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Marshall Goldsmith refers to the World Wide Web as the global mind—a culmination of collective knowledge. These days, if you want to know more about any topic from mountain climbing to making roast pork crackling, you can just Google it. There is a virtual sea of information out there that anyone can access. However, this flood of information has given rise to a new problem.
For a busy manager trying to get a little guidance in how to be a better leader, it is easy to drown in a seemingly endless sea of information. The web is information overload on a grand scale. To make matters worse, much of what is written on the web is little more than pop psychology and unfounded opinion. Using the web as a quick way to find trustworthy information has been fraught with danger, at least until now.
That’s where you come in. I’m assuming that as a HR or L&D professional, you have some expertise in what it means to lead well. Couple your expertise with that of your colleagues, and you have a small panel of intelligent critics who can easily sort the wheat from the chaff. And now, thanks to the Web 2.0 revolution, you can actively and easily connect your managers to those nuggets of wisdom that pass muster.
What is Web 2.0? Put simply, Web 2.0 refers to the suite of applications that have allowed even the most technophobic of us to publish material on the internet. Facebook, YouTube, eBay and Blogger are all examples of Web 2.0 in action. You can easily post information about yourself, upload items for sale or keep an online diary. This article is about one specific Web 2.0 application that not only can help your managers become better leaders, but also costs nothing to use. It is called Squidoo.
Squidoo allows you to highlight what you consider the best resources available on a particular topic. It is a place where you can help managers cut through the fog of misinformation and shine a light on some recommended reading. People can create Squidoo pages about any topic, but for our purposes I am talking about collating a resource page (called a Lens) about current hot topics in leadership. You can view a sample lens here. It is about Emotionally Intelligent Leadership and was created by a colleague of mine. However, we don’t want you to simply rely on our lenses. Rather, you should create a bank of your own. Then publicise your lenses among your managers to help connect them to high quality knowledge in areas that interest them.
