Long time no hear?

It has been a few days since I last posted, sorry.  Been a bit busy, mother in town, attending the Melbourne Arts Festival, blogging at work, sick and our cat died :-(.

Anyway I am back again look for a few posts in the coming days.

Tom Reynolds unemployed corporate blogger

Last Friday Tom Reynolds was let go from Telstra, which by itself is not a big issue, people get let go everyday.  Where this little story gets a little interesting is Tom is a blogger, and not just a personal blogger but a corporate blogger on Telstra’s site called Now We Are Talking.  Ok could be touchy but not a really big PR issue.  Wrong!  2 days prior Tom had just written an inspiring post on how he was going to start working to open up the communication between Telstra and their customers, through his blog!  Oops.  Tom was talking about Scoble’s Laws of Corporate blogging, a fantastic list of 20 things you should do while corporate blogging.  Unfortunately Tom now feels Scoble is a fool (is that a bit of link bait Tom? ).

Now there is a slightly funny smell coming from Telstra.  Was his post the reason?  Telstra are saying no, others are saying yes a typical he said she said.

Two points of note.

Firstly no mention of the issue in any of the Now We Are Talking blogs, ok maybe no one sees this as a big story?  Only a few references right now in Technorati.  Rod Bruem took the time to comment on Cameron Reilly’s post, it would be good to see a post from him on the situation, but they might be a bit busy with other PR issues.

Second point, your HR processes and blogging in my view the big issue here.  There has been a bit of talk over the last couple of years about employee blogging policies in Australia, ok the lack of them.  Eventually we will see them, but what about your other policies, ie termination.  How do you let someone go in a manner that does not damage your brand, as has happened (or happening) with Tom?  Are your manager’s trained in how to handle this? 

The story has been picked up by News.com.au’s blogs, and other notable Aussie blogs.  I wonder when the tipping point will be and there is a formal reply from Telstra?

Overall, if you are going to have employees who blog make sure you know how to handle them within all of your processes!  Make sure you also know how to handle to blogosphere as well.

Shhh, want a job?

I got an email, come press release, this morning from Gayleen Robinson about a service for job seekers called QuietAgent, normally I read these types of messages and sit back and wait.  Wait why, to see who else has got the email and read their view points.  However today I felt given title of the email I would type out a quick post:-

New Zealand software company partners with Forbes.com

Now that’s cool.

QuietAgent is a product from StaffCV, a New Zealand based software development house (if they become REALLY successful they will be called Australian, just like Russell Crowe).  It seems to be a very similar model as Linkme.com.au and others, put together a great big database of job seekers and get some employers to look through them, find a match and approach the job seeker.  The job seeker has all the power, accept or reject the approach without ever giving their personal details to the employer. 

The business model is becoming more common, employers pay on success, ie when a job seeker releases their personal information to the employer.  The difference here is the amount.  Only $10 or $20 depending on the type of hire, student vs non-student.  This means for any given role QuietAgent would make around $120-$200 per non-student role, better revenue than a traditional job board.

One downside, the employers interface seems to only work with IE, so no love to Firefox users!

 


You’ll find risk management jobs on GlobalRiskJobs.com.

15 Outlook keyboard shortcuts

Below is my list of Top 15 Outlook keyboard shortcut (for Windows), specifically in the interests of supporting GTD.  The list was inspired/based on TechRupublic’s recent post about keyboard shortcuts and David Allen’s eBook on Implementing GTD in Outlook. 

  1. Alt-Tab – Switch between open applications, probably the most under used shortcut within Windows
  2. <Ctrl+Shift> k – opens new task
  3. <Ctrl+Shift> n – opens new note
  4. <Ctrl+Shift> m – opens new email
  5. <Ctrl+Shift> c – opens new contact
  6. <Ctrl+Shift> a – opens new appointment
  7. <Ctrl+Shift> e – creates a new email folder
  8. <Ctrl+Shift> i – moves you to the email inbox
  9. <Ctrl+Shift> b – opens your address book
  10. <Alt> g – opens Category list dialog for a Task, Appointment or Contact, fantastic for GTD users
  11. <Alt> s – saves a Task, Appointment, Contact, Note or email
  12. <Alt> i – Find, if you don’t use a Desktop search tool
  13. <Alt> y – all day event
  14. <Alt> r – adds/removes reminder, useful when creating an all day event
  15. <Alt> F1 – show or hide the Outlook Navigation bar

(Ok I know you usually do a top 10 but I needed 15 to fit everything in!)

Words to avoid on your resume

Many job seekers have “resume in mouth” disease, that is they kill any chance of getting a job BEFORE they even get to the interview.  Typos, poor formatting, not focusing on what the hiring manager is looking for, and using the wrong language.

TechRepublic wrote an article a couple of years ago, and created a PDF document highlighting these language issues.  They identified several words/phrases that typically will kill any chance of an interview.  To save you the trouble I will summarise the words here, but to see why the words are “bad” you will need to review the article.

  1. assist
  2. assisted
  3. experiment
  4. Skillfully
  5. effectively
  6. carefully
  7. quickly
  8. expert
  9. mastered
  10. Cutting-edge
  11. detail-oriented
  12. coordinate
  13. facilitate
  14. transform
  15. proven ability
  16. synergy
  17. liaison
  18. Responsible for…

This is big!

eBay has decided to pull out of China!  Not that it is eBay just that they have lost 60% market share to a local player and cannot compete within the new regulations of the Chinese financial services industry.

Maybe we will now all wake up and see what China really is.  A great big marketplace that will change the way we do things.  They have millions of highly educated people who will take one the best and brightest from every country.  Add to this they have a population of well over a billion people the scope for growth is far greater than anything we have seen to date.

Today in the technology world people talk about moving to Silicon Valley.  Maybe they should be heading to China…

The history of podcasting

Richard Giles has released the first part of his unpublished book on podcasting, including a very interesting history! 

Careful online observers would note that the history of podcasting has been a battle fought over many times.  It is good to see a version that seems true at least from what I have read and heard.  Michael Geoghegan, one of the first podcasters agrees with this version as well.