How to Lose Your Job And Use Facebook to Land Another Dream Job: The Sree Sreenivasan Story

Imagine being the chief digital officer of one of the largest art museums in the world only to wake up one day and realise that you no longer have your job. Most people would hit the panic button and perhaps go into damage control mode. Only a select few would use this as an opportunity to reinvent themselves and prepare for their next adventure in life. Sree Sreenivasan belongs to the latter category.

On the fateful day Sreenivasan lost his job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met), he put up a Facebook post thanking his employers and sharing plans for the immediate future. Claiming that he now had the time to attend meetings which included ‘meaningful cups of tea or coffee’, he also hyperlinked a form in which people could advise him on what his next move should be.

The response was overwhelming. Hundreds of people reacted to his post and 1,300 filled out the form. Sreenivasan’s novel approach paid dividends and in August, New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio announced his appointment as the city’s new chief digital officer.

In a conversation with BloombergQuint, Sreenivasan explained, “You have to build your network when you don’t need it, so that you are constantly getting people to see the value in your connection.”

As chief digital officer of NYC, Sreenivasan’s job will entail working to increase access to technology initiatives in the city, reaching out to the tech community and directing digital policy across the city. Previously, at the Met, Sreenivasan led a 70 member team in increasing the digital presence of the museum. Prior to that stint, he spent two decades as a professor at the Columbia Journalism School and a year as Columbia University’s first chief digital officer.

During his recent visit to India, he also talked about his new job and the lessons Mumbai can learn from New York City, while adding that there’s a lot that Americans can in turn learn from places like India as well.