Bikini Girl Followers

I love Twitter as much as the next guy, but there are a few nagging annoyances that you simply have to learn to put up with sometimes - auto-dms, rambling two-way conversations between people you are following that you wish they would take out of the 'main stream', and my new personal favorite, the bikini girl follower.

What is the bikini girl follower you ask?

This is the follower that has an innocuous sounding name, my last one was 'Joan', but with a Twitter handle something like 'ExGYtg'.  If you click through to the profile, you find the classic bikini girl profile image, and exactly one update, a link to learn how 'Joan' won a free laptop.

Awesome right?  Good looking bikini girls, with free laptops on offer what could be better?

Now I would really, really like to believe there are truly attractive young biking girls who want to help me get a free laptop.  So, I will give them a chance here.

Bikini girls - instead of following me on Twitter, use the contact form on the blog to send me an e-mail and let me know where I can pick up that laptop, okay?

And for the rest of you reading this, you can follow me on Twitter - click here, even if you are not a bikini girl!

I'm not in today, but my Twitter followers can help you

As the popularity of Twitter grows by leaps and bounds, and as folks increasingly turn to their Twitter networks for information, perspective, advice, and great ideas, I wonder if there will come a time when the standard 'Out of the Office' message - 'Hi, I'm not in, leave a message and I'll get back to you on Thursday', will be replaced by 'I'm not in today, but my Twitter followers can help you, just send me a Tweet with your question'.

Think about it, many folks who have spent the time networking and connecting on Twitter have developed robust, rich networks of hundreds if not thousands of 'followers', many of whom are more than willing to offer assistance, resources, and expert information on almost any question you are likely to throw at them.

A few nights ago I was preparing material for my HR Tech class on the use of Web 2.0 and related technologies in recruiting, and I tweeted a question to my network about what technologies aside from LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter were important to mention. Within five minutes I received a wide range of responses from five or six professional, successful recruiters.  The responses were insightful, helpful, innovative, and I incorporated some of the suggestions in class the next night.  My 'work product' was directly influenced and improved by the use of my network.

So, what's the big deal you ask? Hasn't leveraging your professional network always been a hallmark of successful employees?  In the past the most valuable employees often boasted the largest rolodex.Flickr - rutibegga

All true, but today's social sites like Twitter and Facebook enable more 'super-charged' networking, that is more accessible to every employee.  But unlike the old-timer's rolodexes, these networks are sometimes viewed as 'time-wasters', 'distractions', and even banned or blocked by some short-sighted organizations.

Would any organization force a new employee to erase all the numbers in their contact list? Then why would they try and block Twitter?

Follow me on Twitter - I promise I won't block you!

Your first 100 HR Twitter follows

Twitter.

In late December I posted 'An Introduction to Twitter for the HR Student', which was meant to be a guide and starting point for my HR Grad Students, as well as HR professionals who were interested in diving in the world of Twitter.  That post can be found here - and remains by far the most viewed post on this blog.

About a month has passed since that post, and I have since found and been found by many, many more talented, informative, interesting, funny, and fantastic HR Tweeps, so I thought I would try to expand the 'Introductory' HR Twitter list, and see if I (we) could come up with the definitive (for today) list of the 100 first follows for the HR student or professional.  So without further ado, lets see how far we can get.

 Me

1. SteveBoese - Me, since I am spending my 'free' time working on this, I get to be number 1.  Seriously, I am an HR Technology Instructor and advisor and I hope if you found your way here, you will give me a follow.

The Bloggers

2. Lisa Rosendahl - from the HR Thoughts blog

3. The HR Maven - from the HR Maven blog

4. lruettimann - from Punk Rock HR

5. sharlyn_lauby - from HR Bartender

6. hrwench - from the Hr Wench blog

7. Hr_Minion - from the HR Minion blog

8. williamtincup - from the Human Capital Vendor space blog

9. kris_dunn - from the HR Capitalist blog

10. pdxmikek - from the Info Box blog

11. mvndrvrt - from the Human Racehorses blog

12. penelopetrunk - from Brazen Careerist

13. thelance - from Your Hr Guy

14. ChrisFerdinandi - from Manager's Sandbox

15. marenhogan from marenated.com

The Recruiters - note a more complete list of recruiters to follow is here, from The Recruiter's Lounge

16. toddkmiec

17. Barry_at_Impact - Executive Recruiter

18. SJDelaney

19.CincyRecruiter - Executive Recruiter

20. blogging4jobs

21. JenWojcik

22. HireCentrix

23. TheRecruiterGuy

24. animal

25. jjbuss

26. heathergardner

27. havrilla

28. ejobfairs

29. SourcerKelly

30. StevenGilbert

31. jerry_albright

32. jimstroud

The Pros

33. HollyMVG - HR Director and Novelist, if you follow her now, maybe you can get a signed copy of her novel when it comes out, (maybe)

34. SHip - Executive Recruiting Consultant

35. clachnit - Exec Editor at Workforce Management

36. amylewis - from the Human Capital Institute

37. Kelly Mitton - recent HR Graduate and a great person to follow

38. johnhollon - Editor of Workforce Management

39. thealphafemme - HR Director

40. jessica_lee - Employment manager and blogger at Fistful of Talent

The Consultants

41. stelzner - from Inflexion Advisors and from what I hear, a friend of Obama, and the head 'Angel'

42. vastrat - a really deep thinker and interesting follow

43. gautamghosh - Consultant and blogger

44. hrwhisperer -  OD Consultant

45. rickdeare - talent acquisition consultant

46. rhhr - President RHHR Associates

47. jasonaverbook - Jason Averbook, CEO of Knowledge Infusion

48. jcorsello - Jason Corsello, also from Knowledge Infusion and the Human Capitalist Blog

49. joningham - Jon Ingham of the Strategic HCM blog

50. seiden - from JasonSeiden.com

51. bncarvin - CEO of Nobscot Co. and once you find out her home base, you will want to take a meeting

52. mspecht - Michael Specht, leading HR consultant and blogger from Australia

The Vendors

53. ICIMS - Recruiting solutions

54. OrangeHRM - open source HR systems

55. VisualCV - service that lets candidates create rich, multi-media CV's

56. Success Factors- Performance Management solutions

57. Salary.com- Compensation data and planning, recently expanding into Talent Management

58. Smart Recruiters- Recruiting solutions for small and medium size businesses

59. Human Capital Institute- great source of information and knowledge

60. Workscape- suite of Talent Management solutions

61. Sum Total Systems- learning management solutions

62. Standout Jobs- Really cool and innovative approach to recruiting solutions

63. ross- Ross Mayfield, Chairman and co-founder of Socialtext

64. dpriemer - from Rypple a cool service for getting performance feedback

Resources

65. DailyCareerTips - helpful tips and links to manage your career

66. CompetencyMGMT- helping organizations make better workplace decisions

67. GoCollaboration- feeds blog posts on workplace collaboration

68. kwg4now - COO at HR Marketer.com

69. Leadership News- all about leadership

70. jobangels - a resource for job seekers and folks trying to help them

71. thehiringsite - community for hiring professionals

Everyone Else - I am tired of 're-numbering' so here are the rest I came up with to get close to 100

72. employerbrander - Employer branding consultant

73. yammer_team - Yammer is the 'Twitter for the Enterprise' leader

74. StevenRothberg - founder of CollegeRecruiter.com

75. presentationzen - great resource on effective presentation design

76. MNHeadhunter- Minnesota based recruiter

77. pauljacobs4real - New Zealand based HR Recruitment strategist

78. jasonalba - from JibberJobber

79. michellerafter - reporter covering business, tech, and  HR

80. Bersin - Bersin & Associates Research and News

81. coffeebuzd - HR Pro from the bullseye company

82. GLHoffman - Author of Digyourjob

83. heatherhuhman - resource for Gen Y types

84. annbares - Compensation consultant and blogger

85. chris_bailey - workplace experience designer

86. TheResumator - ATS solutions for the small business market

87. Workscape - Talent Management Solutions

88. visualcv - Resource for jobseekers to create online, multi-media CV's

89. byosko - the man behind Standout Jobs

90. ERE_net - source for recruiting news and information

91. SlideRocket - site for creating and sharing presentations

92. slideshare - site for uploading and sharing your presentations, and for research

93. HRSearchPros - Executive search for HR Pros

94. MikeHaberman - Human Resources Consultant

95. cathymartin - HR Consultant

96. williamu - Talent Acquisition

97. venlatch - HR Student at RIT

98. lunatic09 - HR Student at RIT

99. bizofmanagement - John Hollon's Workforce Management blog

100. hrbartender - HR served up in a refreshing frosty mug

Summary

Well, I made it to 100.  If I forgot anyone I should have, I am really sorry, I spent a bunch of time on this, but eventually I just had to post the darn thing.  I hope some folks will add some suggestions in the comments that will boost the list to 200 (or more).

Please add any names of 'key' folks to follow to the comments, and happy Twittering!

Why Teachers should Twitter

There are dozens of good reasons for educators to get on Twitter, I am not going to try and re-hash them all again here, but rather tell a simple, quick story of the real power and strength of Twitter for classes and students.  One of the assignments in class is a presentation of a company or organization's application of technology to support or enhance a Human Resources process.

We had a series of excellent presentations on topics like employee self-service, onboarding, and corporate social networks.  We also had a great presentation on the use of technology for recruiting by the US Army.

The student, Jessica Wagner, did a fantastic job of discussing the challenges faced by the Army in meeting their recruiting targets, the makeup and psychology of the 'target' demographic for potential candidates, and the Army's application of innovative technology to bolster their recruiting efforts.

The next morning I sent out a Tweet with a comment and observation on the presentation, which led to the following exchange of Tweets between myself and Amy Lewis, Director of the Talent Acquisition Community on the Human Capital Institute.

 

After that last Tweet, Amy and I took the conversation to a few private Twitter direct messages and arranged a time to have a chat on the subject.  A couple of days and one really great discussion later, we arranged for my student and I to deliver an HCI webcast, 'Tell the Hiring Stroy with Technology' on May 14, 2009, which will be largely based on her original class presentation.

Needless to say, for a student (who is also a new HR Manager) to participate in delivering an HCI webcast presents a phenomenal opportunity, and I want to thank Amy for her interest and support.

The larger point though, is if you are a teacher part of your role should be to advocate and promote the work of your students beyond the four walls of your class, and even outside the boundaries of your school.   Twitter can be a fantastic avenue for that kind of recognition and promotion.  Jessica gave a great presentation in class last week, and now thanks in large part to Twitter, she will get the chance to share that presentation with a wide audience. 

Thanks Amy, thanks, HCI and thanks Twitter.

An Introduction to Twitter for the HR student

Twitter.

My class hears me talk about Twitter every week.  'You need to be on Twitter', 'Guess who I met today on Twitter', 'I learned about this new software vendor from Twitter'.

I am quite sure they have grasped some kind of notion that Twitter is relevant, interesting, maybe important, but they can't seem to grasp how it actually can be a valuable resource to the study and practice of HR. They also have likely concluded that I am a little obsessed with it.

So how to frame the discussion of Twitter in terms that students (90% of whom will have never heard of Twitter before class).

First things first - what the heck is Twitter anyway?

From Wikipedia -

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them.

OK, so you sign up for Twitter, post some status updates (140 characters or less), and decide which other Twitter user's updates you would like to see. Easy enough concept to grasp.  Everyone has sent text messages on their phones, (Twitter updates are more or less the same), and most students are on Facebook, so the idea of setting a 'status' that all your friends will see is also easily understood.

So what happens to most students when they sign up?

Well honestly, not a heck of a lot. They create an account, maybe post a quick update, possibly 'find' the person who convinced them to sign up and start following them, and then they wait for something interesting to start happening. And as you would expect, pretty much nothing interesting starts happening. The student fairly quickly loses interest, stops checking Twitter and posting updates, and concludes that the whole exercise was a waste of time.  Besides, everyone they are interested in connecting with are already their Facebook friends anyway.

So what should the student do?

Twitter, like every other social site, can be a really lonely place when you first arrive. You have no 'friends' no 'followers' and may not know exactly how to find anyone, much less the right people to 'follow'.  Unlike Facebook, the student's close and extended circle of friends and classmates are probably not on Twitter as yet, so making those initial connections can be a daunting proposition.

The key or essential component of deriving value from Twitter almost completely relies on finding the 'right' people to start following.  Once the student starts to make these connections, and then proceeds to extend them by following some of their first connection's followers, the value proposition starts to become more apparent. In fact most folks on Twitter will 'reverse-follow' you out of politeness even if they don't know you.

And in short order a student, (or anyone else for that matter), usually starts to contribute to the ongoing conversation, begins attracting followers or their own, and discovers even more interesting people to follow. Some say after about a month or 100 updates (Tweets), the student starts to 'get it'.  It becomes obvious the value of these conversations and connections, and many become firmly entrenched in the fabric of their Twitter community.

A Starting Point

So we have established the key to deriving value from Twitter is the forging of the initial set of connections to the 'right' people and organizations in your particular area of interest.  I am primarily concerned for my HR students and other HR practitioners.  Who should the HR student or practitioner consider 'following' once they join Twitter, (I know there are some other lists around on this topic, so I won't attempt to make an 'all-knowing' or 'all-encompassing' list, but rather a good starting point for the HR student).

The Instructor

Steve Boese - Me, if you are one of my students, you'd better follow me!

The Bloggers

Lisa Rosendahl - from the HR Manager blog

The HR Maven - from the HR Maven blog

lruettimann - from Punk Rock HR

sharlyn_lauby - from HR Bartender

hrwench - from the Hr Wench blog

Hr_Minion - from the HR Minion blog

jwilliamtincup - from the Human Capital Vendor space blog

kris_dunn - from the HR Capitalist blog

pdxmikek - from the Info Box blog

penelopetrunk - from Brazen Careerist

The Consultants

jasonaverbook - Jason Averbook, CEO of Knowledge Infusion

jcorsello - Jason Corsello, also from Knowledge Infusion and the Human Capitalist Blog

joningham - Jon Ingham of the Strategic HCM blog

The Vendors

Success Factors - Performance Management solutions

Salary.com - Compensation data and planning, recently expansding into Talent Management

Smart Recruiters - Recruiting solutions for small and medium size businesses

Human Capital Institute - great source of information and knowledge

Workscape - suite of Talent Management solutions

Sum Total Systems - learning management solutions

Standout Jobs - Really cool and innovative approach to recruiting solutions

Twitter Rockstars - these Twitterers have huge followings and post constantly

jowyang - Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester Research

chrisbrogan - Chris Brogan, Social Media Marketing thought leader

ross- Ross Mayfield, Chairman and co-founder of Socialtext

barackobama - I am pretty sure you know who he is

ev - Evan Williams, CEO of Twitter

For fun

SantaClaus25 - keep up with the big man's preparation for the big day

FakeMagnumPI - happenings with Magnum, Higgins and TC

Steven Colbert - from Comedy Central

NASA - goings on in space

Summary

The above list of Twitterers is not meant to be exhaustive, complete, or even exactly what the HR student is looking for.  But it is a start.  Sign up for Twitter and start following some of the folks on this list and see what you think.  Give it a chance.  It's said that it takes a while to determine how you can best leverage Twitter for your own purposes.  I can say unequivocally that Twitter helps me every single day, and sometimes, I hope I actually help some of my Twitter friends.

Please add any names of 'key' folks to follow to the comments, and happy Twittering!