H1N1, Twitter, and Apologies

Some folks that know me, or follow me on Twitter, know that I have been sick for about 11 or 12 days with H1N1 followed by an opportunistic infection that has proven very difficult to take out.  Day 7 of antibiotics and I am just now feeling sort of normal.

This was the sickest I can ever remember feeling, and the duration of the illness is still stunning to me.

I beg you, go get your H1N1 vaccination, you do not want to pick up this bug.

Yesterday I took my son to a locally sponsored, free H1N1 vaccination clinic for so-called 'Phase I' patients, little kids, elderly, and folks in various at-risk groups.  Naturally, there was significantly high demand for the the vaccine, we arrived at 10:00 am, and based on the volume we were staring at a four hour wait time.

Rather than have hundreds, if not thousands of people standing in a massive line on a cold, gray day, the clinic used a 'virtual line'. You took a number then simply had to return to the door when your range of numbers was called.  So due to some smart, and forward-thinking by the Town of Penfield, NY, we waited it out from the family room instead of in the car, or in a lawn chair outside.

How?

Because in addition to on-site announcements, a low power FM radio station, and a web site, the town also provided updates as to the progress of the virtual line via Twitter updates, (see townofpenfield on Twitter). 

What a great idea, and so simple.  I was able to pop the Town into my 'Friends' tweetdeck column and easily follow the 'line' and return to the site of the clinic (about a 15 minute drive) at just about exactly the right time.  Maybe this isn't really revolutionary, but it was convenient, smart, and at least for me a fantastic example of a municipality 'getting it' and providing value on Twitter.

Lastly, I want to apologize to the numerous folks that I let down, that I owe a response e-mail, guest post, or follow-up phone call.  I am digging out slowly from this illness, and I ask your patience for a few more days while I get back to 'normal'.

Get your shots!

Getting your HR friends on Twitter? Start Here

The hardest part of getting started on Twitter is figuring out who to follow.  If you are an HR professional, HR student, or job seeker, you will only get so far following Oprah or Ashton or Shaquille.

Not very far actually.

Ashton can't help you with the latest developments in E-Verify.

Shaq is not going to offer to critique your cover letter.

No to get any value at all from Twitter you need to find and follow 'real' HR professionals, recruiters, companies, bloggers, the kind of people you can learn from, engage with, and share your expertise with.

So how do you go about that? Well, a new service called TweepML has made the process of sharing lists of Twitter users to follow much easier. 

Sign up for TweepML, create or upload a list of Twitter names that you want to put on a 'recommended follow' list, then share the list via a link, email, or an embeddable button or widget.

I even did the hard work for you, I created two TweepML lists (since the service limits lists to 100 Tweeps) of HR and Recruiting Twitter folk that I personally follow and recommend.

Click on the links below and you will be taken to the TweepML site where you can easily follow all the names on the list (or just the ones you are interested in) by supplying your Twitter name and password.

HR and Recruiting Peeps - Part 1

HR and Recruiting Peeps - Part 2

Totally easy right? Just think about when you first signed up for Twitter. What if you were given a list of 200 awesome and relevant accounts to follow from Day 1?

Let me know what you think of TweepML, and of the lists themselves.  I can always start list number three with your suggestions.

Enjoy!

Update on Saturday, September 19, 2009 at 9:51PM by Steve

The problem with making these kinds of lists, whether great blogs, Twitter users, or anything else is that no matter how long the list, some great people get left out, either through oversight, error, or system limitations.  I want to mention some folks here that absolutely should have been included on the above lists, and I apologize for that.

JennyDeVaughn - A must follow in the recruiting and social media space

sexythinker - Amanda Hite, the founder and CEO of Talent Revolution, and someone that HR and Recruiting pros have to follow, I think

HR Tech Chat - At a New Time

The monthly HR Tech Twitter Chat is set for today, Wednesday September 2nd at 1:00 PM EDT.

This is a new time for the Chat, as we thought we would try a time that might encourage more participation from multiple time zones.

A quick review of how these Twitter 'theme' chats work:

At 1:00 Bryon Abramowitz of Knowledge Infusion or myself will officially start the chat with a quick welcome message. Folks who are participating are asked to Tweet out their name and role so that we can all get better acquainted. 

An example would be 'Hi, I am Steve Boese, HR Technology Instructor at RIT in New York - #HR_Tech'

We will then get the discussion going around this month's topic - HR Measurement and Metrics.

Some questions that could be explored:

1. What are the key metrics that HR leaders need to measure?

2. Are they succeeding in measuring these key items?  Why or why not?

3. What vendors and solutions seem to offer the most robust and flexible solutions right now?

These are just a few ideas, in reality the conversation will go where the group takes it and that is most of the fun of the chats.

Some Tips for Chat participants:

• You participate by Tweeting with the hashtag '#HR_Tech' included in your update (usually at the end of the Tweet)
• Follow the flow of the conversation by tracking all Tweets with '#HR_Tech' using one of the following
  • Tweetchat - http://tweetchat.com/room/HR_Tech, you will need to sign in using your Twitter credentials, but this gives a nice overlay to the chat and will automatically append the hashtag to your updates
  • Tweetgrid - www.tweetgrid.com. Allows you to not only monitor the chat, but also your 'normal' Twitter stream and/or other search terms.  Takes a few minutes to setup but it is pretty neat.
  • Tweetdeck - If you are already using Tweetdeck just set up a new search column for the #HR_Tech hashtag. 
  • Twubs - I have not used this site yet, but I have heard many folks say it is pretty nice for following a 'theme' chat in Twitter. http://twubs.com/hr_tech.

These chats can be really interesting and informative, but honestly they would be greatly enhanced if we get some more 'non-Tech' HR folks interested and participating.  So if you are an HR pro and have some questions or comments about Talent Management technology, or quite honestly any HR Technology, it is a great opportunity to corner at least a dozen HR Technology professionals at one time.

Hope to see your #HR_Tech Tweets tomorrow!

One discusson, three platforms, twenty peeps

Ok, so that was a bad title, this is really just a little story of how some social media tools facilitated some fantastic dialog and ongoing discussion on real business and Human Resources issues.

Last Friday night Shauna and I did a HR Happy Hour Show about Tattoos, Piercings, and Diversity in the workplace. The show was really a discussion on company culture, and how culture is developed and perpetuated in the workplace.  It was a really fun show, and I encourage you to listen to the archive here:

 Also since there is no live show tonight, this should give you your HR Happy Hour fix until next week.

The next morning, Saturday, the culture discussion continued on Twitter among myself, The HR Maven, and Tammi Colson. We kicked around the idea of culture being a top-down, leadership driven construct versus the notion of company culture really begin driven and enforced so to speak by employees themselves. It was a pretty interesting exchange to have early on a Saturday morning, but definitely very interesting and informative

On Tuesday I blogged here about Technology and Company Culture, mostly riffing the conversation from the show and form the impromptu Twitter chat on Saturday morning. The basic question I asked was can the application of collaboration technology actually drive a change in company culture.  There was some excellent comments and discussion on the post.

And of course the debate carried over to Twitter on Tuesday night, where Beth Carvin, Kevin Grossman, Robin Schooling and I debated the whole Technology and culture issue some more.

So by my count the final tally was one radio show with about ten active participants, one blog post with about eight commenters, and two separate twitter chats involving five more people.

All great discussions, all happening in 'off hours' (heck on Tuesday night I was grilling ribeyes and having a beer during the chat), and all enabled by various social media tools.

And by the way, just some of the 'titles' represented in the various discussions - CEO, VP of HR, HR Director, and VP of Marketing among others. Look the titles don't really mean all that much to me, but I mention them to underscore the point that social media in general and Twitter in particular is not all about inane blather about what people had for lunch.

I probably learned more about company culture in the last few days, from this diverse group of people that I had in the last five years.

HR Tech Chat - Integrated Talent Management

The monthly HR Tech Twitter Chat is set for tonight, Wednesday August 5th at 9:00 PM EDT.

A quick review of how these Twitter 'theme' chats work:

At 9:00 Bryon Abramowitz of Knowledge Infusion or myself will officially start the chat with a quick welcome message. Folks who are participating are asked to Tweet out their name and role so that we can all get better acquainted. 

An example would be 'Hi, I am Steve Boese, HR Technology Instructor at RIT in New York - #HR_Tech'

We will then get the discussion going around this month's topic - Integrated Talent Management.

Some questions that could be explored:

1. What's driving organizations to pursue these projects?

2. Are they succeeding?  Why or why not?

3. What vendors and solutions seem to offer the most interesting and compelling solutions right now?

4. Where is the market heading?

5. What should HR practitioners be thinking about in the planning and execution of these projects?

These are just a few ideas, in reality the conversation will go where the group takes it and that is most of the fun of the chats.

Some Tips for Chat participants:

• You participate by Tweeting with the hashtag '#HR_Tech' included in your update (usually at the end of the Tweet)
• Follow the flow of the conversation by tracking all Tweets with '#HR_Tech' using one of the following
  • Tweetchat - http://tweetchat.com/room/HR_Tech, you will need to sign in using your Twitter credentials, but this gives a nice overlay to the chat and will automatically append the hashtag to your updates
  • Tweetgrid - www.tweetgrid.com. Allows you to not only monitor the chat, but also your 'normal' Twitter stream and/or other search terms.  Takes a few minutes to setup but it is pretty neat.
  • Tweetdeck - If you are already using Tweetdeck just set up a new search column for the #HR_Tech hashtag. 
  • Twubs - I have not used this site yet, but I have heard many folks say it is pretty nice for following a 'theme' chat in Twitter. http://twubs.com/hr_tech.

These chats can be really interesting and informative, but honestly they would be greatly enhanced if we get some more 'non-Tech' HR folks interested and participating.  So if you are an HR pro and have some questions or comments about Talent Management technology, or quite honestly any HR Technology, it is a great opportunity to corner at least a dozen HR Technology professionals at one time.

Hope to see your #HR_Tech Tweets tonight!