No, this isn't another article about COVID-19.
In fact, I’ll only mention the virus as the culprit of my discoveries of late. As the Chief Product Officer of a rather newly launched Tech/Affiliate company, my work is online and not bound to a physical location like an office. The nature of the work is devoid of human contact and my industry has proven rather resilient to pandemics, global disasters, and even economic recessions - which is the “something” that COVID taught me.
Having worked within the Tech and Affiliation industry for the better part of the past decade, real benefits became clear as day during the pandemic. The first realisation has to do with the opportunities which may arise from courses. The second realisation is that some industries are “safer” than others in regards to world affairs.
Many courses have hidden careers
Firstly, thinking back about my years as a student at Uni (Business degree), College (adv. Business diploma), and Jr. College (Business & Commerce diploma), I remember having no clear idea of what I wanted to do for work. At the time, most of my work had been as a sports coach and in construction, so a career in business wasn’t staked out for me. Little did I know that my future high-paying job in an unrelated field would be related to a first-year course.
During my first year at Griffith in 2012, I took a course titled 1220HSL. It covered the basics of what I’m doing today. The course briefly touched on the most fundamental topics, and, in hindsight, I’ve realised that there must be many such courses where even the teachers are unaware of the possibilities in the given field. Here’s my own experience.
Case study: 1220HSL Information Systems for Service Industries
Let me start off by stating that the intention of the course was good - it was interesting and engaging, and the faculty staff did a good job. However, the course material by itself wasn’t wide enough for such a broad topic. In hindsight, it would have been good with a follow-up course for students who found 1220HSL interesting and helpful.
For the unindicted: the course is basically about creating a website for your business. It addresses topics such as site content (what information and details to include on the site), design (how to show the content), navigation (how to navigate the site and content), engagement (social media applications), and something called “general” (professionalism).
During the course, I remember the lecturer talking about the Google spider-bot that crawls websites. It was briefly explained to us how the Google search engine works to find, categorise, and rank websites, something which most people never even consider. In general, people type in a search query, and up pops a bunch of suggested websites (that may, or may not, reflect your true search intention).
Magic!?
The general population has no idea about the work behind the results that are shown among the Google search results. The course just scraped the surface, which is logical since the aim is to understand “Information Systems” within the service industries; which sets its own limitations in the sense that the course was based around WordPress.
WordPress is the world’s most used platform for building websites. The platform is very easy to use and anyone can learn. It’s as easy as 1-2-3 to set up a “WP” site, but to monetise the site is an entirely different matter. I’ve since learned that monetising a website is hard and technical work, and it requires a wealth of knowledge.
Insights learned from working in Affiliation
My job as a Chief Product Officer is to enhance all aspects of the website, to make the site so appealing to Google (and other search engines) that the product is shown among the top results in the search engine for specific search queries. This requires a lot more than just managing a WordPress site. To monetise a successful website requires entire industries of additional work, other than what was staked out in 1220HSL.
Some fields are completely unrelated to a business degree, such as computer sciences, including programming and coding (back-end development, front-end, full-stack development and the various coding languages). It also includes UX (User Experience design) and server management, and it’s vital for a proficient business owner or manager to have an understanding of these disciplines.
Other disciplines are more related to the business degree including; Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Content Management (written texts, videos, and images), Business Analytics, Digital Assets Management, Project Management, and much more. These are all directly related to managing an online business.
Besides a brief introduction to the computer science side of creating a successful website, an introduction into the business disciplines of managing a money-making website would be helpful for students who are feeling lost.
Starting a company based on a skillset
Each of the roles stated above could be scaled up to create a proper consultation business by itself. Myself as well as my colleagues are all managing our own businesses in our respective fields, but running a successful affiliate company requires expertise in all these aforementioned skills. The founders of the company I work for, realised the value of bringing experts in their respective fields together to start a joint venture. My skill set, my previous experience, and personal aspirations made me the ideal candidate for the role of Chief Product Officer (CPO) of the service that is “Mr Gamble”.
The role has nothing to do with my university studies as the company I work for is the first player-oriented guide highlighting responsible gambling and hidden terms and conditions. This is vastly different to managing a sports business or organisation.
Tying it together - applying experience to education
On to my second realisation. I’d like to mention another aspect of choosing the right career path. It’s something that really struck me during the pandemic, and it’s regarding job security. More traditional industries seem, on the surface, like safe jobs. We’ve assumed that hotels, restaurants, and other tourism and service jobs are guaranteed and safe. Well, 2020 has truly highlighted an important aspect of choosing a career.
In March 2020, the UN reported that half of the global workforce is at risk of losing their jobs due to the pandemic, and the International Labour Organization also highlighted the impact of the pandemic on 12 industries. The results are frightening and half of the world is facing the risk of job loss.
Meanwhile, Forbes Magazine posted an article about an industry that seems resilient to the global situation. Forbes published an article about how the Affiliation Industry has been affected by the virus .
While the world is in turmoil, the affiliation industry remains profitable. The nature of the industry and the work allows for continuation without major disturbances. Working from distance is fully possible without reducing productivity. The safety of the industry is stress reducing and provides peace of mind in troubling times.
Final thoughts
Most 16 to 20 year-olds don’t know what kind of career they’d like to pursue. Since technology is on the forefront of business development, perhaps it’s time to start drawing parallels between various related fields and industries?
While we are studying with a specific focus and towards a set outcome, a Bachelor’s Degree leads to a wide-open work market with an overwhelming amount of possibilities. Narrowing the options down would help identify paths for further studies, possible career choices, and remove the undesirable options.
Meet the author
Karl Aadli (Class of 2014)
Karl is the Chief Product Officer at Cashmagnet Ltd, an online gambling company. He did not anticipate that his career would be based in the online gambling industry, after completing his Bachelor of Business with a Major in Sports Management. However, his transferable skills and learnings in business and marketing have allowed him to adapt and thrive.
