Like all the very greatest misadventures, I got talked into this one by a lady. I think she'll know who she is, because at the moment she's my only follower on twitter, but for those who might come afterwards I'd like to make it quite clear where the blame lies.
The lady in question: Christine Jones of Tigermouth. My story starts last week at the BIFM Southwest region training day where Christine gave an inspirational presentation about how to raise your industry profile with social media.
Now I've never really been impressed by social media. I'd always thought of it as a fad. And besides, on the off-chance that one day time-travelling robot-killing machines might come back from the future to try and prevent me becoming the future leader of mankind, I decided not to make it too easy for them by putting my life on FaceBook. I appreciate of course how unlikely that is, but you know what they say; failing to prepare is the same as preparing to fail.....
Anyway,Christine made an eloquent and compelling case which I will butcher in the most horrendous manner by paraphrasing it down to this; Get involved. Connect with people, share your views and your knowledge and in turn you will benefit from the knowledge and views of others in your network. Essentially; become known.
It's great advice; Facilities people tend to be lone wolves. Well some of us live in small packs (teams), but generally speaking we're on our own within our organisations. It's not intentional, but there are times when every FM feels like they have their backs to wall and that everyone is gunning for them. It goes with the territory - what we do is complicated. Some people don't really understand it. Some people don't want to understand it. You'll know who I mean - when you start talking about air-conditioning their eyes get that same glazed over look that mine do when my wife starts talking about shoes. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that sometimes, the only place an FM's feel understood is when they are talking with other Facilities people. For a lot of FM's, those "brothers in arms" are actually from outside of their teams, their offices or even their organisations.
For me this blog is about connecting with people. Sharing my ideas, knowledge and ignorance(!) with other professionals and maybe, just maybe, learning a little bit more in the process. But I don't want to limit my network to just Facilities people. There are people out there who are not FMs, but are open (or sympathetic) to Facilities issues they either have some understanding or experience or they're just interested in knowing more. I'd like to use my blog as a way of bringing FM to those people too. So for that reason, I'm not planning on getting too techy. There are plenty of others out there who's knowledge far exceeds mine and all I'll end up doing is highlighting my ignorance. What you will get in this blog is my enthusiasm and passion for FM, my own (sometimes unique) point of view, my thoughts about how to leverage FM to deliver real business benefits and of course my somewhat iffy sense of humour.
I hope after reading this, you'll continue to follow my blog; as those who know me can testify - I have quite a lot to say about almost any subject and it wold be a shame if no one listened.
