When I recently heard Slideshare summarised as “YouTube for Powerpoint” by one of its co-founders, I thought I had heard the best ever elevator pitch. It subsequently had me thinking about other nifty “new + old” combinations and I landed on “TripAdvisor for careers”. When I say landed, I actually mean that I was intrigued but with no result yet.

When researching this line of thinking some months ago, where I did land was at eHarmony.com. Not sure that I would be able to adequately explain a thought process that created this pathway but it did open up some interesting learnings for me, relative to an account manager’s responsibility.

Firstly, at the time, the home page banners “Date smarter, not harder”. Certainly some parallels to profound wisdom handed down between generations of high achieving account managers.

You were the led through a “What makes us different” — sounds like a value proposition…I was following so far.

Then I found the next tab on “How we match” which explained that eHarmony knows the compatability parameters that determine the likelihood of a relationship being successful. Pretty powerful and I have snipped the graphic (which isn’t live and interactive on eHarmony any longer) which you see here:

As you skim read the 29 Dimensions it is likely that you identify some that don’t readily map to account management but there are many that do have relevance.

Whilst many of the definitions are highly relevant to account management — it is a relationship business after all — the fact that eHarmony has been able to settle such a complex field within parameters is truly interesting. I am sure many of us will agree that simplification has power and I am inspired by the “29 Dimensions of Compatibility”.

The TripAdvisor for careers may still be a way off, but I am going to come back to this in future posts as and when I find interesting information that brings corresponding account management relevance.

eHarmony…social media for account managers…who would have thought…

Best wishes, Tony Hackett

@mypublicbrand