From Twitter New User to Blogging about Twitter (with a Little Bit in Between)
Posted by Dan Hall in data, social media on April 18, 2009
Peter Hall has a funny but largely true post regarding the life cycle of a new Twitter user. There has been a flurry of news activity about Twitter with Ashton Kutcher pwn’ing CNN on who can reach 1 million followers first. Twitter has officially become mainstream. Oprah Winfrey now has 280,000 followers. I would imagine a good number of them are first time users.
I, for one, don’t feel a compelling need to use Twitter but it already has gone in some interesting directions, such as providing real time data on unfolding events (Mumbai Attacks for example) Although, it is debatable how much relevant information was being micro-blogged, see Alexander Wolfe’s article. His opening line is poignant, “Never before has a crisis unleashed so much raw data — and so little interpretation.” For many, twitter is just one more distracting information feed in a sea of social media platforms; its value debatable. Fortunately all this raw data with little interpretation creates opportunities. A former colleague of mine, Demian Crumb, is doing some interesting stuff with data collection with Twitter. You can follow his efforts on Twitter, fittingly enough.
Dan Hall
Dean Graziano, Co-Founder, leaving Visible Technologies
On Friday, April 3rd, it was announced that Dean Graziano, one of the co-founders of the company, was leaving Visible Technologies.
Dean was always pushing the company forward; he is amazingly passionate and loved VT. Many of our biggest deals started with Dean “hunting elephants.” In my opinion, he was the heart of Visible Technologies.
Dean, I wish you the best.
Dan Hall
My Interview on SEO Boy Regarding Online Reputation Management
Posted by Dan Hall in Online Reputation Management, Personal Brand, social media on April 14, 2009
I had the honor of sharing my thoughts on managing your online reputation with SEO Boy. I believe that is increasingly important for business professionals to have a basic understanding of personal branding, search engine optimization, and managing your reputation (both in the traditional sense and online). There is more and more data about you on the Web, plain and simple. You can either influence and shape that data or you can let it influence your personal brand and your career.
Dan Hall
I am a producer of data and so are you …
Posted by Dan Hall in social media on February 9, 2009
One of the more interesting revelations that came to mind as I was leaving my previous job as a Seattle Human Resources Manager at Visible Technologies was just how much data I had produced. When it was all said and done, I created from scratch over 3.3 gigabytes of new information in 15 months. This data did not exist prior to my existence at Visible. A vast majority of this data was flung out in cyberspace in forms of emails, posts, presentations, and so forth.
Over 50% of all Americans have created consumer generated media (AKA new data). There are over 20 million blogs from American bloggers. A million plus NEW posts per day (plus or minus varies by source).
What does this all mean? First, as if there was any question, Social and Consumer Generated Media is here to stay. Second, that is a lot of data being created daily. The future of business and the Internet is all about data. Want job security?
Learn data. Everything you can, how to manage it, how to search, how to sort, how to connect, how to digest.
How much new, unique data have you produced in the last year? Ever stopped and thought about it?
Dan Hall
Creating Efficiency – Rypple and ActiveWords
Posted by Dan Hall in Creating Efficiency, Startups on January 31, 2009
I had the pleasure of interviewing the co-CEO, Daniel Debow, of a Toronto based startup, Rypple. He reached out to me after I had posted my initial thoughts about them in a previous blog post, Making Rypples in Performance Management. He took 45 minutes talking to me about Rypple, what they are doing and where they are going with their Company. I got chills. The full write up of that conversation is forthcoming.
Meanwhile, check out ActiveWords. If you are like me and do a lot of organization of files into folders or a lot of repeative actions (like sourcing candidates from LinkedIn), this simple program is a must have.
Dan Hall
Making Rypples in Performance Management
Posted by Dan Hall in Generational Management, Performance Reviews, social media on January 12, 2009
I read a good article in The Economist about a company called Rypple, that undoubtedly will be making some splashes about how Companies think about Performance Management.
Rypple has created an anonymous, twitteresque like concept around the constant feedback that Gen Y’ers crave. You can ping your boss or co-workers to death by asking for feedback. While it may not actually prompt traditionally minded supervisors to respond with any more vigor than before, it may start making headway into more social web conscious companies like creative agencies.
I am actually a big proponent of constant feedback. I think anonymous feedback works well for peer networks. I think the challenge around Rypple is on where the feedback starts, while it could be used by managers to solicit feedback, it seems more focused on the employee soliciting feedback by others. We will see how it all plays out.
Dan Hall
Seattle Human Resources Manager
Reinforcing Leadership (Yes, Leadership)
Posted by Dan Hall in Adding Value, Human Resource Practices on January 6, 2009
All good things and all bad things must come from the employee’s first line supervisor. This is called leadership, to do anything else is shirking responsibility and undermining the supervisor’s authority. Oh yeah, and don’t make HR do it.
Dan Hall
Seattle Human Resources Manager
Solicitations and Contractors
Posted by Dan Hall in recruiting on January 3, 2009
With the downturn in the economy, I have noticed a distinct increase in recruiting solitications as well as the number of hardcore contractors looking for work. About six months ago, I would receive one maybe two calls at most from a recruiting agency (I have my calls screened and don’t call back). Now, the same recruiter is calling half a dozen times, the total number of different agencies cold calling are increasing as well.
I have also noticed an increase in applicants who have normally only done contract work. In my experience, a good portion of the people who find the contracting lifestyle attractive usually stay on that career path. I am finding more and more applicants who have contracted steadily for the last five to ten years applying for full time positions.
Of course we have all read (and felt) how the economic crisis is affecting businesses but sometimes it is interesting to see some of the second or third order effects.
Dan Hall
Seattle Human Resources Manager
Professional Re-engineering in Human Resources
Posted by Dan Hall in Creating Efficiency, Human Resource Practices on December 15, 2008
I saw re-engineering described in a way that made me stop and think (as you know adding value and creating efficiency are two of my guiding philosophies):
Re-engineering involves looking at the entire organization to simplify or eliminate unnecessary processes with the goal of increasing customer satisfaction though improvements in efficiency.
This got me to thinking about the sometimes bad reputation Human Resources has in organizations and led to think about the following questions:
1. When have you as a professional engaged in your own re-engineering? When was the last time you took a hard look at how to improve your customer satisfaction through the elimination of unneccesary processes? What actions did you take and what was the outcome?
2. If Human Resources does have a bad reputation for customer service (i.e. to our Employees and Managers) what can we do as a profession to re-engineer ourselves to improve this?
I would love to hear your answers. I’ll even tell you what, I will buy the person with the best answers coffee at Zeitgeist Coffee in Seattle if they are in the local area (this should get the recruiting agencies attention).
Dan Hall
Seattle Human Resources Manager
It’s been a little while…
Posted by Dan Hall in social media on December 11, 2008
since my last post. I needed a little motivation, so I took advantage of a great plug-in app on LinkedIn that shows my recent WordPress blog posts. It also shows when they were posted. I am quite ashamed of myself, but I am a big believer of transparency as motivation.
Is there any doubt Social Media is changing the world – how we do business, how we interact, how learn, how we live?
I just embedded a presentation about Visible Technologies on LinkedIn. It was created with Microsoft PowerPoint and uploaded from Google Docs (signed in with my Yahoo! email). I shared this presentation with one of my (much smarter than me) co-workers so he could edit it as a collaborator – just in case.
And now you might be reading this post on my profile. Wow.
Dan Hall
Seattle Human Resources Manager
