Back on the Chain Gang

Tonight on the HR Happy Hour show, 8PM ET, we will be talking Work/Life Balance, keeping yourself sane when getting pulled in 100 different directions, and maybe even if the fundamental idea of work is truly changing (or should change).

Joining Shauna and I will be Leanne Chase from Career Life Connection and Chris Ferdinandi from Renegade HR.

Does it even make sense to be talking about work/life balance issues with millions of people out of work?  For many of the unemployed, 'life' sucks right about now, and any 'work' would do. So maybe it is foolish to even discuss the topic. 

But we will.

My son attends a program for about an hour or so each day after school to bridge the time from school dismissal until I or his Mom are through with our 'official' work days and can take him home. It is just an hour, he generally has a decent enough time there, so it really is not that much of a problem.  But from time to time I have had to stop by the child care center early in the morning, perhaps as early as 6 or 6:30 AM to drop off a check or a note, and almost without fail I will see parents carrying sleepy or even still sleeping small children into the center.

Parents that are usually well-dressed, driving nice cars, hauling really young kids to daycare in the cold and dark, almost certainly so they can get themselves to an office somewhere by a prescribed time.

Every time I see that it makes me very, very sad.

And that is the reason I wanted to do this show.

I understand work is work and when you have a job working for someone else, you don't get to make the rules.  Sometimes the rules stink.  They are archaic. And they have more to do with maintaining some kind of post-industrial status quo that serves primarily to make managers and owners lives easier.  If they know where everyone is and how long they are meant to be there that is one less variable to actually have to manage.

Talking about Work/Life issues on the show this week may not really solve anything, or make anyone's situation all that better.  But it will hopefully add just another small piece to the puzzle that maybe one day will result in no more business suit wearing parents dragging sleeping, freezing kids to daycare at 6:30 in the morning.

But until then, we're Back on the Chain Gang.

HR Happy Hour - Live from Chicago

Day 2 of the HR Technology Conference was full of interesting sessions, meetings with vendors, and a fair bit of meeting and getting to know some old and new friends.

I have lots of ideas and comments about the state of HR Technology in general, and about some specific technologies in particular.  But before I start in on that, I want to talk about the HR Happy Hour show we broadcast live from Chicago.

Simply, this was the best HR Happy Hour show yet. Not only because of the fantastic insights from Mark Stelzner, Jason Seiden, Laurie Ruettimann, and Lance Haun, but because of the fantastic and inspiring presence of the many friends and gifted HR and HR Technology professionals that wanted to participate and be a part of the show.

We thought we were going to be putting on a little show with a three or four of us in a small hotel room and we ended up having to scramble to find a big enough conference room to hold everyone.  Many, many thanks to Jason Seiden for organizing the location and keeping cool the entire time.

The show covered a wide range of topics, from making HR more strategic, to the adoption (or lack thereof) of technology in HR, and even a bit about generational differences in the workplace.

But more important than any specific topic that was discussed was the vibe, the feeling of connection and sharing the absolutely surrounded the room and the show.  It was really remarakable to have such a diverse, talented, and passionate group of professionals in one room, taking time out of the conference festivities to participate in the show.

For that I am truly thankful, and very much humbled.

Take a listen to the show, and I hope you feel the energy and excitement that was in the room.

O Canada

This week has been crazy, first getting accosted in a mall parking lot on the way to RecruitFest, and then the fantastic RecruitFest event itself (and an even better party afterword), and followed on Thursday a chance to meet the team at Rypple and Halogen.

If you don't know about Rypple, you really should take some time and check out their service.

Designed to enable individuals to solicit anonymous feedback from trusted advisors, colleagues, friends, customers, or students, it is a fantastically simple, yet powerful solution.  Users craft a simple and concise question, and get feedback that they can use to improve their performance.  The feedback is stored by Rypple, so users can track their performance over time.

Rypple was selected to present as the Cool New Technologies session at next week's HR Technology Conference, and I recommend you check out what is happening at Rypple, the team is constantly improving and innovating and some really interesting new features are in the works.

I left the team at Rypple to head to Ottawa, home of Halogen Software, a provider of strategic talent management solutions and a long time supporter of my HR Technology class.  Halogen continues to innovate in the talent management space, with the recent release of next generation Talent Profiles and and a new Activity Tracker, that collects all activity related to performance and development and presents the information in a consolidated feed.

And most fun of all, today Friday September 26 at 6PM EDT the folks from Halogen will be my guests on the HR Happy Hour show - 'Talent and Technology'.  We will be talking about the role technology can play in helping organizations manage, assess, and optimize talent to help the organization meet its strategic objectives.  Since we are in Canada, I imagine we will also talk a little hockey and perhaps enjoy a few Tim Horton's donuts.

Thanks again to Connie, Maggie, Brent, Donna, Sean and the entire Halogen team for welcoming me to Halogen and letting me broadcast the show from Halogen HQ.

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.

HR Happy Hour - The Job Seeker's Show

I have been trying to keep all the HR Happy Hour show content over on the new HR Happy Hour site - www.hrhappyhour.net, but since this week's show is pretty important to me, I thought I would post about the show on both sites.

Episode 10 - The Job Seeker's Show - September 18, 2009 8PM EDT

The show is back to our 'regular' time slot this Friday night, September 18, 2009 at 8PM EDT.

Episode 10 - The Job Seeker's Show

Shauna Moerke, the HR Minion, and I will welcome a fantastic panel of guests from the Recruiting and HR world to share insights, give advice, and highlight available resources for the job seeker. We will talk about strategy, use of social media, resumes, and anything else on your mind.

The call in number is 646-378-1086 and Press '1' on your phone to come on the show.

Scheduled to appear this week:

Jennifer McClure - Twitter -CincyRecruiter, and blog Cincy Recruiter's World

Paul DeBettignies - Twitter - MNHeadhunter - and blog MNHeadhunter

Robin Eads - Twitter - imjustagoyle - and blog imjustagoyle

April Dowling - Twitter - adowling - and blog PseudoHR

Deirdre Honner - Twitter - thehrmaven - and blog HR Maven (does everyone on this show have a superhero alias?)

I hope you can tune in and pass along the show information to anyone you know on the job market that could use some great advice.