What’s Working in Human Resources
Posted by in FREE!, human resources on February 7, 2010
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Bacal’s Law of Meaningless Utterances #2: Fortune Cookie Talk
Posted by Robert Bacal in Bacal's Laws on February 7, 2010
Fortune cookie talk involves a phrase which a) sounds a lot like the generic sayings one gets from opening a fortune cookie (no insult to the cookies intended) ; b) sounds profound (and isn’t), and c) actually means nothing if you think about it for a minute.
Fortune cookie talk is common with new agers, the new breed of elearners, marketers and the like, and makes up a significant portion of “educated” traffic on microblog platforms like Twitter.
Do you want to have a radio show on organizational development?
Posted by Robert Bacal in Managing and Organizations, Training and Consulting Business on February 4, 2010
Got a phone call out of the blue asking me if I was interested in hosting a regular radio show (I think it’s a radio show) on org. development. While I would jump at the chance to do something like this if someone paid me enough, at this stage of my career, I’m not interested in doing this for exposure. I haven’t looked into this yet, but it’s 99.9% certain I won’t do it. But will you?
If you are interested just leave a comment and your email, and I’ll see what I can find out about it. I don’t want to post the details to everyone lest the folks get snowed under. Is it a legit thing? I dunno. Probably an Internet based thing.
Viral Promoting Or Confidence Game: BS @ Social Media
Posted by Robert Bacal in Mouthing Off, Robert's Editorials, Training & Technology on February 4, 2010
My faith in the credibility of almost everything I read on the Internet is at an all time low, and I plan on addressing that in future in various posts. The inaccurate information and huge, fast spread of faulty interpretations is scary because of its potential impact on two things (among others): Our democracy, and how money is spent. But that’s a big ball of string. Too big for right now.
So…
Employee Engagement – The Mad Fad of the 2000’s – A Poor Construct
Posted by Robert Bacal in Managing and Organizations, Performance Management and Appraisal, Research, Robert's Editorials, Site News, human resources on February 1, 2010
A colleague asked me where one could find criticisms of Employee Engagement, the buzzterm championed by marketplace monster, Gallup. There’s tons of stuff about it pushing it and making it appear to be as vital and important as…well, let’s see, Total Quality Management, Quality Circles, Employee Empowerment, and on and on.
There is very little PUBLICLY available on the Internet that asks the critical questions one should ask of any “movement” in the workplace. Read the rest of this entry »
Learning “In The Gaps” and On The Go – Using Dead Time
Posted by Robert Bacal in Training & Technology, Training Tools & Techniques, human resources on January 29, 2010
We live in a waiting society. Wait at the doctor. Wait in line at the supermarket. Always waiting in a fast paced demanding world. Technology is giving us a leg up on using that dead time to learn something, and we’re jumping aboard the mobile learning train.
With the advent of smartphones, PDA’S and other reading devices that range from the size of a small ipod to the larger Kindles from Amazon, you can now order, download and read learning material to use WHILE you wait for some other task. It’s pretty amazing when you think about how you can harness the power of waiting to learn what you want to learn when you want it.
Moron Selling Ebooks on Amazon/Kindle
Posted by Robert Bacal in Writing & Publishing on January 25, 2010
An update on this topic. I still can find no indication that one can sell adobe acrobat pdf files on amazon, or at least there seems to be no obvious way (I’ll look into whether one can sell pdf files as an associated merchant, and/or via self-publishing hard copy books).
As for Kindle book preparation, I’ve learned a lot but not much of it is good news for people who have books all nicely formatted in anything but html.
Why “Networking” either in person or online, turns me off.
Posted by Robert Bacal in Mouthing Off, Thought Jolts on January 7, 2010
Everyone talks about the importance of networking. I get the point. The more people who you know, and who know a little about you, the more likely you will “make a connection” that will pay off, whether it be in person, or online. I hate the underlying assumption, or presupposition about networking, not to mention that I’ve had the experience of being at in person gatherings where everyone is “marketing” to each other under the guise of networking.
My objection is simple. Read the rest of this entry »
Publishing Kindle and PDF Files Via Amazon
Posted by Robert Bacal in Writing & Publishing on January 6, 2010
You’d think publishing and selling on amazon in Kindle and Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format should be fairly simple if one already has the pdf files ready to go. It’s not.
Conversing with @Ginaschreck (twitter id) (Gina Schrek) we see to be at about the same place in terms of trying to decipher the best ways to get conversion and sales done. So, I’ve done this quick post so Gina and I, and others might share their experiences with publishing e-docs on amazon.
