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Often we get emails from clients on the exceptional work consultants are doing.  

 

This one came in this morning, highlighting Principal Consultant, Kim Heger.

 

Kim: 
I sincerely want to express my personal appreciation for the insights you provided and the leadership you exhibited at the four vendor demonstrations on June 26, 29, 30 and July 1.  I felt you acted as a true partner and had our needs and best interests always in mind. 
Your experience and counsel has helped us to reduce our learning curve while, at the same time, facilitate our progress.  You consistently represent your role as a Principal Consultant for Knowledge Infusion very well.
Best of all, you're fun to be around.
Speaking for all the members of our TM core team, we look forward to continuing to work closely with you.

The KI team agrees with all of the above, especially that Kim is fun to be around!  Kim Heger:
YOU are KI!
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The County of Santa Barbara is the newest addition to the Knowledge Infusion family. Located 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles and 300 miles south of San Francisco, it occupies 2,774 square miles, one-third of which is located in the Los Padres National Forest. Bordered on the West and South by the Pacific Ocean, the County has 110 miles of beaches. The County is home to over 425,000 people who enjoy its mild climate, picturesque coastline, scenic mountains, and numerous parks and beaches.

 

Welcome County of Santa Barbara; YOU are KI!

http://www.countyofsb.org/

 

 

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Knowledge Infusion is proud to welcome Comverse as one of our newest clients.

Comverse is the world’s leading provider of software and systems enabling value-added services for voice, messaging, mobile Internet and mobile advertising; converged billing and active customer management; and IP communications. Comverse’s extensive customer base spans more than 130 countries and covers over 500 communication service providers serving more than two billion subscribers.

 

For over 25 years, Comverse has provided a wide variety of industry-leading solutions for operators with subscriber bases of all sizes – from tier-1 carriers and operator groups with global reach to emerging greenfield operators and ISPs. These goals have been achieved with a superior solution portfolio, high-quality professional services and an extensive network of local support, including 90 local offices in over 40 countries.

 

We look forward to our partnership with Comverse, and providing them with the same level of superior services they offer to their own clients.

 

Comverse: YOU are KI!

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This week started for me at SuccessFactors' SuccessConnect event in Chicago, and it was a great way to start a week.  SuccessFactors is releasing some interesting new talent management functionality (crossing into the social colloaboration space, finally), there was a great group of current and potential SuccessFactors customers, and the sessions were informative.  The most welcome part of the conference, for me, was finally hearing Lars Dalgaard and other SuccessFactors executives talk about helping customers with their strategies around the technology, and how to think about talent management more holistically, rather than just focusing on the technology and feature functionality.

 

What, or who, was missing?  Those most likely to develop and champion talent and talent management strategies were missing.  The majority of the attendees were HR specialists in performance management, compensation, succession, etc., who are responsible for executing a strategy, not organizational leaders (HR or otherwise) responsible for developing those strategies.  Sessions on talent management strategy, including a session presented by Knowledge Infusion, were well attended and received (the most common comment I heard was "great presentation - you gave me a lot to think about"), I departed the conference wondering whether the messages about talent management strategy left participants truly inspired or just wondering how on earth they would ever be able to engage a strategic conversation with their organizations.

 

And this worries me, primarily because talent management efforts are not living up to executive expectations.  A study conducted by Business Intelligence and summarized by Personnel Today explains "Despite the lip service given to the talent imperative, corporate practice looks way off the mark", and lack of strategy is one of the key reasons why.

 

"First, more than two-thirds of companies do not have a talent strategy. This is a major obstacle. Until a company has assessed the talent implications of its business plans, it will be operating in the dark. In many cases, the default strategy is to take care of senior management succession. While meeting this goal is certainly important, it is not an answer to the big questions."

 

One of the reasons organizations lack talent strategies is that responsibility for and ownership of said talent strategies is still unclear.

 

"The answer is that it has to be a collaborative responsibility, although the ultimate owners must be operational managers because they are answerable for performance. Senior managers need to be actively involved in specifying the competencies and capabilities needed for key roles, as well as assessing performance, supporting talent development and creating the operational environment that enables talent to flourish.

 

HR and talent specialists must ensure that the optimum processes and practices are in place. They invariably have a leading part to play in facilitating steering groups involved in defining the talent agenda and identifying the ways in which competencies can be reliably assessed and developed. Further down the line, they need to be part of the regular talent review process."

 

The need for talent and talent management strategies is something that Knowledge Infusion has been saying since the firm's inception, and identifying who has responsibility for developing those strategies is something we work through in every single Knowledge Infusion talent management strategy engagement.  It was very exciting to hear a talent management software vendor CEO talk about strategy in the same keynote as technology.  Now, if only those responsible for developing talent and talent management strategies - business leaders and senior HR executives - would attend these conferences so they can hear, learn and share as well.

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I had the opportuity to participate in the online streaming of the Social Recruiting Summit today.  Great way to learn and connect with other smart people from around the world.  Another great example of being "connected" even though not physically present.

 

How is social collaboration changing the way we attract and hire talent?  It is crucial to have a social collaboration strategy in today's world, but is the strategy being executed and what level of success are you having?  Does anyone have hard stats on how many hires are coming directly from LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.?

 

Please share your success or lack of success using social collaboration as part of your recruiting/sourcing strategy.

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Knowledge Infusion proudly announces the launch of our company-wide philanthropy program:  KI Volunteers and the KI Foundation.

 

While the culture of KI has always included strong participation in local events and national charities, we are excited to formally launch employee programs that support the active participation in volunteer activities in our local communities.

 

The first KI Volunteers program is in the initial planning stage right now!  Regional groups of employees are forming  and choosing the activity they will support.  Look for more details here on each regional team, their charity, and how you can get involved!

 

The KI Foundation is already planning its first fundraising event that will take place in November at the Big Sur Half Marathon. Employees are making commitments now on their plans to run the 13.3 miles.  Look for additional updates here on the KI Team and how your organization can get involved and support the KI Foundation.

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Some good news for the HR technology and Talent Management technology vendors in the space based on informal poll.

 

A few things to remember:

  • Don't go out blindly, be prepared with new business processes before speaking with vendors
  • Try to bundle purchases into "suite" type approaches compared to single, siloed solutions
  • Look for true "business" value adds and roll out functionality immediately instead of waiting till the end and doing "big bang"
  • Focus, Focus, Focus on both efficiency and effectiveness - big overall trend in 2010 as recovery begins
  • Another infusion of knowledge...poll spending a.png
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Fifteen years ago, I worked for Qualcomm Incorporated in San Diego. It was 1994, we had about 1,800 employees and were expecting to hire an additional 2,000 employees that year. Basically, we were doubling in size in one year and subsequently kept that pace of recruiting at the organization for an additional 5 years, until 1999.

 

As I remember it, we had some interesting things going on back then including:

  1. An aggressive recruiting model - we had on average 100 resources centralized in staffing/recruiting all focused on talent acquisition.
  2. Less than a 2% regrettable turn over - in essence people we hired stuck like glue (stock was good back then).
  3. A fearless leader of staffing that drove recruiting like a business - we had goals and were measured on results. We as a team were empowered to ask forgiveness not permission.
  4. A centralized organizational model for recruiting - recruiters were dedicated to specific disciplines/and divisions, and shared work, candidates, assistants, interviews, whatever it took to manage the volume.
  5. A centralized recruiting operations team (which I lead) that focused on processing resumes, running reports and maintaining the online career site.

 

At this point you're wondering what does this have to do with an undefined economy...I'm getting there.  With all of this amazing structure and resources we still had some serious challenges in recruiting 'back in the day'. Two great forces were against us:

  1. Our location - I know you’re thinking I'm crazy - who wouldn't want to move to San Diego
  2. The Bay Area (San Francisco) Boom.  A large challenge to Qualcomm in 2004 was building the confidence of the applicants we were pursuing to the location.

 

San Diego was only considered a vacation community. High technology wasn't fast to build a presence in San Diego and General Dynamics was closing their locations. Between being a military town and resort destination, convincing seasoned engineers that there is a promise for them at Qualcomm, and particularly in San Diego, was difficult. Add into that mix the cost of living, compared to other places (not San Francisco) we had an uphill battle to convince applicants to relocate their families.

 

As we surveyed the applicants that turned us down, we quickly understood the risk applicants were not willing to take. It boiled down to the risk of if the position didn't work out at Qualcomm, there was no other company to fall back on apply too. We quickly set out to change that impression and a team established a consortium of high technology companies recruiting in San Diego. The San Diego Tech Force was established and a joint advertising, marketing and branding campaign was launched to demonstrate that San Diego could be and was a high technology hotbed of companies.

 

This effort took some brainstorming and some agreements with our competitors. Basically we had to partner with the competition to dispel the myth that San Diego didn't have high technology company roots. Those partnerships included a consolidated branding/marketing website, resume submissions that went to all companies, and some light agreements on not poaching in the relocation process.  I don’t have to explain how effective this was because in 1998 Qualcomm grew to over 12,000 (1000% growth) in just 4 years. Granted all of this growth was not tied to the San Diego Tech Force strategy and plan but it sure helped get those first few years going…

 

Economic instability based on the 'buzz' of another location San Francisco Bay area was exploding back in those days. Companies were tripping over themselves to make the highest - craziest offer to applicants to join their organizations. New cars, six-figure sign-on bonuses, stock grants that would have NASDAQ rippled with delight…not to mention the promise of independence in work environment, autonomy in schedules, and plenty of other activities to do because it was California after all.  The largest push was with the college recruiting models in those days. Students were given offers before they finished their Junior year, with very little restrictions. Poaching from one company to another was a fashion… and an art form. For the recruiting bench at Qualcomm, there was plenty of anxiety around the offer declines we had with our college programs. It was the sore spot of some of our recruiting efforts, and we became very aggressive at understanding what was going on. We quickly figured out through tracking 'true' decline reasons that the bulk of the college students were focused on the promised land of San Francisco.

 

We decided to try something unconventional and came up with the strategy to re-extend the same offers to many of those college applicants 11 months after their start date with the 'companies of their dreams' in SF. Our strategy/hope was that the fantasy factor had worn off, the freedom to working when you want was replaced with constant meetings, the commitment of independence in work environment was met with tripling up in a 8 X 8 cube because there was no office space.

 

Our strategy worked! We had over 70% of those re-recruited (now one year business smart) new grads accept the same offer. The one thing we did change was in many cases the relocation. We offered a flat amount to move from SF to SD - and their start date was contingent on them having been at their current employer a year (because then no one had to pay back their relocation the first time). We saved money moving them 10 hours south,, vs. cross country. And I can say back then we delivered on the promise. Plenty of time to hit the surf over lunch, sand volleyball courts 5 minutes from the office door, amazing health benefits, and a 10 x10 office or cube - not shared.

 

While neither of these stories have much to do with today’s economy, I would challenge anyone who is thinking only about today and how to 'deal with things' to start thinking about tomorrow and plan for better times. What goes up must come down and will go back up…we're smarter now. The automation we have today to apply the acceleration and deceleration of our recruiting processes is fantastic, compared to what I had to work with back then. And if you don’t believe me here is something to ponder; in 1995 Qualcomm processed over 1,000 resumes a day… process back then truly meant open the mail, sort the resumes, code the resumes, prep the resumes, scan the resumes, verify the resume extraction, print the response card label, apply the card label to the card, send to post office. On average I had a staff of 6 temps working full time just to do these tasks… and that was just the tactical aspect of things. We had a commitment to our applicants that they would receive a response card within 5 days of when we received the resume, so USPS got 3 days of that, so we had to process every resume in under 24 hours.

 

We have all come so far…. but we can go farther.  We can respond to applicants in a consistent manner, we can be creative with how to partner with our competitors to ride out this economy storm, and we can always leverage the information we have to understand what the real issue is and try something new. 2009 - is a great year to try something new with your recruiting technology.

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The Friday Factoid has been a regular feature at KI since the inception of the company.

 

It's almost become a standing joke by now:  Twitter is the future of HCM, the future of news, the future of all media....and now Time magazine explaining how Twitter is the future of business.  I'm admittedly still a skeptic.  Is Twitter fun?  Vaguely interesting?  Addictive?   Sure - So are video games.  But whenever a product, idea, or concept receives this much hype, it is usually a huge warning sign.  Anyone remember how the Segway was going to revolutionize pedestrian travel?  That was almost 10 years ago.

 

Anyway...I digress.  Time has several excellent articles related to Twitter this week.  Below is a summary of one entitled 10 Ways Twitter Will Change American Business.  It's worth a read.  Listed in no particular order:

 

  • Hyper-Local Marketing:  Twitter will enable small local businesses to inexpensively market to a broad audience of followers.  A lone business owner can alert their followers of specials, sales, etc... in ways that were once only available to business with sizeable advertising budgets.

 

  • Making Old-World Advertising Work:  It is estimated that revenue from outdoor advertising (billboards) this year will be $30 billion.  Unfortunately, there is no way of measuring how effective this advertising is.  Experts predict that by using Twitter, market research firms will be able to quickly assemble data regarding the  impact of their ads.

 

  • Turning Wall Street on Its Head:  By enabling real-time en masse commentary regarding stocks, experts predict Twitter will replace stock message boards like those on Yahoo!.  Measuring Twitter activity around a stock may even one day become a key measure along side other data regarding the company.

 

  • Making Blogs Count:  Twitter will give small media outlets and individual bloggers access to broad audiences once only available to major TV networks and other mainstream media

 

  • New Ways to Get Consumer Data:  Twitter is a nearly ideal platform for tapping opinions about customer views of products. Twitter users have the capacity to segment themselves into discrete demographic groups, if they have an incentive to do so.

 

  • Helping TV and Print:  Large media companies already use Twitter to alert people of breaking news.  CNN is one of the largest users os Twitter with 1.5 million followers.

 

  • Twitpay:  One model that is being tested allows consumers to put cash into a Twitpay account through a payment service like PayPal and then send a tweet to another Twitpay member, structured like "@josh twitpay $10 for Burger King." The Twitpay operation takes a $0.05 commission. Its founders are hoping that eventually it can be used for charity and disaster-relief payments.

 

  • Changing Telecommunications:  Twitter may not replace the land line, the cell phone, or voice and texting communications, but it will certainly supplement them as a way to get around telecom data plans. Tweeting inside a browser does not have the same data cost for the telecom user that texting does, which adds another huge nonmetered communications opportunity for businesses and consumers.

 

  • A New Way for the Government to Reach You:  Large government agencies will quickly realize that Twitter may be one of the single best ways to communicate with the public and may even mandate that Twitter participate in some programs to distribute emergency notices to citizens quickly.

 

Hmmm...Food for thought...

 

Have a Great Weekend Everyone!

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A Knowledge Infusion client asked me a question last night and I thought I would get the communities thought on the question.

 

Do you think that Oracle HR Fusion will transform the HR technology space over the next two years?

 

Respond to poll below

 

 

Another infusion of knowledge...

 

Link to poll

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Click below to get a list of this week’s webinars from KI.

 

These are a compilation of Human Resource, Talent Management, Staffing and Recruiting as well as Best Practices around Change Management (or Deployment Excellence) as we call it.

 

As it continues to be difficult to travel to events, these are a great opportunity to learn and discover areas to take immediate action.

 

We hope you enjoy and look forward to your comments and feedback.

 

Another infusion of knowledge…

 

Don't Miss This Week's Webinars!

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This is a question that I get on a daily basis including last night on the plane by a very influential CEO from outside of the space.

 

Would love to hear your thoughts and comments below?

 

Who do you think and why in the Fortune 1000 space...Did I miss someone who you think will take the crown?

 

To all vendors...these are in no particular order

 

Oracle/Oracle

Oracle/PeopleSoft

Workday

Ultimate Software

Ceridian

ADP

Lawson

SAP

NuView

Spectrum HR

SuccessFactors (if you think they will have one)

Taleo (if you think they will have one)

 

Look forward to seeing your thoughts.

 

Another infusion of knowledge...

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I thought I would make the newsletter available in the blog for those of you that do not receive.   Our monthly newsletter is received by a tremendous amount of people each month, and wanted to cross polinate the blog with the newsletter. ENJOY!

 

Opening Letter…

 

The industry is all a Twitter. If you've noticed fewer postings on our blogs recently, it's because we are doing more postings on Twitter. Twitter allows more frequent, relevant content to keep the community informed of the latest and greatest we are seeing every day.

 

I encourage all of you sign-up, get an account, and at the very least understand what the technology is, and what you can do with it.


Here are 3 easy steps to get you started:

1) Go to www.twitter.com and create an account

2) Follow me @jasonaverbook

3) Log into Twitter on a daily basis to see the discussions, or download an app that feeds your twitter activity directly to your email.

 

Once you see how the interactions work, don't be afraid to post your own comments, and start following more people.

 

I look forward to seeing you on Twitter. Of course, you can always reach me via email too.

Jason Averbook
Chief Executive Officer
Knowledge Infusion

Knowledge Infusion Social Media Links


facebook_icon.gif Become a FAN on Facebook

twitter_icon.gif Follow us on Twitter

BlogGraphic.jpgLearn about employees and customers on I AM KI Blog

 

Join Us LIVE at Spring Events…

 

Mark your calendar for upcoming regional events that won't break your travel budgets:

Taleo Roadshow: Making Every Head Count
Boston June 2, 2009
New York June 4, 2009

 

SuccessFactors SuccessConnect
San Francisco June 8 - 9, 2009
Chicago June 15-16, 2009


StepStone: HR's Time to Shine Seminar Series  New York City  June 11, 2009


Oracle HCM Users Group (OHUG)
Las Vegas June 14 - 18, 2009

 

Authoria Talent Management Breakfast
Chicago  June 18, 2009

 

Visit our website for a complete list of events.

Web events…

 

HR: It's Time to Optimize!

 

The last webinar in our Optimization KnowledgeCast Series is June 4, 2009
One registration will give you access to the last event, plus all the replays now posted on the Knowledge Infusion Center of Excellence.

June 4th we'll be discussing the importance of Deployment Excellence--the change management and internal marketing efforts to ensure adoption of your technology.  Register now

 

Other Upcoming Web Events

Opportunity Amid the Chaos, presented with StepStone Solutions
June 3, 2009  


Future of Recruiting and Sourcing 2009,
presented through ERE.net
June 3, 2009

 

Maximizing HR Technology Investments, presented through IHRIM Pacific Southwest
June 10, 2009

 

Best Compensation Practices, presented with Authoria customer, Waste Management
June 11, 2009

I hope you find the newsletter helpful each month.   This is just a small portion of the information available in the newsletter.  To register, click here.

Another infusion of knowledge…

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The KI Friday Factoid has been a regular feature at KI since the inception of the company

 

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Many of you may recall my recent blog post that explored the fact that the leaders of the failed companies at the center of our economic meltdown reads like a rogues gallery of graduates from our best business schools.  Harvard Business School is particularly well represented in this dubious group.

 

Well, in typical knee jerk fashion, there has been an explosion of interest at business schools in ethics courses and in student activities like clubs, lectures, conferences — about personal and corporate responsibility and on how to view business as more than a money-making enterprise, but part of a large social community.  A recent New York Times article gives the following examples

 

"Nearly 20 percent of the Harvard graduating class have signed “The M.B.A. Oath,” a voluntary student-led pledge that the goal of a business manager is to “serve the greater good.” It promises that Harvard M.B.A.’s will act responsibly, ethically and refrain from advancing their “own narrow ambitions” at the expense of others."

 

At Columbia Business School, all students must pledge to an honor code: “As a lifelong member of the Columbia Business School community, I adhere to the principles of truth, integrity, and respect. I will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”

 

Hmmm....in the post Madoff, AIG, and Enron era, business schools are going back to basics:  Borrowing ethics from the Boy Scouts.

 

Food for thought....

 

Have a Great Wekend Everyone!

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One of the most influential leaders in recruiting himself, John Sumser includes Elaine Orler on his list of Top 100 Influencers

 

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Influence comes partly from the person and partly from the position.  It’s the intersection of audience and content. More interesting and subtle than sheer power or prestige, influence is measured by its wake. Celebrity is not enough; in many cases, celebrity actually gets in the way.

While it’s not necessarily a question of how long you’ve been in the game, there’s a degree of accrued wisdom that seems to be a part of the deal.  It’s always coupled with some level of network effect. The combination of knowing what and knowing who gives an influencer the ability to shape context and results.

Elaine Orler is a case in point. The Vice President of Talent Acquisition at Knowledge Infusion combines deep insight and experience in Recruiting with the integration expertise required to architect enterprise level software solutions.


Orler patiently developed her reputation and expertise while meticulously developing a network and reputation. The result is a nearly unrivaled position of influence in the Talent Acquisition market. If you want out of the box software architecture and street fighting tactics, turn to Elaine.

 

Read the full article

 

If you have had the chance to work with Elaine--as a colleague, consultant, or partner--you know why Elaine has been honored with this recognition.


Elaine: YOU are KI!

 

Follow Elaine on Twitter: @elaineorler

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Illumina www.illumina.com is a leading developer, manufacturer, and marketer of next-generation life-science tools and integrated systems for the analysis of genetic variation and biological function. To continue to grow and develop the best products, they realized they needed a new HRMS system to support their organization.  Being on the cutting edge of biotechnology, they wanted to ensure they were making the right technology decision for their new HRMS, and taking all of the right things into consideration.

 

Illumina partnered with Knowledge Infusion to understand their business needs and select an HRMS system that would support them into the future. In addition, Knowledge Infusion created the deployment and change management plan that would get their users excited about the new solution.

 

Download the Illumina Case Study and get the full story.


“Knowledge Infusion helped us with our current pressing needs and guided us with future thinking about next generation technology
and processes that Illumina should be considering."


Illumina, we are proud to have you as part of the KI Family:  YOU are KI!

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Great post from Mark Bennett over at TalentedApps related to Collaboration Tools.  Some great takeaways

  • When HR sells this into the organization, the focus on EFFECTIVE must be made.  Way too many tools are out there and there is growing concern about wasted time and at the same time, too many places for employees to go to collaborate.

 

  • Embedding collaboration “into a process” is crucial.  Just putting the tools out there alone will not “seal the deal” and more than likely, not gain you anything.

 

  • Measurement around the value of collaboration is key.  The concepts around Social Network Analysis will continue to be measures of HR and Talent Mangagement into the future equally or more than basic HR measures.

 

As part of Knowledge Infusion Digital HR practice, we talk about these and more in our methodology.  Great post Mark and a great read for all.

 

Another infusion of knowledge…

 

When More Isn’t Always Better « TalentedApps

 

Post your tips in the comments

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Last week as part of my role at Knowledge Infusion,  I had the opportunity to present during 3 different webinars that had “live” attendance of over 700 people collectively.  When you get the rare opportunity to speak to that many people in a given week; live or via “today’s live” it is a true treat.  A few things I wanted to call out about these specific events.

 

  • The webinar that I was lucky enough to be able to present in collaboration with HR Executive Magazine had the added benefit of helping the audience understand the power and significance of Twitter.  As part of the event, there are at least 100 new Twitter users that are following me on the tool.  If each week each of us could impact 100 people in that manner, wouldn’t the world be a better place.  For those that want to follow me on Twitter, CLICK HERE and then click the FOLLOW button.

 

  • Jason Corsello and I had the opportunity as part of the Knowledge Infusion Optimize series to present to an audience via webinar the topic of User Experience and Adoption in today’s world.  As a result of that webinar, we have received an overwhelming number of discussion topics related to how HR can better help the workforce USE the tools that are being made available and better MARKET them for use by the masses.

 

  • Lastly, I had the opportunity to present to a large HR technology class on Friday afternoon.  This is a class of undergraduate students moving into the HR world and as part of one of the Knowledge Infusion values of “partnership” and growing the future of the space, we discussed the ever-changing role and what they can do to ensure that when they enter the workforce, they are prepared for the changes coming in the future of work as well as the expectations that will be put on these future leaders as “business leaders” and not just “HR leaders”

 

Check our website often and register for these events when they are made available.  In a time when travel budgets are tough and the cycle speed of the world is changing faster than ever, webinars are a great way to continue your learning and understand the world we work in today.

 

I would love to hear what “topics” you would like to see presented at future webinars and what “topics” your executives would be most interested in learning about.

 

Another infusion of knowledge….

 

Please leave your comments/suggestions below..

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Great story about the future of pensions and perks from USA Today.  As part of our  overall HR Technology StrategyMap services, we are seeing the exact same thing  with more and more organizations looking to drive additional costs out of the  system from both a maintenance as well as a overall benefit costs.  The customers that Knowledge Infusion works with on a daily basis are taking proactive measures to design systems and processes that will reflect the "unknown perk" and "variability" that will be needed in the future.

 

As you will see in the May 25th issue of Time Magazine, another piece coming  out talks about how organizations are looking for the next “perk”.  This is  something we all need to be thinking about when creating long term Human Capital  technology strategies.  Here is a preview of the Time piece

 

The perks of tomorrow have not been invented as of today and will be much  more personalized than any of us can imagine.

 

What is your "ideal" future perk?

 

Another infusion of knowledge…

 

Also, congrats to a great friend, Jeanne Achille from Devon Group for  contributing to this piece.  Jeanne is one of the leaders in the HR world today  and a well deserved mention in this piece.

 

Link to article in USA Today

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Did you catch Sunday's episode of Extreme Makeover, Home Edition?
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Our own Kim Heger and family were volunteers on the Indianapolis project that brought a new home to a well deserving family that has been giving of themselves for years to bring support and educational resources to the community.  In addition, due to the generosity of almost 200 companies and over 5,000 volunteers, they built a new library, planted 1200 trees, re-roofed 2 homes, repaired 22 homes, redressed 5 miles of alleys, repaired siding on 1 church, built 1 wheelchair ramp, procured 1 school to serve as a community center, built free wireless internet access for 450 homes, and donated 100 computers for use in the neighborhood. This was much more than a home make-over, but an extreme community make-over.

Together, the Indianapolis community came together to do the impossible-- complete all of this work in less than a week--and be a catalyst for future neighborhood transformation. Learn more about the project and volunteers that made this all possible.

 

Kim was on-site keeping everyone on task including directing traffic, ensuring all of the vendors and contractors knew where they were supposed to be going, and keeping a positive attitude for all.

 

Kim, we applaud you for taking time out to support your community and those in need. You are extremely KI!

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Knowledge Infusion is proud to join customer Novo Nordisk in support of the 22nd Annual Driving for the Cure golf tournament that takes place today at the Cherry Valley Country Club in Skillman, New Jersey.  We are happy to work with great customers and are proud to partner with them not only in their HR technology initiatives, but in supporting great causes like this.

 

Novo Nordisk: You are KI!

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The KI Friday Factoid has been a regular feature at Knowledge Infusion since the inception of the company.

 

The Friday Factoid staff has begun dabbling with Twitter recently.  No conclusions so far, but suffice to say it is not for everyone.  One Factoid staff member equates the 140 character message length limit to trying to have a conversation with someone while riding past them one a bicycle.  Tweets can be useless, cryptic, and bothersome, but once in a while you may get surprisingly useful information.  The goal of most Twitter users seems to be to get as many followers as possible as a way to build their brand or sell you something.  Nevertheless, Twitter is worth checking out if you haven't yet since it is all the rage - for the moment.

 

CIO.com recently put together these Five Dos and Don'ts for Twitter (paraphrased below) to help you get started.  They also have a complete Twitter Bible if you want to go deep.

 

1. How to Follow and Un-Follow People

 

Followers are the people on Twitter who subscribe to your tweets. Some people believe that if someone follows you, it's impolite not to follow that person back.  But especially if you're just starting off on Twitter, you shouldn't feel obligated to follow all people back, even if you worry they'll think it's rude of you. Instead, you should follow people who share your interests or whose tweets you find meaningful or compelling.

 

2. Be Up Front About Your Twitter Aspirations

 

There are a large number of sales and marketing types on Twitter.  As such, you might want to make it clear who you represent and why you're on Twitter. You can put a disclaimer in your  Twitter background noting that the opinions expressed in your tweets don't necessarily reflect those of your employers. You also might provide a link that explains with greater detail why you're on Twitter. While this can allow you some leeway, it doesn't necessarily mean your employer or your followers won't call you out on some tweets.  In the end, the more up front you are in your profile description about who you represent and what you plan to talk about, the more you'll allow yourself some cover.

 

 

3. Be Personal (to a point)

 

While you should heed the advice of the aforementioned section, you also shouldn't be afraid to be personal in your Twitter account. Most people wouldn't join Twitter to be spun by your corporate boilerplate statement or marketed to in traditional fashions. For individuals, Twitter can be a very personal medium, and that's not a bad thing for business people.  Twitter can humanize you in the eyes of your followers (who might want to do business with you in the future as a result of that human interaction).   Your personal tweets should have meaning to your audience. Tweet about issues that are fairly universal to your list of followers and that will make them feel welcome to reply to with their own comments.

People's Twitter streams are uninteresting if they're just declarative sentences like 'I'm going to the movies' or 'it's gray outside.  It's better if it's something that people might feel interested in replying to.

 

 

4. Reciprocate Gracefully

 

Advice on using social media outlets is often served up with a slew of jargony slogans like "engage with the community" or "build your social capital." But sometimes what that means can be unclear, especially on a service like Twitter, which is still relatively young.  So how do you become respected by the community and benefit from the give-and-take that happens between users on Twitter?  It's not all that complicated.

 

"Be honest, interesting and unselfish," says Laura Fitton, @pistachio), who runs Pistachio Consulting, which advices businesses on how to utilize Twitter.  That means not just tweeting links to your own company or website. It also means when you tweet other people's work or news, you shouldn't make it look like a chore. Add some feeling or commentary, or people will see through you.

 

 

5. Use The Direct Message Correctly

 

Although Twitter generally operates as a one-to-many medium, the direct message allows you to reach out to a follower privately. (In order to direct message someone, they must follow you.). But direct messages can be misused, too.  Direct messages, in their best form, should be used as a Web-based version of the text message. Message someone private information such as when you plan to meet up for an appointment or share your cell phone number. You can use this option for any message that doesn't concern the rest of your followers.

 

Hmmm.....Food for thought...

 

Have a Great Weekend Everyone!!

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I was lucky enough today to meet with two Executive Vice-Presidents of Human Resources.

 

  • One was from an organization of 500 employees, profitable, growing and in a good position even in hard economic times
  • One was from an organization 100x larger than the previous, profitable, looking forward to recovery and ready to take advantage of its strength in global markets

 

What I found fascinating about these two meetings today was the following:

 

  • Both EVP's of HR were concerned about both cost savings "efficiency" and value creation "effectiveness"
  • Both EVP's of HR were looking at ways to structure HR now to be in the best position for the future
  • Both EVP's of HR felt that they have taken a "backseat" to how the organization spends money on technology and say they cannot afford not to invest any longer
  • Both EVP's of HR question their ability to truly deliver what their "boards" are looking for based on infrastructure today
  • Both EVP's of HR are looking to change their processes drastically from traditional HR processes to truly business embedded "value add" processes

 

On the airplane tonight, it got me thinking. Each of these organizations is looking to do the same thing, but there are also some variances.

 

  • US only vs. Global
  • Easy decision making vs. Large "political" infrastructure
  • Not much legacy investments vs. huge legacy investments in HR technology
  • Not many failed deployments vs. some failed deployments

 

So, "does size matter in HR technology?"

 

One of the most interesting things on my mind after today is that when looking at HR technology and its ability to impact organizational change, where the "key" differences are truly lie in the cultural aspects of change and the complexity around governing processes, not the actual technology itself. Each of the organizations mentioned could work with a common core HR solution, a common payroll solution and some common talent management solution if:

 

  1. They were willing to make their processes "common"
  2. They were willing to fight legacy philosophies and push changes
  3. They were willing to brand and deploy HR technology in a new, sexy manner

 

It is a Friday night, sitting on the airplane drinking a beer, looking forward to seeing the family - and at the same time, cannot get out of my mind how amazingly different these two companies are and at the same time, how similar their needs truly COULD be.

 

What are your thoughts? Does size matter?

 

Another infusion of knowledge...

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As part of the Knowledge Infusion Optimize Series, I had the opportunity to present today with Knowledge Infusion Co-Founder and President Heidi Spirgi. We had a great turnout on the webinar with many interactive questions throughout. For those that missed the event, I will include link at the end of this post. The webinar was the first in a 5 part series on how to best leverage the economic situation that many organizations find themselves in today. I would encourage you to click on the graphic above to register for the rest of the series going forward.

 

The next event is on May 14th entitled "Reassessing your Talent Management Strategy"

 

As for today's presentation, we covered the following key areas that are critical to beginning this OPTIMIZATION journey. These first three steps are:

  • Taking a Systems Inventory
  • Transforming Business Processes
  • How to Automate, Standardize and Eliminate Systems/Processes

 

Many of the questions that came in during the webinar included topics such as:

  • A great discussion on "how to govern change"
  • A good dialog on "business case for change"
  • Discussion on "when technology should be used vs. just maybe, paper might be better"

Thank you for those that participated and I look forward to seeing you on future events. For those on the webinar today, lets continue the dialog by adding comments.

 

Cheers

 

Link to today's webinar

 

Another infusion of knowledge...

 

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Thanks for the folks at Authoria for helping sponsor our lunch and learn today in Dallas. A great turnout by companies in the Dallas/Houston area and a great information sharing session. A few highlights:

  • Compensation practices from the past have had a tremendous impact on today's economic downturn
  • Compensation practices of the future will have a much tighter link between TRUE "performance management", behaviors and overall compensation plan design
  • Compensation plan design needs to match the "financial blueprint" that equates to an organizations financial goals
  • Talent Management of the future will tie behavioral compensation plans directly to talent processes
  • The overall "business" impact of talent management processes has to be reflected in the compensation plan

Waste Management also did an excellent job of sharing their story of how they deployed Authoria Compensation and how it changed the way their organization not only automated the process, but transformed compensation forever.

Great event, great stories and most important - people that are trying to make a difference.

Another infusion of knowledge...


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Here’s the scenario: a progressive, HR-friendly CEO brings on board a progressive, strategic-thinking Chief HR Officer. Together, these two agree that the organization needs a talent management strategy – it will include leadership development, competency models, talent mobility models, new technology – the works! The Chief HR Officer then hires or designates a couple of trusted staff members to implement the strategy.  The work gets going, and everything seems to be going swimmingly.

 

Until IT isn’t.

 

Business leaders are frustrated. They’ve been promised great HR support for talent management, but they don’t see it happening for them. Instead, they say they are getting the same old HR support they’ve always gotten. Employees are frustrated – they’ve heard rumors about new talent management programs – development opportunities, career planning, new collaboration tools. But there has been nothing beyond “hearing about it”. When is it going to happen for them? And what is IT, anyway?

 

Last fall, the McKinsey Quarterly Newsletter published “Realigning the HR function to manage talent”, an article that was featured in a Knowledge Infusion Consultant's Corner blog on Sept. 8  and the HR Capitalist on Sept. 15. I feature it again here, to highlight the importance of informing, involving, and building the capability of HR to support a talent management strategy. And this means informing, involving and elevating the entire HR function, from the specialists in Centers of Excellence to the generalists supporting the business. Is it helpful to have a few key players driving strategy implementation? Sure. Is it sufficient to successfully implement and realize true business results from talent transformation? Not even close.

 

 

The most successful Knowledge Infusion clients that we’ve worked are those that fully grasp, and grapple with, the fundamental changes to the HR function itself that are required to truly design, develop, and implement transformative talent management processes. This often requires HR to walk its own walk – the same principles driving world-class recruiting, performance management, pipeline and mobility management and development that HR is implementing for the business must be implemented for HR as well, preferably before being implemented for the business.   In this way, HR becomes completely familiar with, and fully invested in, being that true strategic talent management adviser that the business so desperately wants and needs.

 

Being a progressive HR thinker and adviser / consigliore to the CEO isn't enough - transformative CHROs have to lead their own function, too.

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The Friday Factoid has been a regular feature every Friday at KI since the inception of the company.

 

View Into the Corporate Blogosphere

 

Interesting research from our friends at the "Society for New Communications Research" and Financial Insite.

 

Factoids on Corporate Social Media Use:

 

  • 81 of the Fortune 500 or 16% currently have public-facing blogs.
  • This compares with 39 percent of the Inc. 500; 41 percent of the higher education sector and 57 percent of the nation’s Top 200 Charities.
  • 28 percent of the Fortune 500’s blogs link to Twitter accounts. (Other Fortune 500 companies have Twitter accounts, but they are not linked to their blogs)
  • Five of the top ten companies have public blogs: Wal-Mart, Chevron, General Motors, Ford, and Bank of America.
  • 90 percent of the Fortune 500’s blogs have the comments feature enabled.
  • The computer software/hardware technology industry has the most blogs, followed by the food and drug industry, financial services, Internet services, semi-conductors, retail and automotive respectively.
  • Ten percent of the Fortune 500’s blogs link to podcasts; 21 percent incorporate video

 

Hmmm....Food for Thought...

 

Have a Great Weekend Everyone!

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It should be an interesting week as Jason Averbook travels to Bucharest, Romania to present on Web 2.0 Strategies at the HR 2.0 Conference, and Heidi Spirgi is floating around New York harbor with hundreds of HR leaders at The HR Forum on the Norwegian Dawn.

 

You can get updates and follow Jason and his adventures to Romania on Twitter at @jasonaverbook.

 

The last update from Heidi was that they were requiring hand sanitation to protect from the Swine Flu and she was just about to do the mandatory safety test, putting on lifejackets prior to setting sail.  With extremely limited internet and phone connection, we don't expect to hear much more from Heidi until she gets back to dry land later this week.

 

Jason and Heidi:  Thank you for traveling across the globe, spending the week on a boat, and leading Knowledge Infusion and the transformation of HR across the world.  YOU are KI!

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