The more you Tweet, the more I'll know you're about to quit

Check out the findings from a very cool study out of the University of Rochester, (hey, that's where I live), designed to assess whether or not researchers could accurately predict whether or not a given individual in New York City would come down with the flu based on analyses of geo-location tagged tweets.Adam Sadilek, University of Rochester

Essentially, the answer was yes, that when applying a sophisticated machine-learning algorithm to over 4 million tweets, from over 600,000 users over a one-month period, the researchers were able to predict when healthy people were about to fall ill - and then tweet about it - with about 90 per cent accuracy out to eight days in the future.

From the New Scientist piece summarizing the study findings: 

If you've been walking around a public place lately, you've come in contact with a lot of people. Some of those people may have been sick. And if you've been hanging around enough of them as they cough and sneeze, then you might be about to get sick too.

That may sound obvious, but Adam Sadilek at the University of Rochester in New York and colleagues have applied the idea to a pile of Twitter data from people in New York City, and found that they can predict when an individual person will come down with the flu up to eight days before they show symptoms.

Makes perfect sense right?

If you happen to go to enough places where other sick people have been, the chances increase that you'll get sick as well. And in the social media age, with our insatiable appetite to share the mundane and pedestrian developments in our lives with the entire universe, 'OMG, I feel so terrible today. I just want to crawl back under the covers' as you check-in on Foursquare, smart machines can mine that data, compare it to actions of the next batch of (for the moment), healthy people, and offer really informed predictions about the likelihood of who will fall ill next. Thanks for speading your disgusting germs all over town by the way.

Taking the premise and approach from the UofR (that is a well-known shortener for the University of Rochester up here), to additional and logical ends, then it certainly seems possible, and probable, that soon we'll have smart machines that will be able to examine the social network signals to predict all kinds of likely actions and behaviors.

It used to be a dead giveaway in offices when a colleague had a job interview somewhere else - he or she would suddenly show up to work dressed impeccably - new suit, new shoes, hair just right, etc. That signal, (while still solid), morphed to the digital age in the form of the LinkedIn profile update. Hmm. Why did Joe just update his profile and add a picture after all these years? What's he up to?

But the showing up in a new suit at work, or even the LinkedIn update are behaviors four, five, or six steps removed from whatever initial signals someone might take who is thinking of a career move. That new suit had to come from somewhere? Did Joe check in at the local Jos. A Bank in the last two weeks?

That LinkedIn profile update? Was that preceded by joining a few new groups, or connecting to a few new people? Did some Facebook pictures from the last company picnic, taken after perhaps a few too many PBRs were consumed, suddenly disappear?

Truth is, whether used for predicting who next will get the flu, or who might be giving their 2 weeks notice on Monday - increasingly the clues are out there - in a string of Tweets, check-ins, status updates, and the like. 

As we continue to live our lives online, and on display, the signals we send as to what we really have in mind, and our devious little plans will become more and more discoverable.

Eventually, we'll know even more about each other. Not just what we have been doing, but what we are about to do next.

Happy Monday everyone!

VIDEO: Rebranding Diversity

We love, love the employee referral as a source of finding that next great hire.

We've heard the reasons a million times why referrals are such a great source of new talent.  Namely that existing employees are the ones that truly understand the culture and the work, so they are able to know who in their networks would be a fit. The people they are referring in to the company are usually friends or close business acquaintances, and the employee will want them to succeed and as such, will make more careful referral decisions. Finally, the referrals themselves and how they perform if hired, are a reflection on the judgement of the referring employee, again underscoring the motivation of the employee to make good referrals.

All solid, probably valid reasons. The sometimes considered downside of relying too heavily on the employee referral source? That the organization continues to bring in people too similar to the people it already has in place. That a kind of circular process of hiring people from the same backgrounds, locations, or general sets of experiences takes hold, since, it is often thought, existing employees tend to refer in people that are kind of like themselves. They think, logically I suppose, 'I'm doing pretty well here, and Joe Boggs is just like me, so I be he'll succeed here too.'

While that kind of potential detrimental effect of too-heavy a reliance on referral programs is commonly explained or rationalized away by statements like, 'Our employee population is very diverse, as long as we are sourcing referrals from a large cross-section of staff, we will not have a problem at all', still it seems like the kind of potential negative effect that can end up causing real, long-term problems for firms, and even entire industries.

But don't take my word for it, spend some time this weekend watching the video below, (email and RSS subscribes click through), titled 'Rebranding Diversity: Colorblind Racism Inside the U.S. Advertising Industry', a presentation overview of the doctoral dissertation of Christopher Boulton. 

Doctoral Defense from Christopher Boulton on Vimeo.

In the video, Boulton examined the perceived and observed lack of diversity at the executive levels of the U.S. Ad industry, offers some recommendations for the industry to begin to make the kinds of changes needed to address this problem. Chief among Boulton's recommendations is to significantly reduce the importance and use of various employee referral schemes that have, over time, continued to foster a climate that lacks diversity, particularly in the managerial and executive ranks.

Certainly the use of employee referral schemes was not the sole reason for Boulton's overall findings, but these programs, and how they were administered were definitely a contributing factors. The study presents a good reminder that even the best-intentioned plans can sometimes have negative consequences, and that we need to regularly validate our gut feelings with some solid data.

Have a Great Weekend!

It's still a mad, mad, mad, world

Fresh off yesterday's take showing how one local automotive dealership, not really the kind of business that pops to mind when thinking about diversity and inclusion, is bucking that trend and embracing the important role women employees have in their business, comes an interesting and eye-opening tale from the world of advertising, that paints quite a different, and damning picture on that industry's hiring practices and climate.

I call your attention to what is an absolute must-read, particularly in light of the recent re-kindling of the 'Can Women Have it All?' debate, is a piece called 'Confessions of a Female Ad Exec',  (Note : there is some definite Adult content in the piece, if you are easily offended, then don't bother clicking through), published on the Digiday site. Originally published as an anonymous, (and edited) piece, and later re-issued under the byline of Colleen DeCourcy, CEO of Socialistic, a social media technology, content, and design studio, the piece contains some really honest and raw reflections of Ms. DeCourcy's experience climbing the ranks of the Advertising industry. 

Why are the upper echelons of the Ad industry still so the same, still not reflecting the changing world and workplace overall? From the Digiday piece:

The sacred question agency execs are answering with their hires is, “Are you like us?” The affirmative answer if they hire is, yes. It might not even be done consciously, but hires and promotions are often done on this basis. (By the way, that can apply beyond women to black/Jewish/gay/handicapped/patently JNF — Just Not Funny.)

But beyond arcane, foolish, and either subtly or overtly discriminatory hiring and promotion practices, Ms. DeCourcy also offers up an admission of sorts, that perhaps she too had some kind of role to play as well, as both victim and unlikely participant. Again from the piece:

An issue that’s rarely addressed is how many women in advertising don’t help each other out. What is it that drives a select group of women to actively not support other women? I have been a victim of it, and subsequently I resist working with “those kinds” of women. Sadly, since it’s impossible to see through a smart woman’s tightly controlled veil of camaraderie, I’ve grown irrationally afraid of all women at work, and I’ve missed the opportunity to work with the great ones.

But maybe it’s not the women who are at fault here. Maybe the fact that there are so few of us in the boardrooms leads us to assume there’s only room for a certain number.

But more truthfully, the reality for women my age is that you had to sever the sisterhood ties so hard and so early in order to run with the boys that you just don’t know how to get back home again. I’m just a tourist in the land of women now. I’m not fully of the culture.

There's more to the piece than I grabbed to use here, and I hope you read it all, (and again, only if you are not going to be offended by some language and frank descriptions of inappropriate workplace talk), and let it sink in a little bit.

For me, the takeaways are many, but one that stands out is that employees, even C-suite execs, are real people too. Their stories are always unique, often complex, and almost never what you, as the person wondering 'Why?' or 'Why not?', would expect.

It's still a mad, mad world out there. And while yesterday's post about the 'We are all happy together' auto dealer paints a really bright and positive picture, today's piece reminds us that we really don't and often can't know what lies beneath that surface.

He toyed with me. He lied to me. He intimidated me.

Negotiating anything, whether its the sale price of that new, shiny Mercury Montego, or the details of a potential job offer, can be a difficult, tense, uncomfortable, and often a disappointing process.

For many, particularly those of us not inclined to enjoy the competition of a negotiation, or simply less practiced in the art of negotiation, it can be really easy to feel like you've come out second-best, that you've paid too much for the car, the house, or settled for less money or left something on the table when trying to hammer out that new or renewed employment agreement. When most of us are up against that car salesperson, who makes deals for a living, well drawing from our prior experience haggling over the Montego in 1977 usually doesn't provide enough foundation for confidence.I have no idea if this is true

But I think much of the angst associated with these negotiations arises from the mentality that one side has to win, and one has to lose, and that usually the 'house', (the car dealer, the employer, the merchant), has the upper hand. If someone is going to squirm and flinch first in the battle, it's going to be you with your paltry, limited experience in wheeling and dealing.

But it doesn't always have to be that way. Sometimes you do actually have the upper hand entering the deal, even if you don't completely realize it going in. And sometimes, maybe more often that we like to admit, even a spirited, aggressive, both sides all in kind of negotiation can end with everyone keeping their dignity and moving on with the understanding that negotiation is part of the game, and business is business, and you can even gain more respect for someone willing to fight for their side and not just give up, or conversely, to bully their way to a 'win'.

Case in point - check the comments (kind of said with a little bit of a smile, admittedly), from San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich regarding the recently concluded contract extension negotiations between the team, and their long time, and legendary player Tim Duncan, who certainly an all-time great, at 36 is in the twilight of his career.

Here's Popovich, (representing the house):

“He toyed with me. He lied to me. He intimidated me. He threatened me. In the end, it worked out. But I had to take much abuse to get it done.”

What's good about this, and Popovich's attitude about how the negotiations were conducted and how they concluded?

That the house respected the other side of the table, that the team knew that both sides had the right to negotiate hard, and that in the end, the house had to acknowledge the position and value of the talent, and take a little bit of abuse, in order to get a deal done that both parties could live with.

I get the sense that Duncan too, although he is not quoted in the piece, came away feeling the fight was fair, and that both sides walked away with their heads up, and more importantly, with continued respect for each other.

Big heavy take away from this story? Probably isn't one, unless it helps to remind all of us, no matter what side of the table we sit on, that the guy/gal across from us has just as much right to be sitting there, and if they did not possess something we needed, then no one would be sitting down at all.

The other guy has a point of view too, and if you have to take a little bit of heat to let them communicate that point of view, well don't take it personally.

Happy Monday!

#SHRM12 Social Recruiting session wrap: Don't be quick to judge

The last dispatch from me from #SHRM12, aka, the SHRM Annual Conference & Exposition which wrapped up yesterday from Atlanta.

Aside: which major industry event will be the first one to actually adopt as its 'official' name the event hashtag? It would be kind of cool to see SHRM or some other organization to just drop the tired and formal sounding 'Conference and Exposition' part and just go with #SHRM12 as the event name.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, wrapping up the final day at #SHRM12 which for me was highlighted by the panel discussion I was fortunate to be asked to moderate, titled 'Is Social Recruiting Really Working?', and that featured industry leaders and experts Robert Hohman, CEO of Glassdoor.com, industry analyst and legend John Sumser, and Jeremy Langhans, who leads Global Brand and Talent Attraction for Expedia.

The panel discussion was, I think, pretty lively from the start, it took about three minutes before the panelists were (respectfully) disagreeing with each other, which I've always felt is one sign of an interesting panel discussion. As the panelists stepped through and discussed some of the common perceptions and assumptions surrounding social media for recruiting several common themes and best practices did start to emerge - the need for organizations to be more open and committed to engaging with candidates on social platforms, that trusting your employees to fairly portray the brand message is paramount, and that HR and Recruiting can and should work closely with their internal social media experts in Marketing and PR to help define, tune, and communicate the brand message.

It was, I thought, a really good discussion overall, with some insights, shared experiences, and even a few laughs - particularly when Jeremy was getting talking points texted to him during the session!

But for me, the biggest personal take-away happened after the session, and in the conversations with the folks that came up to the stage to chat with the panelists. During the session, an audience member asked about the value of Pinterest as a recruiting tool.  As I recall, Jeremy indicated that he had not personally seen much usefulness there, and I made a (lame) joke about needing to delete my Pinterest account. But essentially our panel did not have much positive to say about Pinterest in the recruiting context.

But after the session an audience member, someone in Talent Acquisition from a major retail brand that you have absolutely heard of, told us that for them, Pinterest was, in her words, 'gold'. The kinds of people that the brand would want to find and connect with were all over Pinterest, were really engaged, and definitely wanted more interaction and communication with the brand. So while for us guys on the panel, laughing off Pinterest might have made sense from our limited world view, but for this major organization, the platform is starting to represent an increasingly important source for recruiting.

The bigger point? 

Every organization's experience, approach, and results in social recruiting is going to be unique. While there are some general guiding principles and leading practices that are emerging, (and we talked about many of them on the panel), there are no true and repeatable recipes for success that will be successful in all situations. One size does not fit all. In fact, it hardly fits anyone.

It was a good lesson to learn, and I am thankful for the attendee who shared her view with us after the session.

Thanks again to the panel members, and to the team at Glassdoor.com for making the panel possible, and for including me in the event.

And I promise, no more on #SHRM12 from me!