Someone recently asked Robert Scoble if he would continue working at his current employer, Rackspace, if he won the lottery. His gut answer was ‘Yes’, though he didn’t know why until he saw this video from Dan Pink:
I wrote a lot more about this including notes on the subject on my ConnectedWell blog, but here’s the video for your consuming pleasure:
Popularity: 2% [?]
Got a phone?
Get registered for an incredible Personal Branding teleconference happening Thursday (two days from when I am writing this) and includes an incredible lineup of speakers from all over the world.
This conference is FREE, but you must register, and then get on the phone during the section you want to learn.
From the website:
To mark the 10th Anniversary of personal branding, on November 8th we are providing 24 free teleseminars with experts in the field of personal branding. Anyone in the world with a telephone will be able to participate in this live event.
This event has content streams for career success, entrepreneurial success and talent management. So, whether you are a corporate professional, an entrepreneur, or a HR manager challenged with the need to attract and retain great people, you will take away actionable knowledge from attending.
Check out the Speakers and Panelists which includes Utah entrepreneur and job-seeker advocate Jason Alba.
Popularity: 34% [?]
Nobody questions that most businesses exist to serve the business owners, and to generate profits. Hopefully, they’ll do some great stuff for their customers and communities along the way. But, it’s my loud-mouthed opinion that most companies do a really lousy job of really compensating their key employees, and simultaneously “helping” poor-performers move along little doggies.
So, when Dawn Turner reports that an Executive Assistant Gets $152,000 Bonus for Creative Problem Solving, my ears perk up.
Now, Good to Great teaches that it’s not how you pay, it’s who, and I must agree with that. No compensation plan will get deadbeats to perform like athletes. But, when you combine the right people, and the right business focus with truly innovative compensation models that reward top achievement, you will have a perfect storm of reasons why your company will attract and retain the sharpest and best people for your industry and niche.
The other shoe? The following will kill your attempts and good compensation and make it suck even more:
Popularity: 12% [?]
Revised: 4/4/07 @ 1:34pm MST
I saw a bumper-sticker the other day that said:
“Education is what’s left over when you forgot everything you learned in school.”
I have a problem with that.
There’s no question that, in the flat world, education is becoming as much a commodity as cheap groceries, ipods, tax return services, and even jobs.
Yet, while colleges and universities are getting savvy to online courses and so-called continuing education*, they’re missing the boat, in my opinion, in keeping their graduates more captive, and not just letting them out into the world with nothing more than an annual “give us money” postcard or the occasional “newsletter”, which is actually a slightly-less thinly veiled request for more donations than the postcard (just got one yesterday, btw).
Some schools do a good job of networking among the alumni, get access to alumni databases, job boards, and allowing alumni to keep their email addresses (which is a great branding strategy when your grads go out into the work world), etc… but they don’t do a good job of keeping the alumni learning, and keeping them engaged with resources at the school that will help them further their careers and/or better their communities, etc.
In short, why aren’t schools trying to keep their students “around” for their whole lives, rather than just four quick years, once in their life.
Sure, the college I attended has online courses in things I would be very interested in. My company even would pay my tuition to take those classes. I have even gone online to sign up a few times.
But, something about the process is obviously too hard… or I *would* have done it by now.
What about a monthly subscription model for alumni from schools? Instead of asking me for a once a year donation, why not ask me for a monthly subscription?
The bottom-line? Choosing a university is about wanting to get the education you need to succeed in the future… who wouldn’t want to attend the university that will actually embrace their students for life, and help them succeed no matter what the future holds?
* Which is really a euphemism for “I didn’t finish my education”
Popularity: 11% [?]
Wikipedia, the massive, free online encyclopedia, which is famously editable by anybody, has tightened its belt in the last few years, working hard to allow the Wisdom of Crowds without losing credibility.
To get there, Wikipedia added a section to their Manual of Style that cautions article editors to avoid so called Weasel Words, and this is excellent advice for job-interviewing as well:
Weasel words are words or phrases that seemingly support statements without attributing opinions to verifiable sources, lending them the force of authority without letting the reader decide whether the source of the opinion is reliable. If a statement can’t stand on its own without weasel words, it lacks neutral point of view, and the lack of given sources also implies a verifiability issue. Either a source for the statement should be found, or the statement should be removed.
Remember: The purpose of a job-interview is to allow you to confirm or refute the opinions the recruiter or hiring manager has already made about you. If you can’t verifiable confirm strong-statements you make (over the top promised about how you “blew away sales quotas” or “the whole company is using the tool I created”) then you’d better think twice about saying it.
While I respect and admire confidence in interviewees, I do not tolerate lying. Overstatement is as much a red-flag to me as overly self-effacing humility. They are both different than what actually happened, which is all I really want to know.
Popularity: 12% [?]
Listening to the Power of Full Engagement this morning, I jotted down the following concerning developing a deep sense of purpose, and deriving happiness from it.
“Income… doesn’t noticeably influence satisfaction with marriage, family, friendship or ourselves, all of which do predict a sense of well-being.
In turn, happiness has been clearly associates with higher productivity.
In short, Money may not buy happiness, but happiness may help you get rich.” (emphasis added)
- David Myers “The Pursuit of Happiness“
I think this is true. As I have connected to my deepest-held values, my productivity has surely increased, and my happiness and satisfaction… and the income has followed.
Popularity: 12% [?]
Utah Business Magazine just released their list of the best companies to work for in Utah:
This year, Utah Business scoured the state looking for companies that were… succeeding at making sure their employees love their jobs. From monthly parties to competitive salaries, the 2006 Best Companies to Work For are implementing the policies that keep their staffs grinning. Personal fitness trainers, onsite daycare, subsidized gourmet meals, a company condothe list of outstanding benefits the best companies offer could go on…
Here’s the companies that made the list. If you agree, or disagree, I am interested in YOUR comments, below.
If you’re a business-owner and you didn’t make the list, no problem.
If you’re working hard to retain and take care of your people, and they feel a deep, mentoring relationship with their direct supervisor, and the company (not a “punch-in, punch-out, thanks for the check, oh, and I’m calling in sick” relationship), they will stick with you.
Popularity: 13% [?]
We are so wired tofocus onexceptions in our lives, that we often miss the solutions to problems that are right in front of us.
I think this is, in part, thanks to our twentyfourseveninformationoverload lives. We become focused on the exceptions, not the rules; the bottom-line, not the conversation.
One thing I have been focusing on lately in my personal development is to not neglect the things I can do as I seek to improve.
It makes sense–if you can exercise, and you should exercise, but you don’t exercise, what is that? A recipe for disaster, according to Jim Rohn, a personal development and business philosopher I’ve learned a great deal from.
But, things that are simple to do are also simple not to do. And, that’s the clue.
So here’s my thought for you:
Neglect is the enemy of your success.
Popularity: 5% [?]
The best part of my work is that I get to interact with amazing people. But, my life hasn’t always been this blessed. At the beginning of this decade, I was literally broke, in my wallet and in my soul.
From that time until this time, I am absolutely amazed that most of the changes that have revolutionized my life and lifestyle come from one, simple formula, which was repeated to me over-and-over in many ways and means in the last several years.
That idea or philosophy is the idea of Consistent and Significant Personal Development.
Here is a simple phrase that’s easy to remember:
“If you will change, everything will change for you.”
- Jim Rohn
A similar challenge was extended to me once in a religious context, that I should remember constant nourishment to body and spirit.
Einstein (reportedly) said it this way:
“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
I am a living witness to the power of how this works. How can you make it work for you?
Popularity: 5% [?]
© 2010 Utah Tech Jobs · Proudly powered by WordPress & Green Park 2 by Cordobo.
Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional | Valid CSS 3
Bozofication Alive and Well: Utah Companies Will Pay for Stupidity
June 27th, 2007UPDATE: Please leave comments about BOZO things you have experienced at your or other companies! Anonymous submissions OK
According to the Utah Department of Workforce Services, May 2007′s unemployment rate is 2.5%, where the national rate is currently 4.5%. BYU’s Newsnet validates the data with their recent article, More Jobs … Less Money: Utah Unemployment Rate at 2.4%.
But, no.
In fact, as I see the market tighten, companies seem to be getting stupider and stupider with their retention systems. In fact, they may as well be paying their employees to leave, rolling out the red carpet for them, and tossing in a trip for them and the fam to Disney Land while they’re at it.
Here are five things that have consistently surfaced in my interviews over the past few weeks when I ask, “Why are you looking to leave your current job.”
At the end of the day, the trend I am seeing simply stems from BAD MANAGEMENT. I wonder if the tight labor market is actually exposing fissures in the infrastructure of these companies to the point that they are letting any Tom, Jane or Harry run the place?
If you are caught working for any of these companies, I would RUN, not walk to your favorite recruiter or job-board and doggedly search for the next opportunity for yourself… or you may be the last comic standing when the walls come tumblin’ down… and it will surely not be funny.
Related Items:
EmployeescreenIQ provides background checks to employers globally.
Popularity: 33% [?]
View Comments »
Posted in Better Recruiting, Company Culture, Firing, Hire POWER!, Hiring, Know The Ropes, Personal Development, Talent Management, Utah, Utah Living, Working With Recruiters
Tags: Awareness Business Commentary Employee Performance HR Human Resources Life Management Marketplace Money People Rants Recruiting Retention Salary Skills The Changing Job-Market Trends