Recently in Metrics Category

It would be wonderful to think that green jobs will lead us out of this "jobless recovery", but that doesn't seem to be a clear leading indicator.  But jobs are found in very distinct sections.  From my research in February 2010, I'm seeing job listings and increases in the following areas:

• IT Information Technology
• Healthcare
• Accounting
• Energy Efficiency
• Government jobs - largely in unemployment services
  

ExecuNet Exclusive: Hiring By Executive Search Firms Makes Big Gain

After a tumultuous 2009, executive search firms entered 2010 with renewed confidence in the executive hiring market, and they're planning to bolster their own consulting and research teams to meet anticipated demand for executive talent. ExecuNet's January Search Firm Hiring Index survey revealed that 33 percent of 214 responding executive search firms plan to hire additional professional staff over the next three months, a gain of 12 points from the number tallied in December.  Source: ExecuNet

It Pays To be Technical!

... and Resilient!  Multitalented.  People skills.  And computer-savvy!

Violence isn't green, isn't sustainbale... and certainly not part of a sustainable community.  But dealing with the potential for violence is a sustainability issue.

"... an Army psychiatrist apparently went on a shooting rampage that left 13 dead and 27 wounded at the Fort Hood army post where he worked.

" An engineer who was dismissed for poor performance two years ago allegedly returned to his former workplace in  Florida and shot and killed one person while wounding five others."

Policies and procedures that ignore anxiety producing workplace issues aren't "best practices" for an organization.

Take a look at your HR policies and procedures and look for abusive loopholes that allow ineffective or corrupt activities to fester or thrive. 

What's NOT there can be an even greater impact than what's THERE.

• Are there ways to report abusive behaviors?
• Are there methods to negotiate conflicts?
• Is training available for non-violent conflict resolution?
• Is there a way to identify and handle employees or customers with mental health problems?
• How is a healthy, sustainable organization visualized for your organization?  Is that ideal spread through the entire group, and encouraged and rewarded when progress is made?

Policies that prevent violence get down to the basic question, "Do you care about your people and their real world problems and needs?"

If you do, you will take the time to find preventive solutions that foster good workplace relationships.  If you don't ... well, you don't belong in a free enterprise environment.  Good citizenship starts with caring about your fellowman...and your community.  Business is about more than money ... it's about being a valued member of productivity that fosters LIFE.

Commenting on the Yale University case, Richard Denenberg, author of the book The Violence-Prone Workplace, said in an interview with Workforce Management that "each workplace should have an intervention system and a system to report untoward incidence or chronic conflict so a conflict can be interdicted."

Biomimicry Institute, Autodesk Announce World's First Database of Nature-Inspired Design Strategies

Imagine if buildings were as self-sufficient as living organisms: if they could gather water, filter air, and adapt to local climate conditions. Imagine if the natural world could teach us everything we need to know about sustainable, efficient design.

AskNature.org

Now for the first time, a new online database called AskNature.org will bring nature's best design ideas to design tables around the world. The new project, created by the Biomimicry Institute and sponsored by Autodesk, was announced on Nov. 21 at the Greenbuild 2008 conference in Boston.

AskNature.org is a free, public-domain online library of nature's best design ideas, organized by function and explained with illustrations and in language relevant to designers.

AskNature.org is a project of the Biomimicry Institute, founded by Janine Benyus, the renowned author of the book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. AskNature.org is collaborating with the Smithsonian Institute of Natural History and E.O. Wilson's Encyclopedia of Life as a source of data for the portal.

The portal explains in nontechnical language and enhanced with illustrations to explain how things work. The portal helps architects, designers, and engineers access and understand sustainable design concepts so they can use them in their own products and projects.

Biomimetic Information

Autodesk believes that biomimicry, as a design paradigm, can provide our customers with design intelligence to help them make smarter design decisions - whether they are designing a building, a train, a shoe or a city. Looking ahead, Autodesk's goal is to make biomimetic information accessible to a wide range of users globally. Autodesk product teams are investigating technology intersections, including those with the Autodesk® Seek web service, which has already made select biomimetic products available to designers.

Architects, designers and innovators can use this resource to study life's approaches to sustainable design--for example, how butterflies create pigment-free color, or how plants split water to release hydrogen.

"The core idea is that there is no need to reinvent the wheel. After 3.8 billion years of evolution, nature has already found the solutions to the sustainability challenges humans face," said Janine Benyus, founder of the non-profit Biomimicry Institute and author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature.

AskNature.org--part search engine, part social network--is a place where biologists and innovators can meet, exchange information and design together.  The site also has a feature called "Thank a Genius," which encourages the investment of a portion of profits derived from bio-inspired innovations to go toward preserving the organisms and ecosystems that inspired the breakthrough.

AskNature.org is sponsored by Autodesk, a world leader in design innovation technology. With a user base of 9 million architects, designers and engineers around the world, Autodesk sees biomimicry as a revolutionary design concept that can help influence better design decisions.

A growing number of businesses are using biomimicry to solve their design challenges. As one example, the architectural firm HOK is planning a community development in India that seeks to mimic tree roots with its foundation structure, as a way to deal with soil stability problems. They are also designing roofs that shed water during monsoon season and also store water for use in the drought season--just like trees do in that environment. 

Biomimicry at Greenbuild 2008

Janine Benyus, along with renowned Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson  announce the launch of AskNature.org. on November 21, 2009.  Wilson's Encyclopedia of Life is integrated with the AskNature.org database.

For more information about the Biomimicry Institute: www.biomimicryinstitute.org.

For more information about Autodesk's role: www.autodesk.com/biomimicry

Green jobs and green careers are based on a new set of job performance tools -- they could be called the "ecometrics" of the new green economy.  As explained by a professor of mechanical engineering...wow!... the same new tools being used by businesses to measure their environmental impact, are also the new tools needed by employees in the green economy.

"Interface CEO, Ray Anderson, developed 'Ecometrics' as the term for their measurement system to track their progress. These indicators include waste reduction, renewable energy, carbon emissions, water and energy usage, and percentage of recycled and biobased materials in products. Much more detail on their site includes data on the reduction of energy used per unit of product manufactured, waste diverted landfills, etc. They are green manufacturers and one of the leaders of developing a business strategy for green manufacturing and, eventually, sustainability," says David Dornfeld,  a mechanical engineering professor.

The New Career "Ecometrics"

Environmental indicators include

• waste reduction
• renewable energy
• carbon emissions
• water and energy usage
• percentage of recycled materials in products.
• biobased materials in products

How do you add these new career tools to your credentials?  Some of them come from field experience ... knowing the core operations of your business.  But some are new methods of accounting, product design, and marketing strategies that weight different features and factors in new ways. 

Waste reduction is an example.  In sustainability and green manufacturing, nothing is defined as "waste".  It's kind of like "Prince" who changed his name to ... "the person formerly known as 'Prince"!

Waste materials are now either reduced into non-existence...or seen as valuable resources to be reclaimed and reused in your own operations or by someone else.  Energy is one of the most widely affected "waste".  Energy efficiency reduces wasted energy.  Heat reclamation can use wasted energy in internal processes.  And used petroleum can be recycled or reclaimed.  Packaging can use recycled content and use manufacturing and printing processes that make the material more easily recycled in a future generation. 

Certifications can help you learn these new job skills, and industry metrics.  New certifications are being developed by many trade associations, government agencies and nonprofit organizations to help expand these new skills, and share them with the workforce in the field.

Our new website, "GreenJobWizard.com" is a directory of certification programs that help you upgrade your career skills to today's cutting edge green, sustainable and high-performance metrics... you could call them the "ecometrics" of the new economy.  

Metrics are simply, things that can be tracked or measured.

Some common metrics that are valued by various people or industries include:

Profit -  there's gross profit and net profit, and in-kind profit
ROI - Return on Investment
Zero Waste -  Turning every resource into value rather than "waste".

There are methods that measure and track key metrics such as Six Sigma and Energy Management and Google Analytics.

But what are the key metrics for YOUR industry?  And for YOUR career?

A publishing industry metric might be eyeballs or it might be members.  One matters a lot, the other not so much.

An energy company metric might be abundance of feedstock, or infrastructure for distribution.

Your career metrics might be interesting projects, or number of new jobs being created, or level of education required.

Identifying the metrics that matter most can be very valuable in your career development.  If you focus on satisfaction, you might miss opportunities for challenge.  If you focus on local jobs, you might miss the opportunity for advancement in a nearby state.  What you focus on matters.  Focus = metrics.

Metrics that matter are another thing.

In the building industry,  estimated at $4.5 trillion dollars and some estimates identify the waste in the industry at over 50%. Waste is defined as non-value added effort.

You can track and measure hundreds of metrics, such as how long it takes you to get to work, or how many people  you work with, or how many people understand what you do.  But most of those don't matter much.  What matters is the level of satisfaction you get from your work.  Whether people WANT  what you deliver.  How many people or companies want your services or products.  etc. etc. etc.

Knowing your goal comes first.  Then reverse engineer how to reach that goal.  What will get you there best?  And best can be defined with a variety of metrics.... fastest, cheapest, with most expertise, with quality, with good teammates...

But knowing what matters is like knowing what ingredients go into a specific recipe.  The outcome depends on the ingredients, the process, and the quality of the ingredients.  So do your career metrics.

Satisfaction
A survey on Salary.com in January, 2009 showed that Career Development was responded to (by over 1300 participants) as being more important (over 95% of all respondents) than pay linked to performance, to their "engagement" or job satisfaction.

Here's one resource to help you identify your career metrics:  HR Toolbox

70% of Leaders are Underperforming:
Where Should HR Invest?

To date only 29% of leaders have exceeded 2009 performance expectations. While most HR organizations are trying to identify key competencies for improving individual performance, the best companies are focusing on the organizational barriers preventing already capable leaders from being successful. Download the research report

Your career metrics will benefit from understanding some research...but you also have your experience, your contacts, and your collective direction to draw upon for top values that get results.  Not just any results.  The results you want to see in your career.

Reverse engineering a career ladder, as it's called today, is much like planning a trip.  You know the destination, and you then find a map that is relatively reliable, and you plot the pathways, the turns, the fuel stops, etc. that you will need to take.  But don't forget to pay attention to your base assumptions such as which vehicle you will be taking...who will be going with you...and the costs.

Those same principles can be applied to identifying the top metrics in your career plan.

The pathway could be education, on the job training, mentoring, and the industry you choose to work in.

The vehicle could be your skills at negotiating or design or money management, etc.

The people you travel with could be people you studied with during your degree or certification program, the people you work with, and key custoers.

And don't forget the traffic laws you will have to observe -- those are compliance regulations and tax laws and trade association guidelines, as well as corporate ethics rules, and your spouse's mandates! :-)

Metrics matter.  But not all metrics are of equal weight in your results!  Weigh them and compare them for impact.  Not just short term impact, but for the life and scope of your career...and beyond.  

Metrics matter in quality. In longevity. In family and community sustainability. And in your feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction.