Are you looking for leadership training for cloud computing? If so, this video's for you.
Hi, my name is Michael Gibbs, and I'm the founder and CEO of GoCloud Architects, and
we're an organization dedicated towards building high performance cloud computing careers.
Personally, I've been working in technology for over 25 years, and I've been coaching
and mentoring others for two decades. Today we're going to be talking about how to become
a thought leader. Now typically speaking, we reserve this type of training for people
in a tech career development program or in our leadership program. But becoming a thought
leader can do so many great things for your career that we decided to cover it here in
a YouTube video.
So to begin, what is a thought leader? And then we'll talk about why it matters so much
for your career. A thought leader is a true expert that's going to have a global view
of the industry, so they're going to have a global view of the technology, as well as
a specific industry, and how the technology can actually shape or improve that industry.
And we'll talk much more about that.
A thought leader is going to have such industry knowledge that people are going to know to
go to them as their guide, and they're going to be in highly demand because the thought
leader is almost a guru of the tech industry combined. And when you can be this type of
an expert on the business impact, the industry impact, and the technology impact, the world
will come searching for you because it's really hard to find someone with that level of expertise.
A thought leader with that kind of expertise can literally walk into a business and say,
"I found a way to make you 3% more efficient, or 5% more efficient," just by knowing the
industry and the technology and the processes and procedures to maximize efficiency.
So a thought leader's really going to be your go to expert in an industry. And these are
people that are highly respected, in extreme demand, and they're so respected and in such
demand that when they come in and they present, they can literally shape an industry. So becoming
a thought leader is one of the goals for your technology career if you're looking to really
rise and have a fantastic career progression. And this is whether you're a cloud architect.
It could be whether you're in marketing. You could even be in sales, but having that knowledge
base and having that expertise, being a thought leader is just so valuable for you.
So with talked about the benefits of becoming a thought leader. But how do you become on?
Well, we're going to tell you right now. First and foremost, if you're going to become a
thought leader, you're going to have to become an expert. And we don't mean just a little
expertise, we mean a lot of expertise. You're going to have this global view of your industry.
And you're going to have to know a lot. So how do you know a lot about a small area?
Well, first, you have to find something that you love because it's not going to happen
overnight. You're not instantly going to become an expert on say, networking for healthcare
organizations. But when you are, the world will come for you, so it's definitely worth
investing the time. But just understand it's going to take some time. It's not going to
happen overnight.
The next part of becoming a thought leader is what I call niching down to blow up. So
you're going to actually have to find a small area for which you're an expert. I like to
tell people that there are 10 types of cardiologists that work on something the size of the human
heart, which is the size of my fist. Why do I like to tell people this? Because 10 different
kinds of cardiologists for just the heart shows you how specialized you can get. A cardiologist
will spend four years in medical, three to four years in a residency, do a three to four
year fellowship, and they're only doing 10% of the heart because that's what it really
takes to basically become an expert on something.
And it's no different for you in your technology career. You become an expert in a niche market
that's in high demand and your career will be fantastic. And I'm going to give you some
personal examples from me because I've spent most of my life as a thought leader. Because
I say you must love it, and here's the reason, you're basically going to have to love it
to the point where you can eat it, breathe it, and sleep it. And that's going to be your
area of expertise.
So I'm going to give you an example of what being a thought leader did for me in my career,
and then we'll tell you how you can start getting recognized. When I was at Cisco Systems,
I initially joined Cisco Systems designing systems for banks, which I loved. It was a
wonderful company, I had a tremendous experience, worked with some of the best and brightest
people in the industry, and I loved every last moment of it. But I was working in banking,
which was great. I had a banking background. I had an MBA. I had worked in banking, so
I knew the industry and I was good at banking.
And then Cisco decided they were going to focus on healthcare. Now I had practiced internal
medicine as a nurse practitioner prior to moving to technology 25 years ago, so when
they said they wanted to do something in healthcare and they were looking for industry experts,
I went, "Wow, this is right up my alley. I can practice medicine. And oh, by the way,
I already work here, and I know tech." So I had a pretty rare skillset, so they had
a department that basically was full of industry experts that did nothing other than thought
leadership documentation, consulting, to the largest and most strategic organizations in
the world. And I was invited to be part of it because I had that industry level specialties.
And that's where the magic happened in my career. What did I do? The first thing I did
is I designed an architecture document on how you would design systems to meet healthcare
needs, healthcare privacy needs, healthcare laws, healthcare available needs. If you're
going to have all your electronic medical records on a system, and the system's not
there, what happens to patients' lives? So I knew the industry and I could shape it so
I knew exactly what everything needed. But I also knew people's workflows. I knew what
nurses did. I knew what doctors did. I knew what physical therapists did. I knew what
all the people in the hospital did, so with that knowledge, I was able to build the architecture.
And the architecture was tech, but it was also process redesign, workflow redesign,
really about maximizing technology to help the business improve their performance. So
I wrote this paper, and I wrote three versions of a paper. I wrote a 250 page architecture
paper. I wrote a 10 page paper designed for the management, and I wrote a two page paper
designed for the executives. I shared this document, and wow, interesting things happened.
I didn't realize what would happen with this document. The first thing I realized is my
phone just never stopped. I was automatically speaking in three countries per week, and
people just wanted to hear what I had to say, and that's where things really got interesting.
Every time I would go and make a presentation, someone would actually offer me a job, which
I wasn't accepting because I loved Cisco and I worked there so much. But literally by being
an expert, people are coming into me, coming into me, coming into me. What was it? It was
quite simply I had deep expertise in healthcare. I had some deep business background. And I
had good networking background. So from there, that's where I found my way as a thought leader.
But you can become a thought leader in anything that you're passionate about. Just become
an expert on it.
How do you basically get recognized as a thought leader? Well, for one thing, you're going
to have to create some content around it, some white papers, some presentations, and
if you're working in an industry, make these white papers, make these presentations, I
mean make them truly amazing. Make them better than anything you've ever written in your
entire life. Get help sharing these documents. Find times and opportunities to present at
large conferences. Present in front of the executives in your organization. Present in
front of executives at other organizations. You create great content and you present it,
and your name will spread like wild flower.
The next thing you realize, the CIO that you presented to at this large organization is
going to call 10 CIO friends, and they're all going to want you to come in. And when
you speak to these 10 and you delight them, you're going to hear from 100 other CIOs.
And that's how you become a thought leader. You basically get your area of expertise,
you build deep knowledge, you live it, eat it, breathe it, and sleep it for a short period
of time, and then you create some content that shows your expertise. Now this content
isn't going to be something that needs to be sloppily put together. This is a content
where you write it, you research it, you make it great. You send it off to a graphics team
to make it beautiful. You send it off to an editor to make sure it's properly edited because
this is going to be you, this is what's going to build your brand. This is how you're going
to become the recognized thought leader.
So create your content. And if you're working for an organization, they have the ability
to promote your content to help you build a fantastic career. But what if you're not
working in an organization, but you still want to build your brand? Well, you can still
work to do it as well. It's not the same without having a big brand behind you, pushing your
content, but you can still do it. Create really great content. Write some white papers, for
example. Again, follow the same process. Make them great. Make them narrowed down to an
area for which you're an expert. Post them to the internet. Use other industry leaders
to help promote your content. Use the social media channels to promote your content. Use
your emails to promote your content. Ask others that you know, other experts, to help you
along the way. And sure enough, people will get to know who you are.
I can tell you quite frankly, I make a tremendous amount of YouTube content. I enjoy doing it.
It enables me to provide free training for the technology community, especially the cloud
architect community, which I'm very closely aligned to and I care about very deeply, but
the entire technology industry. I've been in it forever. When I create content, I'm
going to produce content, I get phone calls, constant phone calls. And the reason I'm getting
phone calls is the same reason that any thought leader will get phone calls. It's very rare
to find someone that's got industry expertise with the level of communication knowledge,
the level of presentation knowledge, so get expert on this, and you'll be there, so start
to create content.
Start to go to conferences, virtual or in person, when the time is appropriate, that
are in your industry. Be seen. Be seen around other experts. Ask other experts, and you
will become one yourself. So as you become a thought leader, some things are going to
happen along the way. You're going to have a lot of people that reach out to you. Now
I'm going to tell you, when people start reaching out to you, it's exciting, it's intoxicating.
Wow, what happened? All of a sudden, I'm a star. If you can maintain your humility, you
will be in a much better position.
When a lot of people come to you, it's because you have an area of expertise. But they want
to work with you because they like something about you, so you have to stay likable, so
stay humble. Look, when you're a thought leader, there's no point in ever doing shameless self
promotion. Why? As soon as you speak, as soon as you write, the person knows you're an expert.
So it's obvious, don't go trying to tell the world and people you're smart. Just show them.
Demonstrate, be a leader, and do great things, and the right things are going to happen.
So be confident, be approachable because you want people to come to you, so you're going
to have to be relatable.
Now when it comes down to this, I have to tell you, any time you're approaching thought
leadership, any time you're approaching expertise, this is the process where you're going to
be a lifelong learner. It's not like you're going to learn medicine overnight and then
never adapt to the changes. You're not going to learn cloud computing overnight and know
everything about it, and it's not going to change. Things are dynamic. So to be a thought
leader, we have to change with the industry. And when we do these things, we get to become
great thought leaders. So just be consistent, be consistent going to industry conferences.
Be consistent with your content creation. Be consistent with your learning. Be known
as a thought leader and the world will seek your services.
Let me tell you about some things we do for the technology community. On Mondays and Thursdays,
we have a free webinar. And on this free webinar, we teach you how to get your first cloud architect
job. We talk about technical competency, we talk about what employers desire. We talk
about perfecting your interview. We talk about things like emotional intelligence, empathy
and everything that's necessary to really start your cloud architecture career. We do
this free on every Monday and every Thursday.
On every Tuesday, we discuss how to get real cloud architect experience from the comfort
of your own home, so you can build real depth of knowledge, so you can go from certified
to hired, so you can get your first cloud architect job. And we talk about that every
Tuesday. Many Wednesdays, we actually do a YouTube Live, not all, so please subscribe
to our channel and you'll find out. And we will answer any type of career questions you
have, typically speaking, in cloud computing, but we will also answer questions for other
technology careers.
And we're going to let you know that we have the ask cloud Mike set up now, so basically,
send an email to ask cloud Mike. The link is in the description below, if you've got
any questions about a cloud architect career, or some AWS interview questions, or leadership
for technology professionals, send a question to ask cloud Mike, and we will try our best
to make a YouTube video in the coming week or two about your question. We can't guarantee
all because we get a lot of requests, but we'll do anything we can to provide as much
training and capabilities as we can.
We are introducing in a couple of weeks our leadership program for technology professionals.
If you are looking to move up the ranks, maybe you're an architect and you want to move up
into management, maybe you're an architect and you want to move up to these principal
and distinguished architecture roles. We have a program, and it's coming out very soon,
so stay tuned. You'll see more leadership videos coming for us for that. When we put
that together, we took 50 years combined experience from some of the best executives I know, and
that's coming soon.
If you're working on AWS certifications, to let you know, we have a free AWS certified
solution architect associate eBook. I'll leave the link in the description below. We also
have a free AWS certified solution architect associate training program. I'll leave the
link in the description below. As always, it's a privilege to speak with you about any
type of topic. And today, we spoke about leadership training for cloud computing. I look forward
to seeing you in another video very soon. Take care.