Can they spin an innovative web? Date:   Wednesday , July 06, 2011 ‘What is wrong with the students of today? Why are our freshers not ready for the working world?’ A familiar sentiment, is it not? If you are an entrepreneur, HR professional or recruitment specialist, chances are that you’ve expressed this sentiment and lamented over it. With good reason too, I might add. Most of our universities teach outdated syllabi, and the problem is compounded by the fact that a majority of our faculty seem to have lost touch with our industries. This explains the recent proliferation of finishing schools where students are taught to think, act and behave like thoroughbred professionals. Well, that is the aim at any rate. Having had the opportunity to work with educational institutions for the past four years, I have studied the campus ecosystem with considerable interest. My conclusion: there is no dearth of talent amongst our students. And I do not mean just the crème de la crème. No. Students from Tier-2 cities and Tier-3 towns who do not top their classes, too, hold promise for the industry. Shocking? Let me explain myself by tracing the effect web technologies have had on our students: 1. Close on the heels of the email revolution came a wonderful concept called chat software. Students took to it like a duck to water. Within no time, they were communicating with peers on other parts of the world who presumably had little in common with them. The chat window became an avenue to make connections of all kinds – the students used it to romance, find new friends and even seek help to shape their grades. In other words, chatting improved their world. At the same time, they improved chatting, although not in the puritanical sense. The students found acronyms, rewrote the grammatical rules and became self-proclaimed Neologists – they could coin new words with ease, a skill that even seasoned marketing and advertising professionals struggle with. Under the cloak of cacophony, the students improved their communication skills. 2. If the internet changed the way students typed, the mobile changed the way they thumbed. All of us felt the thrill of carrying the internet in our pockets. Niggling bandwidth and compatibility issues ebbed gradually. Communication became instant and new rules of etiquette came into being. Meanwhile, students honed the fine art of pretending to listen to the teacher while texting friends. SMS and MMS became the most used and abused modes of communication in the campus. Around this time, viral marketing – which is slowly making way to fractal marketing – came into being. Students again responded to the innovation by becoming the consumers and propagators of campaigns. They became barometers of society’s tastes; they never failed to spot and appreciate a great idea. In other words, they helped businesses fine tune their business models. 3. The next wave was, of course, social networking. Even the very idea of Facebook evolved in an American campus. So it was probably natural for the student community to latch on to the concept before the rest of us. They began by amusing themselves on social networking sites. But once they got tired of asking each other, ‘Wassuppppp?,’ they began exploring the medium. In the process, they defined their individual tastes, brushed up on their hobbies broadcasted their thoughts and emotions. Blogging became more popular amongst them because they could “publish” whatever they wrote. Blogging also encouraged them to enhance their knowledge. Simultaneously, internet-era marketing analysts tapped into the same social networking sites to determine what made the students tick. Today, students juggle their many online avatars with consummate ease. They manage the intrinsic contradictions in their many identities without letting it affect their core personalities. Is this not what Branding is all about? Do corporate Brand Managers not strive to appeal to all the target segments? Don’t corporates spend millions each year to ensure that the various elements of their brand are reconciled and that the internal processes do not become inefficient in the process? Well, it seems that the students have developed a methodology we in the industry can consider emulating. 4. One of the most recent web phenomenon has been the advent of sites that promote social change. These sites assimilate and galvanize people who wish to transform society for the better. Joining this bandwagon are students with a strong sense of social orientation. They volunteer for a cause, conduct surveys and study the problems faced by the grassroots. In the near future, their passion and expertise could be used by companies aiming their services and products at the bottom of the pyramid. Clearly, the student community has utilized web technologies in startling new ways. Their ability to innovate thus tells us that they lack neither the imagination nor the spunk to succeed. But while they have spiced up their social lives, they could be faulted for not exhibiting the same intensity in furthering their academic and professional ambitions. After all, what they can do on Facebook and Twitter, they can do equally well on LinkedIn. Ethical hackers, for instance, manage to peddle their skills to those searching for them. They are able to convince corporates that they’re clued into the Next Big Thing. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about all students. Just as students must bridge this gap, corporates too must bridge a gap of their own. They must learn to communicate their needs to the student community using the same platforms that the students occupy. Corporates have already learned use these platforms to seek visibility and fresh markets. It is time they use them, with complete conviction, to scout talent as well. Web technologies allow them to drag their net wide and spot the “Just Right” talent. Having said that, I wonder if corporates are making the best use of the innovative spirit of the freshers entering the industry. Are they acknowledged as the veterans and artistic practitioners of web technologies? Are their opinions being sought while designing online software and campaigns? Or are they treated as pawns that will march ahead with the brief given to them? Personally, I feel that corporates should stop expecting freshers to be finished products. Instead, they could look at them as adrenalin – people capable of shaking up the routine and forcing the existing workforce to think anew. If their latent capabilities as change agents are tapped to the fullest – especially in the web technologies arena – then the corporate innovation engine might run faster. The author is Managing Director, Scalers & Vectors Innovations