PODCAST - #HRHappyHour 171 - Workforce Reputation Management

HR Happy Hour 171 - Workforce Reputation Management

Recorded Friday August 23, 2013

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve Boese and Trish McFarlane sat down with Mark Bennett, Product Strategy Director for Oracle Social HCM Cloud, Fusion Profile Management, and Workforce Reputation Management, for an interesting and informative conversation about how concepts like influence, reputation, and social connectedness between and among employees can help organizations better understand the capability of their workforces and help individuals better manage their careers.

On the open web, the ideas of influence and reputation are not new, services like Klout and Kred have been attempting to understand, quantify, and provide insights as to who might be influential and in what areas do people have strong reputations. Taking these ideas and applying them inside organizations, and thinking more deeply about how people's interactions with one another, how they are evaluated by their peers, and what artifacts of their work reveal about their reputation and influence represent some of the most cutting-edge thinking about workplaces today.

Mark is a long time friend and really interesting guy, and I think you will find the discussions challenging and interesting at the same time. And I encourage you to think about your own workplaces and how some of these ideas might help you in your HR and Talent challenges.

You can listen to the show on the show page here, on iTunes, (just search in the podcasts section for 'HR HappyHour'), and using the widget player below, (email and RSS subscribers will need to click through). 

Check Out Business Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Steve Boese and Trish McFarlane on BlogTalkRadio

It is a really informative and 'deep thoughts' kind of conversation that sheds some light on what new ideas and technolgies promise to deliver to workplaces in the very near future.

Thanks to Mark for taking the time to share his insights!

Are we starting to get sick of each other?

Some random and possibly unrelated items from this week that are submitted for your consideration:

'Time Spent on Facebook Has Gone Flat' - Business Insider

Money line:

Time spent on Facebook on desktop computers in the U.S. has been totally flat for the year, according to data from comScore. For a while now Facebook's engagement had been on the rise, but it appears to have hit a wall.

'Three Myths About What Customers Want' - HBR Blog Network

Money line:

 Myth #1: Most consumers want to have relationships with your brand.

Actually, they don't. Only 23% of the consumers in our study said they have a relationship with a brand. In the typical consumer's view of the world, relationships are reserved for friends, family and colleagues. That's why, when you ask the 77% of consumers who don't have relationships with brands to explain why, you get comments like "It's just a brand, not a member of my family." (What consumers really want when they interact with brands online is to get discounts).

 The Golden Age of Silicon Valley is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave' - The Atlantic

Money line:

The headline for me here is that Facebook's success has the unintended consequence of leading to the demise of Silicon Valley as a place where investors take big risks on advanced science and tech that helps the world. The golden age of Silicon valley is over and we're dancing on its grave. On the other hand, Facebook is a great company. I feel bittersweet.

The slight, (or maybe not so slight), common thread running through these three pieces? 

That we're not just suffering from an information overload, but perhaps we are starting to feel or sense of a bit of connection overload. That maybe being 'on' and connected to larger and larger networks of people, certainly many of them family and friends, but also, certainly, many of them total strangers, is beginning to raise some unintended and unwanted side effects. That the amount of sheer time, energy needed to sustain these networks and maintain an expected level of interaction is starting to become, well, unsustainable.

I know I am personally guilty of this. I 'auto-post' more content to Twitter and LinkedIn than I ever did in the past. I have become more of a 'drive-by' Facebook user, dropping in once a day or so to click the 'Like' button a few times, as it is the lightest and least obligating form of interaction possible. I'm reading more blogs and online content than ever before, but mainly it seems to find source material for this blog, or for Fistful of Talent, or to share via a scheduled tweet at 10PM when I am probably already asleep.

And I sort of think I am not the only one. It seems that maybe many of us are feeling the effects and strain of the size of our networks, the ever-increasing platforms on which to engage, and the perhaps the engagement traps we've set for ourselves.

I'll ask the question more plainly, are we starting to get just a little sick of each other?

Are you sensing or feeling the need to disengage more often?

I'd love your take on this.

Happy Thursday!