Social Capital Mentor

Mark’s post from yesterday is called I’m so stoked to be here. Now, I don’t want to turn this into a group hug, but I’m stoked, too. As I mentioned in my post Coaching, Mentoring, Lunch, and Business, on the Power Lunch Blog, there’s a lot for me to be excited about with this Social Capital venture.

This is my third company since I left teaching ten years ago. The first was Bolt Peters, which I co-founded with Nate Bolt in 2001 (he’s still running it today). The second is Awasu Design, which I founded in 2007 and still run today. I’ve taught myself the language and ways of business as much as I could with the help of business partners, mentors, books, articles, my father, and so on.

Of course, I had to learn the ‘hard skills’ of my niche in the web design world (with fancy terms like user experience, information architecture, and usability). The hard skills are requisite for the job at hand - skills you just have to have. But hard skills are not enough to have a great career.

To be clear, I’m not the best User Experience designer around. I’m not the best Information Architect. I’m not the best Usability Expert. But I know how to work with teams, how to communicate effectively, how to listen, how to understand what’s important to my clients, how to share responsibility, how to negotiate differing needs and information. Perhaps most importantly, I know how to enjoy what I’m doing and help those around me enjoy what they’re doing a bit more.

Along with your hard skills you have to know how to conduct yourself socially, inter-personally, and emotionally. These soft skills make the biggest difference. Mark and I are happy to be here to share what we know, share what other experts have to say, and provide a platform for you to share what you know. I’m confident that we’ll all learn and grow from it.

OK, looks like I’m back to the group hug. I can’t help it, I guess.

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