What Does it Mean to Work Out Loud (WOL)?

Next week (Nov 17 – Nov 24) is WOL week (https://twitter.com/wolweek) and I’m keen to get on board and have a go throughout the week to develop a stronger habit around WOL. So what does it actually mean? I pulled the following quote from WOL guru John Stepper (http://johnstepper.com/):

“Working Out Loud starts with making your work visible in such a way that it might help others. When you do that – when you work in a more open, connected way – you can build a purposeful network that makes you more effective and provides access to more opportunities.”

Having previously worked in a large bank, I have had experience using work based social networking platforms – in my case it was using Yammer – and if I reflect on the experience, there was a big focus on people calling out to the organisation where they were having a problem with something and essentially crowd sourcing a solution. Don’t get me wrong, I've seen the benefits that have come from this crowd sourcing solution approach. We used the hashtag #yammerwin as a method for measuring ROI from the social network… But there must be more, right?

I see WOL as the next generation of how people use professional social network platforms, be it internal platforms or external platforms. WOL is where people evolve their use of social networks to share their work and collaborate in a way that seeks to GROW thoughts, ideas and innovation rather than just solve current problems.

No doubt that it takes a shift in the way we operate to effectively work out loud. It requires transparency. It requires acceptance of the fact that to grow an idea, it might mean sharing it with others before the idea is perfect… It requires alignment to a bigger purpose so that we can all get past the curse of ‘who might get the recognition for this?’

I’m pumped to work in a more out loud way this week and align it more closely to how I generate outputs that are bigger, better and more purposeful than ever! Tune in for a great week:
Twitter - @lachfairburn
LinkedIn - http://au.linkedin.com/pub/lachlan-fairburn/1b/3b8/413