The Crow

HR Has Gone to the Dogs

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People talk trash about HR all the time. I’m used to the sudden stoppage of conversations when I walk into a room, articles like Fast Company’s infamous “Why We Hate HR” article, and the incessant comparisons between HR people and cops.

But to replace your HR person with a DOG? For once, I actually am speechless. I know, I probably shouldn’t pick on a company that can't even get a .com address, but whatever.

Image from actual website with images of their management team.  I am optimistic that eventually, they will make some, ah, adjustments!

Woof.

tracy c

Tweet Your Way to a Community Manager Position

image credit: geek & poke

NOTE: This is a continuation of Wednesday's post on re-thinking your position in advertising and considering a Community Management role.

How To Become a Qualified Community Manager
If you're considering a role as a Community Manager, here are three things you can do to build your expertise.

1.  Engage. Create your profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yelp, FlickR, YouTube and participate. Immerse yourself in the communities and talk about your passions. Learn about proper online etiquette and language so you don't unknowingly publicly embarrass yourself. Many local chambers of commerce or community colleges are offering workshops about basic social media usage.

2.  Volunteer. Combine your thirst for social media knowledge with the opportunity to help a local non profit organization build an online community.  Cristina Lorenzetti, a Detroit-based freelance copywriter and social media neophyte, volunteered her services to be the community manager for "The Bottomless Toy Chest" a non-profit devoted to pediatric cancer patients. This allowed her to practice community manager skills while benefiting the organization. Prospective employers will now be able to view her writing and community manager skills in real-time on these social channels.

3.  Network. There are many resources for community manager wanna-bes to network with others." Web strategist, Jeremiah Owyang hosts a list of community managers on his blog. Peer groups such as Community Manager, Advocate, and Evangelists on Facebook or Online Community Managers on LinkedIn are available to join and learn from those doing the job today.

Likewise, companies should consider these types of experiences as must-haves when seeking out candidates.

Traci Armstrong
@tannarmstrong

This excerpted post originally appeared in Ad Age Talent Works and Organic's ThreeMinds blog.

image credit: geek & poke

NOTE: This is a continuation of Wednesday's post on re-thinking your position in advertising and considering a Community Management role.

How To Become a Qualified Community Manager
If you're considering a role as a Community Manager, here are three things you can do to build your expertise.

1.  Engage. Create your profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yelp, FlickR, YouTube and participate. Immerse yourself in the communities and talk about your passions. Learn about proper online etiquette and language so you don't unknowingly publicly embarrass yourself. Many local chambers of commerce or community colleges are offering workshops about basic social media usage.

2.  Volunteer. Combine your thirst for social media knowledge with the opportunity to help a local non profit organization build an online community.  Cristina Lorenzetti, a Detroit-based freelance copywriter and social media neophyte, volunteered her services to be the community manager for "The Bottomless Toy Chest" a non-profit devoted to pediatric cancer patients. This allowed her to practice community manager skills while benefiting the organization. Prospective employers will now be able to view her writing and community manager skills in real-time on these social channels.

3.  Network. There are many resources for community manager wanna-bes to network with others." Web strategist, Jeremiah Owyang hosts a list of community managers on his blog. Peer groups such as Community Manager, Advocate, and Evangelists on Facebook or Online Community Managers on LinkedIn are available to join and learn from those doing the job today.

Likewise, companies should consider these types of experiences as must-haves when seeking out candidates.

Traci Armstrong
@tannarmstrong

This excerpted post originally appeared in Ad Age Talent Works and Organic's ThreeMinds blog.

12 Seconds of Fame

going offf on 12seconds.tv

In days of yore, people wrote letters to one another to communicate. If you read Jane Austen novels, you’ll know that it was all very proper and romantic. Then we got phones so we started talking instead. Bye bye letters.

Not long after, we discovered email. Although we still use phones, email has become the primary mode of communication for many. It’s efficient, you can talk to more people faster, and the give and take generally involved in an actual conversation is somewhat limited. It’s a great tool for introverts, since they can avoid the face to face; and it’s a great tool for extroverts, since they can “talk” to a ton of different people at once. It works for pretty much everyone who is not a technophobe.

Enter Facebook … where we can carry on multiple conversations simultaneously. While IM’ing. In real time or delayed. We have substituted quality for quantity.

Then came Twitter, where conversations are limited to 140 characters, where you can amass thousands of “friends” whom you have neither met nor spoken with. On Twitter, you can talk at people for the most part rather than to them. You can do this on Facebook, too. In these tools, conversations become more akin to a spectator sport.

Fast forward to late 2009, where evolution has given us 12 Seconds TV: http://12seconds.tv/.  An invention where, if you are too lazy, busy, illiterate or narcissistic to even bother to pen 140 characters on your keyboard, you can just videotape yourself talking (uh, or whatever, have to wonder about that) for, you guessed it, 12 seconds.

I was tempted to do it but you know, I am wearing my glasses, it’s late, makeup is gone, etc., but you get the idea. I’ll link to some random person’s 12 second spot instead. Maybe it won’t catch on after all, if more people are like me than not!

Is the pendulum going to swing back? Will people begin to find value again in personal interaction? Or are we going to continue to talk at each other, failing to truly connect, and just watch each other with limited attention spans going off for 12 seconds at a time, or talking in 140 characters or less? What then? Who will bring you soup when you’re sick? Give you a hug when you’re sad? Talk with you in depth about anything? Smack you upside the head when you’re being a jerk? Tell you they appreciate you and love you when you need to hear it?

Next up, marriage proposals via Twitter and 12 Second TV.

To hell with it, I am going to go read Pride and Prejudice. Again. Nah, on second thought, I’ll watch it. LMK when someone comes out with the 12 second version.

If any of you elect to try doing a 12 second video resume, I’d love to hear about it!

 tracy c

 

Love and Basketball...

 

Video from CBS via YouTube

 

Employees and HR professionals alike often wonder…What should we do about the collision between personal and professional when people to act like, well, people…at work, complete with flaws and bad judgement?

Enter exhibit A, Ron Artest. Artest is a Laker - that’s a basketball team for those of you not so into the whole sports thing. But stay with me! Artest has been rightfully characterized as a not so nice guy (for more, read Fear the Beard's rant). Why? Because a guy named Kyle Slavin, in the open and non-hierarchical world of social media, decided to send an open letter to Artest, welcoming him to the team and also giving him a bit of constructive feedback. Artest, rather than ignoring it or providing an innocuous response, decided to say,

No law when it comes to me.
I let you type critics write and I just keep it hood.
That will never change.
I am not kissing no ones ass because I'm in LA. Suck a c***.

...Only, he didn't use stars for that last bit. Nice open door policy! I will say, after the guy said essentially, hey, I am just trying to be helpful, Artest responded and apologized. But, Artest is a person who does stupid stuff because he is not the sharpest tack in the pack. And he doesn’t use apostrophe’s correctly, but that is beside the point. Needless to say, the reactive HR people and lawyers at the NBA decided on Wednesday they’d better get a policy out on social media asap.  A memo was sent to teams on Wednesday telling them that cell phones and other communication devices can't be used from 45 minutes before game time until after players have finished their responsibilities after games, including halftime. I am not sure what this changes. Is he going to be less likely to pop off an inappropriate response when he’s not in the midst of a game? I suppose, at the very least, it ensure he’s not screwing around during a game, which is something.

Most workplace policies were created because someone failed to exercise common sense, somewhere along the line. As an employee…what do you think about this? Would you be cool with a policy that said no personal communication (email, twitter, facebook, etc.) during work hours? As an employer…is this the kind of policy you should implement in your workplace?

Exhibit B, the other big news this week that had the HR “ouch!” written all over it, was David Letterman’s multiple indiscretions with interns. Besides the fact that it’s obnoxious and he’s gross and you can’t help but feel a tiny bit sorry for him that this whole thing blew up the way it did, really did the world need to know about this…It begs the question: What is the right and wrong about consensual relationships at work?

Some companies have a policy against it (“it” being fraternization between employees), but imho that’s sort of like telling the sun not to rise. So to speak. Adults are going to do what they do. Whether the employers like it or not.

So as an employee, how do you manage it when you can’t resist that relationship with a coworker? Do you tell HR? A manager? Anyone? And as the employer…what do you do when you find out one of your execs is, er, taking liberties with the help? Most companies do have some sort of policy around this, and rightly so...It really doesn't do to have people in a position of power wielding it in the bedroom and the boardroom.

I always remind managers, at least, of the risks of lawsuits (which alas are very real). Other than that…honestly, I have better things to do.  It really is common sense driven. I’m sure that’s how the bigwigs at CBS felt about Letterman until that guy decided he’d try to make some money of the pathetic adventures of Letterman’s apparent ongoing midlife crisis. Interestingly, none of the women were complaining, or if they had, it had been brushed under the rug long ago.

Between Artest and Letterman, it’s clear that there is one commonality: all it takes is one (or two) bad judgement calls to turn a harmless act (i.e. email, sex, a tweet) into a very visible nightmare, creating a tsunami of policies from the HR and Legal team to try to deal with it, not to mention damage control from the PR firm.

My advice? Use common sense,  keep your hands to yourself, and don't go off in a way that would offend grandma...or the legal department. Don't be the person that causes yet one more policy to be written.  I bet both Artest and Letterman are wishing right now that they weren't in that spot. But, they're both human, they'll probably make more mistakes, and they won't be alone. I call that...Job security.

tracy c

Hip Matters

Looking for the right interactive agency job? I have two words for you: Hip Matters. Things like company blogs, weekly cocktails and high-concept retreats are much more than fun perks; they’re important markers of an interactive agency’s culture—and they can tell you a lot about whether a job will position you for professional excellence or leave you stalled in a bad workplace sitcom.

So along with questions like what cool accounts you’ll get to work on and whether the health plan covers IVF or acupuncture, there are five areas of a prospective employer’s culture you should make sure to explore before signing on the dotted line.

Cultural Immersion
There’s more to success than design principles, computer skills and copywriting chops. To do your best work, you need full immersion into your new work culture: how things get done, how people collaborate and the core philosophies that tie it all together. How will your new agency bring you up to speed?

For example, at Organic, we want our employees to understand how our agency creates empathy with consumers, gets into their hearts and minds, and speaks to their needs. So we invite about 30 employees each quarter to Camp Organic, a combination workshop/competition/adventure that puts our employees on the streets of Las Vegas to examine Consumerus Americanus in its natural habitat, then develop campaigns for a fictitious product based on their findings.

Back at the office, our All Hands internal blog helps people understand what’s going on at the agency and why it matters, from the tools we’re using to the fun we’re having.

Professional Development
Smart agencies work to make their employees smarter. Will your new job help establish you not only as an agency staffer, but also as a communications industry expert? Education is a big part of this, of course—not just the software classes you can get anywhere, but also more strategic sessions that prepare you for the next step in your career.

Another approach: Organic’s Three Minds blog reaches an audience far beyond our company, giving our employees the opportunity to develop and showcase their insight into the broader culture within which we operate, from the evolution of the game show to the YouTube-ization of presidential politics.

Life-Work Balance
Okay, sure. Back in the dot-com days, you got the impression that some companies spent more time playing foosball than focusing on the business at hand (and we saw how well that worked out). But there’s still a lot to be said for an agency that sees you as a complete human being.

Little touches like pet insurance, dry cleaning, massage and even on-site nail care can keep your stress level low so your creativity stays high. And don’t take standard options like weekly cocktails and bagel breakfasts for granted, either. You never miss them until they’re gone—and then you miss them a lot.

Internal Networking
At some firms, an org chart box can feel like a steel cage. It’s a lot more rewarding—and productive—when you can easily build relationships and collaborate throughout the company. This kind of cross-pollination can take place both physically, in an environment with plenty of casual meeting areas rather than fishbowl conference rooms, and virtually. “Organism,” our internal social wiki, lets our employees create digital personal spaces where they can share their work and workplace experiences, express ideas and interests, explore and grow across disciplines, and brainstorm with their colleagues. It raises their profile at the agency, it makes them more effective at their jobs and it builds the kind of communities that great campaigns come from.

Values
That’s right—contrary to popular opinion, we agency types do have values. Does your prospective employer give you a chance to act on yours? The moral benefits of green offices, social awareness programs, pro bono projects and a commitment to corporate responsibility can be just as important as 401(k) matching and bring-your-dog-to-work privileges. Being proud of the organization you work for beats wearing a Bad Guys Inc. pass card any day.

Is this all adding up to a lot to ask for? It should. Your job hunt is a rare opportunity to make fundamental changes in your work life. And if the hippest places to work are also the most professionally fulfilling—why waste your career anywhere else?

tracy c

(This article ran in Talent Zoo in September, 2007 under the headline, "Job Seekers Insist on Hipness)