"With concrete, you can cover almost any space." ~ Oscar Niemeyer
By Gregory Ronczewski, Director of Product at Ibbaka. See his skill profile.
Ibbaka Talent consists of Skill Profiles and Competency Models. Skill profiles provide a space to claim, self-assess, and organize skills. It is the bottom-up side of the platform. One of the most important aspects is the context for each skill - skills are connected to jobs, roles or a team. Individual skills are just skills. Only when placed in a context do they start to form relations. Those relations are the quintessential elements of the platform—a pulsating network of nodes and their connections. I like to visualize it as a surface of an ocean with skills bubbling up, sometimes forming steep waves, sometimes resting in areas of calm water.
When a person claims a skill, the platform offers a simple self-assessment path along with a way to add evidence. Apart from the self-assessment, Ibbaka Talent supports peer assessment and manager assessment. Those are optional, but really, they add another dimension to the skill profile. For the evaluation to work, an individual needs to lower their ego-guards - just a bit. Open up the shutters to use architecture language to describe the process. Yes, we may hear something that is not what we are hoping for, but at the same time, it's a way forward. Providing feedback and giving feedback is based on relationships and only openness guarantee a relation that will be strong and lasting.
On the other side of Skill Profiles, we've created Competency Models. This is the top-down portion of the platform. When we think about models, any models, for that matter, we see a structure: something substantial, a scaled-down version of the world. We use models to illustrate a plan, an idea, or a concept. Architects use models to show their intentions. Designers as well, build models to test assumptions and prepare for the production of the real thing. Models are cheap to make, and the key is the ability to change them.
In the past, competency models took months or years to prepare, and by the time they were ready, they were already obsolete. Our approach is different. Yes, it sets a benchmark for specific sets of skills as they become associated with jobs or roles, but we don't want anything to be set-in-stone. It is the most significant difference between Ibbaka Talent’s Competency Models and other modelling environments. The model needs to change, adapt, rerspond. Again, it's all about relationships and openness.
Let's return for a second to contemporary architecture. First, we see stunning models of steel and glass structures. All-inclusive, green—you have to be green these days—and open to their surroundings. But if you think hard about it, it's nothing like that at all. For many years now, we have built islands, we try to insulate everything so well, and by doing so, we isolate ourselves from reality. We live our perfect lives in ultra controlled spaces. The more open, the more insulated.
Some of my childhood years I spend in the house my grandfather, built in the Tatra Mountains. A traditional log house erected in the 50s without a single nail. Wood shingles covered the steep roof and boxed windows had single sheets of glass on each pane. The house was heated by a kitchen stove and two wood-burning cast iron fireplaces. And yet, it was dry. It was warm. It was comfortable despite -20ºC cold outside in January. It was far more connected to the environment than any of the places I have lived in since. It wasn't artificial, and certainly, it was not an island. It was deeply rooted in the environment. It is still standing. I went to see it a couple of years ago. The walls are almost black, but it looks as strong as it was fifty years ago. The point is that whether we build a model or the actual structure, we can't design in isolation from reality. The structure has to be built on relationships. Context is everything.
"Concrete is how we try to tame nature. Our slabs protect us from the elements. They keep the rain from our heads, the cold from our bones and the mud from our feet. But they also entomb vast tracts of fertile soil, constipate rivers, choke habitats and – acting as a rock-hard second skin – desensitize us from what is happening outside our urban fortresses." - Jonathan Watts, The Guardian
When a skill profile is connected to competency models, it is not only to see the gaps between what the model "is asking for" and what skill assessment provides, but also to understand what is happening. Competency models need to evolve, change, respond to the reality of the jobs and roles performed by real people, not perfectly modelled employees.
Going back to the surface of the ocean with the skills forming its interconnected surface, the competency model is like a network of buoys constantly measuring its state. If there is a demand for a role with skills at a certain level and the levels of skills available are not sufficient, the model will provide a path forward with learning resources and access to mentors and experiences. It will also register events to help predict and plan should another spike of demand occur.
I think we can learn a lot from architecture, especially from concepts that are seeking to truly connect with the people who will inhabit and the use of new spaces. Adding a roof garden may look pretty, but it will not make the building green. There is even a term for it - greenwashing. Real sustainable architecture is about building less rather than more, about repurposing of existing, often abandoned places. Pouring more concrete will not make our cities prettier and more livable, even if it is a fancy black concrete. I wonder if we will soon see green concrete? There is an excellent article on the Guardian website - Concrete: the most destructive material on Earth.
And if you like the article, here is another good read - Insulating Modernism: Isolated and Non-Isolated Thermodynamics in Architecture by Kiel Moe.
