Choose Wisely: Survival Skills for the Social Age

I remember choosing my first Swiss army knife: there was a large cabinet with a choice of about 40 different knives, a bewildering and beguiling selection for a young child. They all had a basic knife: the decision was what else you wanted to include. Scissors, files, screwdrivers, strange tools for sailmaking, a magnifying glass, pliers, and a pen, were just part of the selection on offer. To make a choice was a decision about the future: when the time came, what would I possibly need?

In the end I chose a simple knife with two blades, a screwdriver, and a corkscrew, which to my teenage self covered all eventualities. We face a similar decision when we consider what survival skills we will need in the Social Age. We know we all need the knife: the question is, what else will we select? This is one of the illustrations from the Social Leadership first hundred days book. In fact, its illustration 91 out of a hundred, so I’m nearly at the endpoint. It’s an encouragement to budding social leaders to consider what skills they have, and what skills they may need, because the skills that got us here may not be the ones that will get us the rest of the journey.