Tag: Carnival

Curation – A Disturbance in the Force

As you know – I’ve just curated the Carnival of HR for the second time. The response from all quarters was very encouraging thank you, and the blog had its busiest day so far this month. I appreciate the support – and before the Carnival packs up and heads on to the next destination I wanted to share three things I learned from the curation process.

Deadline

Despite marking time in my diary to bring the Carnival together, I struggled to get going because I got hung up on the submission deadline. This meant I waited until everyone had contributed before I began to plan and write up the curation. I also accepted late submissions, though I didn’t try to factor them into the Carnival theme. The next time I do something like this I will seek an earlier deadline so that I can begin the curation process sooner.

Time

It takes a lot of time to curate a Carnival. Each post needs to be read and considered. Does it fit the theme? What is it about each post that I should reference in the curation summary? It took me over six hours to pull everything together and whilst I appreciate that I am inexperienced in this field, I expect even a seasoned curator like Michael Carty or Martin Couzins would echo that the process of curation is a time consuming one. And reflecting on the feedback I’ve received – I think that investment is necessary, otherwise you are effectively just listing a bunch of stuff, and I don’t perceive much value in that for the reader.

Mistakes

I goofed, a little. First – I incorrectly copied the link to Mark Catchlove’s blog post into the Carnival, so when you clicked on him, you ended up in the ether. Sukh Pabial was kind enough to contact me with the news and courtesy of the WordPress app, I was able to fix this error on the train back from Reading yesterday. Second – I made an omission. Susan Heathfield submitted a contribution titled ‘Never Tell HR These 10 Things’ and although it was past the deadline, I forgot to include it. Sorry Susan. I think these errors arose as a result of the amount of time it took me to get the whole thing done so I think that by tending to the deadline dilemma above, then time, and possible mistakes may be easier to work with and iron out.

I hope this reflection helps you in your blogging endeavours. Thanks again to the contributors and readers, see you at the next Carnival town.

photo credit

The Carnival is Coming to Town

Wow – is it that time of year already?! It sure is, and in a few short days the Carnival of HR rolls into town for its second visit here. Last year – the carnival landed around fireworks night and was right in the middle of the CIPD conference so I had an easy time picking the theme. This year it wasn’t so straight forward, but I’ve decided to go with ‘Beginnings’….wait for the tenuous link.

  • May 22nd 1906, The Wright Brothers are granted a patent for their Flying Machine
  • May 22nd 1980, Namco releases Pac-Man
  • May 22nd 1990, Microsoft releases Windows 3.0
  • May 22nd 2003, Annika Sorenstam becomes the first woman to play golf on the PGA tour in 58 years

So what have these got to do with HR? Well maybe not a whole lot, but they’re all beginnings and they all started on May 22nd, the day of the next Carnival of HR. So what I would like to know is – what new beginnings would you like to see? Maybe in the world of HR, maybe somewhere else. What do you think we should be doing that isn’t currently going on and/or doesn’t have enough focus yet? Maybe you’re about to embark on a new challenge? Who knows – but seeing as it is supposed to be Spring time around here (I know – brrrr!) then let your beginnings burst forth.

‘Well that’s all well and good Doug, but your theme is rubbish, doesn’t float my boat at all’ I hear some of you cry. I get that – so by popular demand the ‘Other crap we can’t be bothered to categorise’ theme is also running in the background. That way – if you don’t want to play to the carnival theme but you do have a post you’d like included – we can fit you in too.

If you would like to take part, please ensure you get your post link (just the link please, the original post stays at your place and I hook it in from here) to me at doug dot shaw at wgalimited dot com by Monday 20th May at the latest please. My plan is to draft up the Carnival around 8pm UK time on Monday evening and I’d hate to miss you out.

So – what are you waiting for – promote yourself to CEO and make some people focussed change happen. Looking forward to hearing from you.