The Progressive Service and re-imagining the organization

There are lots of fantastic aspects of being a college student - the parties, the football games, the almost complete lack of real responsibility when compared to what often comes next - the corporate world, the 9-to-5 grind, and trying reasonably hard not to screw up, (after all, all that fun in college came with a price tag, probably in the form of tens of thousands of student loans to pay off).

But besides all the obvious fun and cool elements of student life, there is at least one other - the chance to work on projects, develop ideas, and present provocative concepts all safe in the knowledge that these ideas will usually be evaluated mostly on their creativity and inspiration, and not out in the real world where at most organizations they are likely to be met with 'That's not how we do things here' or 'That will never work' or 'Who are you again?'

And out in the real world massive, transformational organizational re-designs almost never actually happen (and work). There is so much legacy baggage, locked-in contracts and structures, and often a substantial level of resistance to change that the change that anyone tries to make to an entrenched institution is usually incremental and small in nature.  All change is hard. Big change is just about impossible to pull off.

With all that in mind, I recommend taking a look at a student project that focuses on the kind of massive change that is normally only talked about in the detached, theoretical setting of academia. The below presentation is titled United States Postal Service Thesis, and was created by Tom Calabrese for a Masters program. The deck, which presents some ideas and kind of radical concepts for the US Postal Service of the future, is below, and I'll have a quick comment/challenge after the break.

United States Postal Service Thesis from Tom Calabrese

Did you click through the deck? What did you think?

A couple of things stood out to me. One, that providing, for a price, the ability to refine and tailor your own mail delivery preferences is an idea worth pursuing. And two, the more radical idea about somehow connecting the Postal Service social graph to other, more higher value add services and products.

But the real reason why I decided to post about this was not any of the specific proposals for the USPS, but rather as it was a great reminder that we almost never spend any time thinking about re-imagining our own organizations in a similar manner. Now certainly most of our organizations don't face the same number and type of daunting problems the USPS faces, but it's also certain that we underestimate the problems, (maybe ones that have not yet even manifested), that face our organizations.

So the challenge is this - what if you could (or had to), completely re-imagine your workplace?

What if you were to start from a blank sheet, or close to it, and start over?

What would you keep? What would you let go? What are you doing simply because of inertia and tradition and internal resistance to change?

What would the 'new' organization look like?

Have a great week all!

PODCAST - #HRHappyHour 168 - On Early Adoption and #HRevolution

HR Happy Hour 168 - 'HR,  Early Adoption and #HRevolution 2013'

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, hosts Steve Boese and Trish McFarlane welcomed China Gorman, Founder and CEO of the CMG Group, and for more than 25 years, a strategic business leader in in human resources professional services organizations. China is a sought-after speaker, writer and thought leader in the broad human resources marketplace.

We talked with China about one of her favorite topics - the early adoption of new or innovative technologies in Human Resources.  It turns out that early adoption is one of Trish's favorite topics too - as an HR leader herself she has driven the decision processes and implementations of many of the kinds of HR technologies that are emerging in the market today.

We also previewed the upcoming HRevolution event taking place in Las Vegas on October 6, 2013, and where you can see China leading a session on Early Adoption of Technology in HR.

You can listen to the show on the show page here, using the widget player below, and as always on iTunes - just do a search in the podcasts section for 'HR Happy Hour'.

Listen to internet radio with Steve Boese on BlogTalkRadio

We all know how fast moving and ever changing the landscape is for HR Technology, and whether or not your shop is ready for and can make the best use of any new tech tool is one of the most important questions you have to answer as an HR/Talent pro. China and Trish both shared lots of great ideas and approaches that have worked for them in the past and that will be of help to everyone finding themselves struggling with HR and technology.

I mostly listened and tried to learn something!

Thanks to China for the time and the insight about the role of early adoption of technology to empower and improve HR processes, and more importantly, organizational results.

It was a really fun and interesting show and I hope you check it out.  

And if you do, my apologies in advance to the nation of Canada.

And, and you can register for HRevolution 2013 here:

Have a great weekend!

Job Titles of the Future #7 - Professional eSports Player

Like lots of guys of a similar generation, I grew up playing sports, watching sports, talking about sports, etc. My Dad and my other adult male relatives were all big-time sports people as well - simply put, there was not a day of my youth through teenage years where sports in some fashion was not a part.

Fast forward about, well let's just say several years, and while sports are still a big part of many American kids lives, (certainly girls sports are a much, much bigger thing today than when I was a kid), there are lots more and different ways modern kids can choose to spend their time, energy, and as we will see in a second, to feed their appetite for competition.

And just like traditional sports like basketball and football have for many years offered at least the most talented and driven kids a pathway to fame and monetary gain, we are starting to see these newer forms of competition also present similar opportunities.  

What am I getting at?

Check an excerpt from a piece in the LA Times - Online game League of Legends star gets U.S. visa as pro athlete

International stars in sports such as baseball, hockey and basketball have long been afforded special immigration status to play on U.S. teams. Think David Beckham, the former Los Angeles Galaxy soccer player from Britain, or Dodgers rookie phenom Hyun-Jin Ryu, a pitcher from South Korea.

Now add Danny "Shiphtur" Le, of Edmonton, Canada, to the elite list.

Le, an online gamer, is one of the world's top players of League of Legends, a virtual capture-the-flag game in which two teams of fantasy characters compete for a glowing orb. Le is so deft at racing down the virtual field and opening up gaps for teammates that he recently became the first so-called eSports player to be granted a type of visa normally awarded to athletes featured daily on ESPN.

With a generation of children having grown up playing video games, the decision by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has been widely perceived as elevating America's newest professional sport to the same class as old-school stalwarts.

And in a worldwide competition in which the winning team can take home $1 million in prizes, the ability to sign the best players — whether from Canada or South Korea or Russia — was seen as a must-have for U.S squads.

Did you catch all that?

A professional video gamer from Canada was granted a special type of visa, (probably a P1A), to live and compete in the USA with the rest of his elite team of gamers.

I know you are thinking this is a kind of joke, or at least a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of occurrence. After all we are talking about video games, for gosh sakes. Not football, not baseball. Stupid video games.

Except that I bet video games in general, and specifically League of Legends, the game in which Le and his team competes in, are a much, much bigger deal than you realize.

How big?

More from the LA Times:

In the U.S. bracket of the championship series, eight teams compete against one another on Thursdays and Fridays at a West Los Angeles TV studio.

The games are broadcast online and draw more than 1.7 million unique viewers. A typical National Hockey League game on the NBC Sports Network last season drew a quarter of that audience.

Gaming industry analysts estimate that more than 32 million people worldwide play the game, about half of them in the U.S. The rest come from Europe and Asia. By those calculations, 1 in every 20 Americans plays League of Legends. That dwarfs baseball, from Little League to Major League Baseball.

Like I mentioned at the top, I grew up playing traditional sports under the watchful eye of my Dad who also grew up playing those same sports. It would have fulfilled both our dreams had I become an NBA star. But alas, short, slow, and unable to jump very high (mostly) did me in.

A new generation of kids is going to grow up playing games like League of Legends, under the watchful eyes of their Dads who also grew up playing League of Legends, (or World of Warcraft, or similar).

And if those stats are accurate, or even close to it, that 1 in 20 Americans are playing League of Legends then there are going to be lots of career opportunities that will spring up from that ecosystem. Sure just like baseball and football there will be the select few like Danny Le that will become elite-level professionals, but there may also be a need for more event organizers, promotions, marketing, expert analyses, training courses, and on and on.

Professional eSports Player, that has a pretty cool ring to it, and it makes the list as an official SFB 'Job Title of the Future.'

At HR Exec, I'm on the road to find 'Awesome'

Over at the day job one of the things I do is write a monthly column for Human Resource Executive Magazine called 'Inside HR Tech'. The column is meant to try and highlight innovative and interesting HR Technology solutions and help HR leaders, (particularly ones at small and mid-size organizations), learn more about what is happening in the HR tech industry.

The latest column is up over at HRE Online, and is titled "The Road to 'Awesome': The process for selecting HR's most 'Awesome New Technologies' reveals an industry that continues to innovate", and features a number of the more interesting and engaging HR tech solutions I have seen recently as I work to program the 'Awesome New Technologies for HR' session at the upcoming HR Technology Conference.

I figure since this blog is still called 'Steve's HR Tech' there are probably some folks interested in the Inside HR Tech column, and then I realized I have not ever mentioned it here previously. So in a shameless example of self-promotion...

Here is a little excerpt from the latest column:

One of the tasks I have as co-chair of the upcoming HR Technology^® Conference & Exposition in Las Vegas this October is to program and select the participants for the 'Awesome New Technologies for HR' session, a general session meant to showcase a half-dozen of the most innovative and exciting new products and solutions in the HR market. The largest part of this process involves seeing product demonstrations and talking with a wide range, (and high number) of solution providers from across the HR technology industry. And while, at the time of this writing, I am still in the middle of the process, and no 'Awesome New' participants have been selected as yet, I certainly have seen about 40 or so solutions, many of which, whether they become 'awesome' or not, definitely fit the criteria my CHRO friend described.

So rather than wax philosophical once again in the column about some major 'mega-trend' in the industry, or offer some highly subjective interpretation of the 'future of HR technology' in this month's column I'd like to simply recognize a handful of really interesting and innovative technology solutions that I have seen recently, and that are indeed the kind of solutions that are accessible and (more importantly), deployable relatively quickly by organizations of all sizes. And most importantly, meet the CHRO's need to solve a problem she has right now -- and not in some future, robot-dominated, Google Glass covered world.

You can read the rest over at HRE Online, as well as sign up to have the monthly Inside HR Tech column delivered right into your email Inbox.

Regularly scheduled programming here will resume tomorrow.

<self-promotion done for the day>

HR and Improv: An #HRevolution Las Vegas Preview

The HRevolution 'unconference' event is returning to Las Vegas on Sunday, October 6, 2013.

What, exactly is HRevolution?

Simple.

Since 2009, HRevolution has been creating unique opportunities for HR professionals, recruiters, consultants, and vendors to come together to discuss and debate the future of HR in an one-day, highly interactive format. You can see details of the agenda here.

That actually doesn't sound very simple, but if you have attended HRevolution before you'll know exactly what it means.  And you will know that the connections you have made and strengthened at past HRevolution events have been an amazing source of inspiration and learning over the years.

If you have not attended an HRevolution event in the past, then I want to give you a little bit of an idea of just one fun and innovative component of the HRevolution program that we are pretty sure you've never seen at any other event.

It's called 'HR Improv' and the simple idea is this: We solicit 5 volunteers from the audience and they are tasked with doing a 'cold' 10-minute presentation to the entire room from a slide deck that they, (nor anyone else), has ever seen before.  

The challenge?

To tie the content of the deck somehow back to an HR or workplace topic, to think quickly and on the fly, and to not let a situation that can rapidly get out of control throw you off of your game.

The kinds of skills that any successful pro, HR or otherwise, needs to have in order to be seen as a player.

Think you could handle HR Improv? Then make your plans to attend HRevolution in Las Vegas on October 6, 2013 - ticket information here. 

And this year, HRevolution would not be possible without the support of the event's exclusive sponsor - SumTotal Systems - an HR provider of a complete portfolio which includes; talent, learning, workforce, payroll, analytics, mobile and social delivered via SaaS, on-premise or hosted.

The folks at SumTotal have been fantastic to work with on the event and we can't thanks them enough for their support of the HR community.

Once again, HRevolution is co-locating with the HR Technology Conference to offer attendees of both events a great opportunity to connect, learn, share, and have fun. When you register for HRevolution you will receive a promotional code good for $600 off the published rate for HR Tech - the best (and non-expiring) discount code out there.

So please make plans to attend HRevolution Las Vegas this October - you won't regret it!

If you still have questions just shoot me an email - steveboese at gmail dot com.