blog – Page 2 – The Consulting Artist

Recognition, So Much Better With a Why

We all know that recognition is a useful part of the motivation mix, it’s great when your work is recognised.

Blog Recognition

People Management published a Top 20 HR Power Tweeters list recently. I haven’t bothered to include a link to it because it is now archived behind a paywall, but what a hoohah ensued as people picked over the omissions and exclusions. And the publication of the list led to a couple of good blog posts that I know about, one here by David Goddin, another here by Mervyn Dinnen. Mervyn asked a question about how the list was ranked, and whilst he was given assurances that it was ranked, no further explanation was forthcoming. Somehow I came in on this list at number 12 out of 20. Not quite a top ten finish and the lack of any ranking evidence took the shine off a little, but hey – I got a little recognition. I probably had a beer to celebrate.

More recently, a list of top socially shared HR bloggers has appeared here, courtesy of Bamboo HR. I first knew about this list when William Tincup shared it on Facebook. At the time William said well done to all though the list was irrelevant because it didn’t contain Laurie Ruettimann or Fistful of Talent. Weirdly, now it does, though the list hasn’t gotten any longer so I’m guessing two at the bottom got bumped to make way? I wrote to Bamboo HR asking why the change of mind – they chose not to reply.

Bamboo HR have shared how they compiled the list, and yes there is the inevitable subjectivity, you can read about their selection process here. Alongside the subjective element there is some gathering of data, specifically the number of shares each blog received over a three month period across a number of social networks. I found the data gathering aspect quite interesting so over Christmas I copied their methodology and tracked my blog in an identical way.

Using their numbers I found myself checking in at number 19 on the list. Now, I’m not on this list – and it’s subjective to an extent just like all these recognition lists, so I’m not celebrating per se. However because Bamboo has published some data, myself and other nerds can at least get a handle on where we might sit in the grand scheme of things. Assuming we care. I mean – you may not but I do right, otherwise I wouldn’t have geeked out and done all this huh?

Employee Recognition

All this reminds me of far too many well meaning and poorly thought out recognition schemes. If they have no why – then do they have any point? We all know that recognition is a useful part of the motivation mix, it’s great when your work is recognised. And surely it’s even better when you can get your head around at least some of the criteria, and see why you’re getting recognition.

Finish Line

At the end of last month I read a post over at Laurie Ruettimann’s Cynical Girl blog that started ‘If you are a blogger, you should blog on a daily basis. I believe that blogging is a full-time job. Target, McDonalds and Walmart barely shut their doors. Neither should you.’ I’m not going to start saying what I think is right, wrong, up or down about blogging, the last time I tried that I got my ass kicked and couldn’t sit down for a week. You draw your own conclusions about what blogging is or isn’t.

Anyhoo, the words Laurie wrote got me thinking, how hard/easy/smart/dumb would it be to try and get a new blog post out every weekday in July? I decided to go for it and feeling chicken, I kept the challenge to myself. After all, most of what I write comes pretty much from the here and now and I’ve always struggled to have a lot of drafts and reserves to call upon, so the chances of me making it are pretty slim right?

Yeah it was close at times and I made it to this finish line. I found some time on weekends to sit and pen a few thoughts which helped along the way, and I learned the importance of scribbling down good ideas. Over the course of July I’ve had four lightbulb moments which I think would have made great blog posts, but because I didn’t write them down I forgot ’em all, dang it!

Thanks for sticking with me this past month, August won’t be quite the same as there are holidays coming.

photo credit

Friday Fury – Bloggers!

I started blogging in late 2008 and I confess I felt a little like I was jumping on a bandwagon. There were a lot of blogs out there, why should I add another one to the pile?

This blog was started because I felt that there was something missing, a place for employee and customer and community stuff to collide. I’m motivated about making work better in order to deliver better service. I didn’t think about it much more beyond that – but I’d built up a few ideas to get me started and felt sure those and my passion for these connections would see me through. I was wrong. There’s a whole bunch of effort required to keep the train a rollin’.

Now it’s 2012 and it seems every Tom, Dick and Harry met Sally is just piling in. One of the by products of piling in is that after the euphoria of your first few comments and retweets comes the onset of frequent infrequency. It becomes clear that this blogging lark can be hard work, and the temptation to let it drift is often too seductive. The excellent A Better Mess blog says this about infrequency:

‘We crap rationalize with things like, “I’ll only write when I have something really important to say,” or “I’ll get back to blogging once I finish this project for work.” Rather than course correcting, the average blog dies a slow, painful and lingering demise. It’s a death march that not only disappoints your readers, it’s a public commitment that you’ve essentially neglected.’

And if you want people to read your blog, then frequently infrequent ain’t gonna get ’em. And don’t give me any of that ‘I’m only writing for myself’ crap. Were that true then you’d be ‘blogging’ on one of these babies:

So get real y’all. Blogging takes guts, sweat, persistence and a depth of madness most folk can only dream of. And to that end, have a listen to this (lyrical kudos to @workessence for another musical collaboration):