The Interwebs - And Why Sometimes I'm Too Enthusiastic

It's almost scary how much I love the Interwebs. And sometimes I can even go a bit overboard with my enthusiasm.

Jenn Barnes published a post on HRM Today called 10 Reasons Why HR Professionals Should Blog (hint to recruiters: she's currently looking for a job!).

So I started happily commenting on 5 of the 10 points and hit the "add comment" button. Afterwards I realized that my comment was almost as long as the original post and felt that this was a really rude thing to do. Luckily the HRM Today engine (hosted on Ning) lets you delete comments.

On the other hand I really liked what I had written, so here it is, so to speak within my own four virtual walls.

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Comments on the 10 Reasons Why HR Professionals Should Blog

1.It's fun
Yeah, you betcha. I'm definitely having a blast with this whole online stuff including my blog!

2. It's a great conversation starter
Nope, my techie friends are usually not interested in HR and many of my HR buddies think the Interwebs are for crazies and don't have time to read these blog thingies. Seriously, most times I mention my blog during a conversation the topic changes within 20 seconds or less.
And then people wonder why I spend so much time with my HR blogger friends on Twitter and HRM Today ;-)

6. You participate in talking about the profession instead of hearing about the profession from others (especially those pesky "experts").
It's true, exchanging ideas with and learning from like-minded people from all over the world is amazing.
And the funny thing is that some of them are actually "experts", but in this situation they're just another blogger who talks to you instead of at you.

8. Sometimes you have fans - and they are adorable and sometimes even "star struck" when they meet you in person. Really!
Star struck? Not yet. But I'm realizing that some truly awesome people are reading my blog. Some leave comments, others tell me through email or Twitter. Some are complete strangers who impress me with their insights or just because they're friendly and supportive. Others are bloggers I truly admire and I would never have expected them to notice what I write.

10. You learn more about yourself, the profession and technology than you ever thought possible.
This is so true! When blogging I reveal my point of view on certain things and everybody in the world with an Internet connection can potentially read it. This forces me to think very hard about certain things. It's amazing how much I learned and the matrix (as in Gibson, not the movie) is a major reason why my passion for HR is still growing and growing.
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Less Cheese, More Meat!

Are there still people who pretend that the Interwebs aren't any good for generating and sharing ideas?

Mark's article at HC3 Take Control Of Your Job And Your Success reminded me of an idea I had for a t-shirt. I also mentioned his article as an inspiration for my post Give Them What They Want. Mark then shared in the comments one of the reasons why he's in charge of HR for a multinational corporation:

I jumped to doing all the things in HR most just dream about when I figured out "its not all about me"...I am with you on this one, less cheese, more meat!!! [..]

By the way, "It's not about you" is the 3rd career lesson in Dan Pink's book Johnny Bunko.

And as today's grand finale, here's a terrible picture of my great idea:



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Alltop Thinks I'm Kind Of A Big Deal

I'm featured on Alltop HR!
And I'm allowed to display their badge on my blog!
This is awesome!

In case you didn't hear about Alltop
It's basically a homepage with lots of links to blogs. Like a blog directory.

Guy Kawasaki
But since Guy Kawasaki is involved, everything about Alltop is pretty exciting. Guy is a venture capitalist, author, used to work for Apple and so on. He's also the one who put Bob Sutton's ARSE (Asshole Rating Self-Exam) online which I used for my ARSE Challenge.

Neenz
Neenz is Alltop's gatekeeper. Convince her that you should be listed and she will add you. She's also got a great sense of humor. For example, she said that they would be honored if I added their badge to my blog. I mean, the reason I wanted to be featured in the first place was to display the "confirmation that I kick ass" badge ;-)

Okay, but what is Alltop again?
Alltop is described as a digital magazine rack of the Internet. Choose from around 180 categories and you will be presented with the top blogs on this topic. You can then hover over the title of a post to read the first sentences and click to visit the blog.

Oh yes, did I mention that Neenz is an incredibly nice gal?
(hint: check the Alltop badges)
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No Asshole Rule: I'm So Proud!

In December 2007 I wrote about Bob Sutton's book The No Asshole Rule. The other day I realized that his blog features a link to my review under "Reviews and Comments: The No Asshole Rule".

I don't care if the prof added the link himself or if it was done automatically by some gadget. It's just cool!

You can read my book review here and check out the results of my "ARSE Challenge" here.

I also just did the ARSE Test again (score: 4, "You don’t sound like a certified asshole, unless you are fooling yourself."). I think that - more important than the score itself - it's just good to do the test from time to time and to pay attention to your replies.
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The Happy Employee In Your Inbox

The Happy Employee's posts are now also available by email.

A friend of mine mentioned recently that she was - her words, not mine! - too blond to use blogs.

I remembered Frank Roche's recent post on KnowHR welcoming new email subscribers and installed the necessary plug-in, add-on, widget, gadget (whatever it's called nowadays...) on the THE blog.

I also think that the following snippet from a comment to Frank's post is quite interesting:

[..] if you’re not reading blogs as an HR professional, you’re missing the boat.

Of course, I don't want my blond friend to miss the boat!

So if you want to receive the THE's posts by email, enter your email address in the box on the right side, click the little grey button to confirm and check your inbox in about 30 seconds.

Oh, and this is also a great solution for Baby Boomers who think they are too old to use revolutionary technologies like blogs and for Gen Yer's who think that blogs are only for old people ;-)
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RiseSmart Ranking Of Career Blogs

RiseSmart has published their Global Ranking of Top English-language Career Blogs and I'm chagrined to say that they made a mistake.

According to the ranking I'm at no. 36, after

• Chief Happiness Officer (4)
• Brazen Careerist (8)
• Gautam Ghosh (16) and
• Bob Sutton (21)

The dead giveaway was when I realized that I was ranked higher than

• Evil HR Lady (43)
• Wally at Three Star Leadership (44)
• Laurie at Teambuilding Is For Suckers (120)
• Ask A Manager (138) and
• HR Wench (139)

After reading up on the algorithm used, it's obvious that my Alexa score should be 1 instead of 20 placing me around no. 160.

So as usual, never trust a statistic you didn't fake or mess up yourself ;-)
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Blogging, Connecting Cyberspace With The Real World

Today I realized that blogging can be beneficial while interacting with human beings in the real world.

In between staring at my screen and replying to emails, I interacted with my HR colleagues, had a coffee in the break room (I couldn't avoid talking to a few "customers") and had lunch with a friend.

Looking back, I mentioned the following blog posts more or less directly:

• providing great service to your internal customers while avoiding burn-out: Liz' post at Collaboration Zone and my comment
• tips for handling an overflowing inbox: Guerrilla Technique #1
• will an office move improve employee satisfaction? GTK: Hawthorne Effect

And I mentioned this from Wenchie's newest post to a colleague:

I also didn't kill a hiring manager when he asked my boss (right in front of me) "why is the receptionist conducting interviews?" Office Assistant you a-hole....the title is Office Assistant!

Conclusion
Read HR blogs and you will have something to talk about. Even better: write an HR blog. You will be forced to do a minimum of research and you will have even more to talk about.

Okay, I'm just a geek, I know... but still.
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Weblog Awards: Evil HR Lady Won A Medal!

The polls of the 2007 Weblog Awards closed 20 minutes ago and the absolutely un-evil but totally sarcastic (in a good HR way) Evil HR Lady made 3rd place in the Best Business Blog category!

And since I'm not just a touchy-feely HR Guy, but also a hands-on numbers geek:

• 4'354 votes in total
• 508 (11.7%) votes for our girl
• the winning blog didn't even make the majority ("only" 36.4%)

This is nothing new to those who are familiar with the blog of the Mistress Of Precious HR Advice, but:

SHE RULES!