Human Thoughts in a Silicon Valley Life

Science vs. Religion: Must Choose One, But Not Both 

This is what politicians, mainstream media and religious extremist alike want us to believe.  

I was ready to write a long post about the unsurmountable evidence that these two are, after all, not in contradiction.  In fact, many scientists have collaborated with religions leaders through the years for some of the most amazing breakthroughs.  Religion organizations have historically invested in science more than any other organization. 

Yet, we are here today celebrating Martin Luther King Jr., while continuing to pit science and religion against each other, taking sides and even getting violent defending such picked side, mostly unaware that he probably denounced the contrary in the most clear and succinct way: 

“Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.”

In the US and many other democratic countries around the world, we often take freedom for granted.  

However, many countries have had to fight and defend their freedom over the years.  Many investments have been made, not only monetary but human, to fend off evil and those who want to limit freedom.  

"Sacrifice" is the common term many families of military personnel use to describe what they do in order to afford the rest of us that coveted freedom.  

Today, we pray for and say "thank you" to all those who have sacrificed much for the rest of us.  

"The work and sacrifice of all of you help to ensure the peace and security of individuals and societies. I pray that you yourselves will always be kept safe as you fulfill your professional duties, and that the divine gifts of wisdom and strength will ever accompany you in the service of your own countries and of your fellow men and women. "

Why do people leave jobs?

What would you say is the top reason employees quit? More money? Nope! More dough is almost never the reason. Instead, people leave their jobs because of:

Bad Bosses 75% of employees voluntarily leaving jobs do so to get away from the boss

Disengagement 70% of US workers aren’t engaged at work. Highly engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave their company compared to less-engaged employees.

Inability to Contribute Effectively More than 60% of employees say they don’t know their company’s goals, strategies or tactics, and therefore feel their work is not necessarily aligned with what the company is trying to achieve.

Very infrequently does the death of a famous person touch so many individuals and generate collective grief as the news of Robin Williams' passing yesterday. 

Robin Williams' characters were not only part of my childhood, but of many people's lives.  Not surprisingly, people and celebrities alike took it to social media to express their sorrow and sadness. 

I must admit it took me a while to accept the news: how can an individual who made so many people laugh and happy not be able to make himself happy? To the point of taking his own life?  

I found myself angry at him, at the entertainment industry, at the human race for even allowing this to happen. I then found myself spending hours watching clips of his best roles... and it was cathartic.  

In the process, I cheerfully re-discovered his genius, his unique and brilliant comedic style, that made us all so happy.  Not sure why I did it, but it seemed fitting as I mourned his death, a friend and influence I never actually met in person.

So, here you go.  My personal favorite and 10 most powerful movie clips by Robin Williams: 

10. Jumanji: What Year is it? 

9. August Rush: "You know what music is?

"You know what music is? God's little reminder that there's something else besides us in this universe, a harmonic connection between all living beings, every where, even the stars." 

8. Dead Poets Society: What will your verse be?

Why we read and write poetry... 

7. Happy Feet: My Way (hilarious spanish version)

Debe decir, Debe gritar, Debe sentir, En la verdad, Luché, gané, Sobresalí Lo hice Myyy Waaaay!

6. Mrs. Doubtfire: Birthday Dinner

Well, I'd like you to meet the host of your new show...

5. Hook: Insult War

'To live will be an awfully big adventure.' J.M. Barrie'To live will be an awfully big adventure.' J.M. Barrie

4. Aladdin: Never Had a Friend Like Me!

Master, I don't think you quite realize what you got here...

3. Good Morning Vietnam: The First Broadcast

(As Walter Cronkite): "Weather today is hot and shitty. Chance of crappy with a pissy weather front coming in from the north. Basically it's hotter than a snake's ass in a wagon's rut."

2. Patch Adams: Final Speech 

"Death is not the enemy, gentlemen. If we're going to fight a disease, let's fight one of the most terrible diseases of all: indifference." 

1. Good Will Hunting - Park Scene

And finally, my favorite scene. Simply, pure acting brilliance. Now gone. Still mourning.

BONUS. Sesame Street: Conflict. 

How about you?  What's your favorite Robin Williams movie clip?

How Successful Marketing Teams Think of Video Advertising: WorldCup Edition

(Read my full article on successful video marketing campaigns on LinkedIn)

Only 4 days to the world cup (no that anybody is counting), the biggest sporting event in the world.   As it is expected, every company will try to get some mind share from the billions of people following and watching the games.  Beats, the headphones company that was recently purchased by Apple, is not the exception.  Very few companies can figure out the right mix: passion for the sport, global appeal by featuring multiple players and teams and visually stunning imagery.  This will allow the company to then place their product for the willing consumption of their viewers.

However, the part that nobody pays attention to is distribution: making sure the video is on the hands of all that on-line outlets that matter.   And then what?  What business is to be gained from making a viral video?  Beats thought about this too: creating a sub brand, a website, and even specific products that go with the big event.  See what's happening here, marketing people? it's not JUST about the brand awareness and mind share.  It's the holistic approach about business that makes great marketing teams.  

The video does it all.  So kudos to Dr. Dre and his team.

Yet my favorite part is how the video pulls the "family" heart strings by featuring the father of Brasil's star player Neymar da Silva Santos.  It definitely seals it with this touching blessing: 

A #WorldCup Dad's prayer:

Maya Angelou: Her Top 3 Most Wise Quotes about God, Relationships & Young Girls

The following are, by far, the most profound quotes by this amazing poet: 

"While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God's creation."

"People will forget what you said and what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel."

“I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.”

Are you missing the boat on mobile? Will your desktop-only technologies sink all of the good you’re trying to accomplish with your HR Tech? Are you drowning in archaic, landlocked software, yet scared you’ll never keep your head above water in the endless quest for the right mobile technology to capture every mobile candidate and captivate every mobile employee?

I know how you feel.  Suddenly, you are under a violent wave of "mobile this" and "mobile that", and the only way to get out of it is to pull a... "quick, let's get our HR systems on mobile", and call it a mobile strategy. 

Sorry, but no.  That's inertia and half-ass thinking at best.  

This whole hype is NOT about mobile... check out my article on Blogging4Jobs to find out what your mobile strategy should REALLY be about. 

The New Trend: Selfie Videos? 

This is my happy post of the day:  THIS VIDEO.  This guy took a bunch of selfie videos while traveling around the world. 

Give yourself permission to smile... right around NOW. 

JAZZ FOR COWS

Originally written for and published on RiseSmart's Smart Talk Blog. 

Growing up as a stubborn little boy, my mom used to tell me: “Only the crazies keep doing the same thing expecting different results.”

Or as they say in the fitness industry: if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.  

I’m not a personal trainer, but I’m assuming that this applies to the men and women who do the same workouts and eat the same things day in and day out, but have reached and maintained a plateau. Sure, they’re not gaining weight or losing muscle, but they’re also not making progress or gaining any more physical fitness.

It’s these sorts of people who show up at the gym each day to do their usual 20 crunches, while wondering why they don’t leave with 6-pack abs.

What does this have to do with Human Resources (and outplacement in particular)? Well, not to suggest that our industry is getting a little flabby, but it seems like the traditional outplacement providers that dominate the industry have hit a plateau.  

At a time and in an industry where careers and even companies are made or broken by speed, connectivity, efficiency, transparency, and social hyper connectedness, why is there still such hesitancy in HR toward embracing new technologies?

I’ve noticed that, after several years developing products specifically leveraging the latest technologies (which I’ll abstain mentioning for fear of losing you) to enhance talent management, the word “tech” has remained an unspeakable taboo.  Oh, sure, there are the Twitter-happy early-adopters (I’m among them) who get excited when we’re presented with new gadgets, apps, and widgets to click, like, and share, but for the vast majority of the grand human resources machine, adding one more cog (or changing the machine entirely) is often a futile effort, stemming from the painful question: “Is it really worth it?”

And I understand: changing processes, adding in new tools, and up-ending the system can seem daunting—at least at the beginning. Just as ditching the 20 crunches in favor of med ball side throws at the gym requires a little bit of personal training and reassurance at the outset, so too does ditching the old services in favor of new technology requires explanation, training, and a little bit of faith.

Let’s get out of the gym and look at outplacement, since that’s a topic near and dear to my heart right now. Traditionally, outplacement has been a low tech industry. Impacted workers have to get in their cars and drive to their co-working spaces or workshops.  Job searches are done manually, even when they’re performed using online job aggregators like Indeed or SimplyHired. Social networking is on the job seeker’s head, and if the job seeker doesn’t already have an established social presence, then networking can easily come to an analog halt.

Doing outplacement the traditional way (and leveraging the same old online job search tools) produces the same results over and over again: job landing times are prolonged, which means employers spend more unemployment taxes in addition to paying their outplacement service providers.  And that’s not even considering the potential impact to employer brand that your laid-off employees will effect while looking for a job. 

Sure, people will eventually land new jobs—but if there were a better, faster, more cost-effective way…then why wouldn’t you give it a try?

That better, faster, more cost-effective way is here, but it does involve some scary-sounding technology that HR leaders need to understand and embrace.  

Semantic matching, machine learning applied to the job search, real time outplacement analytics and even human expert filtering can deliver a much efficient and effective outplacement experience to a laid-off employee trying to make sense of the myriad of job search tools out there.  Taking the heavy lifting off of the job seeker by giving them an online portal, customized job leads through a personalized skills-and-experience matching technology, access to virtual coaches, webinars, and materials can help you trim the fat out of your current outplacement strategy and slim down the HR budget (while finding your impacted employees new jobs in the process).

It’s time to flex our technology muscles and start a healthy new outplacement habit. We have to embrace the fact that tech isn’t about disrupting your processes to make your job harder; it’s about disrupting an industry that has never made your job easier.

Yes, changing your HR tech may be a workout initially, but it’s a workout that will work out for bettering your job—and your impacted employees’ lives—in the long run.

(Speaking of running…anyone else ready to hit the treadmill?)

...even if you had to lay them off. 

I know. That sounds impossible, doesn't it?  You show them the door, give them a pink slip, and on top of that, you expect them to be cheerleaders for you and your company? 

Well, it's doable... but you have to know how to nurture those relationships and do what's right for them, even in (and actually more importantly during) those tough moments like a layoff. 

Join the experts @KlYarnot @Blogging4Jobs @Karenlbs and of course @RobGarciaSJ myself in the twitter backchannel, to talk about this intricate topic. 

Here's a preview too:

Register HERE. 

RiseSmart is headed to #SFBeta, the premier mixer for hot startups in the Bay Area.  

This time, #SFBeta will be showcasing the who's who of HR technology innovation with companies like SmartRecruiters, Gild, JobFig, WePow, Entelo, TalentBin, and of course, RiseSmart.  See the whole list here. 

I'm particularly proud of the record breaking audience today's gathering has garnered (450+ people coming!).  Kudos to @Aporya and his team for putting such an amazing event together.