What does package delivery have in common with Top Music of 2013 lists?

Two exhibits, seemingly unrelated, (actually not seemingly, these are unrelated), but to me are both interesting in and of themselves and even more interesting when placed in a larger context, (and if you are willing to suspend disbelief a little bit).

Exhibit A - This is the one you already know all about, released not coincidentally on the eve of Cyber Monday, which is of course Amazon's plan to (someday) deploy unmanned drones to deliver small packages in less than 30 minutes.

Exhibit B - You might not of caught this one, I'm not really sure why I even read about it as I am not a user of the Shazam app and not really a big music person at all, but here it is from the Econsultancy site - Shazam, Big Data, and the Future of Year-end Lists. 

Since you know all about the Amazon stuff and everyone can get the pretty obvious implications to work and workers of such a plan, let's focus on the Shazam story a little. In case you are unfamiliar, Shazam is a smartphone app that you can use to recognize the name and artist of any song that is playing (as long as it is audible), in a process called 'tagging.' The user is then given the option to tap a link to purchase and download the song.

So in the course of the year the millions of Shazam users 'tag' millions of songs, and create a massive amount of data about music exposure, trends, and general buzz about artists and songs. Shazam is now (quite sensibly) using this data as input into it's 'Best of 2013' music recaps. 

The bigger implication of this? Check out the excellent take from the Econsultancy piece:

The beginning of January in music journalism is typically a barren wasteland of occasional punditry and arbitrary list-making. The bulk of these lists are written by experts using their own opinion and instinct.

Shazam has jettisoned this tradition in favour of data, maths and algorithms.

This is obviously a far more scientific approach than traditional methods, which removes subjective opinion and puts the list in the hand of Shazam’s 400m users. It is Shazam’s way of using huge amounts of data in order to predict future trends.

A more sensational writer would proclaim that big data is the death of music journalism. Obviously it’s not. What’s the point of publishing a list of the top artists to watch in 2014, curated by 400m users, if 400m users technically already know who to watch out for?

Amazon and its delivery partners someday maybe, would theoretically need far fewer drivers and driver helpers (and trucks and all the folks that work on keeping the trucks running), if they can successfully deploy an unmanned drone air armada to do at least some of their deliveries. And probably before the Amazon drones are a reality, unmanned and self-driving trucks and vans seem both closer to reality and availability, and disruptive to the job prospects in an industry already struggling to supply enough human labor. Not really surprising given how advances in technology have traditionally eliminated jobs and job categories in the past.

But the Shazam story is much different, and newer, and perhaps even more important since it isn't a theory or a prototype or just a nutty idea. Rather it's a simple example of how data, math, algorithms, and actual, regular people are being combined and mashed-up to disrupt something else entirely, the realm of the 'expert.'

Who needs some hipster music critic or tastemaker to grace us with his/her opinion about what the best songs or books or restaurants are when we have Shazam, Spotify, Amazon, Yelp and dozens of other sites and apps that create data that 'removes subjective opinion' and presents only findings that are backed by that data?

We don't need subject matter experts at all really, at least in these discrete fields, we only need one kind of subject matter expert, the data scientist/programmer type that can make sense of the data for any field at all really. After all, data is data, right?

It is really easy to see a future and understand one where truck drivers and other kinds of manual and medium-skilled roles are going to be increasingly threatened by technology.

It is much different, and up until now kind of unthinkable, to see a future when professional 'experts' are going to be needed less and less.

Here is the advice I give to my 12 year-old son, (I know he is not really listening, I just like hearing myself talk) - "Be the chef, not the guy trying to tell everyone else where they should eat." 

Be proud of where you work: Talking points from the NSA

An internal NSA memo leaked over the weekend, one where the good folks at the National Security Agency provide some tips for their staff to take home and use over the recent Thanksgiving holiday in case they were confronted with a drunk Uncle or angry Cousin who might not be totally pleased with having a member of the family a part of cyber spying, stealing personal information, or whatever else the NSA can be accused of carrying out.

The 5-point document (with supporting examples) can be found here, and if you can overlook the source, history, context, etc., it actually provides a really useful outline of what employees can do to carry the brand message out into their personal lives.

Here are the 5 talking points about the NSA that the agency wanted, or at least advised, it's staff to share while sitting around the holiday table, with some comments from me about how they might be more generally applicable to any organization.

1. NSA's mission is of great value to the nation.

Applicability for you?

Probably some. Obvious if you work for a children's hospital or for Waste Management. Maybe less relevant if you are in some kind of management consulting group or work for one of the local car dealerships. In those cases you want to find someone (other than the greedy owner of the company) that benefits from the existence of your organization to speak up. There must be somebody, right?

2. NSA performs its mission the right way.

Take a page from the NSA, (as well as the example set by the local personal injury attorneys in your market), and stress it is not just what you do, but someone you do that thing with more integrity than the other guys that do that exact same thing as you. Don't worry about proving it, it is pretty much impossible for anyone to dispute your claim tom the moral high ground.

3. NSA performs its mission exceptionally well.

Probably the weakest of the talking points to rally behind. But I suppose in your context the fact that you are still (for the moment anyway), an ongoing concern that is employing people must mean you are doing something well. Don't grab for too much else here.

4. The people of NSA are loyal Americans with expert skills.

Drop the nationalistic bit if that makes sense for you, and go for the standard and universal 'We only have the best of the best here at ACME' take. We all know that to be the case. Everyone only employs top talent, 'A' players, etc. So what if it is not true. Unless you work for Yahoo, apparently.

5. NSA is committed to increased transparency and public dialog.

Your company has an official corporate Twitter account, right? And probably a Facebook page too. And whatever other associated social outposts that the last batch of summer interns set up for you. Forget that the last post was some inane blather last week about Black Friday, the fact remains that you are an open and transparent organization. And you will prove it the first time someone, anyone tweets at you or leaves a comment on your corporate blog.

And there it is. The much-maligned and reviled NSA has just handed you the recipe for indoctrinating helping your teams share the good news about the work you are doing there at the Widget factory.

Think of it this way, how hard can rallying the staff and goosing morale be if even the NSA thinks it can  do it?

You don't have to social network to make it

Cleaning out some old 'saved for later' items in my RSS reader over the weekend and I re-visited this gem from Bob Lefsetz, 36 Things We've Learned which ran a few weeks back on the Big Picture site. 

In the piece, which is simply a series of observations about the modern music industry (but certainly could be relevant to any number of fields of endeavor, particularly ones that have undergone significant change and disruption from technology, social networks, or other external influences), Lefsetz shares this 'learning' regarding social networking, which is below:

22. You don’t have to social network to make it.

You’ve just got to do great work, constantly.

An interesting observation at least, if not a true 'learning.' But one that at least made me think for a little while. In our little corner of the world, the Human Resources/Talent Management space, it seems like lots of people, many of whom I know and respect quite a bit, the 'early social tech adopters' have spent lots of time and energy and pixels exhorting the 'rest' of the profession to get on board with social technology and social networking in a professional context.

Still in late 2013 I see folks giving presentations and talks aimed at mainstream HR professionals and designed on 'selling' the benefits and importance of social networking for these HR/Talent pros. These kinds of sessions usually take the position of trying to convince the slow adopters or disbelievers that they have to get on board, or risk getting passed by or marginalized.

But I wonder, or at least I ask you to wonder for a moment, if that advice is actually true, or at least mostly true. What if Lefsetz is right, and doing great work is really what is needed and that trumps the need or desire to simply 'network' more, (social or otherwise).

The last CHRO I worked for (at a publicly traded company with 5,000 employees), achieved that lofty position in 2011 or so without having so much as a LinkedIn account, much less a professional blog, active Twitter feed sharing the latest from Harvard Business Review or a leading or even participating in one of the daily Tweet chats on HR and Talent topics. 

But she did great work. Had great mentors. Built a great and loyal team. Earned the respect and trust of the rest of the C-suite.

Spent the time doing great work and not worried at all about social networking.

Or to take a slightly different take on the issue, just ask yourself this question today - is that hot article or blog post being shared all over social media today really any good? Does it really have any non-obvious important insights? 

Or is it just being tweeted a lot?

Happy Monday. Look out above your head in case an Amazon drone is buzzing.

Soon, Google will be able to Tweet for you

What's the worst thing for the average person trying to deal with the incredible growth of social networking?

I'd probably say it is the ridiculous amount of time and energy that adults spend wishing each other 'Happy Birthday!' on Facebook.

But for many other heavy users (and business and professional accounts) of social networking one of the main problems is simply keeping up with the flow of information, finding ways to sift and organize the constant streams of updates, and finding the time and energy to respond, engage, and interact in both a timely and relevant manner.

It is exhausting. A professional connection of yours is always posting about a new job on LinkedIn, someone you are hoping to curry favor with is updating their Facebook status with their latest vacation pics or athletics triumphs of their kids,  or some colleagues are mentioning your latest blog post or presentation on Twitter.

You should take the time to say 'Congratulations!' or to 'Like' the fact that little Joey scored 4 goals against a bunch of 6 year-olds, and to say 'Thanks!' to everyone that says something nice about your work on Twitter. You should do those things. 

But like I said it is exhausting. And time consuming. And kind of boring.

Enter your friends at Google who are seeking to patent a system/solution for the 'Automated generation of suggestions for personalized reactions in a social network.' 

From the text of the patent filing:

The popularity and use of social networks and other types of electronic communication has grown dramatically in recent years. With the increased use and popularity of social networks, the value of these networks has increased exponentially. However, this also means that the number of messages and information each user must process has increased exponentially. It is often difficult for users to keep up with and reply to all the messages they are receiving. Therefore, it is important for user to keep to most critical message based on their interests and more importantly, based on how other users reacted to that message.

Many users use online social networking for both professional and personal uses. Each of these different types of use has its own unstated protocol for behavior. It is extremely important for the users to act in an adequate manner depending upon which social network on which they are operating. For example, it may be very important to say "congratulations" to a friend when that friend announces that she/he has gotten a new job. This is a particular problem as many users subscribe to many social different social networks. With an ever increasing online connectivity and growing list of online contacts and given the amount of information users put online, it is possible for a person to miss such an update.

Ok, we get all that.  Too much data, too many contacts, missing updates and opportunities to engage. So what does Google propose to solve these challenges?

The present disclosure overcomes the deficiencies and limitations of the prior at least in part by providing a system and method for generating suggestions for personalized reactions or messages. The system according to the present disclosure includes a suggestion generation module. In one embodiment, the suggestion generation module includes a plurality of collector modules, a credentials module, a suggestion analyzer module, a user interface module and a decision tree. The plurality of collector modules are coupled to respective systems to collect information accessible by the user and important to the user from other systems such as e-mail systems, SMS/MMS systems, micro blogging systems, social networks or other systems. The credentials module cooperates with the plurality of collector modules to allow access to those other systems. The information from these collector modules is provided to the suggestion analyzer module. The suggestion analyzer module cooperates with the user interface module and the decision tree to generate suggested reactions or messages for the user to send. The suggested reactions or messages are presented by the user interface module to the user. The user interface module also displays the original message, other information about the original message such as others' responses, and action buttons for sending, discarding or ignoring the suggested message

Awesome. In case you missed the process flow buried in the dense verbiage here it is simply put:

Since Google knows so much about you (using data from 'e-mail systems, SMS/MMS systems, social networks, and other systems') it thinks that it could generate for you the kinds of personalized reactions you would be likely to post on social media and then post them on your behalf. It still would allow you or a corporate brand marketer to be in the approval process, a dialog or UI would be presented to the user and would ask for an approval before each tweet was sent.

Think about it. Instead of just a calendar pop-up or a Facebook notification telling you that 'So and so's birthday is today', the new Google social media robot would have your appropriately crafted reply all ready to go. Instead of scouring LinkedIn all day for the career ebbs and flows of people that you are interested in, just have the social media robot keep watch for you and let you know only when something that truly requires your attention surfaces. Note: This will hardly ever happen.

I dig it. I hope it gets made. That is what social networking really needs too.

More robots.

Note: The blog is on vacation the rest of the week. To all the folks in the USA, Happy Thanksgiving! 

PODCAST - #HRHappyHour 173 - How Data is Changing Recruiting

HR Happy Hour 173 - How Data is Changing Recruiting

Recorded Friday November 22, 2013

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve Boese and Trish McFarlane sat down with Eric Owski, VP of Product Strategy for Bright.com, for an interesting and informative conversation about how data, Big Data really, machine learning, and really sophisticated algorithms are helping organizations better understand the fit and potential for high performance of their candidates, and increasing the chances of making better hires while reducing the time and expense to make screening and hiring decisions.

It is still a challenge for many HR and Recruiting organizations simply to manage the volume of applicants that they are seeing for many positions, and to have the ability to spend the time and resources attempting to ensure they are engaging with (and hiring) the very best people that they can. The volume can often make expediency win out over making informed decisions, and in front-line, customer-facing roles this has the potential to cause pretty significant problems for the organization. 

Bright.com offers an approach and a solution that is based on millions of data points, informed by talent and recruiting professionals' input, and validated by the companies that have used the innovative 'Bright Score' to make more consistent and correct decisions about talent and potential.

You can listen to the show on the show page here, on iTunes, (just search in the podcasts section for 'HR HappyHour'), and using the widget player below, (email and RSS subscribers will need to click through). 

More Business Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Steve Boese and Trish McFarlane on BlogTalkRadio

It was a really informative and forward-looking kind of conversation that sheds some light on what new ideas and technologies promise to deliver to the talent management world now and more and more in the future.

Thanks to Eric and everyone at Bright for taking the time to share his insights!