Archive for the ‘People’ Category

regional relevancy

Thursday, February 1st, 2007

When I check out a new online tool or service from outside the region which can be used to identify and engage talent, I almost always have to stop myself and think about its applicability to Australasia. There might be some showstoppers, be it the content only covering countries other than Aus/NZ, or specific laws which may not be applicable locally, etc.

I was thinking something along those lines when I kept reading at all the buzz and advertising surrounding zoominfo in the industry’s online portals, which i had reported on a few days back. Not surprisingly, the business is US focused, which means that’s where the mass of data is relevant to. Interestingly though, zoominfo via its sales manager Eric Osborne was kind enough to send a factsheet indicating the volumes of what I would call regional relevant data.

It is a snapshot but they are happy to provide a break down of other countries by request. Also, get a load of the UK data, which is the region to where some of you look as well to source talent. Maybe it’s worth the try

(disclosure, i am not being paid or otherwise rewarded to post this entry or attached the information included there in from zoominfo or anyone else)

Unconferences

Thursday, February 1st, 2007

I am quite skeptical about industry conferences and the return on your investment of time and dollars. I would not be surprised if people find it a important component of their own networking activities, or if they can get a few gems from the presenters, who at least in theory an expert on subject matters.

Personally though, on the very few ocassions that I have been lured, I ended up with the feeling that I just got sold “stuff”, that i did not manage to talk to all the people I should have, or that I was on the main passively listening as opposed to contributing beyond question time. Obviously, it’s the absolute pits if you got nothing new to take in or if the presentations are amateurish/dumb.

I briefly heard about the Talent Unconference a few weeks back, maybe last year, and I thought this is just another grab line from the yanks who want to sell something to someone. I got to read more about it in the aftermath, and it seems that philosophically and in practical terms it was more an organized chaos or brainstorming sessions loosely threaded by a drive to treat the topic of Talent in a strategic, innovative, two-way-teach-and-learn long-term way.

Maybe I am biased because i am exposed to the work of some of the more well known attendees in the list, so I speculate that the discussions were rich and substantial, although not without their share self-criticism, reflection and name calling on what went not so great. which is different

Though it seemed to have been a great intellectual exercise, to me the jury is still out in terms of what i would the event’s practical, longer term benefits are, namely
- How is the knowledge disseminated and get input to the non-attendees, ie you and me (maybe the organiser or team leaders to get something out?)

- How does these ideas get built up on for subsequent activities (new businesses being formed, or the next event), etc.

I’ll keep and eye out; you can check for yourselves too.

one simple hire (or a bunch)

Wednesday, September 6th, 2006

I got a report on a broken link for the blog. It was one to the simply hired blog. Hours earlier, I had been belatedly reading Jeff Hunter’s pre-announcement that something was cooking and later on that he was going to start blogging for SH. It seems to me though that he will do more than that: based on what you can read at Talentism he might end up influencing the direction of the company’s product/service… well that’s just the baseless speculation done by a fan from afar. Others with respectable opinions appear to want to follow him too.

There isn’t much yet on the new areas; the new blog(s) - hence the broken link - is(are) split for job seekers and hirers, or combined, in case you are hiring and wanting to make a move, which is not unusual at all - is it?

Update: Jeff kindly followed up on a comment I left in the new SH blog. it might be of interest to you to participate in the conversation or follow the thread