[Trouble viewing? Watch it on YouTube]

I was reminded of what a useful reference that book is when I happened on Social Media Saturday: Who Are The HR Bloggers? posted by Laurie Ruettimann on her blog,  The Cylindrical Girl.

Social Media Saturday: Who Are The HR Bloggers? features an infographic that visualizes a survey of HR bloggers, presumably those listed in the day’s prior post  Ultimate HR/Career Blog List for 2011: V3.0.

Credit goes to Ms. Ruettimann’s lucky intern, comrades in marketing at Starr Tincup, for an otherwise delightfully decorative piece. And full props to Ms. Ruettimann for filing both posts under General Nonsense, even if it is, as seems to be the case, her popular site’s default category.

At issue here are four things…

• The use of contrived statistics to artfully confuse semblance with substance
• Perpetuation of a trend to present trivia as meaningful data and it’s subsequent regurgitation as “content”
• The promotion of pseudoscience as a legitimate basis on which to rank otherwise remarkably average bloggers
• Shameless linkbaiting  in the pursuit of lopsided sycophancy and the unending recycling of half-baked crap.

I propose a simple test to use with these types of “analyses” and glad handing posts. To determine if  the stats have any use other than promoting the publisher at the expense our lemming gullibility, simply ask yourself the question, “So what?”

By way of example, first a sampling from the grandly titled–if not exaggerated–The Ultimate List of HR/Career Blogs...

Gender-bender
52 per cent of the sample are male; 48 per cent are [surprise, surprise!] female. So what? Isn’t that the same distribution of the sexes as in Papua New Guinea, and just about as interesting?

Pretty pictures, bar-none
Not so much a “So what?” as a “WTF?” Under “Blog Category” can anyone tell me what categories correspond with which columns, and what do the values on the bar chart actually relate to? The biggest number 29 represents what exactly? And what’s with all the two’s?

A Global Village
The regional map shows in the legend 1 per cent of the sample bloggers are in India and the same percentage in the Netherlands. So what? If my calculations are correct that would be one and one-half a blogger in each location. And, if Eastern Europe–wherever that is these days–has three times the number percentage-wise, how many bloggers is that…exactly?

Total crap
And now for the shocker! 100 per cent of those surveyed–that means everyone, folks–said they are “Likely” or “Very Likely” to share content with their network. STOP THE PRESSES! Everybody, quick! Re-tweet, re-post and blog it in a list, yo!

Ho-hum…

Turning our attention to the Ultimate HR/Career Blog List for 2011: V3 list I couldn’t help but wonder why not call it a blogroll if that’s what it amounts to? Rather than validate the selection, I think the inclusion of Klout scores simply serves to confirm the industry default  that supposes if you don’t know how a particular metric is calculated you’d better keep your trap shut for fear of being labeled an HR primitive.  Allow me to enlighten you: Statistically speaking, Klout scores are entirely meaningless…46 per cent of the time.

Nothing but the BS, so help you blog
Included with each listed blogger’s name is their Twitter handle and Klout score. “So what?”

“So what,” indeed. Rather, I think this list with it’s Starr Tincup inspired blog-bling is a not-so-subtle attempt to engineer page rank.  Like the  infographics, the parade of pipers is a sweetening of the pot for the hive-minded and buzz-beguiled, and more self-serving than meets the eye.

In closing, and on a positive note, I have compiled Ms. Ruettimann’s blogroll into a search engine so that one might extract some value from the assembled list and its content.  And as Ms. Ruettiman’s closes her post, so shall I:

“Copy the code and paste it right onto your blog, yo.”

 

No doubt, the organizers of the Society of Human Resources [SHRM] 63rd Annual Conference will tell you that their shindigs take a lot of advance planning. One assumes that includes their choice of venue, this year in Las Vegas.

Unable to substantiate my suspicions that the decision to congregate in the Mecca of smoke and mirrors had something to do with “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” I shall refrain from speculating that, if not that, perhaps some polyester PR plonker persuaded SHRM’s leadership that there is no better place to engage the dissenting voices going ga-ga for transparency than on the Vegas Strip. Where better to make a show of it!

In the weeks leading up to this year’s swarm I became quite bored with the unfolding drama surrounding the Machiavellian goings-on at SHRM. I’m sure I am not alone among the uncertifiable HR wannabes who now find themselves turned off by SHRM’s reported bully-boy tactics.

If it ever crossed my mind to give my eye-teeth to cover the cost of a few years membership, re-certification dues and and whatever else it takes to get me a GPHR, suffice it to say I’ve started flossing again. Now, if I could only get that interminable “Anything you can do ICANN do better,” tune out of my head, I might find something to celebrate in SHRM’s nearing retirement age.

Small comfort then that the only thing I have is to sit at my computer and wonder as the SHRM conference streams in, captured live in 140 character soundbites.

As I anticipate each new #SHRM11 tagged tweet it occurs to me, maybe SHRM’s politburo are behaving like any establishment icon does when faced with the inevitable flattening of hierarchy that Things 2.0 herald. Words with newly minted meaning come to mind: democratization, crowds, transparency, conversation, collaboration, and trust. The very things it appears SHRM’s leadership are missing. And so it seems they are out of sync with the rank and file, disconnected from the so-called “community” they are charged to represent.

However, It seems to me that if we dig a little deeper than the detestable tabloid commentary that sensationalizes the otherwise mundane, what we might observe is far from ho-hum after all.

I see something of great significance going on. Not so much a changing of the guard among the SHRM powers-that-be but a redefining of who the powers-that-be are, including those who are outside of SHRM’s membership. A hard pill for a once proud champion to swallow.

The transformation of an organization that is by it’s very nature cautious, conservative, elitist and power-centric is never easy when it is being forced by modernity to change its ways. And when the reasoned arguments of the body it claims to represent call for change too internal strife is sure to follow.

Yes, take a closer look.The fascinating stuff happens, not in the headlines of industry screeds but in between the lines of carefully orchestrated propaganda. For example, when the language changes from talk of advocacy [acting on what the membership thinks] to a an Orwellian mantra of “thought leadership” [this is what the membership should be doing] it’s a tell-tale sign of something going on. I’m just not sure what. Do you?

Alternatively, maybe the decision to whoop-it up in Vegas was a test of sorts to see how members react to a behemoth’s emergence into today’s changed world. How much more authentic could you get than having your leadership’s outlook on life reflected in the glitz and glamor of flying first class, living the high-life, and playing games where the odds always favor the house. It’s disarmingly honest reminding me of something I read on SHRM’s site once:

“The first step in creating a culture is the behavior of the leaders…Culture is expressed through behavioral norms, rituals, and symbols that have meaning to those in an organization.”

So could it be, the choice of Vegas for this year’s conflab is another way of saying, “C’mon fellas, get on[the]board?” Who knows? I’m told that some people who get too smitten by Vegas eventuallly end up on skid row with nothing to eat but dog food. Perhaps that’s it.

Don’t get me wrong, I know millions of delegates from all walks of life pass through Nevada’s convention centers, casinos, and nicely appointed brothels every year. And I concede the possibility that SHRM’s choice of Vegas could have been as an innocuous as the rolling of the dice, an easy way to decide between two shortlisted cities, a Mormon Tabernacle Choir / Cirque du Soleil tiebreaker if you will.

Either way, in the final analysis, the choice of venue is a reflection on SHRM’s leadership, like it or not.

What a contrast from earlier years, the choice of venue and message too. For example, in Washington D.C. members were given an esteemed Secretary of State for leadership insight. Fitting I’d say for the industry’s advocate body, expected to navigate the cloistered corridors of power, making friends in high places, and finding themselves a seat at somebody else’s table. 

But in Vegas, what were SHRM’s delegates treated to? A knight with a Virgin. Need I say more than…fitting?

So, the big tent is coming down and the delegates are returning to the familiar comforts of home. All that remains now is for us to observe if the long-term effects of the membership’s exposure to the brilliance of choosing Vegas for this years conference has any lasting effect. If history is to be our guide, it could be years before we know.

Next year, we’ll be hip-hopping in Atlanta. Well, that should be a rap!

1. Data? What data?

It can be difficult to make sense of the data that gets reported under “Social Media.” Harder still, accepting it could be useless in the context of traditional HR metrics, or under any circumstances, come to think it. Teasing intelligence from a new data set can leave one befuddled. Correlating things like “authority,” “increased awareness” “mentions,” and “sentiment” to the traditional metrics like time-to-fill and cost-per-hire may not only be a challenge of Rubik proportions, but ultimately an exercise in futility.

Such are the pitfalls of staying ahead of the HR technology curve, early adoption and social media illiteracy.

An absence of meaningful data can result from poorly designed programs, management oversight, technical problems like gathering the wrong data, or even having no data to collect at all. It happens. While glitches may indicate the pedestrian problems that affect every organization, the greater concern is this: Without the means to quantify performance or predict future outcomes, confidence is eroded in future leaps of faith and good judgment compromised.

For those of us who are used to winging it when there is insufficient data to chart the course, measuring results from social campaigns provides a rude awakening. It is impossible to fly by the seat of your pants when there is no indicator that one is even airborne. In white-out conditions, without an instrument panel that knows the difference between up and down, a corrective ascent may just result in an unhappy end.

2. Curve Balls

Unable to pace internal adoption with the dizzying rate at which the social web proliferates, escaping the gravitational pull of a world in a state of perpetual beta can consume more time and effort than staying in the game. Besides, where else can you get your emotional needs meet with 140 characters or less?

Many who impulsively jumped into the scrum of promiscuous linking did so without proper preparation or guidance. Now, forced to find meaning in a virtual space of auto-generated mediocrity, recalibration is too daunting a task. With little value to assign to “relationships” or “reputation,” it is easier to ride the long tail of diminishing returns in the hope a real crisis will legitimatize the abandonment.

What use are social media metrics now? For the me-too crowd the tools and technology that promised fulfillment in real-time don’t work that well when fashioned after conventional HR technology. Their struggle is in reconciling the fact that their application of Twitter looks like a default RSS-powered job board and the only way to get a thumbs-up on their Facebook fan page is to raffle-off an iPad.

Facing a seamlessly never-ending eruption of indistinguishable hash-tag jobs, tweets go unnoticed. One is reminded that in the good ol’ days you could line the bottom of the parrot’s cage with the Sunday help-wanted ads. The fact that your 1×1 agate ad was lost on a broadsheet didn’t preclude one from the hope that a job-seeker would find it by happenstance. If not, where better for Polly to poop?

Unfortunately, some providers assume that just-above-stupid is the new normal. LinkedIn continues to hybridize a next-generation job board for employers and job-seekers, while recruiters protest that rampant commercialization is squeezing them into network conformity.

Part real-time search engine, crowd sourcing bazaar, content curating machine, company directory and International Kiwanis watering hole, LinkedIn describes itself to users as an network where “Relationships Matter,” while describing itself to investors and developers as a platform. A modest differentiation for what is clearly something that seeks to be all things to all men. For those who may benefit the most from LinkedIn, well, they never go there. As a percentage of the world’s “most desirable” talent 100 million user is not that big a deal. And, supposing we could double that number? Who cares, so what?

3. We’re not in Kansas anymore

For America’s HR homogeny these kind of problem are compounded by an outdated playbook that insists employees are ultimately defined by profile, pay scale, performance, production and potential contribution. The HR playbook has no response for the kind of indiscretions at work that the social web invites from life in general. But then again, nor does the Church.

The social web [and depending on your place of worship] celebrates human experience with an exuberance that is is out of sync with boardroom decorum or budget meeting handouts. And while a KPI in a world of paradigm shift, sentiment remains hard to quantify in dollars and cents. These are the kinds of thing HR now has to contend with. But, steadfast, stoic and risk-averse by nature, HR’s unfortunate stereotype is itself at odds with the type of intrapreneurial champion most organizations need to get their Whatever 2.0 initiatives underway.

Yes, the social web invites risk. Yes, HR needs to mitigate it. This apparently irreconcilable tension presents quite a conundrum it appears that only tweeps, bloggers and unconference organizers are uniquely qualified to fix. It underscores the disparite nature of HR with societal trends. This prevailing condition does little to advance the cause of progress.

Hoping to avoid the potential workplace meltdown this type of divergence portends, Directors and VP of HR are subscribing to RSS feeds and trekking off to former Soviet Bloc countries in droves.

At the other end of the spectrum, the flawed humanity that clocks in for work each day has to resolve a different set of issues than those facing workplace engineers.

A layering of innovations has transformed personal computing. Once a desk-bound activity, today’s portable means for self-service, self-segmentation, self-expression, and self-actualization, comes in a tablet form that is perfectly suited for the occasional poke on Facebook and simultaneous Foursquare shoutouts from any airport anywhere.

But the advantage of widely available and affordable technology has not, as predicted, empowered an Army of Davids as a mobilizing force against the Goliath of work. Ironically, it has emasculated it. As opium was for the masses, so social media is for the herd.

4. Capital Ideas

Unwilling, to risk everything in the cause of noble values, the average person is emotionally and psychologically ill-prepared to unleash the social web’s potential for unbridled individuality, transparency, authenticity, and trust. Such naivety would undoubtedly result in more harm than good.

Everyone who wants to make a living must think long and hard before declaring themselves online. In a workplace environment where human potential is valued as capital, human potential applied to otherwise prohibited pursuits off-the-clock, even in a life gone by, renders the person worthless as an employee, a liability, or both.

Unable to concede the social web’s failure to significantly level the playing field, which he or she takes personally, Everyman congregates where the contradictions of group-think and having a voice are wonderfully blended in the soothing drone of social validation. Personalized homepages and one-of-a-kind avatars further reassures one that Self still matters, if only existentially.

In this incubator of bi-directional communication and content proliferation, mutant-concepts like “authority,” “influence,” ““reputation,” and “personal brand” are the standards by which our value is calculated. And, in a supremely ironic twist, this is how HR adjusts its measure of an individual’s “net-worth,” the new metrics of assessment.

When the time comes, and the data is in, getting hung-up on uninspired number crunching will slow down the “social human convergence” we all desire. Surely, now is the time to integrate social network analysis into our planning and decision-making processes. Our newly quantified social capital can then temper the otherwise cynical terminology that describes people as capital, and humanity like animal fat.

At last, with the convergence of personal, professional, corporate and social values is finally consummated — true to its Aesopian nature — the corporation can begin its acquisition of all the value, capitalizing on the intrinsic value of past, present, potential and future employees’ networks. Using their social graph to grow the organizations’ networks exponentially, at last an even wider audience of consumers can be imagined, engaged, bought and sold.

Hello, John? John? Are you still there?

The report captures the insights of the Nineteenth Annual Aspen Institute Roundtable on Information Technology, where business leaders, technologists, international politicians, academics and innovators explored how global structures and institutions are being confronted by the 21st century realities of distributed knowledge, crowdsourcing, open platforms and networked environments.

Read the rest here [PDF] »

Read the rest here »

1. Can you tell the difference between a) a donkey and a horse; and b) a candidate and an applicant? Calling all readers, Sharlyn Lauby — The HR Bartender — needs you!
2. Are recruiters idiots? Candidates say, “Yes,” applicants say, “No.” Suzanne Lucas — Evil HR Lady — says, “Maybe.” And what say you?
3. If 84% of employees are looking to change jobs I think we can safely say that employers’ retention policies may need updating, don’t you? “Fire the manager with the lowest retention” and other let-me-eat-my-arm morsels – in a beautifully bound eBook — courtesy of Ben Eubanks — upstartHR. Whatever…

Thanks for your letter of recognition you so kindly sent me today.

The body is below.

My response is below that.

Read the rest here »

Despite this being possibly one of the most coveted domain names in the industry, like one of the corpses laid to rest in a Varanasi gutter, Recruiting.com has become one of those things stepped over by most everyone.

Long forgotten for its contributions to humanity, the drama of blogging CEOs, the experimentation with formats, threats of lawsuits, Canadian headhunters, and assorted industry louts, Recruiting.com has been reduced to a shell with no soul.

But what’s this…did it move? My God! It moved!

Well, I’m not sure how I missed this but it appears that Recruiting.com is alive and well after all, useful even. Rising from the ashes of disaster Recruiting.com is now a resume-search-powered-by-Google-meta-engine-thingie with some interesting features, as described by Ryan Leary in this most instructive post, Free #Recruiting and #sourcing tool from Recruiting.com.

Of course, it would be easy to overlook the divine hand of Google in all of this, powering the search results for Recruiting.com as it does. Easy to overlook indeed.

1. Is “social recruiting” really such a new idea? I think not. After all, affiliate marketers [read: MLM] have been at it for years. Taking self-reference and self-fulfilling prophecy to the next multi-level…Black Belt Recruiting. Some lessons for us all.
2. So, you think “Sourcing Samurai” Glen Cathey can slice through the data on LinkedIn, huh? Think twice, no, three times: Understanding Web 3.0 as Data: Reid Hoffman, Founder LinkedIn.

   Conclusion: If Glen Cathey is an authority on LinkedIn it might just be question of semantics…if you know what I mean.

3. And now for something completely different…Cited in a social recruiting editorial, Florida is, indeed, among the best places to live and work:

   “We have all kinds of corruption, violence and scumbaggery. The 9/11 terrorists trained here. Bush read My Pet Goat here. Our elections are colossal cluster#@!*$s”

   And to think, I came from missing TruLondon to living in paradise…mind the gap! Personality matters more than platforms