Werkplekzoeker.nl allows flexible workers an easy way to find an alternative working or conference space like a café, a restaurant or some other public occasion. There are also offices which offer 'an empty desk for (part of) the day'. The idea of the site is 'for and by users': everyone can come up with work space and share their experiences regarding them.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

In the network economy that’s being created, everything is about flexibility. Currently ‘working long-distance’ means reading mil, writing documents and other computer work. In a year or ten we’ll be actively working with our colleagues in the virtual world. They’ll be life-sized and we’ll have creative sessions that completely dwarf the e-mail exchange or chat conversation we have today. While you’re at home, on your vacation, or at a flexible working location. Werkplekzoeker fits neatly into this development. Currently the model seems to be financed by ads, but soon Werkplekzoeker will be paid per reservation. Or for amount.

Related trends

• Network economy

Social business brand LinkedIn makes searching for people easier. As soon as you type a letter, the names from your network appear automatically. If you make a typo (for example when you search for 'Edwin van Lun' LinkedIn offers the suggestion: Are you perhaps looking for 'Erwin van Lun', 'Edwin van Loon' or 'Edwin van Lit'?)

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands do everything they can to understand our language. And just like in a human dialogue, half a word is enough for them. People also often don’t hear half of what’s being said, but our brain glue everything together seamlessly. Slowly we’re learning to automate this. Soon well just call to the car ‘Call Vincent, please!’, that’ll be enough. If there’s any doubt about which Vincent the return question ‘Which Vincent?’ will come automatically. This shows nicely that brands are also starting to get to know our personal network better and keep this in mind in their communication.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue
• Tribal

LinkedIn, a business social network, advises people with events. By now LinkedIn 'reads' over 8000 events worldwide. You can select events based on industry, data and (traveling) distance. You can see who organizes the event, who's speaking and leave comments. Speakers get to see the event on their profile too. You can also see which colleagues and contacts are going. That might be the most important.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

People are herd animals; they do what others do. And they let themselves be led especially by their immediate environment. That’s true for both less-educated and well-educated people. That’s just how we work. Here, LinkedIn uses this principle flawlessly. Slowly, LinkedIn seems to be turning into a real career coaching brand: a brand that coaches you with your personal development. News, books, events, LinkedIn has it all. Soon LinkedIn will start to help students with their career start. Then high school students with their follow-up choices. Currently in only a few languages, but soon exactly in the language you need, that helps you best. This is a step in that direction.

Related trends

• Coaching brands
• Tribal

Eduhub is a new Dutch comparison site which compares educational courses for private schools. At its start the site contained 265 providers of unsubsidized training courses. The commercial initiatives of universities/colleges also fall under this. Over a hundred of these have a log-in code which allows them to enter the courses they offer manually. Currently, this results in an overview of 3,200 courses. Mentioning courses is free, but providers have to pay if they also want to receive leads. In concrete terms that means people's requests for brochures. Eduhub earns €5 if someone requests a brochure for a €500 course and €50 for one of €5000. It's a fixed percentage, no matter what the popularity of the sections or specific courses.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Career coaching brands guide us with our personal development. Which books should we read? Which events should we go to? Which blogs should we follow? Which job should I choose? What suits me anyway? What makes me happy? How do I get the best out of myself? With the creation of this type of brad it’s important to first chart the available offer, worldwide, in great detail. Eduhub has made a start and can grow into a career coaching brand.

Next steps are then: Which education should I choose now? Which course suits which job? Which courses are most suited for my way of learning? Options aplenty.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

ditismijndroombaan.nl, a new Dutch career site, lets people who are looking for a job describe in their own words what their ideal job would look like, enhanced by experience and education. The recruiter can then read the introductions for free, but the complete resume costs 19 euros.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how career coaching brands are slowly shaped in the network economy. In this economy an employee is considered as someone offering a service. And in the development of the demand-driven economy it’s important to first gather the available offers so that others can choose from it. Just like a hotel room: first you map all available rooms, look at their availability and within that the consumer can look. That also goes for people who can help you in the long run, call it ‘staff’. These too need to be mapped so that you can make a choice. That too is a part of the network economy and this is a nice example.

Related trends

• Coaching brands
• Network economy

Business social network LinkedIn has started to allow registered users to hold group discussions.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how a serious form of online conferences is formed: people already know each other and can also bring in people from their social network. In a next step this kind of discussion will integrate with live discussions/chats to give the feeling of being in a real workshop through speech and images. Still not all physical sessions will be replaced.

The ultimate will be real workshops of course, because this is the only way to be stimulated by all your senses. Furthermore, the social obligation to remain seated allows you to create a bond between people that will never be feasible in the virtual world. But such a session would have to be incredibly special and not a lecture in the traditional sense. It’s like with a vacation: the more you get the impression through impressive images that you’re in a specific location, the more you get the feeling ‘I want that too!’

LinkedIn, as

• in Dutch

Business social network LinkedIn now has a special application for the iPhone. With this users can write a status update immediately, look up contacts or send them a message.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how coaching brands continue to be shaped. Now we’re getting pC functions on the cell phone. Soon we’ll be able to call those people (no need for a phone number, just click). We can automatically record conversations and let speech interpretation report it. And later, much later, our conversations will be analyzed (automatically!) For example, if we hold a sales conversation we’ll receive tips on how to do better. Which emotions we failed to register and kept talking. This allows this type of brand to grow into a coach. But first they should be always with us. That feels right.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

The biggest world wide job search engine CareerJet is now also available for the Russian job market. Careerjet searches for all vacancies at Dutch interim offices, newspapers, companies and other job websites. The list of vacancies is then shown based on the criteria of the person looking for a job. This list refers a person to the original job offer where one can apply for the job immediately.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how brands will start to work more and more globally. Not because they’re globalizing themselves, but because consumers are de-nationalizing: they too can get a job internationally. Not just by moving, or by being there every now and again, but more and more jobs can be done remotely. Career coaching brands facilitate this new budding form of working by showing all the jobs available in the world. This is a step in that direction.

Related trends

• De-nationalizing

Business social network LinkedIn places network updates in a personal RSS feed . This means that changes to business contacts can be accessed immediately from webpages, RSS readers or email clients. Changes include such things as: 'a new job', 'a new contact' or 'a new question'. This allows people to be presented such things in the same way as 'news', but with the difference that this is much nearer to them.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

People who are involved in the groups in which they live and then specifically with the people they know. That’s why the who’s-who section in professional magazines are so widely read (do I know someone? Do I see a familiar photo?) This service takes this a step further and automatically selects the changes of people you know on a professional level. Furthermore it selects them in all branches because they’re your contacts. By joining the groups an individual works in a career coaching brand (which LinkedIn is becoming) will be able to guide the personal development of an individual much better.

37% of the (Dutch) people looking for a job prefer an online career convention to a traditional venue, reports a survey from totaljobs.nl. According to the survey outcome, the primary reasons to visit an online convention are: the ability to look at job openings and apply immediately (74%), the ease of visiting the convention at one's own speed from behind a computer (56%) and the fact that the convention is available for a prolonged period of 24 hours (53%). The most important reason why people still choose to visit a traditional convention is the personal contact with employers (93%). This gives people an image of what kind of people are employed at a specific organization.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

More and more often people choose to act from within their own home. So online. The threshold is much lower and in addition the interaction is granted more and more added value. In a later stage the company will be projected around you so you can get an even better impression. You’ll almost feel like you’re working there already. On top of that a career convention will be assembled right then and there for you specifically. It’ll be your convention. Every day.

Business social network LinkedIn introduces company profiles (see below for details, li). A lot of information that hasn't been available before has now been published. Furthermore, LinkedIn offers companies the possibility to add information. LinkedIn thus pushes the brand coming out for all companies, meanwhile becoming more and more relevant as a career coaching brand: a brand that helps you in your career.

Related trends

• Brand coming out

Dutch professional marketing magazine MarketingTribune and leading Dutch marketing community MarketingFacts (of which I am one of the contributers) have signed a strategic partnership (mf). Publishers transform to be community managers. The community becomes leading, and paper is just a copy for background and entertainment. In the long run MarketingFacts can grow to be a career coaching brand for marketers. By bringin together all the news, showing all jobs and all events, and making these relevant for the individual marketer, the personal development of the marketer can be carefully coached. A server the marketer will be willing to pay for (and not so much for the paper he gets in his mailbox at home). I wonder what the new title of the magazine will be (MarketingTribune, Facts from the daily marketing practice?).

Business-social network LinkedIn shows what your colleagues have read lately. It combines the contact list with news on demand. The amount of job offers rises at the same time (dc, Dutch). Because of this you don't just see the important events in the world, but especially the important events in your surroundings. After all employees are not just employees, but especially humans. And humans are involved in their surroundings. Now for news, later also for participation in events, reviews of books or education. LinkedIn thus further develops to be a career coaching brand, a brand that helps you during your whole career.

New Dutch vacancy website Baneninbeeld.nl completely consists of filmed job advertisements. The films are made professionally (tm, Dutch). Brands start to communicate more visually. This fits with human nature: this is what humans are designed for. Over thousands of years we have bit by bit learned to use the written word. Now video is possible, so humans follow their natural motives: thinking in images. There are many more video examples to follow.

Communicatie Online (Communication Online; Dutch), the site of the monthly magazine for communication specialists, has now been integrated with its sister blog Commlog (Dutch). The headers 'news' and 'opinion' (the old blog part) are now fraternally below one another. It's possible to react to all articles. This is how magazine brands are slowly giving the reins to their community (the readers). At first they'll become passive purchasers, now they're active contributors, soon they'll decide which item should be treated in the magazine. Communicatie can then grow into a brand that facilitates a trade association in their career developments. In affiliate programs, it can recommend courses, (all) books and congresses. And even new jobs. Internationally too. And this is how Communicatie can grow into a true career coaching brand.

Dutch newcomer Lootzy is a vertical search engine for jobs. Lootzy however doesn't search job sites: it searches companies' web pages. A company which has a job opening puts the job description at its own web site (this so happens anyway) and Lootzy puts it in its index (am, Dutch). This way, Lootzy will soon be on its way to completeness. Especially if through standardization of specific web pages (like a vacancy page) Lootzy will be able to gather very specific details of the jobs (full time or part time, exact location, what kind of organization, etc.). Offering the complete supply, Lootzy can then develop into a career coaching brand and have itself represented by a coaching brand agent. You can already see its face.