Top 100 Influencers v1.20 Jessica Lee

Top 100 Influencers v1.20 Jessica Lee

Posted on 11. Aug, 2009 by in Blog, Top 100

By John Sumser

There’s an enormous amount of work going on as people try to define influence. Networks, online and off are driven by their influencers. Various /component/option,com_jcalpro/Itemid,28/extmode,day/date,2010-12-27/”>cialis buy cialis online forms of social network analysis are being used to track government corruption, money laundering, credit card fraud, terrorist organizations and industry structure. There are a number of companies mining social network data to enrich marketing processes. There’s even some complex mining of social network data to generate contextual information about /component/option,com_jcalpro/Itemid,28/extmode,day/date,2010-12-27/”>cialis buy cialis online candidates.

The problem with a purely digital analysis of influence is that the world is not yet all online. Measures of online influence, now in their early forms, are biased towards people who have a high volume of friends and output. There’s little room in the current models for the kind of influence that changes the world with a whisper.

Increasingly, however, the digital analysis will be the thing that matters. As vast rivers of documentation flow in the wake of your online activities, the ability to understand who you are, what you like and how you are connected to whom is rapidly expanding.

Jessica Lee is the youngest of the Influencers to date. She’s a recruiter for APCO Worldwide, a blandly named Washington, DC public relations firm. The company, which works public policy issues is easily and often mistaken for a lobbying operation. The distinction is slim but important. Lobbyists are more regulated than the companies charged with shaping public opinion. APCO works with media and ideas to shape perception in the Washington scene.

As a recruiter, Jessica practices the most sophisticated form of the discipline. Much of her work involves informational interviews with her growing network. In DC, the difference between Recruiting and other active forms of networking is yet another nuance. The pipeline is filled with information and warm relationships. She gets close to her pipeline so that, when it’s time, the actual recruiting happens quickly.

Part social media maven, part Recruiter and part editor, Ms. Lee generates influence on a variety of fronts.

Rapidly becoming the in house social media guru, Jessica is helping position key players in the DC stratosphere in their social media contexts. She’s the editor of the highly regarded “Fistful of Talent“, a collection of bloggers published by Workforce. Combined with her high profile role at APCO Worldwide, she has reach, reputation and credibility beyond her years and junior position. This is what it looks like when you are on track to exercise a large role in the industry.

Whenever I talk with Jessica, the conversation jumps quickly from her world and accomplishments to the future of the industry. No phone call is complete without a sub conversation about the plight of new HR professionals in a rapidly changing field. Jessica fiercely peels back the layers of the onion as a subject is dissected. This is the same skill she brings to her editorial tasks.

She’s learning about influence in the world capital of influence. As the hierarchical organization continues its decline, influence is the way people will work together, be hired and get things done. An HR pro, deeply immersed in the details of a purely networked segment of the economy, is going to have a valuable edge.

You can see the impact in her work. She’s setting a model for ambitious HR pros for a balanced career that includes publishing, HR expertise, writing and direct strategic impact in the organization. Modest and generally unaware of the relative power of her voice, Lee applies herself to her work as if she didn’t have this interesting subset of skills.

She’s a harbinger of things to come. The future is the network. Jessica Lee is showing us what it will look like in real time.

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15 Responses to “Top 100 Influencers v1.20 Jessica Lee”

  1. william tincup

    11. Aug, 2009

    and, to top it all off… she’s really really funny… smart + funny + pretty = amazing…

    way to go jessica…

    william

  2. laurie ruettimann

    11. Aug, 2009

    Jessica is poised to be a big-time leader — not just in Human Resources, but in Corporate America. We need more women like her. She does a great job of being generous and thoughtful in her blog posts, on Fistful of Talent, and in her tweets. She is someone who holds the industry to a higher standard, inspires others to think and act differently, and she is making a difference.

    Congrats, J.Lee!

  3. michael glenn

    11. Aug, 2009

    I agree what everyone has said so far.

    She is very talented blogger and knows how to deliver a message.

  4. Ken Chin

    11. Aug, 2009

    Jessica being in DC is a good place right now.
    Recruiters who understand social networking will be among the first to put the US (and other parts of the planet) back to work.

    You rock!

  5. Jennifer McClure

    11. Aug, 2009

    To me, Jessica represents what a successful HR/”Talent Management” pro will need to be in the future. She’s smart, opinionated, aware and informed about what’s going on in the world around her and willing to try new things/take risks. I’m looking forward to watching her progress in her career and also seeing how she influences others – as well as her profession!

  6. colleen

    12. Aug, 2009

    … quite an endorsement for Jessica and evidently well deserved. Just a kudos shout-out to John for the grace in his writing and the continued quest for finding and showcasing quality among us.

  7. jessica lee

    12. Aug, 2009

    thank you for this, john… and thanks the comments william, michael, laurie, ken, jennifer and colleen. i always feel like i’m the kid sitting at the grown-up’s table just trying to keep up… so i’m totally humbled to be highlighted with the likes of the other influencers. thanks much for the honor. i’m grateful.

  8. Jason Monastra

    12. Aug, 2009

    I know this will draw the normal hail fire that comes with this line of thinking….but I read Jessica’s work ethic and methodology and think – that is someone we really need to work with. However in reviewing her background, she is a recruiter and apparently a very good one.

    So my questions – how and why does that seem to fall under the umbrella of HR? Most people in HR do not have the time nor the skill set associated with the work she is doing. Not to push them down or push her up, but recruiting and the type of recruiting she is doing – if it is falling under the HR group, would be one of the more progressive HR groups I have worked with.

    I wish that she was the standard rather than the exception.

  9. jessica lee

    12. Aug, 2009

    @jason – you bring up an interesting point. i’m part recruiter but i actually see myself as more of an HR generalist. in my first HR role, i did everything from managing COBRA, FMLA, policy development, recognition and employee communications… and then recruiting was something i grew into. and even in my current role, recruiting is a majority of what i do but i still pick up employee relations issues, do a bit of training, and whatever else comes my way.

    i truly believe recruiting should be something ALL HR people do and that recruiters shouldn’t be just sole recruiters either. i know in large organizations, this is tough… but recruiters are best when they follow the talent the acquire into the organization and also contribute to their ongoing development. and conversely, HR people can best align themselves to the business when they recruit because you’re forced to know the biz in order to recruit well… i’ll point you to a post that my mentor wrote recently on this topic…

    http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2009/08/you-want-your-hr-team-aligned-with-the-business-ill-keep-it-simple-for-you-1.html

    there’s work to do to address this for our industry though… most definitely. interestingly, i think with the recession hitting, i’ve seen more than ever before that “true” recruiters have had to learn other areas of the HR discipline in order to continue to provide some value while the number of reqs they are recruiting for is down. could this influence things in the future? it will be interesting to watch. :)

  10. Ben

    17. Aug, 2009

    I agree with Jason. All those in the HR practice should have recruiting experience since this is now an integral part of talent management – from the day the candidate is contacted as a potential hire, to their working experience with the company, to the day they retire. It brings a better perspective than just concentrating in one HR speciality.

  11. Arthur Mazzini

    18. Aug, 2009

    Hi Jessica, interesting comments about HR roles, have you ever tryed recruiting using Telepresence, we did a session weeks ago, recruiting is one of the most difficult challenges we face, if not the biggest one,
    regards, congratulations,

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