ItsDevelopmental - content + technology + people

Behold - some social media tools for HR people

Things have moved on since this morning . . . I have found some more HR-type blogs - five to be precise - and one of them (Fistful of talent) has a list of social media tools for HR professionals. Wonderful.

Today's new-found HR blogs are all US-based: Fistfuloftalent, HR Capitalist, PunkrockHR, 8 hours and a lunch, Cincy Recruiter's World. So where are all the good UK-based bloggers?

Training rises up the agenda for 2009

Thanks to Xpert HR's Employment Intelligence for highlighting the growing interest in training. Useful link to the Government's document (PDF, 236K) on how it is aiming to help support businesses through this recession.

On the matter of unemployment and training, the report says:

• an additional £1.3bn to continue delivering effective support for the unemployed to find a new job

• a National Employment Partnership bringing together the Government and major employers to tackle rising unemployment

• refocusing Train to Gain to provide support in pre-redundancy situations, expanding the Rapid Response Scheme to target small and large scale redundancies and extending local employment partnerships to focus on the short term unemployed.

Social media for HR and learning and development

Ages ago I started a search for HR and learning and development blogs. Since then I haven't found that many. I am currently following 13 blogs in my RSS reader - I know there are lots moreand I need to keep casting around.

It was good to see Kriss Dunn's post on HR getting with the social media pogramme. It is quite amazing that HR and training professionals are not staying up to date via an RSS reader. There are really no excuses.

And as for the social networking element, well there is community activity around Personnel Today, HR Zone and Training Zone but it seems quite small scale compared with the size of the communities.

There are are also lots of people to follow on Twitter but I am only just getting my head around this.

I recently attended a facilitation workshop at Bath University Management School and at the end of it there was talk of how the group could stay in touch! I said we could start a Facebook group or do something similar but nothing has come of it so far. Online conversations seemed quite a long way down the list of ways to stay in touch.

There is so much potential for HR/L&D professionals in using social media. Time it was realised.

From a personal perspective, my current employer is only just starting to look at how training content can be used online to share knowledge and expertise. There is a lot of foot dragging on thiS, BUT WHY?

Training content is there but is unused. Experts are in the business but there knowledge is untapped. Time to use the (free) tools that exist to start making the most of all of this.

Picture: Last day at Woolworths in Sutton

Paul Mason on the future role of the journalist in a recession

Paul Mason - economics editor of the BBC's Newsnight - and a former colleague of mine (we worked together at Computer Weekly, gives his views on the future role of the journalist in a recession. Aside from the blogging quip (they wera pyjamas don't you know), he makes some good points.

The way the media is changing poses huge problems for the National Union of Journalists. Not sure the union - and I am a member - is on message with these changes. It would be good for the union to review its training programme to include some basics on audience engagement and the role of the journalist in a digital world.   

He talks of deskilling - 16 year olds who can use video cameras as well as journalists, for example. So what does this mean for trained journalists? He talks of quality, authority, accuracy - all the things journos are paid to provide. BUT, non-paid, non-trained journos also provide this.

Indicators to show a company does not want social media

Thanks to Adam for highlighting this great post from Suw Charman-Anderson.

The post is in response to Chris Applegate's 20 signs you don’t want that social media project.

 

Top 10s on blogs.com

Some useful blog listings on blogs.com. Here is a list of top 10 advertising blogs.

Not sure how the top 10s are selected but this is a great way of looking up aggregated lists.

Here is a useful top 10 of advice blogs from Lifehacker.

New content ideas - new revenue potential

Like this post from Paul Bradshaw looking at how German newspaper Bild had the idea to give people cameras to take pictures for the paper - citizen journalism in action.

What's interesting is Paul's development of the idea into a revenue genertaing one. Where's the money? In selling the cameras - not what a publisher would have thought of as a revenue stream. 

That's exactly how business has to develop now - taking on new business concepts and sales opportunities from them 

BBC Innovation Labs

The BBC has just launched a blog on developments in journalism that come out of its Innovation Labs.  Clearly, this is very interesting for journalists but this is also worth keeping an eye on for the broader publishing community. The beeb has such a large audience that it can test developments easily and to large numbers.

 

 

Tips on engaging with media professionals from Daryl Willcox Publishing

Interesting set of whitepapers from Daryl Willcox Publishing on how organisations can interact with media professionals. Topics include getting results from press releases and PR versus search marketing.