Corporate Blogging….You Don’t Have to be a Robot

Ok let’s not include R2D2 or C3P0 or any of the other memorable Movie Robots – for the most part Robots can be pretty boring.

Following on from my conversation with Sarah from Carve Consulting the other week we briefly touched on what we think may happen next year as all these companies and people jump on the social media wave. It is great that new users are joining these online communities and sharing content with everyone. However one thing I think we will see happen is that companies in an attempt to make sure they have a blog or FB page may have people writing for them who aren’t natural writers or people writing for them who really aren’t passionate about their product/service.

Writing is based on emotion, it cannot be automated even though I am sure there are people who would disagree with this.

Blogging is not new it has been around for years, there are many great bloggers out there and information I imagine on any topic you are looking for. I have been blogging for about 2 years now and for me blogging is a way to express and share my thoughts and ideas with our readers and hopefully provide some information that helps someone (I believe in the sayings “what goes around comes around and also “do good things and good things will happen to you, do bad things and….”). When I write it is natural, I find my blog entries are not forced writing they just kind of flow similar to when you have a conversation when you catch up with someone for a coffee.

I think though what we will see (and there already are examples of this out there) is companies set up corporate blogs written by people who are not passionate about their topic or not 100% engaged in what they want to say. I have seen corporate blogs that do not hold my attention at all. The reason they don’t hold my attention is that they do not seem genuine – if you are going to write a corporate blog, don’t feel you have to put on your sales hat and sell your product/service to us – if we are interested we will get in touch with you. Corporate blog entries that have no heart or passion in the writing come off to me as something I can just read off the company website or marketing promotion – where is the value?? I want to read what a writer thinks and feels and get a perspective from a real person not from a robot being told to write something about “how great product X is” – unless the writer actually tried product X and loved it!

The other thing that I am noticing more lately is people who are taking previously written content and claiming it as their own. As more people start blogging and writing about topics there is naturally going to be some overlap of content which is understandable however isn’t there some sort of unwritten bloggers code about stealing content. Again it comes down to value to the reader, what value does it do to post content that is already available on the internet (unless you are trying to claim credit for something you did not do – again this comes back to karma). If you want to use someone else’s content ask them, more often than not they will say yes and make sure to give credit back to the original post – give credit where credit is due.

Here is a great example of how cutting and pasting someone else’s content can backfire. Thomas Shaw found a great example of this the other day, here is his Twitter post below letting the guys from Hippo.com.au know where their blog post originally came from. (notice the #fail hashtag at the end).

@ThomasShaw: @hippo_com_au guys you have copied the the article http://bit.ly/59Be2M from here http://bit.ly/7lLJiT #fail11:31 AM Dec 15th from TweetDeck in reply to hippo_com_au

I am sure corporate bloggers have policies and guidelines they must work within, but it doesn’t mean your blog posts can’t be original or funny or honest, etc…. If you are going to write, write about the things that you think and believe – your readers will be much more engaged with you and much more appreciative to you for sharing your thoughts.

 

Survived the Corporate Games for Another Year (Just)

Over the weekend I again had the opportunity to compete in the Australian Corporate Games which were held here in Melbourne, Australia. This is the 4th year in a row that I have competed in the Corporate Games and I think it is great that Oracle continues to support and encourage us to participate in these types of events.

The events I was in took place on Saturday morning – it was a pretty hectic day and by 3:00 pm I was at home sleeping on the couch! This year I competed in the 5km run and was also a member of the Men’s Basketball Team. I was really happy with my time for the 5km run as I completed it this year in 22:30 minutes (thanks to Hema for pushing me along that last km or two).

Overall   Event Place         Name                  Organisation      Time            Event

31                   12                      David Talamelli      Oracle            22.25       5K Men 30-39

Once I finished the run I had time to grab an apple and then I had to run from the running event straight to the baskbetball courts as our first game was at 8:45 am. I haven’t played basketball for about 6 months, but had a great time out there.

The first team we came up against (Aussie Post) I get the funny feeling have played together before. I think they had about three 7′0 footers in the team and they could all could shoot the lights out. Anyway we got destroyed in that game and lost the eventual winner of our pool, but I did hit a 3-pointer which surprised me as my shooting is really not that great. The next two games were a lot closer and we had a bit of fun at the end, even though we didn’t win any of our 3 games, we put up a good fight.

I forgot to bring my camera this year, so I didn’t get any pictures but if I can find any I will post them up.

 

Camping at Anglesea (well almost camping)

It has been a few weeks in the making, but we are now starting to see some warm weather here in Melbourne – which is great because it means we can get out camping. Earlier this year Melinda and I took the kids to Wilsons Promontory – Joshua was only 4 months old at the time, so rather than roughing it and camping we rented a house for the weekend.

A few weeks ago, we took the next step to get us closer to getting back in a tent (which was pre-kids days). Over the Melbourne Cup long weekend Melinda and I again packed up the kids and this time went away for the weekend at Anglesea. Rather than renting a house, we rented a cabin at one of the Big 4 campgrounds. It was a great 4 day break that we spent with family friends. I am not sure I would classify our break as “camping” given the cabins had air conditioning and foxtel, but I am hopeful we are taking baby steps and soon the family will be going away for man vs wild holidays.

Both the adults and the kids had a great time and some of us were actually able to get out to play a little golf at Anglesea Golf Course. It was not a pretty sight to see us on the golf course, but I did get a par hole and I also got a bit of a ‘dad’s break’. The hit of the weekend for the kids I think was the giant jumping pillow at the campground. Deanne brought some UNO cards which may have been for the kids, but the parents had a pretty serious game one night (yes I lost – but I am sure Rowan and Deanne were both cheating , I am still not sure how but I am sure of it, lol).

We were away during halloween so on the night all the kids dressed up and went “trick or treating”, they didn’t get a truck load of chocolate, but they had a great time just getting dressed up and running around. One day we took the kids to Airey’s Inlet Lighthouse, but it was only open to people 5+ yrs old – which scratched us from going in, oh well maybe in a few years time we ill try again.

That is my quick wrap of our long weekend away – I look forward to doing it again!

 

Goodbye LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc….Hello Social Networking Aggregates

I am sure many of you of you know the drill: log onto email [check], log onto Twitter [check], log onto Facebook [check], log onto LinkedIn [check], log onto another social network and another one, etc….. Why hasn’t someone come up with an easier way to manage our social networks and aggregate them into one application.

Wait, not all hope is lost!

Over the past few weeks, I have been seeing many more tools offering social networking aggregation or mash up  services. I think this will be one of the next ‘big things’ that we see in the social media/networking space.

It made sense that sooner or later we were going to require these services and I think it is great that this need has been addressed. With so many social networks that have been created to communicate with each other, it was becoming time consuming and ineffective to log onto each network individually and check to see who is saying what and where.

These SNS (social network services) mash up sites basically aggregate many of your social networks onto one application or web browser. I have had the chance to try a few of these apps and I think we are still at early adoption stage to say that any one application has it right. Some are too slow, some don’t have access to enough networks, some are not available for mac (disgby.com – hope you see this), etc….

Anyway, here are my thoughts on a few of the Social Networking Aggregate site that I have used or seen available:

Orsiso: http://orsiso.com/ - I downloaded Orsiso this week and have started to use it. My first impression is that I like it, it has a nice user interface that allows me to check and see what is happening on my various social networks. It also has a nice feature where you can group your various contacts into 1st Level through to 4th Level contacts – allowing you to keep track of the people you talk to regularly or want to hear from. On the downside – I find that the service is slow, many updates either do not show up on Orsiso or show up much later then when they are actually posted. Out of the 5 SNS Aggregators listed I would say it is my 2nd favorite at the moment.

Google Wave: http://www.google.com/ - I am waiting on a few invitations to come through before I can actually start using Wave – my initial thought from what I have seen is that you can only communicate with other Google Wave users – the tools look great, but it will be a long time before everyone is using wave. Out of the 5 SNS Aggregators listed I have to give it a NA score as I have not actually used this tool yet.

Digsby: http://www.digsby.com - The first thing that comes to mind is frustration! Digsby is not yet available on Mac so when I tried to use it on my home laptop – no luck. Ok the next day I downloaded it onto my work laptop, but because of my firewall protections I can not use it at work. It is too bad, it looks like a good tool, but in this competitive environment, you have to make things easy for people to use – my initial exposure to Digsby has been difficult and I am not sure I will go back unless it becomes easier to use. Out of the 5 SNS Aggregators listed this was my least favorite out of the 5 listed.

Flock.com: http://flock.com/ - This was interesting, Flock is a web browser which integrates your social networking profiles into your web browser. I only had a quick play with it, but didn’t immediately see the value add in it. It was good you could log onto Twitter or Facebook and have that information on a sidebar, but it seemed to defeat the purpose because it opened up a new webpage with every social network you joined. I was thinking if this is the case why can’t I just do this in Chrome or IE or any other Web Browser. Out of the 5 SNS Aggregators listed this was just ahead of Digsby and well below Orsiso.

Tweetdeck: http://tweetdeck.com/ - I have been using Tweetdeck ever since I started using Twitter over 18 months ago. Tweetdeck is getting better as it now has Facebook and Myspace integration. I like how you can create columns to follow the people or keywords you want to and the results come into Tweetdeck in real time without the same delay that happens with Orsiso. Out of the 5 SNS Aggregators listed this is the original one I used and is still my favorite, it is number 1 for me in the list.

If we could take bits and pieces from each of these apps – I think there would be a great all purpose app to use. I think we will see a good app come out that will stand above the rest and become dominant in this space. It will be fun to see who comes up with that app. I think that someone will get it right in the near future and I think it is great because this will certainly make social networking so much easier to manage for many people.

 

Facebook/Twitter Banned at Your Company…This May Impact Your Ability to Hire Great People

I read an article titled ”54% of Companies Ban Facebook, Twitter at Work” the other week and was quite surprised to find the number was that high.

Whenever the question comes up of about using social networking tools at work – the common debate tends to be focused around productivity. That is many people from a management perspective take the thinking that using tools like Facebook takes people away from doing the tasks that they are employed to do and ends up costing the company money. Users of Social Networks however counter that with the thought that it is by using tools like Facebook they are actually able to do the job they do and that social networking tools help the company do business and make money.

One point I think many people forget about in this debate is how this affects a companies ability to Recruit and Attract Candidates. The war for talent is becoming increasingly competitive and when I see statistics that companies do not allow Twitter/Facebook at work I wonder if companies are doing all they can to attract and retain top employees in their company.

With an increasingly competitive ‘war for talent’ candidates have access to more job opportunities now than ever before. In the next 10-15 years we are going to see a shift in the demographics of our workforce. As we see more of Generation Y (and soon Generation Z) enter the workplace – companies are going to have to adapt to the technology the new working population uses or companies may struggle to be seen an ‘employer of choice’ by top candidates. Social Networking tools are becoming part of our daily lives, similar to the uptake of mobile phones in the 1990’s.

If a candidate is deciding whether your company is the right workplace for them what message does a ban on social networks send? Inadvertanltly companies who ban this technology may be giving off signals to candidates that:

• Management does not trust their staff to do their job?
• Management will watch over your shoulder to make sure you are doing only what you have been hired to do?
• Does it promote your company as a forward thinking organisation always looking to improve or as a company stuck in its ways and policies?
• Your company is more concerned about manging risk, than doing new business in new ways?

Yes – I do agree Managers need to make sure that there are boundaries with what employees can and can not do at work and that managers do need to measure productivity – however a Social Media Policy outlining what is acceptable and what is not acceptable use of social networking tools would certainly clear up any confusion instead of just putting a ban on all sites. More often than not if you trust your employees to do their job you will get much better results than if you micro-manage them and watch their every tweet. 

Candidates at all levels from Graduates to C- Level Candidates are much more savvy these days about which companies they want to work for. Top Candidates want to work in a working environment that is trustful, built on respect, and allows people to be successful in their roles. By banning these sites at work, you are taking away an Employees tools and you may be closing on the door on some fantastic candidates that use these tools as part of their day. Candidates may decline an offer from your company in favour of a company that has a Social Media Policy and allows online access. Employers give people access to a phone line…these online networks are similar tools to a phone… they give your Employees the ability to talk to your clients and customers.

As far as the productivity debate goes – I think the use of social networking tools in the workplace has far more positives and potential than negatives (as long as you do not spend 8 hrs a day playing mafia wars).

 

Is the Recruitment Grass Really Greener On The Other Side (of the World)

It can be easy in life to sometimes think that the grass is greener on the other side. This can be anything from where you live, what role you are in, the technology available…the list can be endless. It is human nature for our minds to wonder and think of what things can be like on the other side of the fence. Yes, there are times that things actually are better elsewhere, however for the most part after having a look, what we often find is that is not often the case. In my time in Recruitment I have spoken to a number of Recruiters locally in ANZ who think that the Recruitment Function overseas is far more advanced than it is actually may be. Many times I have spoken to Recruiters in ANZ who think that we as an industry locally are a few years behind in the way recruitment takes place in comparison to other locations like North America or EMEA.

For the most part I disagree with statements like these, a good Recruiter will be successful regardless of the location they work.

I can however appreciate that local cultural differences can play a part. I think this line of thinking comes from the fact that many of the tools we now use tend to come from ‘hotspots’ like US West Coast or UK, etc…. Before social networking was all the rage many social networks were being created and used by early adopters in the US. For example (and this is a generalisation), I do think that the uptake of social networking tools occurs faster and is more engrained in the US than in comparison to Australia. In the US from what I have seen people are generally more open to sharing their information on public forums than people are locally in Australia. I think in Australia people tend to be more reserved when sending their resumes to companies or more cautious about setting up public profiles. I remember when I first set up my LinkedIn account about 4 years ago. In 2006, LinkedIn provided me with a competitive advantage as many Recruiters locally were not using LinkedIn at all. It was being used by many Recruiters in the US but not in Australia. I think this is because LinkedIn’s early adopters were predominantly based in the US. As the social network has expanded over the past 3-4 years it has become used more in other countries. Fast forward to 2009 and every Recruiter globally has a profile on LinkedIn (as a side note – I fear LinkedIn is going to become overrun with Recruiters and many candidates may lose interest in it as a tool, due to all the white noise).

I think that there are good and bad Recruiters everywhere – location does not make a person successful. As I have blogged about previously I do believe that in Recruitment that Customer Service is King. We may do things differently across the globe but one universal rule that I think applies regardless of location is that if you can not treat your clients and candidates with a superior level of customer service, you will always come in second place. I could put together a number of quotes of what makes a Recruiter successful, but like anything in life you only get out of something what you put in. You can not be successful if you are afraid to pick up the phone and make your cold calls or if you think that candidates will magically fall into your lap – it does not matter where you are or what tools you have available, hard work and determination are what counts.

 

Is This the End of the Road for the Traditional Resume

I was having a discussion the other week with a colleague of mine (take a wild guess what about), yes it was about social media. The person I was talking to does not work in our Recruitment Team he works in one of our Product Lines, we were talking about how social media has changed the way we are working. From a Recruitment perspective social media has created a large shift in the way that companies recruit – this includes everything from sourcing candidates, communicating with candidates and developing your Employment Brand.

With all the changes we are seeing and the continuing changes I think we will see in the recruitment space, it made me wonder - will this be the end of the road for the traditional .doc resume?? It seems the traditional resume is becoming a redundant part of the recruitment process. For example a candidate and I may talk on the phone and go through their online profile together (whether it is on LinkedIn, FB, a Blog, web resume, etc…). Ok so after this that same candidate then normally emails me a copy of his resume in either .doc or .pdf format. This is where the redundancy takes place.

If I already have access to his online resume or ‘profile’ what do I need the resume for?? If the online profile is a complete profile, besides the fact I can then forward this onto a Hiring Manager (hmmm, I could just as easily send the link to the profile we reviewed together online) and beside the fact it may have contact details on it – the resume does seem to be becoming a redundant feature in the recruitment process. The same thing applies for candidate referrals or when a candidate cold calls me or when they apply for a role via a job board. Rather than sending an attached resume – candidates can now send an email with links to their online profile which may include work history, examples of their work, contact details, etc….. this may give a much better and realt representation of that person than a word document can.

The traditional resume has worked well in the past. It worked well for the technology that we had to work with. It worked well when resumes were mailed out to companies or faxed to managers (how many people remember faxing resumes???). However, over the past few years people have been flocking to use various social networks as part of the professional lives. As people get more comfortable sharing their work history online, engaging with each other online and as this becomes more engrained in the corporate culture I think this will lead to the passing of the traditional resume.

Yes, there may be the odd person who creates a false profile or embellishes their experience, but as Recruiters our job is work with the candidate and see what they are capable and not capable of doing. Creating a false online profile is the same thing as creating a false resume. Advancements in technology will not change a person’s behaviour/ethics. I would argue in fact we would be less likely to see a false online profile than receiving a resume with false details in it. If a person puts false details about themselves in a public forum they are more likely to be ousted by the online community for doing that.

There are a number of other issues to consider such as how does the information flow into a DB or ATS, but I am sure there are ways to address that. What do you think of the resume, is it on its last legs?? Will we start using video resumes, will online profiles reign supreme…what about all the talk about Augmented Reality..can that be used in a recruitment capacity as well?? Let me know your thoughts.

This blog entry originally appeared on the Oracle Recruitment Blog

 

Trust Agents by Brogan and Smith – A Review

I bought the book Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith the other week.  I just finished reading the book over the weekend and wanted to do a quick book review (this feels an awful lot like my High School English class). I really enjoyed reading this book, there wasn’t any groundbreaking information in it that I was not already aware of, but it did provide some great insights into how we are connecting with people online and more importantly why we are connecting and trusting the people that we connect with. When I am talking on any of my social networks, I think I display many of the traits and actions described in this book. It is great to take a step back and see how my actions impact my communities from a bigger picture perspective. Reading this book was useful as it helped me make sense of my behaviours of how I use Social Media Tools in both my work and personal life.

 

I love the introduction: Hey I Know You, Have we Met?. When I read the introduction, I was thinking, how do these guys know me so well – I have never spoken to them before, have they been watching me?? My online behaviors follow to a tee, what the typical reader of this book is: Am I a business professional [check], social media evangelist [check], official job title does not match my passion [check] [edit: I changed my signature title :)], looking to improve my business on the web [check]. This book is about understanding how the web has become more humanised then it has been and using that humanisation to help us build business online. People that do this as Brogan and Smith refer to them are called “Trust Agents”.

 

According to this book there are six characteristics of becoming a Trust Agent – I wont spoil the book and give away all the details, but the six characteristics talk about changing the rules of the game (what ever game it is you play), building honest relationships, understanding those relationships and gathering and working with your social networks. My favorite chapter is the “Make your own Game” and “The Human Artist” chapters. In the ”Make your own Game” chapter there are some great examples of how people have changed their own markets which really stood out for me – from Radiohead’s ‘pay what you think it is worth’ online release of their ’In Rainbows’ album to Gary Vaynerchuk and his Wine Library. This chapter was quite motivating and reminded me to not be afraid to try new things as that is what will likely give people their business advantage. 

 

In ”The Human Artist” chapter I enjoyed being reminded that even though the technology will change people skills and how we treat others is still what is important regardless of the medium. From a company perspective working in the social media space is the new customer service. What many companies do not realise is that the way we talk online should be the new call centre for companies to listen to. So when we talk about a product or service on Twitter or Facebook these are the ”new phones” that are ringing for companies to pick up. These are your customers looking for help - companies should pick up the call and talk to your customers. The only difference is that call is not coming from a phone or a fax machine anymore, it is now happening on various online conversations (conversations that some companies are not hearing).

There was a number of other great topics in this book that really got me thinking and put some new ideas in my head. Was this book worth the purchase price – I would have to say that yes it was. Whether you have an interest in social media and want to find out what ”this stuff” is all about or if you are an social media enthusiast – this book will help change the way you communicate online.

 

If anyone else has read this book, it would be great to hear your thoughts/comments/review. Leave your comments below.

 

What Does Gardening have to do with Social Media??

What does gardening have to do with Social Media?? For me, it has absolutely nothing to do with Social Media and that is one of things that I enjoy about it the most. I am sure there are prolific gardeners where the connection between social media and gardening applies, but for me I enjoy gardening mostly because it is not only time well spent with the kids but also for me it has no social networking connection.

Anyone need a Gardener??

Stepping away from the kids for a moment, I spend a large portion of my working week online and using various social networks in my role. My involvement in the Social Media space has grown over the past 3-4 years that I have been using it as part of my role. As I mentioned on the Oracle Recruitment Blog the other week I think it is important to find a work/life balance. Similarly, I think it is important to find a balance between social media activities and other activities as well.  It can be easy to get caught up in all the noise on many social networks – we have seen the statistics of how many videos are uploaded on YouTube every minute or how many Tweets are happening every second. It can be all time consuming. By no stretch of the imagination am I a green thumb (I am actually surprised the kids and I have not managed to kill the garden yet), but gardening for me is a good reminder to keep social networking in perspective and make sure you are spending time on many things not just connecting with people and communities online.

The gardeners and I

From a work perspective this can mean making sure that you do not forget business basics and think business issues can magically be fixed by “social media”. The things that made you successful in the past likely will continue to make you successful in the future – this can be a good work attitude, great sourcing skills or great accounting skills, etc… Social Media/Networking Tools can act as a fantastic tool to the work you do but it is not meant to replace it. I think with all they hype it can be easy to forget this.

Am I a social media enthusiast – yes, but I like to make sure I keep myself balanced as well – it reminds of an old proverb “too much water drowned the miller” – I am hoping to keep myself from drowning!!!

 

RecruitTech Wrap-up: Canberra Australia

Yesterday I presented at the RecruitTech Conference in Canberra, Australia and had the opportunity to talk about Blogging from a Recruitment Perspective and go through some of the success/challenges that I have had using our Oracle Recruitment Blog. On one hand I enjoyed demonstrating some of the successes and challenges using a blog because social media is something I am passionate about -I think the positive impact it has had on business and personal lives far outweigh the perceived negative impacts.

Speaking at RecruitTech

From another angle though, looking at the presenter list for this conference I was thinking before I stood up to speak, am I the best person to really demonstrate this?? Many of the other presenters at this conference have been blogging far longer than I have (I am a relatively new blogger – about 18 months) and have covered many topics I have not even touched.

While I recognise with the Oracle Recruitment Blog, the platform is not new and blogging itself is not new, I think the content that has been shared has been refreshing and has helped us add some real value to our community of readers. Content really is king – if a blog creates something that is interesting to people, they will read it and share it with their friends and connections. I will share my RecruitTech presentation online shortly either on my slideshare account or on the Oracle Recruitment Blog.

As a wrap-up it was a great day and there was some very good presentations focused around the use (lack of use ) of Social Media in the Recruitment space. What makes a good Recruiter has not changed – a Recruiter who can add value to both a candidate and a client and is able to establish and develop strong relationships will be successful. What has changed is the tools that we use to make these things happen. Where once candidates relied on mail (no not email good old fashioned snail mail, remember that) to send in their resumes – now they let people view their profiles on LinkedIn or Plaxo. Where once a candidate used to fax their details to a company, now that same candidate waits for the company to contact them on one of their social networks or keyword search them. I do not think that Social Media tools are being used as effectively as they could be in the recruitment space (in general) yet, however as we see social media tools get further ingrained into our daily and corporate lives we will see more effective use of the technology by clients and candidates alike.

P.S. – thanks to the guys from GradConnection for the TwitPic, it was great meeting you finally.