Cleaning out the attic: A Few Friday links

Some quick links to a few interesting reads on a 'feels-like-it-should-be-the-holiday-break-but-we-are-not-quite-there-yet-Friday'.  Mostly these are items that have been sitting as perpetual open tabs in Chrome or as 'starred' items in Google Reader for a while and that I thought might be subject matter for the blog, but I just never got around to using them.

In no particular order of importance or relevance:

Most infographics kind of stink. This one, covering the T-shirt history of Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory is awesome. 

Did 'Big Data' give you a big headache in 2012?  Well, you are not alone. For a very readable and brief look at Big Data for the rest of us check out A Veteran Mad Man Tries to Figure Out the Point if Big Data in Advertising.

The McRib is coming back! - And it looks like it will be with us for the Holidays!

From Retronaut - some very cool British WWI Recruitment posters

There are always quite a few 'The High Cost of a Bad Hire' stories kicking around the HR blogosphere at any time, but few of those carry an $11M price tag like Auburn University has to shell out to bid farewell to their football coaching staff.

If you don't have big plans for the holidays, or just don't like to cook, you can always go for the 'Self-Heating Holiday Dinner in a Can' this year.

I have always held that basketball is the greatest sport of them all. This (long-ish) piece from Wired, Luck and Skill Untangled: The Science of Success, breaks it down more scientifically, but arrives at the same conclusion - basketball is the greatest sport of all. 

The birthrate in the US has sunk to its lowest level since 1920.  I guess we will all be working longer into our old age.

Not a fan of Klout or other attempts to measure 'influence?' Well you may not be able to simply ignore what you don't like (or understand). According to this HBR piece, the future of enterprise influence analytics will be inside the organization.

Let me know what you're reading!

That's it from me for a Friday - have a great weekend everyone.

#HRHappyHour Tonight - 'The 2012 Wrap-Up Show'

Tonight at 8:00PM EST  the HR Happy Hour Show is back LIVE with Episode 152 - 'The 2012 Wrap-Up Show.'

You can catch the show live starting at 8PM on the listener call-in line 646-378-1086, on the show page here, or via the widget player embedded below.

Listen to internet radio with Steve Boese on Blog Talk Radio

Our guest tonight will be HR executive, leading blogger, and industry thought leader Trish McFarlane from HR Ringleader.com, and the co-founder of HRevolution.

We will be taking a look back at the year in HR, Talent, and the workplace; kick around some ideas on how to make the most of the last part of the year, (HINT: It involves not getting blasted at the company holiday party and insulting your co-workers), and talk about what is coming up in 2013 in the HR and Talent space.

What was the HR highlight of 2012?

What was way over hyped in 2012?

What do we need to STOP talking about in 2013?

What SHOULD we be thinking about in 2013?

What are some of my most appealing qualities you'd like to share? 

As an HR, Talent, and Recruiting pro, I am sure you have an opinion about 2012, 2013, and how or if the upcoming year will be different than the one about to wind down. 

So tonight on the show, and on the Twitter backchannel (hashtag #HRHappyHour), we invite you to share your thoughts.

It should be a fun and interesting show and I hope you can join us!

Great places to work are like great sports franchises

The nice people over at Glassdoor.com released their 'Top 50 Best Places to Work for 2013' list today, and as usual it is an interesting collection of all kinds of organizations - large and small, high-tech and old-school, and relatively young to long lasting.

The full list can be found here, as well as on the image to the right, (click the thumbnail for a larger view).Click to expand

The important aspect of the Glassdoor 'Best Places' list, unlike any of the other, similar types of lists that are around, is that it is determined not by some kind of expert panel of thought leaders, judges, or academics; but rather it is calculated from the company reviews and ratings about the companies that have been left on the Glassdoor.com site.  So these ratings are the closest equivalent to say, the Amazon.com book review or the Yelp restaurant review for the workplace.

But since I like to compare, evaluate, and assess just about everything through the prism of the world of sports - rather than give you a (lame) take something along the lines of 'Facebook is the Best Place to work again, I wonder what lessons you can learn from this', I thought I'd make it fun, (for me at least), and cherry pick a few big names form the list and juxtapose them with the big time sports team they seem the most like.  

Why do this?

Why not?

Here goes:

2. McKinsey & Company - Easy, these guys are the New York Yankees.  Big name, big reputation, have a kind of mystique about them and have had it for a long time. The name that the rest of the market compares themselves to.

4. Bain & Company - Again, pretty easy. If McKinsey are the Yankees, then Bain are the Boston Red Sox. Also have a big name, have had some success, but will always be looking up at the big dog on top.  It is fitting that McKinsey came in a couple of notches above Bain.

11. Careerbuilder - Not as obvious as the McKinsey and Bain comparisons, but I will go with the basketball's San Antonio Spurs.  Consistently good, with some legendary performance in the recent past. But also consistently overlooked and sometimes underrated despite their pedigree. Finally they both have a bit of 'I can't believe they are still relevant after all these years' kind of feel to them.

24. Trader Joe's - I will go not with one team with which to compare the eclectic grocer, I will go with an entire league - the National Hockey League (NHL), currently not playing their current season due to a labor/management dispute.  Like the NHL in sports, Trader Joe's is kind of a niche player in the grocery business, has a kind of weird appeal, but if it was gone hardly anyone would really miss it. Think about it - does anyone really need a Trader Joe's?  Or the NHL?

35. General Mills - Time for a football comparison. Let's go with the Green Bay Packers.  Midwestern organization, been around forever, everyone can recognize them by their brand, and kind of hard not to like, even if you don't care about cereal or sports. Feels like they will be a part of the landscape forever.

50. Starbucks - I'll go international on this one and call them Manchester Uniited from English football soccer. They are both ubiquitous, have a global presence and instant brand and name recognition, and both have the most annoying fans/customers that you will ever encounter.  Man United fans and Starbucks customers are really similiar - smug, kind of annoying, ('Quad-soy-no whip-light foam-hazelnut-extra shot'), and somehow think being a fan/customer grants them some kind of unearned social status.  Disclaimer: I am a Liverpool/Dunkin' Donuts person. 

That's it - I need to stop there, but I am sure you have your own ideas. There are 45 more companies on the list that need a sports team equivalent assigned to them, have at it in the comments!

The next step in virtual work - part Robot, part Segway, part iPad

I am a little late to the party on this, (apparently this launched back in August), but since we are getting pretty deep into the holiday season and there is the slight chance that you, dear reader, have not yet determined what type of gift to bestow upon your favorite blogger, (that's me, by the way), I had to call your attention to the Double, probably one of the coolest, awesome, and most potential-filled workplace tools I have seen this year.

The Double is a kind of 'teleprescence on a budget' tool - part robot, part Segway, and part iPad - the clever device allows a remote colleague to 'drive' an iPad topped wheeled robot around the office, 'see' and be seen via a video conferencing application running on the iPad, and participate virtually in meetings, snack breaks, and probably even hallway chair races.

Check out the embedded video below to see the Double in action, (email and RSS subscribers will need to click through)

I told you that was awesome.

Some details on how the Double manages to be so cool: It uses a dual-wheel base, enabling the robot to navigate corners and make its way around rooms and other workplace facilities. It is controlled via any other iOS device, or through a web interface, which lets you travel throughout the environment, decide which height at which to place its iPad 'head', and of course, to converse with anyone (I suppose including other people's Doubles) in the room.

So while you probably want to drop what you are doing and order one of these beauties for me straight away, sadly the initial run of Doubles is sold out, according to their website. But fear not, the next batch will be shipping in early 2013 at a price of $1,999.

Don't worry, I will let you slide with the gift being late, it is really the thought that counts anyway!

Step stone or destination? If you are not sure, the talent will let you know

In my continued examination of the intersections between Sports and HR, Talent, and Recruiting, there may be no better spectacle and opportunity for examination than the Winter 'silly season' where American college football teams and coaching talent undergo their annual period of firing, resigning, and hiring to re-set the (rarified) talent pool for head football coaching positions.

There are generally three reasons that a head football coaching position becomes available, and they are pretty similar to the reasons any executive, well-paid, position opens up in any organization:

Performance - There are always a handful of these each season. Whether the football team under performed, or there is a true mis-alignment between management expectations and the reasonable likelihood of those expectations being met - either way the 'performance' termination is a common and generally straightforward situation.

Retirement - Head college football coach is an outstanding job. Heck, if you can have any degree of success and tenure in a position, it is a multi-million dollar while enjoying the love and adoration of the fan base and community life.  So naturally, the men (and that is not a sexist take, these jobs are ONLY held by men), that have these jobs tend to hold on to them for a really long time.  But once they hit 75 or 80 or so, (not entirely kidding), they often have to hang up the whistle.

Better gig somewhere else - This one, where the coach, (or for your shop, the Director of Marketing, or the VP of Sales), leaves to take the same or similar job elsewhere, is the most interesting scenario at least in the college football talent pool. Because in football, the 'job' itself is the same one everywhere, so the evaluation of whether or not the next opportunity is a step up, a step down, or a lateral move is completely reliant on other criteria.  Some of these are objective - like salary and bonuses, others are subjective - the 'prestige' of the job mostly driving this.

And the tough part of situation three, when your coach or executive ditches you for what you think is at best a lateral move, is often it takes this kind of high profile resignation and move to make you and your leadership realize where you stand on the industry desirability pecking order.  Make no mistake - the talent, their choices, and the decisions your competitors make do more to 'place' you on the attractiveness scale than most of the things you can do, at least in the short term.

Net-net of this?  It helps to understand where you 'rank' in the eyes of the talent, particularly for those key positions that do not have an enormously deep talent pool.  Your gig can be a starter job, you can be a step along the way for a high-flier, or you (sometimes) can be a true destination.

It's better to know what you are than have the talent surprise you.

Have a great week!