April 14, 1905
Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly. For the most part, people do not know they will live their lives over. Traders do not know that they will make the same bargain again and again. Politicians do not know that they will shout from the same lectern at an infinite number of times in the cycles of time. Parents treasure the first laugh from their child as if they will not hear it again (…)

On April 14, 1999, the first interactive episode of Alan Lightman's remarkable book, Einstein's Dreams, was published online by DNA Media. At the time, I was working for DNA. I was an Art Director on this project. Ibbaka's co-founder and managing partner, Steven Forth, will remember this project, as he was there as well. Twenty years ago, this concept was quite advanced, given the limitations of web-based work in the late 90s. Still, we managed to send visually rich emails containing a link to the current episode. Each episode was available only until the next one was published following the structure of the book, which consists of 30 chapters, each exploring a dream Einstein had when he was working on his theory of relativity.

When the lock-down and work from home came into full swing—at the beginning of April—I picked up Einstein's Dreams from my shelf and started to reread it. Right away, I was transported to the office on West 3rd Avenue, where we spend hours brainstorming and sketching ideas on how to translate words into engaging interactions. It was one of the most rewarding projects I was ever involved with. The last installment was uploaded on June 28, 1999, followed quickly by the epilogue. By then, I was gone. I left DNA before the project was completed. Before I left, I've added my email address to the list so I could follow what was left, and I did... but it was not the same. My new job was a Creative Director at one of Vancouver's advertising agencies. At the time, I was not paying attention that if time is a circle, I would work with Steven and other people from DNA again at Ibbaka (people from DNA at Ibbaka are David Botta, N-Q Chang, Karen Chiang and Yoshie Hattori).

The Ibbaka Talent platform has two sides - a skill profile where individual users are invited to collect, organize and assess skills. And a competency modelling environment where a company or a team can design a model containing jobs, roles, behaviours, or competencies each one furnished with must-have or should-have skills at a certain level of expertise. Last week, we decided that it is time to connect the roles from the model to our own skill profiles. Art Director was one of the roles I was about to activate in the model and connect to my profile. It was the same role I played twenty years ago. Is it different now? How different? What about the skills? Are there a group of skills that remains constant at the foundation level and how important are those skills?

For instance, Art Direction, Communication, Collaboration and Creativity, in my opinion, remain as the key components of the Art Director role. On top of that, I would list, Composition, Problem Solving as well as Listening. In the past, an Art Director who couldn’t draw or manually prepare a custom word-mark would have a hard time getting hired. Adobe Creative Cloud was not available. Today, being able to design a logo without using a computer is impressive. Still, realistically, it is one of the exotic and time-consuming skills nobody will put at the top of the list. Again, I firmly believe that there are skills not directly related to a task at hand, but without them, the outcome will not be as good as it can—the power of associated and complementary skills.

(Associated skills are skills that one expects to find together in the same person and that serve as evidence of deeper expertise. For example, in most modern models of leadership ‘giving direction’ and ‘collaboration’ are associated skills. Complementary skills are skills that are often used together, but are not often found together in the same person. A grill chey and a pastry chef have very different, but complementary, skill sets. The Ibbaka Skill Graph connects both associated and complementary skills.)

When a job or a role is connected to a skill profile, the must-have skills defined in the model are added to the core skills on the skill profile. Core skills are the skills continuously used to deliver work as set out in the job requirements. When those skills are added, the user is asked to self-assess the level of expertise. Also, the platform allows the user to add what we call "observers" to your role. Then, observers are asked to confirm skills related to the job or a role. For my Art Director role, I've added Steven Forth as an observer.

Apart from connecting roles to our own profiles, we are fortunate to have a few clients who help us evaluate the concepts we are working on. One of our areas of focus is related to the terms and names we are using. For instance, core skills or target skills - what does this mean? How are these concepts being used in the real world? Or ‘observers,’ the people who the user asks to confirm skills. In some cases this is the manager, but in others it is an expert outsider. We believe in being precise, but often, the name takes on a different meaning depending on the context. Being able to show prototypes to the people who are already using our platform is pretty cool, and we are grateful for the time spent giving us guidance.

Our road map is now entering a long straight line. Although being able to say it makes me smile, I think, there will be a few twists and turns before the finish line. If you are interested in what we are building, please, request a demo and experience skill profiles and competency modelling for yourself. Click the link below.