a bigger company? Be faster! "It's not the big that eat the small, its the fast that eat the slow". This Gary V video reminded me of that good book, whose title gives us the answer on beating big companies. In the video Gary talks about companies just not "getting it" and "waiting for it to happen".  The "it" refers to web 2.0 and the "waiting" refers to companies sitting on the sidelines,waiting for the web 2.0 space to mature. This shouldn't surprise you.  Most big companies have a formula that's working, or certainly one that's not broke enough to try something "radically" new. This is great news for you.  It means you can be quicker to the newest ideas, the newest technologies, the newest innovations, and in turn outperform them. Bottom line is if your not involved in web 2.0 your dead, period.  It's not something you just decide to do one day and your fully up to speed. The new web is all about relationships and those take time to develop.  Don't sit this one on the sidelines or you may never get the chance to get in the game. photo credit

Most of the conversations blazing up the blogosphere are about how businesses can use the latest and greatest social networking sites to further their reach and develop relationships. Chris Brogan had a nice post on the building blocks of social networking for business. These building blocks are critical to the future success of your company. However, with all the talk about social media where does that leave your companies website? What does the future of a business's websites look like?