London Calling

I was over in Ohio last week at the 42nd annual state HR conference. It was an excellent trip catching up with old friends, making new ones, and learning from each other. Whilst there I gave a talk on Art for Work’s Sake, and two more on collaboration. At the end of each session I gave away a copy of Austin Kleon’s book, Steal Like An Artist. I give this book away often, so often I’ve lost count of the number of copies I have bought and passed on. This time – I decided to add a little something of my own to the mix, so I included a small water colour and pen sketch with each book.

I painted some water colour onto wet card and let them dry overnight. Then I drew on some iconic London related imagery, added the London Calling call sign, and my signature. All in all I guess each one took me about 45 minutes to make, the blue one slightly longer. I think I will repeat this experiment with future book giveaways, I enjoy being able to include something personal, something handmade.

London Calling 2 London Calling 1 London Calling 3

 

HR Tech Europe 2014 – London Spring Warm Up

A preview post for HR Tech Europe – London March 25th 2014

You might not have me down as an HR Tech aficionado, and to some extent you’d be right. I’m much more interested in the human, less so in the resource – and the tech is…well it’s just tech, isn’t it? What I think tech should be, is an enabler for HR people to do the human bit to the very best of their abilities. Tech should be an enabler – instant access to information about an employee so that HR and the line manager can work with and develop that person, in a way that is good for the business and the person. Is that how HR Tech works? I don’t know, and I’m keen to find out.

So, on March 27th I’ll be off to the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre to catch up with the latest news and ideas from the world of HR Tech. There are two perspectives in particular I want to hear about.

First up – I’m keen to hear from Adrian Furnham on this:

HR Technology – Quantifying The Appetite For Social & Technological Change Inside Your Organisation

During his presentation Adrian Furnham will go beyond discussing the well worn how and why of change. He will look at approaches to monitoring, quantifying and managing the appetite for change inside your organisation, and offer insights on how to effect attitudinal change in people and organisations. 

I’m keen to hear from Adrian because beyond crystal clear and timely communication, and a chance to be involved on the cocreation of change, I’m not clear enough about how you manage the appetite for it. As for insight on how to affect change, I’m always keen to learn more about that.

I’m also really interested in hearing Neil Lewis from Nationwide, talk about this:

Implementing an HR Systems Transformation to Underpin a People & HRSS Strategy

An HR System Transformation Programme which will deliver an enhanced capability for HR and the business, and support the Group People Strategy. It will modernise and enhance the HR service offering for employees and line managers, whilst also enabling HR to function with greater efficiency and effectiveness. The Programme will provide Nationwide with a HR IT platform capable to meet current and future requirements.

At first I confess I thought a HRSS was something you got driven to your funeral in, but it turns out I was wrong, it is in fact Human Resource Support Services. My error notwithstanding – the reason I am interested in this talk is simply that I am a customer of Nationwide. Me and my family trust this company with some of our hard earned cash, so I am keen to learn about what they are doing to enhance the employee experience, as I believe this has a direct bearing on the customer experience.

There’s loads of other stuff going on through the day too. The full line up is here, and if you are around on the day – I hope to see you there. If you can’t make it – take a look at what’s on and if you’ve any burning questions and thoughts, drop me a comment and I will do my best to get you an answer or cover your point for you at or after the event.

Conference Doodling

I was doing some voluntary work for my professional body, the CIPD yesterday. My job was to create and curate content at a social media conference. As part of my work, I had a go at some sketching using pencil and fine liner pens. Here are the results.

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I had hoped to do more but I’m not skilled at doodling at speed!