We found the below letter from the editor of the Washington Post excellent and a great example of how we can learn to both design and communicate our internal HR websites and portals.  A few things to note:

• Listened to the clients; elimination of clutter * Addition of blogs and user comments * Personalized content tied to zip code * Most popular section * Faster response time

These are all characteristics that we can learn from as we deploy our HRMS and Talent Management functionality.   The HR world has much to learn from the business to consumer world and this is just the start of our communications on this topic.

KI continually works with clients to design websites, portals and deployment of direct access solutions that follow these characteristics.  Make sure that you are adopting these tenets and also communicating the changes.  The example below is excellent; bravo Washington Post.

Another infusion of knowledge...

To our readers,

Welcome to our new home page. I wanted to take a few minutes to tell you about some of the key changes, and the thinking behind it.

• One of the most frequent complaints about our previous home page was clutter, specifically the number of links and lack of open space on the page. In this new page, we've added more white space and cut down the number of long lists of text links. The hope is that these changes give the page more of an open, inviting feel and make it easier to scan. We've also moved to a more modular layout to make it easier to find your favorite home page features.

• To better highlight our award-winning video and photo content, we've added a multimedia strip to the page. This band will be comprised of videos, photos and interactives, and by using the scroll arrows or the iTunes-like buttons, you can scroll to see more multimedia features. We've also created a similar strip for features content, allowing us to better showcase all the content we have in that area.

• This new home page also highlights the site's newest section, Smart Living. Designed for those seeking information to manage their lives, Smart Living will aggregate the best stories, blogs and columns from The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com in the areas of parenting, health, food and dining, home and garden, pets, relationships, personal finance and more. Prior to this launch, consumer content could be found in many different areas of the site; the goal of Smart Living is to provide a one-stop destination. Because we thought that sounded, you know, smart.

• Because of the popularity of our Live Discussions, we've anchored a placement near the top of the home page to help readers find our schedule, previous transcripts and featured guests.

• As you may know, we have two home pages: One for readers with Washington-area ZIP Codes, and one for our national and international readers. On our Washington home page, we've added a "Local" button to our global navigation to provide easier access to local news, weather, traffic, classifieds content and more.

• On our national home page, we've anchored a Most Popular module on the upper right of the page. On the local page, this Most Popular module is located farther down the page, right below the features strip.

• To make it easier to find our video, photo and audio assets, we've moved to using icons to signify those content types. One of the valuable pieces of feedback we've received from you over the past year is that you find it difficult to locate our multimedia content. Between the new multimedia band on the home page, our recently launched video player and the switch to these more eye-catching icons, we hope we've addressed that concern.

• We've also added a strip across the top of the page that makes it easier to locate your user information, change preferences or set washingtonpost.com as your home page (c'mon, go ahead, you know you want to). Additionally, incorporating more of the feedback you've given us, we've added a label on the upper right of the home page to let you know which of our two home pages -- Washington or U.S./World -- you're looking at. There's also a handy link that allows you to set which home page you'd like to see.

• We've also built this new home page to have a lighter page weight, and thus, faster load times. We have also built this page to make it much easier for those with disabilities to read our home page with screen readers.

We believe that these changes will make it a much better and organized experience for you. But we'd like to hear what you think, so please feel free to send an e-mail to executive.editor@washingtonpost.com.

Thanks,

Jim Brady

Executive Editor, washingtonpost.com

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Wikipedia defines this new position: ���The Chief Networking Officer (CNO) is a new corporate executive office in the business world; it refers to a person who manages the social capital of a company. The CNO connects people and businesses within the company, with other companies, as well as with consumers, hence facilitating know-how transfer and information flow, and allowing for profits to grow.���

As HR continues to be the broker of collaboration through HR and talent management technologies, look for HR and HRIS to become much more involved in networking going forward.  Click here to read entire, interesting post on the newest C level role in organizations.

Another infusion of knowledge..

Entry to Chief Networking Officer

****Knowledge Infusion Co-Founder Heidi Spirgi recently contributed her thoughts about lessons learned on the shop floor that would benefit HR strategy and talent

Lesson #3 from the shop floor: performance

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Think again about those monstrous, greasy, and deafening machines of my childhood spitting out perfectly formed steel nuts and bolts. Their productivity (a function of # fasteners/minute) was measured twice a day. Their quality was measured continually with a whole department and lab dedicated to identifying potential quality issues. Measuring the performance of these machines, defined as quantity and quality of production, was a fixture of the way my Dad���s company operated.

Thirty years later and people are largely unmeasured in most organizations. In the most progressive organizations and only then in the hands of the best managers, performance is measured on a semi-annual basis, at an average organization annually, and in many organizations never at all. Can you imagine the performance implications if a slow machine was identified after a year of producing too few fasteners? Can you imagine the implications if the bolts that hold together the Golden Gate Bridge, Mack Trucks and most of the country���s stadiums weren���t checked continually for quality?

This is the state of the human capital supply chain in 2007. Is it time for a new paradigm for measuring the performance of people?

***Knowledge Infusion Co-Founder Heidi Spirgi recently contributed her thoughts about lessons learned on the shop floor that would benefit HR strategy and talent manag

!http://knowledgeinfusion.typepad.com/knowlege_infusion_blog/WindowsLiveWriter/Fr omtheShopFloor1_9DC6/ki1_thumb.jpg![http://knowledgeinfusion.typepad.com/knowlege_infusion_blog/WindowsLiveWriter/Fr omtheShopFloor1_9DC6/ki1%5B2%5D.jpg] <p  <p>Lesson #1 from the shop floor: talent supply and demand

As a kid, I spent many hours on the shop floor of a large fastener manufacturing plant watching steel be transformed into large, industrial grade nuts and bolts. The old machines stretched, pressed, molded, cut and polished the steel into fasteners that would wind up in many of the world���s largest construction projects. This was the era before computers radically and permanently transformed the supply chain; but even then, the performance of those machines was measured daily ��� actually multiple times a day.

If a machine began to run slow and produce fewer fasteners, it was identified quickly and action was taken. Enter MRP (Manufacturing Resource Planning), ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and SCM (Supply Chain Management) and the world of manufacturing was turned upside down. Today the supply and demand of everything from fasteners to french fries, from TV���s to tennis shoes is forecasted, planned, optimized, measured and delivered just-in-time. Along the way, vast amounts of waste (raw materials, machine down time, inventory, and delivery time) have been cut from the supply chain.

Cut to 2007 ��� People, THE fundamental asset of most organizations. It is the supply of talent (skills, competencies, leadership, experience, etc.) that fuels most businesses today. Yet most organizations do nothing to optimize that supply. It���s time that HR to take some lessons from manufacturing on how to manage the supply and demand of assets. In this case ��� PEOPLE.

Another infusion of knowledge..

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Knowledge Infusion Co-Founder mailto:heidi.spirgi@knowledge-infusion.com recently visited Paris, a few of her thoughts..

As I sit at a sidewalk caf�� drinking my third caf�� cr��me of the day, I am struck by how much Paris has changed. I watch the throngs of people funnel past me and realize this is not the Paris of 18 years ago when I spent my Junior year of college here.

A quick sketch of my observations:

1. Global, multi-cultural - Like in the U.S., immigration has changed the face of France. This is the face of the global workforce; companies who will succeed will learn how to tap into the power represented by this diversity.

2. Multi-generational - Young and old streamed past with equal levels of focus and intent, if not speed. With the influx of young immigrants and the increasing life expectancy and mobility of older generations, the young and the old are walking, eating, drinking and yes, working, side by side with increasing regularity. Developing flexible and diverse employment programs for these vastly different generations will be a tremendous challenge for the HR function over the coming decades. It will require new roles, new ways of approaching old problems, new management styles, and tremendous marketing and communication.

3. Digital natives - A quick count yields the following:

• 1 in 6 people were actively talking on the cell phone

• 1 in 4 (between the ages of 16 and 40) are listening to MP3 players with the telltale white cord hanging from their face

• 1 in 2 (between the ages of 16 and 25) are listening to their MP3 players that are much cooler looking than the 35 year olds

This is the global talent pool. It���s HR���s calling for the next decade to understand, attract, develop, motivate, reward and retain this new face. Today���s Paris isn���t the Paris of 18 years ago. Like the title of Marshall���s Goldsmith best selling business book ���What Got You Here Won���t Get You There,��� what got HR here, won���t get HR where it needs to go.

Create your HR strategy using HR technology and talent management tools to assist in your journey beginning today.

Another infusion of knowledge..

The Monthly SHRM (Society of Human Resource Management) continues to publish great articles on topics important to all of us in HR technology.   In the March 2007 appears a great article for all of us talking about the importance of Workforce Intelligence.  One of the keys to this article are the questions that the author asks us to ask business managers in our organizations.  Here are some of them:

• What are our key business goals and objectives for the next two years?* What are our three greatest organizational strengths?* Who are our competitors��� organizational strengths? How do we compare?* What are the top three priorities we must execute to reach our goals in the next six to 12 months?* What are the three to five core capabilities we need to win in our markets?* What are the required knowledge, skills and abilities that are needed to execute the strategy?* What are the barriers to optimally achieving the strategy? What are the key gaps that need attention?* What types of skills/positions will be required? No longer needed?* Which skills should we have internally vs. buy vs. rent?* What actions need to be taken to align resources with priorities?* What are the most critical workforce issues we currently face?* What recognition/rewards are needed to encourage and sustain desired employee behavior?* How will we know if we���re effectively executing our workforce plan and staying on track?

FINALLY, an HR publication is focusing on business questions.  SHRM got this right and if metrics/analytics and business intelligence is going to be of true value in this talent management, human capital management based focus in organizations today, the business questions are truly what will give organizations a competitive edge.

Beginning today, add Workforce Intelligence into each of your HR strategy discussions; without it, why are you doing HR?

Another infusion of knowledge..

Link to Feb. 2007 HR Magazine: Putting Forecasting in Focus

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Be one of the first to receive results of the 2007 Knowledge Infusion/IHRIM Talent Management Survey. 

The event will feature an in depth review and analysis of the 2007 Talent Management Survey Results including:

• What Talent Management initiatives organizations are investing in the next year* Satisfaction levels of current solutions* Business drivers of talent management practices

Join us to learn:

• Where your company is on the Talent Management continuum* Why buying software in 2007 is different than buying software in 2002* Why Performance Management isn���t what you think it is* The growing importance of HRIS in meeting the needs of strategic Talent Management.* A 10-step action plan for achieving maximum success with your Talent Management initiatives

Click the link below for another infusion of knowledge..

Link to IHRIM (The International Association for Human Resource Information )