How to learn operations amidst all the fragmented information?

As the title suggests, this problem has been bothering me for a long time, especially when I just switched to operations. I felt particularly strongly every day when I searched everywhere for articles on how to do operations and how to understand operations, but had no idea where to start.

Why does this situation occur? Is it because of lack of experience or shallow understanding? Too little reading and wrong learning methods? I have thought about these reasons and they all exist. But I could never grasp the most important one, which determined that I could not make further targeted improvements, so I was very distressed at the time.

In the past year, I have also thought about this issue. I might as well pick it up again and write it down, which can be regarded as an answer to my own question a year ago.

Let’s get back to the topic. How do we learn operations in an environment of fragmented information? Before answering this question, let us first change our thinking, that is: after reading so many articles and information (fragmented), what is the reason why we still don’t know how to operate?

1. What is the reason?

In my opinion, there are three reasons: first, the data is highly theoretical and fragmented; second, the operating threshold is increasing and industry segmentation is beginning; third, the differentiation of organizational resources.

First, the data is highly theoretical and fragmented.

At present, due to the newness of the operation job, there is basically no unified definition of the concept in the operation community. You can also see that every big shot has his own understanding. Therefore, the concept of operation will not be discussed in detail here. However, in my opinion, even if there are different understandings of the concept of operation, the core ability cultivated by operations is undoubtedly the ability to integrate and apply resources, that is, to achieve a certain goal by using various resources in a certain way.

Therefore, in such a process, the resources you have, your understanding of the current situation, and your familiarity with the resources will all affect how you achieve it. This also determines that the operational work is divergent, difficult to summarize, and flexible.

Therefore, in such a context, a large part of the articles we see in various channels now are theoretical summaries of the work of predecessors. This type of article has two characteristics. The first is theoretical nature, which you can verify yourself. The most obvious thing about theoretical articles is that they do not provide specific operational guidance. After reading such articles, your biggest gain may be knowing some concepts, such as several major operating methods, several core skill points, and several important ideas, but you have no idea how to perform the specific operations.

The second characteristic is fragmentation. Many practitioners may have discovered that they see all kinds of operation articles every day, including specific community operations , how to operate public accounts , how to earn user points, how to use operation thinking , etc.; but after reading so many articles, they still do not have a comprehensive grasp of the operation concept, which leads to the fact that their work in actual work is often discontinuous . For example, you may know how to make a group active, but you don’t have a comprehensive grasp of the entire life cycle of the community and the value achieved by the community in each time period.

Similarly, even if you have strong inductive ability, have read a lot of community articles, and have already mastered the community, you still have no concept of the entire operating system. A complete operating system is the most basic requirement for high-level operators. Of course, this is also a common problem encountered in online learning.

It can be said that these two characteristics are the two extremes of current operational articles. There is a lack of specific practical guidance when studying theoretical articles, and specific practical articles are highly fragmented, making it impossible to form one's own operating system. So how do we reconcile the two contradictions? To put it simply, it means that one must be good at thinking and summarizing, use theory to guide practice, improve theory in practice, form one's own system, and integrate all of them. Of course, this is definitely abstract nonsense , and this point will be mentioned again at the end of this article. This involves the issue of people's cognitive methods and learning methods. Let's just touch on it here and move on to the second factor.

Second, industry segmentation is beginning and operating thresholds are rising

If you look at recruitment information now, you will find that most of the positions require experience in the same industry. Similarly, even if you are applying for an operations position, think about it, if your competitors have industry experience, then who has a better chance of winning. The reason for this phenomenon is that with the end of the first half of the Internet, the supply of Internet operation talents is basically sufficient and the segmentation of the industry has begun.

Therefore, the current trend is that the operating methods of different industries have been closely linked to the industry. It can be said that it has always been like this, but it is more obvious now. This has resulted in different operating methods for different industries, and even communities in different industries will have different operating methods. Therefore, even if you read an operations article that everyone recognizes as awesome, whether you can apply it to your industry and whether it is effective is another matter.

(Recruitment information for a community operations specialist on a recruitment website)

Third, the differences in organizational resource conditions

As mentioned earlier, the high flexibility and abstractness of operations work determines that each organization’s resources, organizational framework, development stage, culture and other factors will affect your operational work methods. By the same token, the work experience summarized by predecessors may be implementable in his organizational environment at the time, but not necessarily in your environment.

I believe that many people are currently working in entrepreneurial companies, so the differences between each company are too great, and it is very likely that the same job position will do very different things in different companies. For example, in my previous job, due to the adjustment of the company's business focus, in the end, the business line I was responsible for, from course introduction, to packaging, traffic , sales conversion, and student services, was all supported by me alone. The resulting situation is that the operational ideas you have learned will be limited by realistic factors and will be difficult to implement. You need a lot of energy to persuade and communicate, and it is difficult to form a systematic operational training.

The above three factors can be said to be the main reasons why you still cannot do a good job in operations after reading a lot of learning materials. Although it is not very comprehensive, it can basically cover 80% of the situations. Now that we know the cause, the solution only needs to be targeted. Let us explain them one by one.

2. How to change?

For the first factor, the solution has been mentioned before, which is mainly based on the improvement of cognitive learning methods. In psychology, Piaget of the constructivist school believes that the development of thinking is completed by two complementary processes: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is the process of incorporating new information into our existing knowledge system after being changed and modified in thinking; accommodation is the process of modifying known information in order to accept new information.

Therefore, when faced with high levels of theorization and fragmentation, we should focus more on assimilation, that is, incorporating the fragmented information and theoretical knowledge that we are constantly receiving into our own knowledge system, rather than blindly complying with and accepting this information without forming a structure.

So how do you form your own knowledge system? As mentioned before, we should be good at thinking and summarizing, let theory guide practice, and practice then return to improve theory. For example, like what I am doing now, write down your own summary. Only when you can express it, your understanding and mastery of knowledge will be effective. Here I would like to recommend a book to you called "Fragmentation and Reconstruction: Internet-based Thinking Reshapes Education". There is a section in the book that talks about how to deal with fragmented learning in the Internet environment, which you can refer to.

The second factor is the restrictiveness of the industry. If you have experience to learn from, just learn it directly. If not, I think that while learning operational knowledge, you also need to spend a lot of effort to understand the industry. Future operations will definitely be segmented operations. Even if the fundamental operational methodology is the same, there will definitely be big differences in operational methods between industries. This trend has already begun to emerge. Therefore, first understand the industry and see if you can combine the learned operational knowledge with the specific industry, and then practice, summarize and conclude.

The third factor is that due to the limitation of organizational resources, it is impossible to directly apply the working methods summarized by predecessors. What should we do? First, we should make clear what the limiting factors are. If there are not enough resources, we should communicate as much as possible and strive for it. When communicating with key people, we should not just talk, but write out a detailed plan. You can also look at it from another angle and see if there are alternative methods and ways to achieve it. In the face of this situation, the most important thing is to find a way to do it, make a breakthrough, value your time, and maximize its value. Only by stepping on the pitfalls can you make progress, especially in operations. If there is really no room to display your capabilities, and there is no environment where you can fully practice and exercise your operational capabilities, in three words, change it quickly. It is worth it even if it reduces your income.

Finally, after saying so much, let me summarize it again: saying is 0, doing is 1, there is a qualitative difference between the two. On the premise that the method is clear, what matters in the end is execution; this is also one of the core factors that enable a person or an organization to win in the competition.

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