As mid-year approaches, it’s the ideal time to step back and reflect on some of the most profound Human Resources trends, patterns, and challenges… and, more importantly, identify what organizations could/should do to respond to them. Some of the best thinkers in the field share their observations and recommendations that HR - and all leaders in all functions - may want to seriously consider as they build plans to bring home strong results this year and beyond. You’ll be informed by authors, practitioners, and experts who are grappling with these challenges everyday.  And you just might be inspired to respond by sharing a few trends you’re seeing emerge.  Enjoy! A Bird’s Eye View Amit Bhagria’s post is a great starting point, as it offers an overview of his take on the top five trends in human resource management - from recruitment to outsourcing. Recruiting James Ellis discusses social media recruiting and tracking trends, and highlights the most important key to successful interaction with candidates. Follow James at @thewarfortalent. Danielle Weinblatt interviews Will Thomson, Global Sales & Marketing Recruiter at Rosetta Stone, on some of the latest recruiting trends he’s seeing, and the ways in which he uses them to find and hire top sales and marketing talent in a challenging market. Follow Danielle at @dweinblatt. Stephanie Hammerwold addresses the growing use of mobile devices in the application process to meet applicants where they are and make the process engaging. Janine Woodworth outlines some of the challenges associated with having multiple recruiting teams and multiple workflows. Her post helps employers understand ways in which they can realign recruiting organizations so that they can better leverage their existing technology and improve processes.  Follow Janine at @janinewoodworth. Engagement Douglas Arnold reminds us of a seasonal pattern that can negatively affect creativity and business results: summertime. He offers cool advice that savvy organizations use to beat the heat. Will Thomson points out the  importance of engagement in this new era of technology, and finds old-fashioned methods of communication are not to dismissed. Workplace Dorothy Dalton recognizes a problem that you likely have personal as well as professional experience with: the overwhelmed employee. And she examines the question: Does excessive after hours contact need legislation? in her insightful post.  Follow Dorothy at @DorothyDalton. Leena Thampam comments on the workplace reality that geography doesn’t matter anymore. Remote workers are the way of the future. Follow Leena at @Wagepoint. Stuart Rudner observes that HR professionals and HR lawyers spend much of their time dealing with the potential for and the handling and assessment of investigations and corresponding reports. In his post, he shares his in-the-trenches perspective on this trend. Follow Stuart at @CanadianHRLaw. Leveraging/Optimizing Content Mary Wright highlights the time and expense associated with creating a strong internet prescence and details 6 ways that HR can protect the return on their social media investment. Shannon Smedstad show us how creating good content up front and reusing it in multiple places can become a major employer brand asset. A Closing Note Ian Welsh suggests that despite emerging trends and patterns in the field, there are some core HR activities that absolutely require immediate attention and improvement. Follow Ian at @ianclive. The post Carnival of HR: The Emerging Trends Edition appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Greg Dickinson's blog post was featuredSEC Report Shows the Supply Chain Is More Like an Attack ChainFlawed security protocols that govern third parties spell massive trouble as hackers sniff out the weak links. Breaches have reached crisis proportions, yet enterprises still struggle to secure their third-party connections.In fact, a Risk Alert released on February 3, 2015, by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) shows:Many broker-dealers and investment firms do not require cybersecurity risk assessments of vendors with access to their networks, nor do they maintain policies and procedures related to information security training for vendors and business partners authorized to access their networks Many registered investment advisers do not incorporate requirements relating to cybersecurity risk into their contracts with vendorsNow is NOT the time to be lax about third-party risk when 32 percent of all breaches last year occurred as a result of external attacks targeting a third-party supplier (a Top 3 attack vector), according to Forrester’s Business Technographics Global Security Survey, 2014.The Target and Home Depot breaches sounded a warning call to organizations everywhere, but unfortunately there’s still a great amount of room for improvement as this Crowe Horwath LLP study of chief audit executives points out:90 percent of study participants reported using third-party technology vendors 78 percent of study participants said they had "some concern" or "high concern" about difficulties with monitoring third parties’ risk management 82 percent devote less than 20 percent of their internal audit resources to assessing third-party risksWith widespread confusion and lack of visibility, there’s a need for discussion on this major problem of mismanaged third parties and concrete advice on how to fix it. Corporate IT security can only protect risks they are aware of: the problem is much broader than just IT.Here are six best practices organizations should keep in mind when managing third parties:Know Your Third PartiesThird parties can deliver up to 60 percent of a company’s total revenue and also account for the majority of what it spends. Unfortunately, while it’s easy to outsource work to third parties, it’s not so easy to know who you’re actually doing business with and who is delivering the goods or services. Companies often default to only completing due diligence and managing a limited number of "high-risk" third parties. Review whether your policies and technology allow you to identify, assess and manage all of your third parties and keeping the information in one place, tracking exactly what they do.Know Their BusinessIt is not enough to hire third parties to help your company - you also have to know what business they are doing on your behalf. Ask yourself this question: If today you had to pull a list of which of your vendors or business partners have access to employee or customer personally identifiable information (PII), or to your IT systems, how long would it take? If you had to contact those companies for additional information, do you have accurate contact details?Did you know that the majority of companies lack accurate (or any) contact information for the majority (north of 75 percent) of their third parties? This means that businesses may have incomplete, inaccurate or outdated information about the work that their third parties do and where and why they do it. Not knowing this information increases the chances of exposing your enterprise to risks and breaches.Know Their RiskLess than half of companies regularly conduct due diligence on their third parties. While all third parties pose some level of risk, the risk and the level of seriousness differs dependent on the role of the third party. For example, third parties that deal with payroll or taxes usually pose a higher risk of security to your company’s data than the cleaning crew that comes in at night. Managing your third parties based on the risks that they pose requires knowing the risks in the first place and then having policies and procedures to control those risks throughout the life the contract.Know Their AccessNot knowing that a third party had access to system passwords is not a valid excuse when your client’s records are stolen. Understanding what each party has access to - and why - will ensure that you have control over their access and can limit or deny access to sensitive information as appropriate.Know Your Anti-Bribery and Anti-Corruption (ABAC) ObligationsWith increasing worldwide interest in and enforcement of anti-bribery and anti-corruption legislation, companies should assess the levels of risk they face and make sure they have appropriate controls in place. While it may be a daunting task, the initial questions are relatively straightforward: Does our company do business in foreign markets? And, do we, or our third parties, interact with government agents or officials and, if so, do we understand these points of contact?Learn from the Latest Data BreachesHome Depot, one of many retailers breached in 2014, was targeted by hackers who stole credentials from a third-party vendor that had access to their payment system. Organizations should use past breaches to educate themselves and ensure that they understand which vendors or business partners (and not just the obvious IT ones) have access to IT systems, double check security measures, assess third-party risks, and make the necessary changes to ensure a higher level of security and scrutiny.Greg Dickinson is CEO of Hiperos.See More

Ali Rebaie's blog post was featuredBig Data: One Thing to Think About When Buying Your Apple WatchMateria: A latin word that describes anything "Physical substances in general", as distinct from mind and spirit which I'd like to describe here as "Data."Let’s play the Matryoshka doll toy. But hey, I have quiz for you. Can you fit the large dolls inside the smaller dolls? Seriously? Let’s see…When we talk about "Materia" trace, all smaller dolls should physically fit in the larger dolls but when the smart phones were introduced, we were able to fit larger devices into smaller ones. Indeed, the smartphone replaced a camcorder, walkman, calculator, tape recorder, gps, AM/FM clock radio and encompassed them into a single smaller device.On the other hand, the "Data" trace was just becoming larger. Smartphones today have different sensors like motion/accelerometer, proximity, gyroscope...But eventually, our small tiny doll is still small physically but generating more and more data! And it’s not just a wooden toy anymore. It’s a smart toy that knows so much about ourselves and our behaviors.As Apple launched the Apple Watch this week, with its built-in sensors (heart rate sensor, accelerometer...) that can trace and monitor a lot more about our overall activities and movements across different environments and channels, we will continue to make the "data trace" bigger. It is transforming the way we engage with "things".As this watch become a user-friendly remote control for the environment around you, it can then gather huge amounts of data about you. Think about controlling music while walking, controlling lights in your house, getting quick reminders about detailed life chores such as cooking and laundry, paying directly via your watch, opening your hotel door, directing you according to your interests in a touristic city visit etc… As the smartwatch obtains more data about you, it will understand you better and become your very own personal assistant, helping you in your everyday activities.In addition, when Buckminster Fuller, an inventor, who coined the term "ephemeralization", which means our ability to do more with less, until eventually you can do everything with nothing. This means by being more efficient and accomplishing more work with less and less materials, our entire economies will change. Thus, as we improve the ways we utilise materials, we will need less of their quantity.This is being proven now through Big Data, where jet engines are decreasing in size because of them containing sensors that generate huge amounts of data regarding the engine’s performance in order to improve its efficiency. In 1956, we needed to forklift a giant box into a plane to transport only 5 megabytes of data. Today, we can store several gigabytes of data with tiny flash memories.The ephemeralization of technology using Big Data and Internet of Things will continue to move us from a "materia trace" to a "data trace" and to gradually replacing specific-purpose devices. This transition will be accelerated by today’s innovative nanotechnologies that are present. The question remains, "Can we do everything with nothing?" Why not! In the future, we might not even need a "smart" watch at all!Ali Rebaie is an industry analyst and consultant of Rebaie Analytics Group focusing on Big Data, Analytics, and emerging technologies. See More

Walk down Mahogany Row in most corporate offices and you’ll be able to read a lot about what the organization stands for. You’ll likely see plaques that outline core values, posters that tout a commitment to the customer. Some examples: Guiding Principles • Mission • Leadership model • Philosophy • Vision • Code of conduct • Our commitment • Goals • Roadmap to results • Credo • Value proposition • Culture statement • Who we are • Our responsibility The work of Tom Peters and Bob Waterman three decades ago caused executives and leaders to take seriously the idea of using corporate values to intentionally drive culture. But in 2012, many organizations are discovering that when it comes to this particular task, more isn’t necessarily better, and that too much of a good thing is definitely not good. Some recent unscientific research I conducted with a handful of organizations found that those surveyed offer an average of 23 instructions to their employees about what’s important, who they should aspire to be, and how they ought to behave. Look at your own organization. Count up all the points on all those corporate commandments. How many instructions are you working under? More importantly, how many can you really remember and implement at any given time? Cognitive congestion Well-meaning attempts to provide guidance, motivation, and pride to employees in many organizations are instead contributing to a kind of cognitive congestion. Research suggests that seven is the magic number of things the mind can hold, juggle, and work with. Yet the average organization offers more than triple that in terms of its instructions to its employees, who are frequently overburdened and lacking in resources. So, what happens? Some employees actively blow it all off as "rah-rah" and "blah-blah" (to quote my friend Stan Slap). Some employees gravitate toward a few items that resonate and let the others fall by the wayside. Too many employees do nothing, paralyzed by too many directions about what to do and who to be. Additionally, over time, many employees find themselves facing not only too many but competing directives. Perhaps it’s time for organizations to step back and look at their tenets and taglines with clear eyes, and then do a little house cleaning. Less is more The pressures, complexity, and pace of today’s workplace demand streamlining on all fronts, including with corporate values. Employees need a few consistent and compelling principles that will guide their behavior, decisions and interactions. And when all employees are demonstrating these few principles, suddenly the corporate culture becomes unmistakably clear — internally and externally. Here’s a straightforward process to reconcile the rallying points within your organization: Collect all of the versions of corporate commandments that exist. Dissect them into their components, identifying individual elements and instructions. Create a comprehensive list. Identify who will have a voice in the process. The safest strategy is to engage only executives. Riskier — but also considerably more powerful — is to engage the entire organization. Apply a nominal group technique, asking those involved to "vote" for the three to five ideas that are most consistent with the organization — what it is and where it’s going. You may need to repeat this process a few times until the final set emerges. Hold the presses This streamlined set of guiding principles can be a powerful tool for clarifying your culture and for communicating with employees and customers alike. But remember that actions speak far louder than words, or posters, mugs and T-shirts. Instead of memorializing your shortlist on yet another poster, consider how to make sure it’s modeled by leaders and others. Consider how to help employees understand and embrace the essence of what’s most important in the organization. Consider how to take it off the wall and infuse it into every interaction. Only then will you see the real value in your corporate values. This post originally appeared in SmartBlog on Leadership in December 2012. The post Plaques and platitudes can lead to paralysis appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Nathan Sinsabaugh's blog post was featuredDesign-Led Companies Work, But Not Without DesignersIf "design-led" is the gospel in the Valley these days, it isn’t one that’s preached with much consensus. While many recognize it as a critical competitive advantage in this age of nearly instantaneous product parity, how design and designers should be integrated into a business remains a decidedly foggy issue.Design ends up looking a lot like corporate culture; different everywhere. Apple design is driven from the top down, by Jony Ive. Google’s teams adhere to a common design language, but function more autonomously. Facebook brought Nicholas Felton on board to focus on a specific product: Timeline. Airbnb has a dedicated user advocate on every project team. And we’ll see what Capital One does with Adaptive Path.From the companies listed above, to agencies like IDEO, and an array of groups and institutes, the good news of design has been spreading for years. Even so, it remains a black-box discipline to many, difficult to understand and explain.It Isn’t MathIn some ways, it shouldn’t be surprising that we haven’t arrived at a singular understanding of what it means to be design-led. Design is more like anthropology than physics; more of human science than a hard science. Humans are irrational, unpredictable, emotional and messy. Consequently, approaching a design process like a calculus equation doesn’t work—there is no formula.Traditional business looks to the hard sciences to solve problems: Quantitative data, demographic research, focus groups, surveys, etc. In a predictable environment, that approach can work. But we’re operating in a world that’s anything but predictable. Competition is fierce, consumers are empowered and vocal, and customers are often irrational in their preferences and decision making.Design offers an alternative path: Understanding people in the context and culture they live in to develop genuine empathy, and testing and iterating solutions with customers to explore the validity of decisions. Often this means relying on intuition to guide decision making when the data isn’t clear, a skill that the principles and methods inherent in design have a uniquely positive impact on.In the DNAA lot of the questions around what it means to be design-led have to do with the roles designers should play. For example, Airbnb’s head of design, Alex Schleifer, said in an interview with WIRED that design-led companies can put designers in an unnecessarily privileged role; putting the rest of the company in a position of always having to react to their point of view. He’s opted, instead, to put a project manager on every team whose job is to act as a user representative and advocate.While Schleifer avoids the design-led label, he’s doing exactly what design-led companies ought to do: graft the methods and principles of design into the DNA of the company—in Airbnb’s case, primarily empathy. It’s a smart decision, as the alternative, rule by design oligarchy, is a setup not many organizations will succeed with. Giving every employee the tools they need to think and act like designers themselves is a much better option.Making Ideas RealBut getting a majority of employees to think like designers doesn’t eliminate the need for those who formally hold the title. You may have a company full of people dreaming up brilliant ideas, but an idea doesn’t reach its potential until it’s made perceptible, be it as a website, device, soundbite, app, book, logo or some other kind of artifact. This may be the axis that being design-led turns on; designers take ideas from the abstract to the concrete, enabling them to produce real value.Consider the growth of Twitter as an interesting example. While the company started garnering attention in 2007, its meteoric rise began in early 2009, just a few months after the launch of Apple’s App Store, and at the same time the swarm of third-party Twitter clients began appearing on the scene. No matter how great the technology it was built on, Twitter as an SMS client was too abstract of an idea for many of us, largely invisible. Well designed apps and an eventually reworked web experience made the service tangible. App design can’t take all of the credit for Twitter’s success, but its role in making the service accessible to a broader audience is undeniable.Bridging The GapWhile there’s no single way to lead with design, it absolutely requires strategically positioned designers. They are the connective tissue that make design-led companies work. They are the bridge that spans the gap between idea and execution. They are the difference between a brand, product, or service that’s half-baked, and one that’s a homerun.Nathan Sinsabaugh is Design Director at the consultancy Studio Science.See More

Sheri Givens, James Norman, Curtis E Dalton and 26 more joined Innovation Insights

Dan Kinsella's blog post was featuredShould CIOs Be Concerned About Consumer Technology Trends?Normally one wouldn't expect consumer trends to drive business trends, but that’s exactly what’s happening with the convergence of A/V, communication, and IT in the workplace. Clearly, many "innovations" in business communications during the last decade have come from consumer adoption of technology first. Not unlike during the PC revolution, users continue to drive the proliferation of technology in the workplace, especially via consumer based A/V enabled communications devices.Of course, rapid advances in technology and ongoing cost reductions have helped fuel the evolution. But significant change in how people communicate is really behind major adoption in the workplace. Some would argue that even communication tools like email and voicemail are quickly becoming obsolete in the ever changing business technology landscape.How many companies adopted WIFI in their offices because their users complained that they were already using the technology at home? Certainly text messaging garnered a broad base of consumer acceptance long before businesses started using it to communicate with colleagues and customers. Even consumer use of AOL helped drive the creation and implementation of simple email tools in offices worldwide.For more evidence of consumer technology driving business trends, consider Facebook. Facebook spawned LinkedIn which is quickly becoming the preeminent social media communication tool for businesses. Beyond making connections and posting information, businesses now use LinkedIn to fill important jobs, business development and customer relationship management.Some of the most important CIO initiatives today revolve around corporate implementation of what were originally consumer based technology solutions. Why did Apple introduce the iPhone and iPad to consumers and schools first? Apple would have met with considerable resistance in the corporate space had they targeted CIOs, much like they did with the Mac. Consumer passion for the Mac, iPhone, iPad and other devices is forcing many corporations to support these devices in the workplace. Today, integrating mobile devices (mobility) and securing confidential text messages are top priorities for most CIOs.Likewise, although video teleconferencing and online collaboration have been available for quite some time, Skype has led to massive company adoption. Microsoft didn't buy Skype for $5.8 billion to expand consumer use of the product. Likewise, Cisco’s purchase of WebEx for $3.2 billion and Citrix’s development of GoToMeeting are attempts to capitalize on the huge anticipated growth in these markets.So, what’s the take away for CIOs? As companies move to the cloud to host their IT solutions via pseudo-mainframe models like SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS, remember that many business IT trends come from consumer products. Even today’s cloud interface designs are being modeled after paradigms like the App Store. It’s wise to pay particular attention to consumer trends when formulating corporate IT strategies to stay ahead of the technology curve.Dan Kinsella is a 25 year technology veteran and consultant at SeeChange Technologies.See More

Sustainability gets a lot of attentions these days… and rightly so. As a society, we’re bringing greater consciousness to the preservation and endurance of the environment, energy, and more. Yet, there’s one precious natural resource that rarely gets the same attention. And for too many people, it’s reaching dangerous depletion levels. How sustainable is the personal energy you bring to the focus you deploy against your goals, mission, and purpose in life? Throughout our upbringing, school and work experiences, many successful individuals have learned and honed a potentially destructive form of focus: the forced and fierce variety. You may recognize it as a sense of intensity and drive that propels you forward toward your goals… and toward complete burn-out. Be honest…what does focus feel like to you? If you’re like most, the following words and phrases might come to mind: Determination Discipline Force of will I know for myself that despite how joyful my goals might be, it frequently feels like a forced death march toward achieving them. (And forced death marches by their very nature are totally unsustainable.) What if we could cultivate a sustainable, softer - not harder - focus? This is not an argument for becoming lazy or sitting around waiting for your goals and purpose to take care of themselves. Instead, it’s an invitation to find the place within you where joy, receptivity, fun, and lightness can actually clear the way and enable the rigor and persistence required to see your results through. And here is the key… based upon interviews with leaders who have successfully navigated the good and bad, the ups and downs to achieve long-term goals: They figured out how to elevate the path they were on or process they were going through to the same level as the purpose or the goal they were pursuing. When will we understand that the ends don’t justify - or sustain - the means? Many of our goals are big and, let’s face it, there’s no guarantee that we’ll be here to see them realized. But even when we are, achievement is SO fleeting. We cross the finish line in the blink of an eye… so we’d better have something to show for it in terms of pleasure along the way. What can you do to make sure that you’re bringing joy to the journey… that the process delivers as much pleasure as realizing the purpose? Sustainability of your personal energy and focus frequently comes down to ‘small stuff’ that yields big results: Intentionally sprinkle the activities you enjoy into every day. Spend time with the people who make you smile. Celebrate the little things. Routinely step back and away from the work associated with achieving your purpose. Take up a hobby. Have some fun. ("Wasting" a little time is frequently exactly the softness you need to be able to focus clearly and stick with your goals even longer.) Your purpose and goals are important. Not just to you… but to a world that’s waiting for and needs your contributions and achievements. Focus softly and bring sustainability to your own precious natural energy resource. Photo credit: Liz Price and www.freedigitalphotos.net This post originally appeared at Lead Change Group. The post Sustainability and Focus appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Colin Strong's blog post was featuredAre Data Scientists Earning Their Salaries?There have been murmurings that we are now in the ‘trough of disillusionment’ of big data, the hype around it having surpassed the reality of what it can deliver.  Gartner suggested that the "gravitational pull of big data is now so strong that even people who haven’t a clue as to what it’s all about report that they’re running big data projects".  Indeed, their research with business decision makers suggests that organisations are struggling to get value from big data.Data scientists were meant to be the answer to this issue. Indeed, Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google famously joked that "The sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians". He was clearly right as we are now used to hearing that data scientists are the key to unlocking the value of big data. This has created a huge market for people with these skills. US recruitment agency, Glassdoor, report that the average salary for a data scientist is $118,709 versus $64,537 for a skilled programmer. And a McKinsey study predicts that by 2018, the United States alone faces a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with analytical expertise and a 1.5 million shortage of managers with the skills to understand and make decisions based on analysis of big data.  It's no wonder that companies are keen to employ data scientists when, for example, a retailer using big data can reportedly increase their margin by more than 60%.  However, is it really this simple? Can data scientists actually justify earning their salaries when brands seem to be struggling to realize the promise of big data?Perhaps we are expecting too much of data scientists. May be we are investing too much in a relatively small number of individuals rather than thinking about how we can design organisations to help us get the most from data assets. The focus on the data scientist often implies a centralized approach to analytics and decision making; we implicitly assume that a small team of highly skilled individuals can meet the needs of the organisation as a whole.This theme of centralized vs. decentralized decision-making is one that has long been debated in the management literature.  For many organisations a centralized structure helps maintain control over a vast international operation, plus ensures consistency of customer experience. Others, meanwhile, may give managers at a local level decision-making power particularly when it comes to tactical needs.   But the issue urgently needs revisiting in the context of big data as the way in which organisations manage themselves around data may well be a key factor for brands in realizing the value of their data assets.Economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek took the view that organisations should consider the purpose of the information itself. Centralized decision-making can be more cost-effective and co-ordinated, he believed, but decentralization can add speed and local information that proves more valuable, even if the bigger picture is less clear.  He argued that organisations thought too highly of centralized knowledge, while ignoring ‘knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place’. But it is only relatively recently that economists are starting to accumulate data that allows them to gauge how successful organisations organize themselves.One such exercise reported by Tim Harford was carried out by Harvard Professor Julie Wulf and the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, Raghuram Rajan. They reviewed the workings of large US organisations over fifteen years from the mid-80s. What they found was successful companies were often associated with a move towards decentralisation, often driven by globalisation and the need to react promptly to a diverse and swiftly-moving range of markets, particularly at a local level. Their research indicated that decentralisation pays.And technological advancement often goes hand-in-hand with decentralization. Data analytics is starting to filter down to the department layer, where executives are increasingly eager to trawl through the mass of information on offer. Cloud computing, meanwhile, means that line managers no longer rely on IT teams to deploy computer resources. They can do it themselves, in just minutes.  The decentralisation trend is now impacting on technology spending. According to Gartner, chief marketing officers have been given the same purchasing power in this area as IT managers and, as their spending rises, so that of data centre managers is falling.Tim Harford makes a strong case for the way in which this decentralization is important given that the environment in which we operate is so unpredictable. Innovation typically comes, he argues from a "swirling mix of ideas not from isolated minds". And he cites Jane Jacobs, writer on urban planning- who suggested we find innovation in cities rather than on the Pacific islands. But this approach is not necessarily always adopted. For example, research by academics Donald Marchand and Joe Peppard discovered that there was still a tendency for brands to approach big data projects the same way they would existing IT projects: i.e. using centralized IT specialists with a focus on building and deploying technology on time, to plan, and within budget.The problem with a centralized ‘IT-style’ approach is that it ignores the human side of the process of considering how people create and use information i.e. how do people actually deliver value from data assets. Marchand and Peppard suggest (among other recommendations) that those who need to be able to create meaning from data should be at the heart of any initiative.As ever then, the real value from data comes from asking the right questions of the data. And the right questions to ask only emerge if you are close enough to the business to see them. Are data scientists earning their salary? In my view they are a necessary but not sufficient part of the solution; brands need to be making greater investment in working with a greater range of users to help them ask questions of the data. Which probably means that data scientists’ salaries will need to take a hit in the process.Colin Strong is the author of Humanizing Big Data, released by Kogan PageSee More

Guest Post by Janhavi Hunnur I’m honored that Janhavi Hunnur asked to share this guest post that candidly addresses a challenge rarely talked about but shared by many leaders: personal biases around work approaches and styles that ultimately affect performance.   In the corporate world, the term ‘performance’ is often misunderstood. At its core, we can evaluate performance based upon the answers to simple questions like: How well are we doing? Are we meeting our goals? Are our customers satisfied? But as organizations have become more sophisticated and processes have become more complex, measuring performance has grown increasingly complicated. And, understandably so… because not having a rigorous and objective approach to performance management and measurement can lead to problems as I’ve personally experienced. Looking back, I now realize that I was inadvertently thwarting my team’s efforts and undermining their development and growth because I was evaluating others based upon subjective comparisons of how they approached their work to my own approach to mine. I felt greater rapport and connection to team members who shared my same work patterns and behaviors.  I have to admit that I enjoyed the feeling of camaraderie and went the extra mile for these team members. My bias didn’t just affect my reviews and feedback. It affected my employees, leaving some feeling devalued, side-lined, and unwelcome to share their suggestions or ideas.  How many groundbreaking innovations, new customers, or great insights were not allowed to flourish or come forward as a result? Gratefully, I recognized this opportunity in time.  Rather than relying on my subjective impressions, which are never a good barometer, I knew that data would provide a better, more objective basis for evaluating and coaching others, and ultimately driving performance. I started first with myself and developed a process to measure my own performance and work habits.  I started quantifying my work based on such things as: Undivided time spent on each activity Number of breaks taken during the day Energy levels during the day and complementing activity Prioritization of ‘important’ vs ‘urgent’ Mindful delegation Effective planning and organization After consistently assessing my own performance/behavior for a month, I had an objective evaluation of myself.  I found the results personally illuminating and felt it would be advantageous for my team to do it as well…and the benefits have been great.  Not only have they gained awareness of their own work habits and patterns, they have become more focused, motivated, and inspired to perform.  Because they now have quantifiable metrics, they challenge themselves to continue to improve and have had some significant results.  Although I never asked for this data, some have actually volunteered. In fact, one employee shared an increase from 13 to 33 minutes of undivided time spent on a task! The exercise built a sustainable process for employee development, individual improvements and team results.  Being constantly in ‘self-improvement mode’ on an individual level has led to increased productivity, benefiting the entire organization.  And being in a similar ‘self-improvement mode’ has helped me to approach work and people more objectively. About Janhavi Hunnur Tech marketer, born to write, edit, bang head on wall and then finally hit send. Interested in Technology, leadership, rebel arts and wildlife photography. The mantra that keeps me going now is "You cannot improve what you cannot measure". Connect with Janhavi on Twitter and let’s talk. The post Opinions, Data, and Performance appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.