Personal Knowledge Management

Denham Grey introduces me to the idea of personal knowledge management, now I have known about the concept for a while but ever really understood what it was. He also lists several PKM tools in a previous post which in reviewing them makes me think of some of the previous topics discussed on the TPN Personal Productivity Show. Hey Cameron & Des here is an idea for a show, look at the productivity impacts of effective PKM.

He points to Knowledgeboard which has some fantastic background information and practical tips. The is also a section on the Technologies for PKM, Denham summarises them on his site:-
* PC based search and indexing engines
* PIMs & outliners
* Concept and mindmaps (that do not encourage collaborative editing / design)
* Blogs
* Word processors
* Spreadsheets
* Tracking and link repositories
* E-mail clients
* Web homepages
* RSS aggregator
* Personal thinking / visualization tools

links for 2005-06-21

HR and related blogs I found

Over the last few weeks I have been on a mission to track down some more blogs that cover HR, learning, recruitment, and to a lesser degree knowledge management. I have found about 180 of them that as far as I can tell are still active, there were lots more but if they had not been updated in 6 months I did not put them on the list.

At the moment the list is in an OPML file and available to download.

But there is a disclaimer which essentially is all care but no responsibility. The categories are mine so if you disagree sorry, let me know I will update. If you know of others that I have missed let me know. I plan to eventually create a web based interface to maintain the file, I have the basics but need a bit more time to get it complete.

Why an OPML file? Allows people to quickly load up a whole list of blogs into an aggregator and get going quickly.

More to follow.

Googling and recruitment

Last night I wrote a short item on using Google for background checks, this morning I find Regina Miller has also put together a post (completely separately) with a more recent example of how a Google search might of been the difference between life and death right here in Australia. I had previously seen the news story but not seen a reference to how the process got started, a simple search on Google.

I have written several times about my view on how recruitment solutions, call them ATS or TMS, are going to be fundamentally impacted by the changes in technology. The transition is already underway with the introduction of vertical search and the massive growth in online background checking services in the past year.

As we move into a connected world with more and more information readily available (and a lot free) at our finger tips there are some questions. Such as will recruiters have a “duty of care” to undertake such searches? On a similar thought will we end up in a situation that recruiters can be held negligent if they did not use search engines to conduct a background check? Or will we just have a continued growth in 3rd party background checking services? How will this potentially impact third party recruiters and their legal relationship with employers? While some of these questions are currently covered in existing contracts but will these contracts need to be revised?

Also remember the flip side is also true. For candidates, gone are the days of having to do library search to find out about a potential employers. Search engines can provide candidates with a large amount of background information on a company before they even step into the interview.

Of interest here are some links on the Patel case in case you are interested:-
Deaths and a Doctor’s Past Transfix Australians
Patel didn’t wash hands between patients
No indemnity for Patel
Political ‘grand-standing’ on Patel a failure
Inquiry to resume this week
Patients give evidence
Police committing resource to case
Patel timeline

Blogs as Due Diligence in Hiring

In my search for HR blogs I came arcoss this post from Fred Wilson from way back in 10th Feb 2005 on how he used a blog to validate a hiring decision. (Via Moonwatcher Adoption) From reading the post and other parts of Fred’s site it seems to me that this particular hiring decision was a positive one.

There are also not so positive results of people using search engines to conduct due dilligence on hiring decisions.

All in all it seems that the process is increasing, which is good for my some of my ideas.

At the end of the day the trend will only continue if the process actually improves candidate quality, as was recently discussed by Kevin Wheeler from ERE and Steven Kempton from Search Niche.

Kids and the balance between life and technology

Slashdot has a short post on a new father questioning the balance between real life and technology and points to a blog post from Families and Technology on Nature-Deficit Disorder. In following the links and the comments it certainly opens your eyes to a raft of issues and possibilities. The site referenced in Slashdot is a great source of information for parents on how technology is influencing our lives.

Some of the comments from Slashdot are very true, and like most Slashdot items there is a fair amount of crap as well. Below is a summary of useful items.

Like Humba:-

But the real thing is: Your kid(s) will be into whatever you’re into. If all you do is stay inside with the XBox and plasma TV, don’t be surprised if that’s all they ever want to do.

Or EmbeddedJanitor:-

Which kid learns more about nature? The one who goes down to the stream, falls in and gets wet and finds a few frogs hiding under some branches, or, the kid that plays magic schoolbus field trip game?

And finally reverse flow factor:-

Being a parent is an active responsibility (but it can be fun). Just be sure you go exploring. If you are having fun, they probably will be too. If the kids look forward to going biking with dad more than sitting in front of the boob-tube playing Mari Kart 12, you are doing your job well! If they hear “Dad’s home, and were building rockets tonight!” and drop the video game in the middle of a game to join you, you are doing great!

dot jobs is available

Overnight the official launch of the dot jobs domain took place at the SHRM Conference, as part of the launch companies can now begin to register the domain.

Over the next few days and weeks I expect we will see a lot of commentary around where the domain is heading. In the meantime I have put together a summary page for recruiters and HR professionals available at http://www.specht.com.au/michael/dot-jobs-is-available/.