Nothing But Net - Talking NBA on the HR Happy Hour Tonight

This week is really the wind down of 2011 as many of us get ready to celebrate holidays, take some time off from the grind, and generally decompress a little bit before the New Year is upon us and things get cranked up all the way to 11 again. One of the fixtures of the holiday season, certainly here in the USA, are sports - specifically the slate of Christmas Day NBA games that typically feature the Association's leading teams and stars in a nationally televised showcase.

This year, the schedule of Christmas games takes on heightened meaning, as the long protracted labor strife between the league's players and owners was only recently settled, and subsequently delayed the start of the 2011-2012 campaign long enough to make the holiday games the actual start of the new season. 

So since the world of work is winding down, and the world of basketball is just heating up, for the last HR Happy Hour Show of 2011, we are going to do a full-on, nothing at all to do with work, or talent management, or recruiting, NBA preview show. Just the NBA - the labor issues, the short training camps, the player moves, the predictions - everything you need to know to get ready for the new season.

Joining me on the show will be some or all of the crew from 'The 8 Man Rotation' - Kris Dunn, Tim Sackett, Matt Stollak, and Lance Haun, to talk LeBron, Kobe, Dirk, Durant, and more.

You know you love the NBA and what better way to wind down from the workplace and gear up for the holidays and the start of the season by listening to your pals talk NBA on the HR Happy Hour Show tonight.

Here's how you can listen in tonight, starting at 8:00PM ET:

On the show page here. By calling the listener line at 646-378-1086, or on the widget player below:

Listen to internet radio with Steve Boese on Blog Talk Radio

Also, you can follow the backchannel conversation on Twitter - just follow the hashtag #HRHappyHour.

Go Knicks!

Consumerization, Technology, and HR

Tonight on the HR Happy Hour Show, (a weekly live internet radio show and podcast that I have been hosting since 2009), the conversation is going to be about Consumerization - specifically how the demands on Human Resources and HR Technology professionals are changing, largely influenced by developments in the consumer and personal technology markets.

Thinking about consumer technology and trends naturally forces one to consider the larger world in which our organizations reside, and how things like globalization, changing demographics, and even political and social unrest all contribute to and impact the workplace. The employees that work for us also live in the real world as well, and as the lines between work and personal time continue to move, shift, and cross; thinking a little more deeply about these environmental forces and how they shape workplaces is not only fascinating, but critical.

And when thinking about 'Consumerization' in the workplace, some other questions come to mind:

Who hasn't felt at times that the tools and technologies that are available at work are in many ways less appealing and effective than what we use in our personal lives?

How many folks carry around multiple mobile devices, one for 'work' that tends to be more basic and utilitarian, (and controlled by IT); and an iPhone or Droid to for 'fun' only to conclude the 'fun' device and its collection of carefully and personally selected applications create an incredibly powerful mobile computing powerhouse.

Finally, what consumer trends can be safely ignored, (for now), by HR professionals, and which ones should you make sure you don't miss?

Our guest on the Happy Hour tonight to talk about these ideas will be Yvette Cameron from Constellation Research. Yvette brings a wealth of experience and perspective as a business, technology, and Human Resources leader and will be sure to inform, challenge, and hopefully inspire.

The show will be live tonight, December 8, 2011 from 8PM - 9PM ET. You can listen live on the show page here - or using the widget player below:

Listen to internet radio with Steve Boese on Blog Talk Radio

Also, if you'd like to participate more actively with the show, you are invited to call in live on 646-378-1086, and follow the backchannel conversation on Twitter - just track the hastag #HRHappyHour.

It will be a fun and interesting conversation and I hope you will join us!

Occupy HR - Tonight on the HR Happy Hour

There are probably few things more tired and lame than bandwagoning on a popular internet meme or pop culture phenomenon and twisting it for your own designs. So with that, I apologize in advance for the easy and hack use of the 'Occupy' protests for the title of this post, and for the theme of tonight's HR Happy Hour Show, also titled - 'Occupy HR'.

It doesn't take a cable news pundit to realize that most of the impetus and energy around the growing 'occupy' movement is drawn from economics - at least the perception of some people that economic opportunity is no longer fairly or even reasonably distributed or available. No doubt that is an arguable point, and I am sure you have heard of many stories of success, or even looked at your own background and career arc and thought, 'Heck, no one gave me anything, I worked my way through college working two jobs, anyone can get ahead if they just work hard, etc.' And you'd probably be right for thinking that way. But I have to believe the issues are more complex than that, and taking a look at some of the underlying issues seems to bear that out.

Last night I spent some time doing some background reading in preparation for the show and within twenty minutes I had found about a dozen pieces describing the confluence of sustained high levels of unemployment, mounting pressures from the rapid increase in the costs of higher education, (and the corresponding student load crisis it has spawned), a 'skills mismatch' causing millions of open jobs to go unfilled, significant gains in corporate profits as a percentage of GDP, reports about the trillions (that's with a 'T'), of cash that corporations are sitting on, and the growing percentage of people surviving at or near the poverty line.  It's enough to make one pretty angry I suppose, and the 'occupy' protests certainly have to be feeding off of that anger.

It's a subject worth discussing I think, and since so much of the protest seems to be about work and the workplace it makes sense for Human Resources professionals to have a chance to weigh in.

So tonight at 8:00PM ET, we will open up the lines on the HR Happy Hour Show for the HR and Recruiting community, (and really for everyone else too), to call in and talk about the issues surrounding 'occupy', and the implications for the workplace, workforce, and for the world of work our children will inherit, (or re-invent).

What can HR professionals actually do to make a difference?

Can we do better at getting people back to work?

Can we influence and change the way higher and vocational education programs prepare people for employment?

Does it make sense to see our organizations as more than self-interested entities and that have a role and responsibility to our larger communities? And if so, what does that even mean?

And whatever else you want to discuss.

So I hope you will consider listening in to the show tonight, and better still, calling in between 8:00 - 9:00PM ET on 646-378-1086 to share your views and ideas.

Listen to internet radio with Steve Boese on Blog Talk Radio

Aside - For the benefit of what I perceive to be a group of new blog readers, the HR Happy Hour Show is a weekly live internet radio show/podcast that I host where we discuss workplace issues, technologies, talent management and recruiting, industry trends, and sometime sports and movies.  You can learn more about the show here.

What is the Future of Work? Good Question...

Tonight on the HR Happy Hour Show, I will be joined by Human Resources Technology legend Naomi Bloom to talk about work, the future of work, and have an open and participatory conversation about how the massive changes in the nature and notion of work will affect us in our careers, and certainly our children and grandchildren in the coming years.

You can listen to the show live tonight at 8:00 PM ET on the show page here, or by calling in to the listener/guest line - 646-378-1086. 

There has been no shortage of attention and energy spent in the last few years by various experts, authors, corporate leaders, and lowly bloggers attempting to make sense of the massive changes in work and industry brought on by worldwide recession, the emergence of high-speed internet connectivity, the prevalence of super-powered smartphones, and rise of social networks. While there might not be consensus among the experts and pundits about what the true 'future of work' will look like; one thing seems certain - it won't look or feel like anything we have known before.

No, with technology and robotics capable of automating and improving even more higher value functions and processes, with the rise of what is for many industries and professions a truly global competition for capital and opportunity, and the continuing 're-thinking' of the modern organization; it seems a given that work, the nature of 'employment', and the skills and capabilities required to remain relevant and successful simply have to change to meet these new challenges.

But while it is easy to say that work is changing,and the old 'employer contract' is long dead, it is quite a bit more challenging to determine what strategies and actions should be pursued by workers today, and the ones to follow, to best prepare and brace themselves for these changing conditions.

Is it the pursuit of entrepreneurship?

The willingness to embrace a series of consecutive or even simultaneous short-term gigs?

Acceptance of the fact that where you are now in your career is not at all likely to be a good predictor of where you will end up?

Or realization that in today's do-more-with-less-always-connected-smartphone-enabled world that you had better be prepared to work ridiculous hours, be always available, and give up what passes for your pathetic social life in order to not just get ahead, but to fend off the robot that wants your job?

Or something else entirely?

Tonight on the HR Happy Hour Show we plan to have an open and honest discussion about work, and what work might look like in the future, and talk about some ideas around how best to prepare for and survive.

Sure, we don't profess to have all the answers, but maybe you do, and I hope you will listen in and even consider offering some of your insight and advice as well.

It should be a fun and lively show, and I hope you can join us tonight!

Lucky and Grateful: Notes from ERE Expo

Today is the final day of the ERE Expo recruiting conference in beautiful Hollywood, Florida (the picture to the right is the view from my room at about 6:15 this morning), and I will be spending another day hosting the HR Happy Hour Live Show on the conference's web stream.  If you are interested at all in the recruiting/workplace/talent management space, you should try and tune in to the web stream today to catch not only some of the conversations we will be having with industry leaders and experts (Eric Winegardner from Monster.com, Heather Flynn from Nike, Ryan Healy from Brazen Careerist, to name just a few); but to also see and learn from the ERE keynote and general sessions.View from the 30th floor

One session, at about 9:15 AM, will be presented by United States Navy Commander Brent Phillips, about the Navy's recruiting strategies and approaches to engaging its community using social media and networking, as well as other more traditional techniques. I was fortunate to get a chance to meet and talk with Commander Phillips yesterday as part of the HR Happy Hour Live stream yesterday, and I can assure you based on the engaging and interesting conversation and preview of his session today that we had on the Happy Hour, that you will not want to miss the Commander's presentation.

Aside - I almost asked the Commander if we were far enough away from Cuba for him to be wearing the 'dress whites', but I thought the better of it.  Seriously though, the Commander was a super guest and genuinely nice guy, so I be he would have let me slide.

When you talk to men and women like the Commander that have made the decision to serve their country, and who often and unfailingly place themselves at personal risk to safeguard and protect their country and their fellow citizens you realize (at least I did), that their service and commitment is too rare and incredible to take for granted. Whether it is military servicemen and women, local police, firefighters, and other emergency responders, heck, even the dedicated people that teach in our children's schools and drive the school buses; their collective concern and dedication to something bigger and more important to themselves is something we just can't recognize as much as we should.

With the upcoming 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks in just two days, we will see, hear, and think about these brave and noble men and women much more than we typically do. We will remember those that made the ultimate sacrifice on that day, and in the ensuing years, and we will honor those who continue to serve today.  I hope that we will continue to honor and support them long after this anniversary on Sunday has passed, and we have returned our focus to our own busy jobs, lives, and families.

I have had a fantastic couple of days here at the ERE Expo in Florida. The venue is wonderful. The people are welcoming, intelligent, and engaging. I've learned a lot.

I am really lucky to be able to be here. And I'm also grateful to everyone who works in service to our country and our communities that I'm able to stare out at the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean on an impossibly beautiful September morning.