My Critique of the HR Professional article “HR and the MBA” January 2013 Issue

I am very wary of when I get to read an article that quotes statistics and numbers, because they can be skewed in any direction that you want. This is usually done by omission and by interpreting insufficient data. This article does not push readers to any particular conclusion, by just saying that MBA is a personal choice, which in my opinion was evident before the survey. However the way the survey was reported leaves more to be desired.

First of all it does not identify their sample, “840 HR Professionals were contacted” can be very diverse or homogenous. What’s the response rate?, what’s the demographics breakdown? Is that a sufficient sample size for the population?. I don’t know any of this. Frankly, I started to skim through the rest of the article after not finding these facts reported in the article. These are the basics of covering the survey. I expect to find this kind of reporting in the professional magazine.

Ubuntu on the Phone, Ubuntu from the Phone

I have dabbled in the Ubuntu and Linux environment on and off throughout the past few years. I always get excited when they have a new product coming out and I am certainly excited about this here. There are 2 things that Ubuntu wants to do, first is to provide the Ubuntu Phone, which looks like it's built for multitasking which is pretty exciting. The next thing is to allow you to maximize the use of your phone by allowing you to connect it to the Monitor and Keyboard and having the Phone do the heavy lifting of the actual Ubuntu OS running.
This would allow potentially to have just one device for everything, which is kind of mind-bending.
Here's a few vids that I found on YouTube.

It's a celebration People :)

Windows 8 Advantageous Position.

The competition between PC and Mac had diluted over the recent years. We saw a dynamic shift into the mobile computing and increasing competition in the wake of recent changes, which has birthed an ever-complex technological battle for dominance on various level of product offerings.

Presumably if you look at the B2C environment then Mac and PC are competing on the desktop, tablet and smartphone operating system platforms, as well as tablet hardware. Apple is well known for the so-called harmony in the apple environment, of how devices just work well together. Windows looked at that and took it a step further by actually putting together an operating system that works pretty much the same way on all the devices, which is brilliant.

On the Smartphone platform they have augmented their strategy that they have used with Windows for computers by setting a specific requirement on the processors, which results in the same experience from phone to phone in terms of performance. This is their key to carving out a niche for themselves. If they can continue this, they can be the perfect antidotes to the vicious product cycle of the IPhone. IPhone gets a new marginal improvement every 6 months, which makes the older models a little bit more obsolete. Windows and Android can get more phones released in that period of time with their OS.  This in turn allows Windows and Android platforms to posses the more cutting edge hardware phones, while Apple is still lagging behind. Now Windows can roll out updates to all the phones more quickly, and Andorid has to come through the OEM. This hybrid approach really provides Windows Phone 8 with a winning strategic advantage in my opinion.

If you look at the tablet competition, I feel like Apple has been rehashing their offering over and over again and has not offered anything of value since they implemented a front-facing camera, contrary to that Windows is allows Pro version users to get access to full Windows 8 Experience along with USB support, that’s just a future product that makes a much more appealing alternative to regular computing. I must say that I am intrigued with the potential that Windows has ahead of them. I feel like they will gradually take over the IPad and Android in the coming years in the tablet arena.

Desktops have and still will be the place of PC dominance. Mac and it’s premium pricing has a niche market and will maintain some of it going forward but all in all I see Apple loosing most of it’s market share and being the major looser in the coming years. If you think about the velocity of technological companies rise and falls, Mac in 5 years has risen sharply and will gradually come down in the next coming years.

When you think of sharp rises and sharp falls think of Blackberry, they were popular for about 5 years and have pretty much fallen off the people’s wish lists over 2 years.

I think this song summarizes my opinion of Blackberry and the supposed rebirth with the Black Berry 10.

Podcast thoughts

Listening to another Recruiting @animal podcast right now. And they are grilling this Gen Y wannabe marketing person @lexiKubrak. I find it really strange when one person starts to generalize from her point of view based only on what she saw in her circle or what the professors sold to her during school.  Seriously there are different classes within a society and gen Y experience is not universal. I would say that it not productive to generalize like that. It would serve better to stick to social classes and consider the age, not the generation. For example, lower to middle class university grad most likely held a McJob during university and accumulated plenty of retail experience, where as someone from the upper class may have more internship experience and great connections. It’s clear that each party has certain strengths and you really need to recognize them and try to capitalize on that.

If you are stuck in the job search rot answer these questions:

-       Who did you talk with yesterday about your job search?

-       Who are you talking with tomorrow about your job search?

-       How much time are you committing to a job search? If you want a full time job you should commit full time hours during the search to find employment.

Growing your professional blog. Step 1: Starting

I would like to share some ideas on how to grow your professional blog. I currently somewhere along these steps, but I believe that I can contribute some information on what worked for me when I was writing a blog.

Ok so you have a want to post your thoughts about something in your field online. I’ve had that thought for a couple of years before I actually started writing this blog.

First of all, you should act. Don’t second-guess yourself and think about serious commitment yet, just go to a free blogging site either blogger or wordpress and just create a blog and post your first article. It’s really painless to do and you will feel better about yourself right after you do it.

Second - don’t expect any kind of hits on your blog right after you post. That’s the reality of it; your blog is not going to get any views for some time other than your friends and family if you tell them in person or on facebook. Frankly speaking I am still convinced that my blog is in the same boat, although the stats claim that I have over 2000 views in the last 2 years.

Third – try to educate yourself on how social engines work. Boolean search logic specifically is key to understanding how your page gets discovered, so you need to figure out how to tag your pages.

Fourth – keep posting. Like anything online it’s all content driven. Before you get any kind of exposure from your blog there needs to be enough content there to attract people. Which means that you are going to be filling your blog with posts and for a long while you will not see the kind of result you may have hoped for, other than for the odd mention every once in a while.

Fifth - don't be afraid to change gears. Personally I've had 3 blogs before I settled on this blog that you are reading. I've tried different hosting options and different topics. I decided that I would rather have a place to record my thoughts with a varying degree of relevance to human resources than to try to maintain different kinds of blogs. It's just a matter of committing to maintenance of the blog on some kind of reoccurring basis. Right now I try to do a post every week or two. And if I want to start writing more in the future, it will not be starting from scratch again, which is great. I could always adjust the topic of the blog and start delivering more content. I think that, since blogs are living websites, change is good for them.

Unreasonable job requirements

I am sure that everyone has encountered these at some point. Being a recent graduate, you come across a lot of job postings during your job search and you see some crazy requirements posted by companies. Specifically I remember coming across an entry-level HR position that asks for 3 years of HR experience. Wait a minute, this company either thinks that their entry level is above other entry level jobs or they have another classification for the people that are entering their HR department without any experience. Intern or temp job titles come to mind. 

Last week I went into a dollar store and saw a job requirement for their store clerk position – it read: “5 years of retail experience required”. That’s excessive in my opinion, but there may be something else attached to that figure. Competence wise I am certain that 1 year of retail experience should qualify anyone to work at all stores that do not require product knowledge. This job certainly appears like one of the jobs that should not require product knowledge. They could be looking for somebody more “mature”, which is a more covert way to select people above a certain age without getting in trouble for age discrimination. And I have a problem with that.  I feel like the youth are already getting squeezed out of entry level jobs, and to discourage them from applying is wrong.

Siesta at European workplaces is another point for flexible work schedule

During my vacation to Spain I have encountered a mass siesta for the first time in a foreign culture. It was really curious to see mostly everyone just close up shop and go home in the afternoon for a couple of hours. Evidently this is a practice deep rooted in their history to cope with the climate, which is really hot in the afternoons. It sounds really nice to be able to go home in the afternoon and just nap for an hour or so. Apparently this is in line with our biorhythm of the afternoon slump that makes it desirable for us to take a nap. http://wellbeing.doctissimo.com/lifestyle/getting-a-good-nights-sleep/siestas-as-workplace-performance-enhancers.html

I feel like the presented benefits of the afternoon naps, just make it more enticing to adopt a flexible work schedule in the back office environment. It wouldn’t be anything new to the new employees coming in, that have more likely gotten some retail and shiftwork experience. Besides with the technological advancements many jobs in part can be completed remotely shall there be a particular deadline. I think that introducing flexible work environment would also prove to be a move towards becoming more competitive for the female talent. It’s rather widely known that majority of women value work flexibility more than money. To me it seems like a competitive edge type of move to make your job more flexible and more attractive.