You’re a creative for a large corporation – a community manager perhaps, or a copywriter. Even a developer of internal documents and programs. A knowledge worker. You’re exceedingly good at what you do – you’ve been called into the C-suite a number of times to help out with disasters, and people in general respect you.
You work from a coffee shop off the main roads. You bring your laptop, your notebooks, your very high quality headphones. You go early, set up near the power outlet, and dig in long before the staff even has the sleep out of their eyes. You take your time – sometimes your day is ten hours long, but you bill the company for eight, reliably. You work, you watch. You’re the quintessential cafe witness.
You want to be invisible.
Why? Beyond being a leader in your workplace, you’re a thought leader in your industry. You’re on Twitter – TweetDeck, or HootSuite, or whatever you’re using to broadcast/aggregate never closes. You’re even penning a book. You’re on the verge of celebrity. Why would you want to downplay your achievement by sitting in a coffee shop silently, away from the office where you are respected, and tap away silently at a laptop for ten hours every day?
Because you want to do your work.
Not everyone is motivated by achievement. Some people are motivated by quality, production, and the satisfaction that comes with results. Not by the visible marks those results make on the world. Community – that amorphous, diverse ideal of ongoing human interaction and interpersonal support – requires so thoroughly the work that these people do, but has no accurate compensation for them which does not strip them of their self-defined invisibility.
Our rewards for good work are fairly one-dimensional. Money. Fame. Notoriety. Power. All of these things are seen as just rewards for ongoing contribution to a community. But how do we ascribe power to those who choose to abdicate it? How can we respect people who walk away from what the rest of us see as opportunity to shine, to be heard – to be seen?
Invisibility can be a great ally, especially for knowledge workers in large communities. How do we encourage our people to discover whether this is a tool they can use effectively?
About This Post's Author - Ian
Hi! I'm Ian. I'm an online marketing specialist with Modern Earth Web Design. When I'm not working, spending time with my family, or puttering about in various spaces online, I write here, as well as at Thoughtwrestling and Unspeakable Media.This is my blog.
Ian, you just described my perfect job. Although I’d argue that a community manager is not a creative
Not sure if it’s a British thing but being invisible is a natural born trait. Problem is you can be too invisible, too self-effacing and need a more active profile.
It’s almost as if I need an online marketing specialist.
Absolutely agree, Nic. I grok the British invisibility thing – we’re not allowed to go for world domination any more, are we? (Dad’s an ex-pat, from Wall’s End).
It’s a balance. You can’t be too invisible to do your work, but you can intentionally downplay visibility as a tactic to stay under the radar long enough to get different work done. Not necessarily better, or worse. But different.
And… You’ve seen my Work With Me page, yes?
Wallsend? Hah, I grew up about 3 miles from there – Kenton. Lived in Gateshead most of my life before starting the world tour.
Think we’re letting other countries have their turn on world domination front, Guatemala’s turn might be surprisingly nearer than most think.
Having had a week to reflect on this, trying to stay under the radar and mis-prioritising has been a bane of my working life. The balance act you speak of is even more difficult when as a community leader you’re meant to set that example in the first case.
Until companies have community as a separate entity I envy the community manager with a well-defined management structure. Too many departments try and crowd community, too many managers try and stifle any social media, including the person they employ to lead their online presence.
Community is often a fantastic opportunity to remain invisible – a lot of one-way conversations!