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!

PLEASE SHUT UP - and other bits of useful advice

This Thursday, April 14,  I will be joining the original HR gangsta, the HR Capitalist himself Kris Dunn, and the crew from your favorite New Zealand-based HR Technology company Sonar6, for the latest edition in the Fistful of Talent webcast series, this time in a little presentation entitled, "PLEASE SHUT UP: The Idiot-Proof Coaching Tool for Managers".  

Our friends at Sonar6 are hosting this event, and so far they seem curiously trusting in the eventual nature and quality of the content that KD and I will present. For that, we simultaneously salute and pity them.

Here are the details you need to know if you want to join over 4,000 of your friends, colleagues, and competitors that have already registered as we dop the knowledge this Thursday.

From the 'official' Sonar6 call to action:

"This month we’re teaming up with Kris Dunn and Steve Boese from Fistful of Talent to bring you The Idiot-Proof Coaching Tool for Managers.

On April 14, 4:00 PM EDT/1:00pm PDT (April 15 8am NZ / 6am Sydney) we’ll be introducing the tool at a one-hour webinar that will cover:  

• When managers should SHUT UP
• The best time to make team members brainstorm solutions
• How to wrap up the coaching conversation
• The top 5 ways managers screw this all up

This isn’t about technology (not even Sonar6!); it’s about having better performance conversations regardless of how you collect performance information.

And if you can’t make the webinar you can still grab the e-book, which will cover the same awesome stuff.

Register for the webinar & e-book today!"

Wow. Cool stuff. Very professional looking marketing copy.

But here is the reason I think this is good content. When you are talking, you aren't learning. Whether you are talking to your staff, your boss, or your kids - when your lips are flapping it is pretty much a one-way street heading out of town. Sure, you have to talk to get your super important points across. And the staff, your spouse, your kids, they are just hanging on every bit of wisdom coming out of your trap, right?

Sure.

On the webcast this Thursday we'll shed some light on why zipping it can be the best strategy in your management bag of tricks. We will share a simple 6-step tool, (I know 6 steps sounds like a lot, but 4 of them are really easy, trust me), that will allow you and any managers on your team to more effectively coach the people that do the real work in the time it takes to nuke a Hot Pocket.

You should sign up for the webcast. Truly. If nothing else, to make sure you will have something to openly mock on the Twitter stream, (hashtag #idiot).

Actually I am not sure that Sonar6 wants to be associated with a hashtag of #idiot, but so be it.

HCI Webcast - Tell the Story with Technology

Later on this afternoon I have the great pleasure to co-present an Human Capital Institute Webcast - 'Tell the Story with Technology'.  The webcast is scheduled for Thursday, May 14 at 1:00 pm EDT.

My co-presenter is Jessica Wagner, a former student and now an HR Manager at Klein Steel in Greece, NY.

Jessica gave a great presentation on the innovative use of technology in recruiting by the US Army in my last HR Technology class.

The presentation was so powerful in class, that I tweeted about it the next morning and Amy Lewis from HCI saw the update and was interested, and ultimately this led to the scheduling of this webcast.

For anyone who is interested on the details of how this came about - I blogged about it here.

The Army does some incredible things with technology, and while the webcast platform will not allow us to fully demonstrate the 'coolness' of their approach, I will leave you with an example of what the Army is doing with technology here:  

So if you have a chance at 1:00 PM EDT, stop by, the Webcast is free, just a simple HCI Registration (also free) is needed to view the presentation.

Thanks again, Amy, and HCI for giving myself and Jessica the opportunity to present to your members today.

No soup for you in 2009

'Do you have budgeted funds available to attend HR conferences in 2009?'

Last week Jason Averbook of Knowledge Infusion took an informal survey of HR professionals on Twitter asking that simple question.

The results were astoundingly one-sided, 18 respondents said 'No', 2 said 'Depends', and only 1 said 'Yes'. Looks like there could be many conference meeting rooms going empty this year.

Last month the Gartner Group announced the cancellation of several IT conferences, including its 'flagship' event, the Spring Symposium/IT Expo in Las Vegas.

Many confererences will still go on of course, but with greatly reduced attendance, and more vendors and consultants chasing fewer and fewer potential customers. 

What if anything should replace these opportunities for HR professionals, and the vendors or consultants that attempt to leverage the events to generate leads and close deals? One option for the HR pro and student are the numerous webcasts offered by HR.com, the Human Capital Institute, and maFlickr - Jim Frazierny of the vendors and consultancies as well.  These webcasts are usually free, they cover a wide range of HR-related topics, and run so frequently, that pretty much every day of the business week you can find one to attend. 

In fact, I will be presenting two webcast in the next few months, one on February 25 with HR.com titled 'Understand your workforce today, so you can plan for tomorrow' - details here; and one on May 14 with HCI titled, 'Tell the Hiring Story with Technology' - information here.

But webcasts are not the same as conferences, the ability to connect and network is missing, the ability to get immersed for a few days with like-minded folks, and easy access to experts and leaders in the field can't easily be replicated over the web.

I think there is some opportunity to develop a more informal, grass-roots style alternative to traditional conferences which no one can afford to attend, and webcasts that are really one dimensional and have limited utility.  I have been kicking around some ideas with some Twitter friends on this, and hope to try some of these ideas very soon.

What ideas do you suggest to replace the gap created by the lack of conference attendance in 2009?