August 12, 2009

Edited and Written by Ira S. Wolfe

Published by Success Performance Solutions. Major Sponsor,

2008 Best Places to Work In Pennsylvania

What's Inside this issue of The TotalView:

1.  Social Networking: Office Communication Ain't What It Used to Be

2.  Perfect Labor Storm Warnings

3.  Ready to Manage

4.  eSKill Office Skill Testing

5.  Quotes from the Hire Authorities

1. Social Networking:
Office Communication Ain't What It Used to Be

While leading a workshop on business applications for social media recently, one overwhelmed business owner sheepishly pleaded for a return to the good old days, when life was simpler -like when the sound of "You've Got Mail" on your computer was considered state of the art!

Well it's been just a mere 10 years since AOL hit its stride and a blockbuster movie with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan charmed millions of people.  AOL technology connected nearly 27 million customers to the Internet and just a decade later it's nearly history.  Today we struggle to make sense of communicating (and even survive) in a world of tweets, nudges, pokes, friends, fans and connections - a world where email is now considered the snail mail of digital communication.  YIKES!

As hard as it is to believe, AOL, the once-dominant Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the country, is considered a drain and a pain to Time Warner. And Twitter, a mind-numbing -140-character -mini-blog- phenomenon, is turning the elusive yet seductive Internet into the wild, wild cyber-frontier.

But underneath all this digital chatter lies a business asset often ignored and a value under-leveraged.  The messengers (social networking sites) are being targeted as everything from annoying wastes of time to causing the fall of civilization as we know it. But regardless of the business model trying to capitalize on the art and science of the six degrees of separation, there exists within every organization an embedded invisible social network.   

This social structure is not new - it existed long before the Internet was even conceived.  All that MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and others have done is act like a super -steroid, giving extraordinary power and influence to the invisible social structure functioning quietly behind the scenes. Think Windows® - it's revolutionized the way we work and live but we rarely know it's there until something goes wrong.  That's what social networks do.   

Until online social networking hit the scene earlier in this decade, an organization's social structure was largely ignored and usually weakly represented by boxes in an organizational chart.  What we've learned is that the org chart is a primitive representation of how things really get done in an organization.  By ignoring online social networking as a strategic application, management deliberately chooses to turn a business asset into a malignant cancer.   

Social networking exists whether you want to recognize it or not.  Facebook and MySpace didn't create social networking - it merely exposed it. But just like an MRI that reveals the body in more detail, online networking turns the org chart into a piece of art.  

Pretending that social networks don't exist won't debilitate them but will allow them to run wild - and the value of knowledge and relationships that already exists within an organization will be squandered.  Setting up firewalls and limiting access to social network sites is like placing shut-off valves on your water pipes to prevent leaks. You stop the leaks but also cut off a vital resource.  

How well is your business responding to online social networking?  

Have comments?  Post them to my blog.  

Struggling with how (and if) your organization should be using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networking sites?  Schedule a Tweet Me, Link Me, Friend Me presentation today for your next retreat, management meeting, or association conference.

Perfect Labor Storm Warnings   

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that by 2010, more than 51 percent of the workforce will be 40 years or older, a 33 percent increase since 1980. 

For more workforce and hiring trends. subscribe to the Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 blog.

Purchase the NEW Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 books (soft and hard cover versions) at PerfectLaborStorm.com.

42 online assessments for employees, managers and leaders. Some of these are competency-based and focus on a specific competency, such as Coaching Effectiveness, and break it down to the behavioral level so that individuals can examine and rate individual behaviors that can be mastered to boost that competency and increase effectiveness. 
 
Some are style-based and break down a topic area into a four-quadrant grid so that an individual can better understand his or her own, dominant style in an area like Emotional Intelligence.  Often, trainers or OD specialists use style assessments in advance of a workshop or other learning event to determine participants' dominant style and least-used style and then plan the learning around "style-flexing."
 
What you also may not know is that ...
 
We have Facilitator Guides that go with assessments that you can use to plan your training and coaching interventions.  These facilitator guides describe the assessment in detail by providing foundational background, different ways to train or coach others, exercises, hand-outs, slides and flip-charts, and supplemental activities - everything a trainer, coach or facilitator needs to help participants develop and grow.
 
We also have Detailed Coaching Guides that include ALL of the coaching suggestions and actions for each assessment. These comprehensive guides cover the full range of competency-building materials so that your library is complete and learners can put together detailed self-development plans.
 
To visit our Ready to Manage webstore, click here and save 20% off selected Facilitator Guides.

Test for Office Skills Accurate & Affordable   

eSkill assessments are an effective method of ensuring your candidates have the skills needed for your jobs before an extensive interview process. eSkill's online testing tool creates valid, job-based tests by combining multiple subjects and skill levels as needed into a single assessment.  

• Accounting
• Bookkeeping
• Arithmetic
• English and grammar

Click here to learn more

Quotes from Hire Authorities

"I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians. And I'm not kidding."
 HAL VARIAN, chief economist at Google.

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Ira S. Wolfe Copyright 2009 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission only.