Five Links:

• The Value of Big Data Isn’t the Data
  From the blog mine at the Harvard Business Review comes the reaffirmation that the important thing is the story. Data is the foundation of evidence based management. It’s not the end, it’s the means.
• Meeting People Where They Are (or, Why “I Get It, What’s Your Problem?” Doesn’t Work)
  An interesting post about HR’s tendency to get caught in its own production and jargon. The organization’s senior leadership isn’t any more interested in the mechanics of HR than it is in any other subspecialty. Engineers, salespeople, marketers and operations folk quickly learn the ropes of mahogany row. They get bounced when they speak the incomprehensible jargon of their silo.
• Why I For One Welcome Our New Robot Underlings
  Andrew McAfee is someone you should be following. He writes about the businesss impact of IT. In this piece, he tries to embrace a future full of machines doing work for us. “Resisting the robots is futile; they’re going to keep improving, and companies are going to keep buying and deploying them. And more fundamentally, resistance is deeply misguided because it’s exactly the same as resisting progress toward a post-drudgery, post-sweatshop world.”
• What the 2013 Job Board Trends Surveys Tell Us
  Jeff Dickey-Chasins is steadily conquering the ground that was once inhabited by interbiznet and then Joel Cheesman. Solid research and practical insight are what the Job Board Doctor brings to the party. Among this year’s findings: more that half of companies don’t (or can’t) monitor their job board ROI.
• JP Morgan and the Death of Corporate Reputation
  In the pages of Forbe’s no less. “In this world of zero reputation, the management dynamic is to win at all costs. It is “maximizing shareholder value” on steroids. The goal is pure and simple: making money by whatever means are available.  Self-interest reigns supreme. These firms practice what George Stalk, Jr. and Rob Lachenauer of the Boston Consulting Group describe in their book as Hardball. The firms are “willing to hurt their rivals”. They are “ruthless”. They “enjoy watching their competitors squirm”. In an effort to win, they go up to the very edge of illegality or if they go over the line, get off with civil penalties that might appear large in absolute terms but are meager in relation to the illicit gains that were made.”

Bonus Link

• The Era of Asking Great Querstions
  “What’s interesting is that discovering the answers to age old secrets isn’t the only new frontier that’s opening. As technology advances, new uses are being invented on the fly by the marketplace. Never before have customers had the capability to be standing in a store, holding a product, and checking prices offered by that same store and a million others online in real time, while instantaneously getting feedback from friends and hundreds of strangers at the same time.”

Events and More

• HRExaminer Radio : Industry News and Commentary with guests. Fridays at 11am pacific (2pm EDT) #HRX:
  – May 10: Chris Havrilla
• – May 17: Linda Brenner
• The Frontier Project: Re imagining the Future of HR (Omaha, May 20-21) “Wanted: Innovators, creators, culture hackers, workplace revolutionaries and leaders who can no longer stand idly by as talent is squandered.”
• iRecruit Expo (Amsterdam, June 20-21) The premier European Recruiting event. Sumser session on day two
• Social Recruiting Strategies Conference (Chicago, July 23-25) Sumser Keynote
• The HR Technology Conference (Las Vegas, Oct. 7-9, 2013) The HR Tech Industry’s town hall with Bill Kutik and cohost Steve Boese
• HRTech Europe (Amsterdam, Oct 24-25)