Spreading the Word one PDF at a Time

This week at the HRevolution Unconference one of the important themes will be how to drive more awareness in mainstream and corporate HR leadership of what is going on in the growing HR Social Media community, and to discuss and create strategies and approaches to guard against those of us in this space from simply talking to ourselves all the time.

In fact the closing session of the event (full agenda is available here), is titled:

Breaking Out of the Echo Chamber: Expanding the HR Social Media Community

In this session Laurie Ruettimann and Lance Haun will lead the discussion on ways to increase participation, awareness, acceptance (you get the idea) of these new methods of connection and collaboration in the 'old-school' HR community.  I am personally really looking forward to the session.

In that light, I wanted to share a little service that I have been using to try and get more 'non-blog readers' aware of what is going on here on my blog.  I am sure if you are a blogger, or at least a reader of blogs, you often talk to people at your organization or at events that say they never read blogs, or they can't be bothered to search, locate, subscribe to, and read even a few of the scores of excellent HR blogs that are written every day.

The service is called Tabbloid, a free utility from Hewlett-Packard that lets you register your favorite blog's RSS feed, set up schedule for how frequently you would like to receive updates, and then get a PDF file of your personal 'magazine' of blog posts and articles delivered to your email.  Think of it as an easy way to be able to get a document that can be read offline, can easily be printed in a 'print-friendly' format, and distributed to less social media inclined people in a method and manner that they are likely more comfortable with.

In fact, you can even use Tabbloid as an ad-hoc document creation and publishing mechanism for a given RSS feed (or group of feeds) content.  So if you are about to walk into a meeting or an interview, or get on a plane and need some additional 'offline' reading you can quickly produce a document with the last collection of posts from your favorite blogs.

For an example of what the created Tabbloid magazine looks like, here is the last week's worth of posts from this blog, wrapped up in a nice little 4-page document - Steve's Last 5 Posts.

For now the service is pretty basic, there is no way to modify or customize the 'magazine' title or place a custom header or footer on the document, but if you want an easy way to hand a doubting colleague or executive an nice, familiar looking document that contains a selection of content from your blog or from a collection of blogs that you recommend, then I think you should give Tabbloid a try.

You're Great. Now What?

Yesterday at the Fistful of Talent, the FOT crew announced their latest Talent Management blog power rankings.

And in a shock that has to rival Villanova beating Georgetown for the NCAA title in 1985, or the Jets surprising the Colts in Super Bowl III, my blog, this little HR Technology blog, came out at number one on the rankings.

I don't believe it either.  From unranked to number one. Calls for a recount are clearly warranted.

I am still waiting for Tim Sackett or Kris Dunn to announce the mistake and tell me that I have just been punked.

Seriously, many thanks to Kris, Jessica Lee and everyone at the Fistful of Talent for the recognition, I am truly appreciative and humbled.

It is great to get positive feedback, whether it is for the blog, the HR Happy Hour show, or for a sweet smoked brisket.  But to me the real key is how you respond, what you do next.

After the USA hockey team shocked the world in the 1980 Olympic games by defeating the mighty and seemingly invincible Russian team the truth is they had not really accomplished much of anything. They had to come back in the next game and defeat Finland in order to win the gold medal and secure their place in sports history.

Had they lost the final game to Finland, we would still remember them, but not quite the same way, not with reverence and not as the legendary team they became.

So here is the lesson:  if someone says you're great, whether it's your boss, your colleagues, or friends, accept their compliments (even if, as is the case with my FOT ranking, secretly thinking they are crazy), be humble, and then figure out how you are going to be better tomorrow.

Rankings, accolades, etc. are all temporary.  But consistent, deliberate good work endures.

For me, I will try to live up to the high praise from the FOT team, and keep doing good work here and on the show.

Thanks to FOT and to everyone that stops by the blog.

A Great Big Blog Bundle

I am an absolute slacker in keeping up the blogroll on this site.

But, I am constantly finding and adding blogs to my subscriptions in Google Reader.  So while the 'links' on this site may list 10 or so blogs, I probably subscribe to 100 HR and Recruiting related blogs in Reader.

Thankfully, Google Reader now has an easy way to package feeds into a 'bundle' that can be easily shared in Reader, as well as emailed, or embedded in a blog or website.

This is also a great way to get co-workers, friends, or students started on reading blogs by creating for them an easy way to subscribe to a large number of blogs all at once.

The process is incredibly easy. 

1. In Google Reader, simply click on the link in the left sidebar titled 'Browse for Stuff'

2. Over on the right side of the screen click the 'Create a Bundle' button

3. Add a Title and Description for the Bundle

4. Then drag and drop feeds from your subscription pane over into the Bundle box, you can select individual feeds, or entire folders

5. When finished check 'Add to my Shared Items' to share this bundle inside Google Reader, then click 'Save'

6. Once saved, you can now share the bundle outside of Reader via e-mail, embedding, sharing the link directly, or via an OPML file.

7. To embed the file in your own blog, click the 'Create a Bundle Clip' link, then grab the embed code to copy/paste to your blog or website

Here is a Blog Bundle I set up from the Guests and Callers of the HR Happy Hour Show - Episode 10:

Anyone can now click on the 'Subscribe' link in the clip to be taken to Google Reader to subscribe to the bundle.

I have also set up a 'Great Big HR Blog Bundle' of all the HR Blogs in my Reader that can be found by clicking the 'Blogroll' link on the top of this site.  Now any time I add a new feed to the bundle in Reader, this site will also be automatically updated.

Feed Bundles are a great little feature in Reader and I hope you found this little tutorial helpful.

News from the HR Blogosphere

Some great Human Resources Bloggers have recently moved their blogs, and some others have jumped into the HR blogosphere for the first time.

There were a few of these this week, so I thought it good to summarize them here:

Blogs that moved

Human RaceHorses - Michael VanDervort's blog is now at www.thehumanracehorses.com, and in addition to a new web address, has a great new look.  Michael does a great job with the HR and Social Media space, and his blog is a must read.

PsuedoHR - April Dowling's blog has a new look and a new home, at www.pseudohr.com and I love her tag line 'Because HR can fake it too'. April also was a great sport and hosted a post from one of my students, Downsizing Blues.

New HR Blogs that you have to put in your Reader:

Do the Work - the new blog from Franny Oxford has a great premise, '50 Memos to the Universe'.  Franny is off to a great start, and I bet the Universe will want more than the promised 50 memos before it is all over.

HRWhisperer - The HR Whisperer is Heather Vogel, and her new blog can be found at www.hrwhisperer.com. Heather will be sharing her perspectives on the world of work and people with the vision of an experienced Organizational Development consultant.

And one more thing...

The fantastic Lisa Rosendahl is thinking of re-naming the HR Thoughts blog, pay her a visit and share some of your HR Thoughts with her. Also, it was her Birthday yesterday, so please give her a shout-out if you haven't already.

Oh, and one more thing - Shauna and I have been working on a new home for the HR Happy Hour Show, once it is ready, I will be sure to post that information here.

Did I miss any new additions or changes? If I did, let me know in the comments.

Good luck to everyone with the new homes and blogs!

I'm an HR Rock Star? Really?

Well, the Creative Chaos Consultant seems to think so. Flickr - themechanism

Head over the the CCC blog to see my interview on HR Technology, teaching HR, The HR Happy Hour Show, with a bit of barbecue mixed in.

Thanks, CCC for the interview and for putting me the the 'Rock Star' category.

Hmm, maybe I need to don the costume and makeup like Gene here from now on....