WEEKEND READING: On Age and Scientific Genius

Building on one of the themes of the blog, i.e., the changing nature, demographic and otherwise of the modern workforce, I submit for your weekend long-reading consideration a recent National Bureau of Economic Research working paper titled Age and Scientific Genius, by Benjamin Jones, E. J. Reedy, and Bruce A. Weinberg.

In the paper, the authors examine the relevant literature to determine the relationship, if indeed one exists, between age and great scientific discovery, or 'genius.' Note: Nobel Prizes and great inventions are used as proxies for 'genius' in this analysis.

Turns out there is a relationship, and it might be a little different than your think, and most interestingly, it might be changing.

Take a look at the first of two charts from the paper. First, the 'headline' chart tracking 'genius' against age:

So genius peaks at about 40 or so, then literally and figuratively falls off a cliff as we age.

That can't be good news for one, many of the folks that are reading this post; and two, for workplaces overall that as we have explored before here on the blog, are more and more comprised of 'older' workers.

But maybe the news is not all bad for those 40-plussers. Take a look at how the genius/age relationship is changing over time.

According to the researchers, and like everyone else, geniuses are getting older.

Or said differently, geniuses used to be younger. The peak age for great scientific achievements keeps moving to the right of the curve, particularly since 1965.

So if this trend continues, maybe it is good news for those of us staring at, or even looking back upon, our peak genius years.

On Age and Scientific Genius is an interesting look at the effects of time and generational shifts on the production of great scientific work. Take a look at the paper over the weekend if you have some time, I think even you can spare a few minutes before getting back to the workshop or laboratory.

Have a great weekend!

OFF TOPIC: Breakfast cereals, ranked

Long week + terrible winter weather + me fighting a bad cold = not much left in the tank for a Friday. 

So with that said, I give you the completely biased and unscientific, yet definitive ranking of cold breakfast cereals:

100. Shredded Wheat

99 - 21. A whole bunch of forgettable and unimportant cereals.

20. Rice Krispies

19. Cheerios

18. Corn Flakes

17. Rice Chex

16. Honey Bunches of Oats

15. Raisin Bran

14. Life

13. Golden Grahams

12. Corn Pops

11. Cocoa Pebbles

10. Apple Jacks

9. Alpha-Bits

8. Honey Smacks

7. Frankenberry

6. Lucky Charms

5. Frosted Flakes

4. Wheaties

3. Count Chocula

2. Froot Loops

1. Cap'n Crunch

Have a great weekend!

The 3rd Annual Tim Sackett Day honors America's favorite sourcer - Kelly Dingee

First off - Happy Tim Sackett Day!

What the heck is Tim Sackett Day you might be wondering?

Let me take you back to a similar cold, windy, snowy January day just two years ago when a rag-tag band of Human Resources bloggers joined together to honor one of our own, one of the often unsung HR heroes, toiling in the trenches, working day-in and day-out to improve the workplace, one step at a time. The idea was to recognize and praise the type of HR, Talent, or Recruiting pro that all too often goes, well, unrecognized in an era where 'Look at me' sometimes trumps, 'See what I have accomplished.'

So in 2012 for the first and inaugrual Tim Sackett Day we honored, well duh, Tim Sackett. 

And last year for the 2nd Annual Tim Sackett Day, the HR blognoscenti honored another great hero of mine, and one of the stalwarts in the world of motivation, incentives, and influence -  none other than the amazing Paul Hebert.

And for the 3rd Annual Tim Sackett Day we recognize the great Kelly Dingee, aka, America's Favorite Sourcer!Hi Kelly!

You might know Kelly from her work over on the Fistful of Talent blog, where she regularly shares knowledge, strategies, new technologies, and her overall philosophy on all things candidate sourcing, engagement, and outreach. She might be the only contributor over at FOT that actually really and genuinely cares about sharing her ideas and helping the community to learn and get better at their jobs. 

Here are just a few of Kelly's recent takes over at FOT that if you are at all concerned about raising the talent level at your shop, and come on, that has to be all of us, that you should check out:

Is Google+ ready to be our sourcing darling?

My 4 Sourcing Lessons from 2013

Cheap Training for Your Home Grown Sourcer

If you check out these posts, and the rest of the Kelly archive you will come away the better for it. You will have learned something new, been given a compelling reason to try a new strategy or technology, or simply have been challenged to think about what you are doing, and might should not be doing, in a new way.

But the message is delivered in an honest and straightforward way. And the advice is backed up by Kelly's own real-world experience. And that combination makes Kelly pretty rare these days, an HR/Talent influencer that is actually working on her craft, (and sharing her wisdom), with the rest of us.

Congrats to America's Favorite Sourcer on this much-sought after recognition on the 3rd Annual Tim Sackett Day!

Welcome back

Happy 2014!

It's good to be back as it were, after a couple of weeks of running old posts, not writing much of anything new, and more or less laying low and attempting to keep warm. I did learn at least one new phrase over the holidays, 'Polar Vortex', although it is assuredly one I could have done without.

Prior to the holidays kicking off, as I was scrolling back through the 2013 blog archives to find what I thought were some of the better and most representative posts to re-publish it during the last two weeks it struck me (finally) as to what this blog is really about, or perhaps said better, what topics and subjects about which I am actually interested in learning, sharing, and offering opinions on.  For me, 2013 was mostly about three main subject areas:

1. Advances in robot technology and the increasing automation of the workplace and of other technologies (like self-driving cars, Google Glass, etc.).

2. Macro economic, demographic, and societal trends that impact our organizations and our professional lives. Things like the aging of the workforce and the true or possibly not true skills gap that gets bandied about from time to time.

3. How data is changing work, the practice of HR and management, and even our personal lives as well. In that vein, my single favorite post from 2013 was the one about the trucking company that is combining operational data from the trucks themselves with ‘softer’ HR data to make managerial interventions.

There are some other things mixed in there for sure, like sports and HR and the occasional rant/take on the (tiresome) ‘Company culture is more important that anything’ meme that will never seem to go away. And I will (naturally) use this blog to help promote those things that do keep the lights on, like the HR Technology Conference, HRevolution, the HR Happy Hour Show, and other miscellaneous things I will be doing in 2014. But for the most part the blog will remain about what I think are the most interesting and most important ideas and topics that affect the way we work and the way we interact with technology to do that work.

Since this blog, or most anyone's personal blog for that matter, is just an outlet and a hobby more or less, it naturally is going to reflect my interests, Whether or not anyone else finds them interesting is another matter. My sense from a cursory scan of site traffic over the years suggests that there are at least a few of you out there, but your numbers certainly aren't growing too much!

But regardless of traffic or comments or social shares, I personally still find writing on the blog to be fun, challenging, and beneficial. And I do want to thank everyone that has visited in the past and that will stop by in 2014.

As always, I welcome comments, ideas, suggestions, etc. I will note, and this is is mainly for the PR types that might see this, I am really not that interested in running guest posts from people I have never met, publishing your client’s infographics about anything, or writing about anything that is ‘under embargo’.

Ok, that is it  - have a fantastic, successful, and fun 2014 everyone!

5 Reasons Why I hate this #HR blog post

Presented in no particular order... (and yes, I admit my guilt in having committed some or all of these transgressions)

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1. The title of the post starts with a number. 

Each time another post like '7 Ways To Rock Your Cubicle' or '13 Tips to Become a More Social Leader' gets published a little puppy dies. It's true.  Please, no more '3 Ways You are an Idiot at Work' posts

2. It contains no less than four links back to other posts on your own site

You know what is really cool? Coming up with some kind of half-baked thesis about the future of work, or automation, or robots, or hipsters and using as your reference material just a bunch of stuff you have previously written. Readers just love learning more about what you think. Truly.

3. Infographic!

Below is just one of the top infographics I found by doing a Google image search for 'Inane infographics'. But look how pretty!

4. It includes any one of the following:

A. Advice on cover letters and/or resumes

B. Tips to make your LinkedIn profile 'stand out'. Note: These kind of posts are almost always combined with 'List' posts, as in '37 Ways to Jazz up your LinkedIn Profile!'

C. It mentions Marissa Mayer and Yahoo!. 

D. It pretends to know more about running Yahoo! than Marissa Mayer does.

E. It pretends to know more about anything than Marissa Mayer does.

F. Starts with 'A reader sent in this question....' Can't you come up with your own ideas? Do you have to steal them from the readers?

G. Contains a picture of an adorable puppy

H. Uses a Twitter hashtag in the post title. (I have done this one a bunch of times, and I feel like I need a shower after hitting 'Publish'.) 

I. Has a really bad premise, but about 400 words in it is too late to bail out (and lose the 28 minutes already invested) and simply plows through to the end

So let me tell you about cover letters. No one reads them! Or check that, some times people read them. So you should write one. Oh, and be sure to customize your resume for each job you apply for. Because in the six seconds that a recruiter spends on your resume it is really important that they don't sense 'Generic resume' by about the fourth second. And that recruiter somehow, might have read one of the other 2,159 resumes you have sent out in the last 18 months. Or not. Wait, what we we talking about again?

5. It follows the below sure-fire workplace/HR blogging formula:

One part recent current event

One part celebrity name drop

Dash of sports metaphor

Links to mainstream press articles on above mentioned items

Dash of homespun HR wisdom 'What can we learn about management from....'

Mix thoroughly, (and use some bold type at about the half way point to wake up the reader)

Finish with common sense observation on human nature, (e.g. all humans are terrible).

So did you catch all the drama with the Obamacare website rollout? I mean, there is no way that a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs would have botched a product launch like that, you know what I mean? If there is one thing that the legendary basketball coach John Wooden taught us, it's that we need to prepare to prepare in order to prepare to succeed. HR leaders can take away some important lessons from all this mess for sure. Don't be incompetent I suppose is one.

Those are my five reasons why I hate this blog post. Feel free to add yours in the comments below!