Friday, December 24, 2004

End of another year

Well it is really then end of another year, being 24th December and all. From today I will be taking a break until 3rd Jan, our holiday house has no telecommunications, besides a basic GSM mobile network (not even GPRS), which is fantastic as it forces you to take a break.

Happy Christmas everyone and see you all in the new year.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/24/2004 07:31:00 am   |

Thursday, December 23, 2004

eLearing dead?

Interesting item from NetDimenions, a Hong Kong based LMS vendor who has a blog.

The item was written by a guest author to their blog, Harold Jarche. Harold touches on some of the same topics as I have been thinking about recently.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/23/2004 04:23:00 pm   |

True Aussie Esky

Being an aussie guy, who has been known to enjoy a beer or two I hope it is not too late to ask Santa for a new esky.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/23/2004 02:04:00 pm   |

LaptopLane a good idea?

Maybe we need a few of these in Australia?


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/23/2004 01:56:00 pm   |

Corporate E-Learning

It has taken me about a week to get around to reading this item on elearning by Amy Gahran (from EducationNiche). What struck me about it is Amy is almost talk about a sophisticated RSS environment for learning objects.

I have been thinking of how can we use RSS feeds to deliver learning content to users as required, maybe not even part of a traditional learning program just ad-hoc. For example I might subscribe to a feed on "Acme Sales Strategy" and then on an ad-hoc basis as content is created it would be delivered to me via the RSS feed. Integrated into the employee's day to day desktop we would be getting close to Amy's example:-
Getting a fast, clear, relevant overview of the new information, context about how it relates to things she already knows or does, and realistic interactive practice in finding and using the new information on demand.
Adding to this the ability to deliver podcast sessions for additional learning maybe interviews with successful sales people or discussions with the head of sales about our philosophy.

The thing with using RSS and such technology is if the content is not useful employees will unsubscribe giving the content developers a great feedback loop, it is useful more people will subscribe.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/23/2004 10:15:00 am   |

Heather on "The 17 Dumbest Things in Recruiting"

Ok, maybe she got them from Dr John, but I like her take on them.

In the spirit of "eat your own dog food" ask your most recent Gen Y recruit's what they thought of your process. See how many of the 17 they talk about. Then change your process.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/23/2004 09:33:00 am   |

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

WiFi & Powerpoints in Australian Cafe's

Another interesting piece of info from G'Day World on PowerPoints and Wiki spots in Australia. Mitch Denny on the back of Cameron's rant (?) has started a Wiki to collect this information, if you know of any update the list.

Updated: Just realised the URL to Don't Panic was buggered.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/22/2004 06:22:00 pm   |

Coffee with SplaTT

Caught up with Mick Stanic aka SplaTT for coffee @ Starbucks in Darling Harbour, first blogger I have met in person. If you don't know Mick is one half of the G'Day World podcast.

I should of blogged about this yesterday, before he was on DSC and BBC now I just look like a groupie!

We chatted about lots of things, one common theme was how effective blogs are as a networking tool. Mick told me about his experiences in the US in Feb, where he found the contacts he had made online made his trip more than it already was.

Now looking down the barrell of some very new experiences within a new organisation I am starting to put together thoughts on how these tools might help me to become more effective in the new role. I will post more on this later.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/22/2004 01:59:00 pm   |

I just quit my job

After many weeks of interviews, tests and a lot of hard thinking I have quit my job. I will be joining WMC in late January, based in Melbourne. For our oversea's reader's Melbourne is about just over 1 hour's flight south of Sydney.

I will no longer be working for a software vendor, back into the corporate world. My role will be to develop and implement strategies for people systems.

Over the next month or so we will be packing everything (once again) into boxes and going south.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/22/2004 01:32:00 pm   |

HR = Socialism?

This morning I have been reading an item written by Dr John Sullivan for Workforce and I agree with him to a point and this just could be a cultural difference (Australia v US) but I don't know. If also could be because my brain is not thinking straight after spending most of last night awake with our sick son.

John's final paragraph is right on the money:-

If your goal is to increase your company's people productivity through the
effective use of human resources tools and strategies, it's time to change the
DNA of human resources. It's time to change human resources so that it focuses
on top performers and ensures that it spends most of its time and budget on
high-ROI activities. In brief, it's time for human resources to become a profit
center.

But I am not sure we need to be as cut throat and hard core as he is saying. Human resources is just that managing the human assets of the organisation for help facilitate a return on shareholder value. Humans are an asset and if they are not looked after they tend to "breakdown" in the same way as plant and technology.

Just don't get me wrong we cannot continually protect poor performers and expect the organisation to be profitable in the long term. I feel there needs to be a balance and we need to support our top performers at least as well, if not better than the poor performers.

I think I will re-read this item after a good night sleep and see if is clearer.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/22/2004 08:54:00 am   |

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Tuesday in Sydney

Tuesday in Sydney

Down at Darling Harbour on a perfect Tuesday morning!


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/21/2004 09:54:00 am   |

2005 Australian Blog Awards

The awards are on again, if you want to nominate a blog pop over to Kek's blog and do so, they close in the first week of Jan.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/21/2004 09:23:00 am   |

Safari Bookshelf

Just found an interesting service on the O'Reilly Network Safari BookShelf. Safari BookShelf is a subscription model for eBooks. They basically have loaded a whole lot of computer books into a database and made them available on line. From the web site:-
As a subscriber to Safari, you have the ability to search across the entire Safari Library at all times. Search results are rendered in two different ways depending upon whether a book resides on your personal Bookshelf or not. For every book that resides on your Bookshelf you can see every word of that book from cover to cover. For all other books, you can browse or search in preview mode. Previews consist of the first few paragraphs of text. Preview as many sections as you like, as often as you like before you decide whether to add it to your bookshelf.

The 1st generation was a web subscription like NetFlix, 2nd generation they have built a web services API to allow developers to tap into the database. You can build applications that use the content for other purposes such as online help systems. My Safari allows people to de-construct the books and build them back up, therefore a professor could create their own custom text books based on the content from the different books or create custom corporate documentation sets.

There is an RSS feed for when new books become available and an affilate program.

Looks very interesting, and it is a great tool for the IT professional. It also provides and interesting framework for an eLearning tool.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/21/2004 08:32:00 am   |

Podcasts

I am addicted to podcasts at the moment, I am finding IT Conversations a fantastic source of information.

My personal learning style is that of experience, reading, listening in that order. I find listening to great people speak provides me with great food for thought and then gives me a framework to go read and experience more about the subject. Podcasts are providing this in the same way that conferences do, just evey day!


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/21/2004 08:30:00 am   |

Choices

Listening to Barry Schwartz's Less is More presentation from PopTech and during which I experienced an "a ha" moment, you know the one when you suddenly understand what is going on.

Barry had been talking for about 30 minutes on how the number of options made available to people actually decrease the likelihood of them making a choice (opportunity cost). Then he started talking about when every thing was worse then it was easy to have experiences that exceed expectations. Now it is very hard for people to have experiences that exceed expectations because our expectations are so high. Interesting.

"There is no excuses for failure in a world where choices are essentially infinite." - Barry Schwartz

Barry then provided us with a solution, anything that constrains people's choices is a benefit as it make things easier. Remember how you feel when you walk into a shop for the first time and they have 100/200/500/1000 different flavour's of ice cream. You feel anxious, what if I choose the wrong flavour. I see this all the time with my son, note to self; start limiting his choices. The anxiousness is increasing our stress levels.

I learnt that adding choices has a diminishing returns, so find the break even point and stick with it. However no choices at all is worse, you need some choices.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/21/2004 06:53:00 am   |

Monday, December 20, 2004

User experience

I have blogged about this before and I will do it again and again because I believe it is very important in workforce applications.

I have been listening to the G'Day World guys talking with Buzz Bruggeman from ActiveWords. While the whole podcast was very interesting something Buzz said jumped out at me. Buzz mentioned the user experience and how little things have change in the last few years. Why did this jump out at me?

About 4 weeks ago my wife and I were having the exact same discussion. We spent several minutes talking and brain storming several ideas as to what should change. Thankfully we do not build operating systems as we did not come up with many good ideas. We did discuss the whole idea of the perfect search and desktop search and how this new move is helping change the user experience. We then went and looked back at the Knowledge Navigator, which I have referred to before.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/20/2004 08:20:00 am   |

Common pitfalls when implementing eHR

I was looking at an old article that I wrote a couple of years ago about common pitfalls when implementing Human Resource (HR) technology, which I felt is still very relevant today. By HR technology I and referring to all people based systems, ie more than just payroll. Previously implementations of HR technology might impact a few administrators, while today’s new technologies can touch all employees and even service providers. In this environment the impact of a bad or sub-standard implementation is huge. In summary here are the 10 pitfalls:-

1. Loss of Personal Touch
2. Security
3. Change Management
4. Justification
5. Viewed as just a HR (or technology) program
6. Process Work
7. Data Management
8. Not enough ongoing support from both the business and technical
9. Long Delivery Time lines
10. Not viewing eHR as an enabler of change within HR


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/20/2004 08:17:00 am   |

Saturday, December 18, 2004

This is no good

While I don't normally agree with many of the actions taken by unions in Australia but sacking someone because they are pregnant is just wrong!


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/18/2004 09:21:00 am   |

Women in IT mentoring

NSW TAFE has launched an online mentoring program for women in IT, great to see!


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/18/2004 09:14:00 am   |

Blog conferences downunder!

It seems next year is the blog conference year, with the Australian Blogging Conference in Feb and BlogTalk Downunder in May. I plan to attend both and I would encourage others to as well.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/18/2004 09:08:00 am   |

Be Nice to a Recruiter Month

I'm sure it won't hurt if we all get in on "Be Nice to a Recruiter Month", you might even end up with a new job!


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/18/2004 09:04:00 am   |

Thursday, December 16, 2004

eLearning trends

I have been reading Leaning Circuits and they have released their report on the state of eLearning at the end of 2004. A report that generated mixed reactions with me.

While as the report states it almost looks like the number of organisations using eLearning are dropping, however I am not sure the we can draw that conclusion. The number of participants from 2003 to 2004 reduced from 272 to 122. Maybe the participants that did not response this year were the ones who have fully deployed, we have no way of knowing?

Further in the report they begin to talk about the number of years eLearning has been used in the organisation. The summary of comments surprised me, while the number of responses was not given the fact that terms like Web conferencing, virtual classrooms, simulations, m-learning are being used is great. It was also interesting to see that 54% of organisations are using online meeting technologies.

The barriers to usage are not surprising at all, what gets me down is these are very similar reasons that were given by organisations over 5 years ago. Either we are not learning or technology vendors are not listening, I would love to know what it is!


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/16/2004 01:27:00 pm   |

Ok so I am a geek

I need to replace by ski gear and just found the perfect replacement, this way I can still listen to podcasts while I am on the slopes.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/16/2004 09:46:00 am   |

What is a Wiki?

I have been asked by several people recently "What is a Wiki?". While there are some great examples and references out there, a recent article from Forbes provides a good background and good support for the use of Wiki's.

If you want to find a Wiki, check out Wiki Engines where there is a wiki for just about every platform.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/16/2004 08:44:00 am   |

Saturday, December 11, 2004

Weird blogger posts

Over the last few days blogger has been playing up. Not sure if you are all seeing the impact, it seems this morning things have got back to normal.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/11/2004 08:59:00 am   |

Friday, December 10, 2004

iPods for all!

It is strange how things turn out.

Over the last 6-12 months I have wanted an iPod but just could not justify the expense and I was concerned about "the next big thing from Apple", so far I have watch the 4G, 40GB iPod, and Photo iPod all being introduced. I listen to all my music and podcasts on my laptop, which just looks strange on the training if I am not working on it (yes I work on the train). I have also being looking into media centres, and additional wireless items for your home network. All of these items are in the luxury category and as such tend to take a while to get purchased.

Anyway, my lovely wife decided she had had enough of my obsession with iPods and decided I was to get one for Christmas. After some investigation she decided she had better discuss the specifications because I was going on and on about the potential benefits of the Photo iPod. After several discussion we settle on 40GB, hoped onto the Apple store and made our purchase on Monday evening. The only catch was I had to wait until Christmas until I can open it, oh well.
Now jump forward to today, Friday of the same week. At about 10am this morning I got a call from David Shepard Business Development Manager at MCQ International, apparently I had won an iPod through an online survey I did about 2 months ago! How bizarre. So I went and picked up my prize today, a brand new silver mini iPod!

Now I have one, and my wonderful wife has one!

My mailbox is spam-free with ChoiceMail, the leader in personal and corporate anti-spam solutions. Download your free copy of ChoiceMail from www.choicemailfree.com.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/10/2004 07:36:00 pm   |

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

SAP Tech Ed online

For all you SAP heads out there if you did not get to TechEd this year, or even if you did go, you can now purchase DVD's of the events via the SAP Developer Network.

On other SAP related items each time I visit SDN I find all sorts of interesting pieces of information. Such as their White Paper on Portal Cockpit covering portals, KM, collaboration etc. While very SAP centric it would give any organisation some good ideas on what they can be aiming for.

On another note, yes I know there is a typo in a post a couple of days ago, but I just can't bring myself to fix it that is what was published so it should stay. I will just need to be more careful. :-)


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/08/2004 02:30:00 pm   |

Benefits of internal blogs

Adrian O'Leary pointed to me to an interesting article from Fast Company in April. Where there is a poll on the potential for businesses for blogs, results are interesting showing a fairly even split over knowledge management, project management, sales & marketing, and competitive intelligence. Ok, maybe only 1000 votes but still an interesting breakdown.

The results show a massive potential in many different areas of the business for the introduction of internal blogs to businesses.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/08/2004 02:11:00 pm   |

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Blogs & Social networks for internal communications

Via Enterprise RSS.

Charlene Li talks about Razorfish using blogs and other social tools for internal collaboration and knowledge management. Interesting post. Charlene wonders if such an arrangement displaces traditional KM systems? I would say yes it will!

Blogs are about opening up conversations with people, as we have seen recently with Scoble. By opening up conversation you are sharing, and this create a shared knowledge. Which I believe is the bottom line when it comes to KM (others will disagree). If we look back over the last 10,000 years societies before us had very good methods of knowledge management, sharing.

Blogs, Wikis, RSS and other similar tools provide a direct, open, transparent, timely and personal means of communication. When we overlay the current search technologies we have a fantastic method of managing our knowledge, whether internal or external it can be managed. Entries in there tools can be categorised, searched, indexed, commented on and developed further.

I am interested in Forrester's vision of the future when an employee joins an organisation. I would love to see further bits added to this, but right now most organisation struggle to have a desk, computer and phone when a new employee arrives. I will just wait until we have all learnt how to crawl with respect to day one triggers before I get too ahead of myself.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/07/2004 09:02:00 am   |

Manageing digital identity & trust

Just listened to Phil Becker being interviews by Doug Kaye over at IT Conversation. Phil is one of (maybe the) organisers of the Digital ID World conference that was recently held in Denver this year.

I am finding myself more and more interested in the whole area of digital identity, I have mentioned single sign on (SSO) several times here as I thought it was important and the HRIS industry has been talking about it for a LONG time, same with the regular IT industry. I am only now beginning to understand really what is required.

Phil spoke about a presentation from Tony Scott, CTO General Motors and GM's experiences in developing a global phone book for their employees. The project took 1 year to complete, the technological portion about 2-3 months. The cultural, political and legislative took 1 year. GM learnt how they had to deal with the incompatibility between the different privacy attitudes/legislation environments around the globe. Having been through this in the late 90's at Nortel Networks, working on single instance (physically in the US) global SAP HR roll out, I can fully appreciate the issues they had to face. These issues of privacy and cultural differences are going to be some of the biggest issues faced by digital identity.

Phil also spoke about trust and how critical this is for digital identity to succeed, but also recognises that technology cannot generate trust. Trust is probably the biggest change issues faced when deploying workforce applications. When you start placing employee payslips online, processing performance reviews, salary changes, IR action etc the employee's trust in the integrity of the system is paramount. So often I have seen very successful (up until deployment) projects damaged by a poor roll out and change program.

So how do you create trust? Personally I feel you create trust over a period of the meeting (or exceeding) expectations of your customers. Phil confirmed this during the interview.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/07/2004 08:47:00 am   |

Saturday, December 04, 2004

Donkey's Doodle

Just been listening to G'Day World and found the Aussie Slang section one of the best things I have heard in a while. Being an aussie who has worked in Canada & the USA trying to explain some of our slang and terminology, eg bugger, bastard, cobber etc, it is great to hear Cameron and Mick explaining it to the world.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/04/2004 05:45:00 pm   |

Humbled

I have been following the links reading the posts and feel very humbled and kind of like "a fish out of water" being involved in the BlogosphereRadio special report. To have been involved in something with so many important people within blogosphere is just amazing.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/04/2004 08:02:00 am   |

Internal blogs

With all of the talk about what seems external corporate blogging I thought I might reflect on internal corporate blogging. I guess kind of like Jeremy Wright did a couple of days ago of business blogging overall.

It seems that most of the commentary to date (that I have seen at least) seems to have been driven by the PR and marketing types, when most bloggers seem to be neither. While thinking I was wondering what does it take to get blogging to begin within an organisation, sort of what is the catalyst, as this is my area of interest. Then I remembered a statement the Guy Kawasaki made in Rules for Revolutionaries, which I have just finished reading again, on creating virtual communities.

Guy provides 5 points while very relevant to external corporate blogging I think are just as relevant to the internal side.
  1. Community before commerce
  2. Communication comes next
  3. Place the community's interest above your own
  4. Tolerate criticism
  5. Encourage "personalities"
I feel it is very important for all organisations looking at blogging as a form of communication to begin the process from the correct point of view. By this I mean not to try and use blogging to cover holes in their management practices, a company with poor management practices might just pay lip service to the whole process and in the end the process will fail. Either your customers or employees will see through the rhetoric. Therefore if you are going to start make sure you begin for the right reasons.

Internal blogging can be a very good method of developing employee engagement, by engagement I am talking about capturing the hearts and minds of employees. You create engagement through involvement, listening and understanding all of which can be developed through an internal blog.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/04/2004 08:00:00 am   |

Blog Auction over

Ok maybe I am a bit late but the auction is over and Jeremy has sold his services for $3350, not bad at all. Congratulations! The purchaser was Inkspress, good luck to them! If Jeremy does only 5 posts over the 13 week period it will cost them about $50/post, now hopefully they take many of the other services that Jeremy can offer and develop a blogging culture and have an internal resource continue what he starts.

On a side note Jeremy and Darren (the other blogger on eBay) have had so much business flow their way in the past 10 days they have now formed a blog consulting company, InsideBlogging, wow! A whole new industry.

As I mentioned earlier in the week I had a chat to BlogshpereRadio about the auctions, here is the special report. Mack chatted to Jeremy and Darren along with myself and two other bloggers Wayne Hurlbet and Mick Stanic and has put together a special report on the last 10 days and the impact on blogging going forward. Some of you might know Mick from G'Day World with Cameron Reilly, if you have not listened, certainly worth it.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/04/2004 07:23:00 am   |

Friday, December 03, 2004

Ponderance on MSBlog

Tama, from Ponderance has highlighted some very interesting points which I missed in my first test drive of MSN Spaces. I guess it is really designed as a consumer tool, which is not a bad thing.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/03/2004 02:21:00 pm   |

Managers misuse techonlogy

InfoWorld has an interesting piece which just goes to show the world is changing. Such studies will be useful for organisations looking to rollout collaborative and groupware tools. For example, what are the real implications of instant messaging or VOIP? How should the change program be managed, what should it cover and how can we help our employees come to terms with the new environment?

All very important questions that should be addressed BEFORE such technology is deployed. This also goes to show that NO technology project that impacts employees should be undertaken without change management of some sort.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/03/2004 02:00:00 pm   |

Do you have sex in the office?

Ok, I know the title probably got you attention, but it does happen.

How do I know this? Well BP in the UK have recently sent a memo to all managers requesting people to stop having sex in the office.

How did they know? Well it was caught on the CCTV cameras by the security guards! Don't believe me have a read of this little item from Human Resources Magazine in Australia.

Interest implications, can the security guards claim sexual harassment? What happens if the security guards miss a real security event while watching the show? Could the CCTV footage be used in a sexual harassment suit? The mind boggles!


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/03/2004 01:22:00 pm   |

Microsoft to offer blogging service

For many this might be old news, but Microsoft has launched a blogging service called MSN Spaces.

I just created a replica of my blogger account over there to have a look (I will probably delete it in a few days so as not to confuse things). They have created very interesting tool integrating blogs, pictures, lists and music. This seems to be very consumer focused, maybe in 12 months blogs will be ubiquitous?

They seem to have most of the common features covered out of the box (some Blogger is missing and would do well to address, quickly) such as trackbacks, categories, comments and RSS feeds etc.

The integration with other MS tools and services is good, although it could be better. For example being able to load up to do lists from Outlook, but I am just picky.

The service would work very well inside an organisation for team collaboration, maybe a couple of changes. An example, maybe instead of music lists of documents etc would be good.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/03/2004 01:00:00 pm   |

Thursday, December 02, 2004

Searching for jobs and resumes

I wrote earlier this week about Heather's post on .jobs.

There have been a couple of comments about searchability etc on jobs and resumes. I find it interesting that when I search on Google, Yahoo or MSN search I cannot find 90% of jobs, even ones from corporate sites!

Let's take this job @ Microsoft. If I search for it in MSN Search by Job Title I get nothing, I tried position number, and several other methods. Now I know why this is the case, because the job is generated from a database dynamically why the query is executed but the user.

But WHY! Of course Microsoft want someone to find the job, they want someone to even fill the job. So why doesn't the job appear?

Now I did the a few other searches and this job from Blogger Jobs I found in several places, including Monster which surprised me.

My point is the whole .jobs thing might disappear if it was EASY for job seekers to find a job. This was the basis of my earlier post.

Now just maybe some of the smart folks at Google, Yahoo, MSN etc might be the ones to help resolve the issue. Or maybe this is an opportunity for an enterprising company to step in, however I would see it easier for the average punter if the majors helped out.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/02/2004 07:21:00 pm   |

Are blogs ubiquitous?

I have been reading some of the notes from BlogTalk 2.0 and came across some notes on Ben & Mena Trott's keynote. (You know Ben & Mena right? Six Apart, Moveable Type, and TypePad).

Anyway with all the talk today about it being "The Year of the Blog". I came across an interesting comment in the notes:-

"When weblogs become invisible, the 'weblogging revolution' will have occurred."


I have no idea who said it, I suspect either Ben or Mena but who knows. However it struck a cord. This is the key and so far I do not think we have got there.

When blogs are invisible organisations will be managing their internal knowledge, driving external PR and extending their relationships with their customers. Until then I guess it could all be a "storm in a tea cup", but WE know that is not really true, don't we. ;-)


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/02/2004 01:52:00 pm   |

ePortfolios?

Just found an interesting site ePortfolios Portal which seems to have everything anyone would want to know about ePortfolios.

I had not heard of an ePortfolio until today and the brief reading I have done I feel they are almost like blogs with a bit extra. I am sure a MovableType expert could hack one of these together over the course of a few days. Now with a common XML format the product could easily talk with the course management and student information systems that are out there.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/02/2004 08:49:00 am   |

Australian Flexible Learning Framework

If you are in Australia and want some more information about is going on within vocational education and training have a look at the Australian Flexible Learning Framework website. Some interesting items, it is good to seem a couple of RSS feeds.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/02/2004 08:29:00 am   |

A new elearning site

I just found a new eLearning site elearnspace (via a colleague at Roche) in which has an interesting blog full of links and other commentary. Such as 10 technologies that are going to change the way we learn.

Every time I find a great nugget like this I wonder how did I miss such a good resource, and what's wrong with me why didn't I know about this sooner.

I guess tonight I am going to spend many hours learning what I don't know. I expect there will be several posts in the next week on all this new content.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/02/2004 08:25:00 am   |

Money from blogs?

It seems to be a very common thread at the moment, everyone is talking about making money from blogs. We have bloggers auctioning themselves, here and here. Our same intrepid blogger who is auctioning himself, sold his blog earlier this year as well. Almost every blog now has some form of money making items, be it regular advertising, Ad Words, Amazon books (like mind although I don't think I will ever retire from the Amazon Associates program) and donation jars. Doc Searls even spoke about Making Money at BloggerCon III. But where is this all taking us?

Steve Smith from EContent claims that blogging is less than a business model and more of a retention tool. Steve Rubel disagrees and feels that many blogs are making money, and will turn a profit in 2005. I guess it depends on what your cost base is if you will really make a profit from your blog.

Also to be included in the mix are comments like Darren from ProBlogger who agrees with Fredik from CorporateBloggingBlog that blogs are business support tools, NOT direct money makers.

All of this is a bit confusing. I suspect there are truths in all of these comments. Some blogs will turn a profit (of course the definition is loose), some will make some "play money" for the owner, some will support their business and turn profits in other areas and some will make nothing. I guess it all depends on what the blogger wants to get out of it. If they want to make money I think the framework is there for them to do so, Jeremy Wright is certainly providing this, he is about to make another $1600.

Some of me also wonders will all this focus on money causes blogs to lose their attraction before they really become mainstream? Maybe I am just naive?


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/02/2004 07:43:00 am   |

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Recruiting in the future

Heather Leigh (of Microsoft fame) posted an interesting item on the possible new .jobs domain. She ponders the world of this new domain and the impact on the commercial job boards and they they might have then focus on tools that allow the seeker to search for jobs across the domain. Some of her thoughts are similar to the post I made about a month ago on forward thinking recruitment ideas. I agree with Heather such changes would have a significant impact on a recruiter and the candidate, but I am not sure we need a new TLD to make these things happen. Many of the changes Heather talks about could be accomplished today with usage of technology we have today, a big hurdle is how do we change the practice of the job seeker and job boards to participate?

Personally I had heard the domain was not going anywhere very quickly, but I could be wrong. I am also not familiar with the TLD process so I could be completely off with the items below. If I am off I would like to find out more from others in the know.

Heather also refers to a post on Gerry Crispin's site. Gerry has some good ideas, however I am concerned by SHRM wanting to control the domain. Certainly SHRM had the foresight to put together a proposal to ICANN earlier this year. Certain elements of the proposal have me raising an eyebrow and asking "huh?". For example only qualified applicants can apply for registration which is fairly normal, however the definition of qualified I feel is limited and open for poor interpretation.
A qualified applicant ("Qualified Applicant") is a person who is (a) a member of SHRM; or (b) engaged in human resource management practices that meet any of the following criteria: (i) possess salaried-level human resource management experience; (ii) are certified by the Human Resource Certification Institute; or (iii) are supportive of the SHRM Code of Ethical and Professional Standards in Human Resource Management, as amended from time to time (the "Code").
The proposal does go on to say that a member of a company can be deemed a qualified applicant, to allow for smaller organisations to apply. Some of the initial feedback to ICANN states that the reader felt anyone authorised by their employer should be able to establish the domain, others just felt the domain as a waste of time and a grab for more domain revenue.

My of my thoughts is that how will a global company use the TLD? Will there be a .jobs.au? Or just a single domain for the organisation? If a single domain will large global organisation streamline their recruitment processes so that they are the same globally or will they differ by country as is the case with a majority of organisations? I know these are not issues which ICANN needs to resolve but they will need to be resolved for the global success of the TLD. Certainly such a TLD would open the door for some new innovative solutions for these organisations.

Thoughts from others would be good, as I suspect I am missing bits of the big picture.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/01/2004 04:07:00 pm   |

Corporate blogging dangerous to your paycheck?

Scott Rosenberg provides some interesting commentary on corporate blogging and how dangerous it can be if you are not really careful.


I have moved from this site to my new home which can be found a www.specht.com.au

posted by mspecht @ 12/01/2004 08:28:00 am   |