Overexposure - no, not a Weinergate post

We are reminded once again from our pal Anthony Weiner about the dangers of overexposure.  One person's 'refreshing level of interaction and community building' is another person's, 'Creepy stalking of a potential lunatic.' 

But things are piling up over here at HR Happy Hour HQ, and I wanted to post links to a few events coming up here, (if nothing else, so I could refer to it, and know what I am supposed to be doing).

Today, Thursday June 9th at 1:00PM ET, I will be presenting a free webcast for the Human Capital Institute, underwritten by recruiting technology solutions provider SelectMinds.  You can still register for the webcast here, and I will upload the slides to Slideshare (and embed them here), once the presentation is complete.

Update - as promised, the slides from the HCI Webcast are up on Slideshare here, and also embedded below:

Social Referrals and Technology

View more presentations from steveboese

Tonight, Thursday June 9th at 8:00PM ET, the HR Happy Hour Show (sponsored by Aquire), is back live, with a show called 'You Still Can't Fire Everyone'. My guest will be Fortune Magazine Editor and author Hank Gilman who will talk about his recent book, You Can't Fire Everyone: And Other Lessons from an Accidental Manager. You can listen live tonight on the show page here, or by calling in to the listener line at 646-378-1086.Cool graphic!

Next week, Thursday June 16th at 12 Noon ET, I will join Kris Dunn and Mark Stelzner for a free webcast/conversation called 'Authority on Talent', for the folks at Plateau Systems. KD, Mark and I will talk about HR’s role as the Authority on Talent in the organization, focusing on the following questions: 

• What do HR leaders need to establish this authority?
• What’s different now from previous “seat at the table” moments for HR?
• What role does technology play?

It promises to be a lively and interesting conversation, and I hope you can check it out and join the fun.

Finally, today I am up on Fistful of Talent, having a good-natured debate with KD, on whether or not companies should automatically pay severance packages to so-called 'bad hires'.

And then looking ahead to the rest of June, we have upcoming HR Happy Hour shows on social recruiting, the influence of gaming and social competition on employee wellness programs, and a trip up to see our friends at Rypple as we take the show out on the road. And the second installment of the new 'HR Happy Hour - Europe' series will get organized this month as well.

Busy times and unlike our pal Congressmen Weiner, I promise to keep all communications on the straight and narrow.

Webcast - Thursday June 9th - The Social Referral

Tomorrow at 1:00PM EDT I will be presenting a webcast for the Human Capital Institute and made possible by support from the recruiting technology solutions provider SelectMinds titled - 'Referrals Powered by Social Media'. The basic premise of the presentation is that while source and quality of hire studies consistently demonstrate that referrals, (employee, alumni, even customer), are a high quality and important component of an integrated sourcing and recruiting strategy, than many organizations fail to adequately capitalize on their stakeholders' existing networks to further and enhance their referral programs.

Advances in technology, coupled with the rise of the extended networks of staff and other interested parties as a valuable and highly leverageable asset for recruiting, have given rise to a new set of tools, processes, and approaches to referral programs, and the most forward thinking organizations will sense these trends, and take steps to capitalize on them to enhance their sourcing efforts, power and challenge their employees to participate in critical recruiting activities, and augment and develop the unique employer brand and value proposition in the market.

I plan on talking about the importance of a healthy referral program as a key component of a robust recruiting strategy, some of the barriers to implementation and performance, (and ways to address them), and the increasingly important role new technology solutions play to help make these so-called social referral programs scale, perform, and impact the organization.

One of the points I will try to make is that technology-enabled social referral programs really share most of the same challenges as old-fashioned, paper or email-based, programs of the past. Communication, motivation, ease of use, responsiveness, and connection to the organizaton's important objectives are just as important today as they always have been. The new technology certainly makes the processes and the mechanics easier to administer, and the best new technology can even lead to better referrals, but if the fundamentals are not in place, then the program will prove ultimately disappointing.

You can register for the free HCI webcast here, and again the presentation is scheduled for Thursday June 9, 2011 at 1:00PM ET. 

I hope you will join me tomorrow!

The Big Picture Thinker, or Making Candidates Tap Dance

When trying to find the best candidate for the job, how many interviews are too much?

When do your standard questions become a little insulting or the screening surveys you have carefully crafted go too far, and in the process turn away candidates with the background and qualifications you are seeking, but feel taken aback by having to prove themselves during your application process?

I started to think about this while reading a recent post on The Daily WTF blog, a site normally centered around tales of dodgy computer programming, clueless end users, and mostly amusing but not really cruel hijinks and frivolity for the geeky set. Every so often The Daily WTF shares a job interview story, and while normally kind of fun, the 'Big Picture Thinker' yarn is one of the best I have seen.

So the story goes something like this:

After an in-person technical interview for an unnamed development, (or possibly managerial position), the company sends a standard, (but simple), technical aptitude test to the candidate. The test is meant to help gauge written communication skills. But in this case, not only did the hiring manager forget to attach the test to his email, he surprisingly found himself dealing with a candidate that clearly did not feel it necessary to 'prove' himself by taking the test. Take a look at the candidate's response:

----------------------------------------------------------

From: Thomas B-------
Sent: Friday, April 08, 2011 10:37 AM
To: James S------
Subject: RE: Written Test


When a big picture thinker with nearly 20 years of experience in 
IT sends you a resume and cover letter like mine and says that he 
can help you win a client that is pulling in 1.3 Billion per year, 
here's what you don't do:  

  1. Set up an interview with a couple of in-the-box thinking 
     Microsoft drones with questions on minutia.  

  2. Hand him a test to see what his "style", attention to 
     detail, and problem solving approach is.  
     
Here's my style: I am certain that I can run circles around your 
best developers with my own, original, incredibly efficient model; 
but more importantly, I am a director that can help them run 
circles around their own current misguided misconceptions.  But I 
am thankful for this lesson, as I have learned that I need to add 
a cover to my cover letter that reads:  If you are an in-the-box 
thinking Microsoft house, and you find yourself regurgitating 
terms like OOP, MVC, TDD, BDD, Cucumber, etc..., without really 
understanding what it all means and how much it is actually 
costing your company to have bought into that industry pushed 
bullshit, then DO NOT contact me.  I'd save you too much money, 
and you obviously do not want that.

So the question now is:  Did I pass the test?

The answer is: Fuck yes I did.

Thomas B-------

PS. You forgot to attach the quiz.  

Do this: Print out a copy of it, ball it up, and throw it at 
your own forehead, because that's what I would do if I were 
there.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Classic, and kind of instructive. Sure, Thomas B. the candidate in question is quite likely a pompous jerk, and doesn't seem like the type of employee that would be a great addition to the team. But it is also likely that he probably did possess the basic technical qualifications for the job, and that his experience and resume details would have borne that out. 

I get the need for organizations to be careful, thorough, and sure, (or as sure as you can be), before pulling the trigger on a new hire. The stakes are high, the pressure to find top talent is palpable, and the costs of making a bad hire are high. But at the same time making candidates unnecessarily jump through hoops, answer incredibly basic questions, and otherwise put them into a kind of disrespected and subservient position is not really warranted either.

So the next time you are about to administer that 'test', think about whether or not you too should 'print out a copy, ball it up, and throw it at your own forehead.'

Can Games Make You Healthy?

Last week marked the official launch of Keas, the latest entrant in the growing market for technology-enabled platforms to support employee wellness/fitness. Keas attempts to drive and encourage better habits, increased levels of exercise, and more adherence to the healthy behaviors we all know we should be exhibiting, but for some reason are not. Keas - Goal Setting Page

Actually, I think we know the reasons - exercising and eating right kind of stink, and given the choice, too many of us are quite happy to have another donut or sleep in on Saturday instead of biking 12 miles to the Whole Foods to have some kind of a green energy drink concoction.

So Keas, like similar solution offerings like Redbrick and Virgin HealthMiles, has turned the 'Eat Less and Exercise' spiel, (that as we said we ALL know, and mostly ignore), into a social game. Once an employer has signed on with Keas, employees can form fitness and wellness challenge teams, set their individual and team goals for things like walking, yoga, eating vegetables, and taking health quizzes, (and lots more), track their progress and results using the Keas portal or their smartphone, and finally and at the discretion of the employer, receive cash and other rewards for participating and/or winning team challenges.

Keas in particular, emphasizes the social and gaming aspects of what are all essentially behavior tracking services, in order to advance in the game, or 'level up' to use the gamer term, the entire employee team (usually 5 or 6 people), must achieve their goals together. This 'we are all in this together' factor produces some interesting dynamics - employees are more motivated to meet their goals for fear of letting the rest of the team down, and everyone is more encouraged and supportive in a social sense to try and 'win' the game.

And while cash and other rewards can be a part of an organization's social wellness program, these rewards might not really be the ultimate driver of participation. According to a recent article about Keas and some of the other similar services in the Wall Street Journal, one executive observed that participants were more motivated by the social aspect than the cash, stating "In the beginning, I thought it was going to be about the prizes,” but, “People like being on teams, people like to be social. We had people going for walks together, we had people sharing recipes.”

The basic premise seems to be that turning activities that the nation's growing obesity rates, levels of chronic but often preventable disease, and spiraling corporate health care costs tell us we simply are not doing enough of on our own, into a social, interactive, and competitive game, will somehow engage a mostly disinterested, (and really busy), workforce into changing our behaviors not only for our own good, but for our wellness teams and our organizations.  Maybe it will.  The execs from Keas are claiming high and sustained levels of engagement from beta users of the platform, and Keas and other companies in the space have attracted some significant venture capital to build out and market their gaming/social/get off your butt and take a walk solutions.

I think it is an interesting and an area of workplace technology to keep and eye on, although I do worry a little about potential 'real' work ramifications or implications for someone perceived as letting down their wellness teammates in some kind of vegetable eating contest. 

What do you think - can these kind of games drive real and meaningful behavior change?

In the Jungle or on Twitter - Dunbar Still Has You Beat

You might be familiar with Dunbar's number - the theoretical limit on the number of meaningful and stable social relationships that one can successfully maintain. First proposed by the British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, it asserts that the actual number of social relationships one can maintain ranges from 100 to about 230, with 150 as the commonly accepted value.Should I 'unfriend' Steve?

Dunbar's original studies that led to the development of the concept of the 'number', were conducted on studies of the social activity of non-human primates, that as far as we can tell, did not have many Facebook friends or Twitter followers. Why do I toss in the social networking bit? Well, in this modern age of social networking, hyper-connectivity, and the ability to make some kind of connection, (meaningful or otherwise), with thousands upon thousands of people is now quite possible and fairly simple.

Naturally the technological and social revolutions have led many to question or even claim that modern social networking technology can indeed finally enable individuals to effectively expand the actual number of social relationships they can successfully maintain, that in the age of Facebook and Twitter and the ease with which these tools allow essentially limitless connections to be made, that Dunbar's number might no longer apply.

Recently Bruno Goncalves and a team of researchers from Indiana University set out to determine if indeed this was the case. They studies the actions and interactions and the networks of connections of over 3 million Twitter users over a period of 4 years, examining a grand total of over 380 million tweets. The researchers wanted to see if indeed among these 3 million users, they could discern patterns and evidence, (replies, conversations, sustained connections, etc.), that could prove that the long-accepted Dunbar limitation of 150 would indeed be more easily overcame, aided by the ease and speed and facilitated connection engine that is Twitter.

Their findings? (below quote lifted directly from their paper's conclusion)

Social networks have changed they way we use to communicate. It is now easy to be connected with a huge number of other individuals. In this paper we show that social networks did not change human social capabilities. We analyze a large dataset of Twitter conversations collected across six months involving millions of individuals to test the theoretical cognitive limit on the number of stable social relationships known as Dunbar's number. We found that even in the online world cognitive and biological constraints holds as predicted by Dunbar's theory limiting users social activities.

I follow about 6,000 people on Twitter. I probably interact regularly with maybe 100 or 150 of them. Which is altogether normal and expected and not at all unexpected according to our friend Dunbar, the primates he studied, and the results seen from the recent research from Indiana University.

The larger point in all this?

I suppose keeping in mind that no matter how large and diverse and important seeming these giant networks of contacts, connections, followers, and friends we build online are to us, to our businesses and our personal lives, the technology itself has yet to do much to overcome some of the apparent laws of nature and biology.

What do you think? Can you really have more than 150 'friends'?

Have a Great Weekend!