- DIGITAL IS AT A CROSSROADS -

I am a 20+ year veteran of the Digital & eCommerce space and regularly commentate on interesting industry news, experiences, concepts and media that come into my sphere. Enjoy.

THE GREAT OPPORTUNITY

I love digital. I love the passion, the impact, and the opportunity to do hugely fun and fulfilling work that has truly quantifiable outcomes. Digital is changing the entire world and is the foundation for the societal knowledge revolution that is now well underway.

I also largely love the people I have met throughout my journey in digital. I find more often than not that those working in digital are forward thinking, intelligent, inspirational and exciting to be around and chat with.

I have witnessed the 'industry' of digital grow from nascency to its current level of maturity.

But, I believe digital has a big problem - or stated another way, digital has an incredible opportunity.

The big problem is that digital has no effective way to consistently quantify the skill set of the people working in it. So, the great opportunity is creating ways to reduce or eliminate this ambiguity.

WILD WEST

In this sense, digital has not really shed its roots as the wild west rogue offshoot of IT, despite IT and digital being very different beasts. They have some overlapping skills but also have many divergent skill sets, use largely different terminology and speak very different languages with an often very different focus.

I know this as I once did a very brief stint with a major IT distributor (hardware and software) and felt like a total fish out of water!

IT has historically largely been INWARDLY facing. That is, IT is about the systems, technology and processes required to run a business or organisation internally and operationally with a special focus on efficiency and security (a cost centre).

Digital on the other hand has historically been almost exclusively OUTWARDLY facing, that is, the systems, technology and processes that interface with the customer and their interaction with the business, with a special focus on driving revenue (a profit centre).

That is why digital is often considered and treated like a closer cousin to sales, marketing & retail (for omni-channel retailers) than to technology. Digital and specifically eCommerce, are often service providers and primary facilitators for the sales, marketing & retail teams.

As digitally led Shadow IT, analytics and big data have become common, digital is also now rapidly encroaching on areas typically left to IT specialists, teams, and departments.

I have observed that in most cases, the best outcomes are achieved when IT, digital, marketing and retail teams have close alliances, common structures and shared KPI's.

WHY IT MATTERS

So what's the downside if we DON'T exploit this opportunity?

Well there are many but essentially digital will continue to have a handbrake on its growth until it becomes a recognised and respected discipline in its own right, outside its own industry. And like it or not, a degree of standardisation & accreditation has to be developed and delivered for this to happen.

This is critical to securing credibility and broader buy in for digital (and digital projects/initiatives) at CxO and board level. It will mean more clarity for employers and employees and if other industries are anything to go by, it will also mean higher wages for those of us in digital as we are able to better quantify our skill set and experience beyond the CV.

Digital has provided me with a truly amazing life and I want to see it flourish in all respects, not least of which because I think the positive societal impacts of digital are simply too great to ignore. I think it would be a travesty if we leave digital to languish under purely 'organic' growth as digital natives slowly but inexorably take over the reigns of power at all levels of business.

In many circles, digital is still considered the rebellious, disorganised cousin of IT and I think we can and must change that perception simply because I believe it's no longer accurate.

THE REAL WORLD

Because digital has no real yard stick, no consistent way to 'prove' a baseline level of knowledge, skill or experience - hiring is rarely about that.

Instead it all comes down to your CV or resume. Who did you work for, how long did you work for them, what did you do for them and how big of a 'halo' can those employers cast over over?

And it's the same if you work digital agency side or own your own agency or consultancy. It's hard to prove your skill set or that of your staff and this same dilemma faces technology vendors too.

Some platform/technology vendors have accreditations or certifications you can attain but these are targeted at their platform or service and do not address overall 'concepts' and transferable skills or knowledge, so instead that must be inferred.

Universities rarely offer degrees in 'digital', because digital lives at the apex of several distinct disciplines - technology (usually computer science, software engineering, computing infrastructure or related disciplines), business, sales, marketing and psychology.

And when you dig a bit deeper into the university degrees or qualifications that claim to be digitally focused, you will often find that these are actually IT qualifications in disguise, having little practical application out in the real world of digital.

The industry also moves far too fast for universities and tertiary institutions to keep up so I don't see universities as the way forward for those that have or desire a career in digital.

WORLDS APART

Other disciplines related to digital do not have this issue and I'll provide two examples by way of comparison.

If we look at Project Management, if you want to learn or prove Project Management chops, you can become PMP or Prince2/Prince2 Agile certified. These certifications create baselines of knowledge and experience that help the entire discipline to flourish and have a level of standardisation.

It's proven that certified project managers earn more than non-certified ones and their career prospects also improve once they become certified. Certification bolsters the CV substantially for project managers, many project management roles require certification to be considered and certification provides more clearly defined career paths.

In the world of IT, there are a wide range of vendor specific certifications available, other standardised qualifications (university and otherwise) and there is ITIL Certification, which focuses primarily on IT Service Management. If you work in IT, you will often be ITIL certified and you can expect higher pay and better career prospects if you are.

Interestingly, both Prince2 and ITIL were initially created by the UK government with both now owned and administered by Axelos. Axelos offers a range of training and certification programs for global best practice related to IT and Project/Program Management. There are third-party training providers, but Axelos manages the curriculum & certification in all cases.

The above examples show just what recognised certifications/qualifications (that are also not accredited through the university system) can do to galvanise and unify an industry or discipline and I think digital has a similar opportunity waiting to be seized.

DIGITAL COMMERCE

I don't profess to have all the answers but I have some ideas. Because I have a strong personal career focus on digital commerce, this seems like as good a place to start as any because it's what I know best.

From a merchant/retailer career path perspective in eCommerce/omni-commerce, the most direct path (if there is a such a thing) to the C-Suite is typically: eCommerce Manager > Head of Digital > Chief Digital Officer (CDO).

Because digital is becoming so pervasive throughout all areas of business, and with the advent of digitally driven 'Shadow IT', some digital commerce specialists have their sights ultimately set on a CMO, CTO or CIO role instead, as they believe the CDO role will ultimately become redundant within the next 5-10 years.

I hold a slightly different view however, in that I feel that digital will need its own unique seat of advocacy at the C-Suite table for many years to come yet.

Whichever position you take, this path would be much clearer for all if there were some common baselines of knowledge and experience that could be applied to each level of progression through this career path.

WHERE TO FROM HERE

There are so many great ways to teach and to learn online these days. From a Udemy or Coursera course to LinkedIn Learning and Teachable courses.

Broadly speaking I have noted that course creation and hosting platforms fall into two distinct camps.

The first is Online Course Marketplaces/Catalogs that also provide the tooling to create and host your courses, (eg Udemy or LinkedIn Learning) then take a cut of all your course sales. These platforms offer an instant potential student base, often offer other marketing partnerships/services and typically take much more aggressive cuts of course fees in turn (up to 75% in some cases).

Then there are online course creation and hosting platforms which typically do not offer catalog or marketing services for the courses it hosts and simply charge based on either size and quantity of courses hosted, a tiered subscription offering, a cut of course sales or some combination of the above.

Despite the above, many people still learn better in some sort of instructor led, classroom type setting, where they can interact and learn with other students with more direct tuition, structure and accountability.

I think that a combination of the above (eg: what some Prince2 training providers offer) might be the best approach.

It really comes down to actually creating the course curriculum, exams and associated 'certification' and that's where the time and expertise come in. The final exams for a given course could easily be administered by testing service providers such as Prometric or Kryterion.

Ultimately I'd love to have a crack at this, so watch this space or get in touch if you want to discuss and see where it leads.

If you want to talk digital, eCommerce & other cool stuff, my virtual door is always open so give me a shout!