Conversation and Curation

You might recall me writing about partnering a few weeks back? Well, I’ve some more progress on that front.

Meg Peppin and I will be facilitating a breakfast conversational workshop together on the morning of Day Two of this year’s CIPD Annual Conference and Exhibition. We’ll have more news on the session and how you can get involved soon.

In addition, Meg will be blogging from the conference and I’ll be helping to curate the social media content for the CIPD on their new Tumblr site. I’m hopeful we can get lots of great pics and videos from conference guests and speakers, to go along with all the blogs, tweets and other great content that always emerges from this event.

I think the CIPD’s approach and commitment to using social media to engage at and beyond the conference has been evident for a few years now, and though I’m biased, I think it’s something their team (including Johanna Ratcliffe, Tom Paisley, Robert Blevin and Natalia Thomson) and the wider membership and blogging team do really well. They’ve had and get lots of encouragement from HR professionals such as Neil Morrison and Alison Chisnell, and they enjoy good support from the wider community, and from specialists including Gareth Jones and more recently, Perry Timms.

If you’re planning on being in Manchester on November 6th and 7th and coming to the conference – let us know and we’d love to get together for coffee and conversation. And if you’re planning on blogging from the conference – please get in touch as I’d love to help share your thoughts.

Mama Weer All Krazee Now

The office is closed today. London awaits, and an evening with Rush beckons. I know many people who have never heard of Rush and many people who have, and wish they hadn’t. They are different. They’re not everyone’s cup of tea and that’s great – difference makes the world go round. By way of something else a little different, a little crazy, I just thought I’d share with you a few of the search terms that have led people to the blog this week.

‘Zombie HR’ – a personal fave 🙂

‘What a Load of Rubbish’ – Thanks for your feedback. Or does this relate to Rush, who knows…?

‘What is love?’ – the eternal question

‘Why losing is good for you’ – I wish I knew!

‘Rocket from a bottle’ – Hmmmm, Xtc?

‘Is fun a corporate value?’ – No, no it bloody isn’t!

‘Tell your own story’ – Absolutely.

Not a bad little list eh? Proof, if it were needed, that we’re heading in a good direction. Have a great bank holiday weekend folks.

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.