Mindfulness and meditation are quickly becoming mainstream in corporate America. The research is irrefutable that meditation contributes to positive outcomes along countless physical and mental health dimensions. And even the most traditional, conservative public and private enterprises are incorporating mindfulness and meditation into the cultures. Unfortunately, in the process, some confusion has arisen. Some people are confusing the two topics, erroneously believing that they are actually the same thing. But meditation is not mindfulness. It’s helpful to think of mindfulness as the ultimate goal or outcome that many leaders are striving for. It’s a sense of presence, being in the moment and unfazed by the chaos around us. It’s about bringing all of one’s attention to the current moment and exercising tremendous intention as a result. Mindfulness is a powerful state of being because this level of presence can activate the experience of ‘flow’ studied extensively by ‎Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and others. This state of flow is by definition one of the highest expressions of engagement possible.  (And given what we know about the power of engagement - and the ‘holy grail’-like search many organizations are undertaking to find it - this makes mindfulness very attractive to many executives.) But a daily growing body of research correlates mindfulness with many other benefits as well… from greater vitality and health, to improved decision-making and teamwork, to even enhanced financial performance. Meditation, on the other hand, is a tool for supporting and enabling mindfulness… but should not be confused with it. Organizations wishing to develop mindful leaders are taking a significant step by offering meditation training and meditation rooms on-site. But it’s just one of the many steps required to foster and embed this quality in the leadership culture. Organizations that are cracking the code on this are taking other steps as well. They are: Forcing leaders to rest and rejuvenate. Mindfulness requires a high degree of physical and mental energy - neither of which is possible when leaders are exhausted and burned out. Yet the leaders who’ll benefit from mindfulness most also tend to be the least able to appreciate this reality. So, organizations are beginning to force the issue. While some are going so far as to enforce tech-free days that allow for more thinking and interacting time, others are requiring that vacations be taken rather than banked. Aligning their performance management systems with the idea of presence. They are focusing more attention on routine, informal, on-the-spot, non-evaluative feedback to correct or reinforce performance. Ongoing and timely dialogue is replacing onerous annual processes and removing the specter of judgment and future recriminations. Shifting from a plethora of priorities to a few key intentions. Mindfulness is challenging when everything is an urgent A-prime priority, when there are 101 corporate initiatives as well as a mission, vision and values to be lived. Organizations committed to helping leaders develop greater mindfulness appreciate the value of simplification and are editing back the tomes of corporate directives, replacing them with leaner, cleaner intentions that can drive focus and activity. Starting at the top. Leaders at all levels look to those above them for guidance about what’s acceptable and what’s required to get ahead. Hard-charging, ‘mindless’ leaders beget more of the same. But when executives take the first step toward modeling mindfulness, others have permission to follow. In one organization with a 24/7, always-on culture, responses to emails were expected nearly immediately. Employees literally slept with their phones as a result. Three months after executives committed to corresponding by email during working hours only, it’s no longer considered dedicated or ‘cool’ for anyone in the organization to send middle-of-the-night emails. Mindfulness is a multifaceted quality that has the potential to dramatically improve individual satisfaction and organizational success. Meditation is a powerful tool to support it. But, let’s not stop there and think we’ve done the job. Executives and human resources professionals alike are on the forefront of a new frontier in human performance… if we are mindful enough to take advantage of the opportunity! Image courtesy of Chaiwat at FreeDigitalPhotos.net The post Meditation Alone Does Not a Mindful Leader Make appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

For those who know me, know I don’t sit still. My mind is always ticking over with something, making plans, organising something or experimenting with some new app or software. Even quiet times at work you’ll find me reading articles, commenting in blogs, participating in tweet chats, doing MOOCs, listening to TED talks, podcasts or webinars. Anything to keep my mind active. For me, the uncertain and anxious times in-between organisational restructures are perfect opportunities for professional development. But I’ve been noticing a trend over the recent years.  I seem to be having lots of professional development. Why let all this wasted time make me unproductive? I may as well put it to good use and tackle my to do list of self-education. We are in week 2 of the Exploring Personal Learning Networks cMOOC and I’m loving it because it’s making me think creatively and giving me the freedom to apply it directly to my work. It’s my new pet project and already I’m thinking of how I can complete the assignment of coming up with a pitch for a CEO on the value of personal learning networks to an organisation. I can see that I’ll probably have to use the assignment in ‘real life’ soon when this scenario arises in our organisation. It will happen. It’s only a matter of time. So I decided to crowd source it.  Ask my PLN to solve an organisational issue around on boarding to demonstrate how effective networks are in solving a business issue. [Hence why you may have seen my Tweets and Google + posts asking for any onboarding examples.  I’m killing two birds in the one stone here.  The responses will form my pitch for the cMOOC but also, I’ve been asked to develop an Induction program  at work and I’m using my PLN’s stories, links and references to create a starting point for my plan].  Luckily, with 41 responses in Yammer, it seemed that everyone had an onboarding story they wanted to share about what worked and what didn’t. But I digress…. let’s go back to talking about productivity. Believe it or not, I enjoy going into work every morning to follow through my routine of grabbing a coffee, finding a desk, setting up my gear, logging on and then checking into the Google+ community to see what others are up to, what they’re writing about, what they’ve learned, check out their photos and blog posts. I’ve gotten myself into a morning routine where I revel in the silence of the office…just me alone with all my PLN. I read somewhere this week that getting feedback on social media equates to getting a dopamine hit - a high - and there’s something addictive to it.  I believe that. I’m living proof. This week I’ve been reading various reports of the high levels of disengaged people at work and frankly, it’s depressing. Despite adding the reports on Yammer hopeful for some replies and robust debate, they may as well have tumbleweeds flowing through them. No replies. Nada. Obviously disengagement in the workplace is not as exciting as onboarding stories. And I’m left asking the question incredulously, "doesn’t anyone else find this stuff important enough to comment on why they think this or do they just not care?" Maybe they don’t. Maybe I shouldn’t take things so seriously? Maybe I should just lighten up - go with the flow.  Whatever. No I don’t work that way. I need to be inspired. I need a good news story. It’s either that, or I’m writing to David Walliams and Matt Lucas to consider creating a comedy show like "Come Fly With Me" but on corporate life because I don’t know whether I need to laugh….or to cry anymore. But what did I say about not being able to sit still?  Patience is not a virtue of mine. Today, a fellow colleague came up to ask me about something but we got to talking about his passion.  It’s opera. He’s a tenor and travels around Australia singing to audiences.  He has a manager who co-ordinates his performances and manages his profile.  He’s well known in the opera circles. Do you know it was one of the best conversations I had in the workplace for a while? Why?  Because I saw someone fired up for something that he believed in.  His passion came out with his words, his actions, his eyes and smile. He was inspirational, magnetic and alive. I missed this in our workplace. After a long time of change and turbulence, I needed to see someone passionate again.  I needed to know that there were people who openly expressed their love for their art, their craft, their work, their hobbies and interests. I needed to be inspired in my workplace. Even my previous boss who left the organisation today turned to me at her goodbye lunch  and said, "I’m going to the Elliot Masie Learning 2013 Conference in the US because I need to be re-inspired for Learning and Development again". Even she was looking for it. Workplaces are missing the passion and inspiration but we’re thirsty for it. We need it. If organisations could bottle up that passion, they can achieve anything. [Photo: Fire In Your Eye by J. Durham]Filed under: Musings, XPLRPLN Tagged: 2013, Google, October, Passion, PLN, professional development

Ray Bixler posted a blog postHow Staffing the Checkout Line Can Boost the Bottom Line2014 marked the best year for U.S. job growth in 15 years, as the unemployment rate dipped to a post-recession low. With consumers more flush with cash and the economy continuing to gain strength, retailers will be increasing hiring - especially for sales and customer service roles. But these hires aren’t just about staffing the checkout or the help line - they can also be about boosting the bottom line.Just look at the research: according to a 2014 American Express study, 68 percent of customers said they are willing to spend more (14 percent more, on average) at a company that provides excellent customer service. And the reverse is also true: 37 percent of customers said they would switch companies after just one bad customer service experience.The key for retailers is to determine which candidates stand out from the pack, allowing them to make hires that will boost their bottom line. At SkillSurvey, we recently completed a study of the most common areas of improvement and strengths for customer service and sales candidates based on confidential feedback from their job references. So how can companies use this insight to make better, bottom line-enhancing hires?Customer service job candidates are strongest when it comes to people skills. Our data shows that 95 percent of these job candidates rate highly at treating other people with fairness and respect, a very important skill that will help gain - and keep - customers. Over 90 percent also show high levels of honesty, ethics and integrity. All of this means that companies should make sure that job candidates have competencies in these areas.And now for the weak spots: Our data shows that almost a third of customer service job candidates have room for improvement when it comes to encouraging customers to buy new products or services. In addition, references report that more than one in four candidates could improve at giving customers specific recommendations about their company’s products and services.It’s in these areas that the best candidates can really outpace their peers and make a revenue-driving difference inside a business. Companies looking to hire star customer service workers should delve into candidates’ ability to upsell. Employers should also explore candidates’ willingness to learn about their company’s products so they can make tailored recommendations to potential buyers. The key factors to look for here are the ability to listen well and to engage thoughtfully with customers.Why gamble with your bottom line and leave potential sales behind? Instead, make sure you’re hiring retail employees with the right skills to be the star performers who will boost sales. It’s clear what companies need to look for, and they should leverage all possible means at their disposal to get a clear picture of candidates’ abilities. References in particular can provide substantive feedback and a different perspective on candidates’ performance (other than the candidates’ own perspective, which is really all that comes across in an interview). Companies owe it to themselves - and their bottom lines - to do as much as possible to hire as successfully as they can for these roles, given their outsize impact on sales.Ray Bixler is CEO of SkillSurvey, a company that harnesses the power of reference assessments to help organizations more effectively recruit, hire and retain talent.See More

Each year, Merriam-Webster and others add countless new words to the dictionary. But, are words ever deleted? If so, I might suggest ‘career’ as a possible contender. Used in conjunction with so many other terms - like development, progression, success, etc. - in recent years, ‘career’ has contributed to untold dissatisfaction, disengagement, demotivation, and general angst in the workplace. The Problem: Over the past decade, the workplace has experienced seismic shifts: Leaner, meaner organizations are the norm. Layers of leadership have been removed. In many industries and segments, attrition lags behind expectations due to baby boomers working longer. At the same time, average tenure has dropped, with most employees working for multiple companies over the course of their work lives. A significant percentage of the workforce is made up of contingent workers and contractors. Organizational structures are constantly in flux. Yet, despite these dramatic changes to the environment, leaders and employees alike continue to hold firmly to old visions of ‘career’ and what that ought to mean. Ask just about anyone to share the first word that comes to their mind when you say ‘career’, and I bet at least half of them will say ‘ladder.’ Losing the Ladder The reflex-like association between ‘career’ and ‘ladder’ is at the core of what’s fueling employee dissatisfaction in many organizations. Whereas in the past, employees could expect fairly regular opportunities to develop, move up, progress, and be promoted, the world simply doesn’t work like that today. Unfortunately too many organizations and leaders either don’t recognize this or don’t know how to respond. As a result, they continue to perpetuate deeply entrenched systems that drive out-of-date expectations. What’s in a Word? So, perhaps the first step is to re-think the very word ‘career’ and ask ourselves a couple of important questions. 1.  Are ‘careers’ even relevant to today’s employees? Millennial workers are looking to build skills and capacities. They are looking to amass a portfolio of experiences. The old images of ‘career’ don’t necessarily resonate with this portion of the population. Contractors and contingent workers (which make up an increasingly larger percentage of the workforce) don’t typically have any visibility or access to internal career paths.  Their evidence of success or progress is securing the next gig or contract. 2. And, if organizations can no longer ensure the former trappings of ‘career development’ (e.g. promotions, status, raises), what can and should they call what they offer instead? Increasingly, savvy leaders are realizing they must replace the old promise of promotion with the new promise of growth and development.  New roles and titles might not be available, but training, stretch assignments, mentorship and greater visibility generally are. Perhaps it’s time to replace the term ‘career’ with these things that organizations can really offer today. So, if Merriam and her friends deleted ‘career’ from the dictionary, leaders might be forced to find a new way to talk about the experience of one’s work-life over time. We might have to reframe the whole experience and in the process update our vocabulary in a way that reflects the reality in most organizations. This sort of honesty, clarity, and transparency could go a long way toward setting new and realistic expectations. And these expectations could be the basis for greater engagement, motivation, and job satisfaction. What do you think? Is ‘career’ dead? What terms might serve as effective replacements for ‘career’? Image: © Npologuy | Dreamstime.com - Tombstone 2 Photo and Liz Price The post Is it Time to Kill off ‘Career’? appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

All products mentioned in this post are not endorsements, nor are they paying me to say so! I was looking forward to last Thursday night.  It was going to be the first meet up for a new Meetup group for Melbourne learning professionals. As an introvert, organising something like this is a big deal for me.  There’s butterflies in my stomach and an unsettling feeling when you just want this to work out.  I’ve planned and managed many different events in the past and the feelings are always the same.  You want to create a relaxing, informal social environment where people feel comfortable to talk and conversation flows. For a first event, I was happy with the venue at the Royal Melbourne Hotel which has a colourful history. They had cordoned off an area for us with a mix of tables to sit down or stand with your drink. I had envisaged that people were going to mingle but instead, even better, we sat around a table with our drinks and made introductions as everyone came along.  We made our friendly introductions as everyone came over with their drink, made some room for them and started chatting.  I made sure that everyone was involved or involved in the conversations as I didn’t want anyone feeling like they missed out. It’s funny how you think things will turn out and how they really do. I introduced the concept of Third Place to everyone initially but then I let the conversation flow because really, I too, just wanted to chat socially and learn about other people. Where are they from? What are they doing? How did they get to where they are today? The conversation ended up being around the table, that is, with the 9 people there, it was a group discussion.  People found each other’s stories and work lives fascinating because they would be people we would normally not meet in our every day line of work. It also made us think about how we would have approached the learning solutions if we were in their industry.  So what we propose as a performance solution for one company may not be the right one for another one simply because of the many varying factors - and this was evident that even though we were in the same field of work, our applications were totally different. There were a couple of freelancers, a couple from universities, other private companies and public sector.  The range of roles was fabulous - from facilitators, eLearning Designers, freelancers, coaches, and a vendor! We sat enthralled as one guy (who was humorous to boot) as he told the line of work he’s in. He trains employees in the software that is used for anti-corruption, fraud and security.  We listened intently with our jaws agape as he told us the intricate nature of how they scour hard drives and USBs for data in criminal cases and how people don’t realise that imprints are left in our technological devices. You could hear a penny drop.  I’m sure everyone’s minds were ticking over with what personal or secure information is sitting on our devices and how easily it would be to access. "And no, simply deleting them won’t get rid of it", he added much to our surprise. There was a collective "Awww, oh well…" around the table. There were other stories too but the other thing that connected us were that we were all recently affected by some organisational restructure or a redundancy. This was the norm. Discussions were varied but I got to talking to the vendor who I was surprised to be there. It’s a start up company called Coffee Who.  Originally when I checked out their website, I couldn’t see the value in its service offering.  How was it different to something like Meetup or simply connecting with someone through Yammer or setting up an appointment in Outlook calendar? He explained that his software connects people across the organisation.  Say for example, one business unit knows that they don’t have networks or relationships in another part of the business (in the same company).  This software can automatically send coffee meeting notifications out connecting people of those two businesses.  They can then accept the meeting and go for a coffee.  Usually what happens is that they start conversing - a bit about themselves, their work, their business and voila, a connection is made.  After the coffee meeting, the tool generates a few post event questions about the value of that connection.  You can set up as many coffee meetings as you want.  It then provides a visualisation map of the networks created within the organisation - and who has the most networks made.  It can be used for identifying those individuals who have extensive networks and relationships in the business - the "connectors". It’s like "business online dating" (My words, not his). Frankly, I thought the idea was brilliant because sometimes we need a ‘push’ and as an introvert, I wouldn’t know who I need to speak to in the organisation and how to make the connection.  If the tool can support me to do this, I can do the rest simply by face-to-face connection and from there, it gets easier and confidence builds. I also learned about a couple community learning initiatives.  The first was SkillShare and the second was Melbourne’s Laneway Learning.  This latter initiative is a great idea where if you have something to teach, you share it with others - in a short class that is cheap and fun.  Have a look at what they do… Why can’t organisational learning be like this? MOOCs was a big part of the conversation. Many around the table had heard of them but didn’t know what they were.  The concept seemed nebulous to them. Some people had completed them and had their own stories to tell about how effective they found them to be. Luckily we had Jeevan Joshi from The Learning Cafe Australia there who provided heaps of information and tips. You can listen to his recent webinar on MOOCs for Employee Learning: A Practitioners View below. It’s funny how sometimes you imagine the meetup to be and how it transpires.  One of the things I noticed is that no one took out and used their mobile device throughout the meetup.  Instead, people seemed to be deep in conversation that didn’t necessitate breaking the focus with using their phone.  As such, I felt awkward to be the first so the phone stayed in my bag throughout the event. Reflecting on this though, I saw it as a good thing as it was a measure of engagement in the conversation with real people there in the moment. Our next event will be another after work drinks at Platform 28 in the Docklands on Thursday 14 November from 5:30pm-7:00pm. Hope to see you there!      Filed under: Uncategorized

Mark Woodward's blog post was featuredThe Ingredients for Supply Chain Success: Connection, Collaboration and InformationIt’s a fact that supply chains have become increasingly complex and globally distributed. At the same time, businesses are under pressure more than ever to keep up with growing demand. With expectations like these, there’s little to no margin for error. It’s easy to see how an issue in one part of a global supply chain, such as the recent port strike along the U.S. West Coast, can impact all of the other parts of the supply chain. To forge ahead through these unpredictable factors, flexibility and visibility are key. Every player along the supply chain needs the ability to plan and see across the network and work collaboratively with their partners to resolve the frequent disruptions that can hinder the achievement of customer service and margin goals.Even without these unplanned disruptions, the marketplace still moves at lightning speed, and brands are in constant pursuit of the right strategies to broaden their consumer bases. With changing markets, volatile demand, and a dependency on partners who can only be indirectly managed by contracts and influence, brand owners require constant access to timely, complete information. As an added layer of complexity, the enabling technologies for visibility, process management, and decision support in this environment have unfortunately not kept up with its rapid pace. As a result, supply chain professionals struggle to make their most important decisions based on information that is fragmented across their network of partners.With all of these challenges afoot, what’s the recipe for getting ahead? Successful supply chain management (SCM) is, in a way, like getting ready to host a dinner party. Lots of time and effort go on in the background before you get to the main event. But if everything doesn’t come together in a timely fashion, you could end up with cold food on the table.So, let’s take a look at a few of the key ingredients that are required to set the table for successful SCM:A Collaborative Business NetworkAt E2open, I’ve learned that supply chain professionals really want a single version of the truth so that they can make better, faster, and more informed decisions. This requires the right technology enablement to connect trading partners, to unify and manage multi-enterprise business processes, and to plan and make decisions—all in the network.The technology solution for the trading partner network is a business network, a collaborative platform that serves as this single version of the truth for the brand owner and all of their trading partners. Think of a business network as a supply chain control tower, a network of networks enabling a brand owner to orchestrate trading partners and manage change—to continually make course corrections—so, collectively, they can achieve their operational and financial plans.Effective Response ManagementThe best way to safeguard your trading network from disruption is by actively collaborating with your suppliers, distributors, and overall supply chain. Speed is of the essence, as a delay in making a decision can equate to lost revenue. Having multi-tier visibility into both your areas of weakness and your suppliers’ potential problem areas will help you formulate the most effective response, directing resources toward the areas of greatest risk and potential impact. Collaborating with your partners provides visibility into inventory levels, parts, capacity, availability, and alternate sources, as well as serves as a mechanism for group problem-solving.Using this functionality as a starting point, brand owners are able to access and share real-time information with their trading partners, making it possible to adjust plans as exceptions or disruptions arise. The ability to both access and view information from every part of the trading network in real time is critical for business continuity. Identifying disruptions as they occur and, ultimately, devising a range of options to execute in tandem with your trading partners in order to resolve them is key.Bigger, Faster DataBig Data is everywhere, and we deal with our fair share of it in today’s complex manufacturing environments. But what is perhaps more daunting is Fast Data—that is, the incessantly changing positions of forecasts, orders, shipments, and inventory. This challenge is complicated enough within the virtual enterprise, and becomes downright overwhelming in the context of global trading networks—with multiple tiers of partners trying to manage information changes across unique operating systems.In order to reap the benefits of Fast Data, all relevant participants—within the organization and across the global trading network—need to have access to a "shared version of the truth," plus the ability to act on this information in real time. Put differently, Fast Data must be collaboratively managed: shared; agreed upon in terms of source, authenticity, and timeliness; and correlated across relevant roles and processes. But most important of all, Fast Data must also be actionable—having all of this insight is incredibly valuable, but it’s meaningless unless you have the ability to actually act on it. This is where context is key. As the data is analyzed, it should be viewed through the lens of how it can be translated into actionable opportunities.Committing With Confidence"Commit with confidence" might not be a phrase that you hear every day, but it’s certainly in my vocabulary, and I use it every day in speaking with my team. At E2open, we’ve made it our promise to empower those across the supply chain to commit with confidence, including our entire customer base.Simply stating "I’ll get back to you later" is not going to cut it in today’s fast-paced world. By having a 360-degree view into your constrained supply in the network, and all of your customer demand translated into details by segments, profitability, promotions, and timeframes, you are able to "commit with confidence," thus making the customer experience exceptional. This sets the table for future growth and prosperity.Putting It All TogetherBy using the key ingredients I’ve mentioned above, businesses of all sizes can quickly increase revenue via profitable demand management, better manage assets with improved continuity of supply, and reduce working capital. This is all done while better meeting your customers’ demanding, and shifting, requirements. You do so by making your most important supply chain decisions with confidence.When done right, collaboration allows companies to respond more rapidly to possible inventory shortages and shipment delays. It also allows companies to ward off and deal with supply chain disruptions, create and share supply and demand signals, and coordinate with literally thousands of suppliers all at once. By aligning and collaborating with such a wide range of suppliers, supply chain managers gain the visibility they need to respond to any supply chain challenge that’s put in front of them in today’s highly competitive business environment.Mark Woodward is President and CEO of E2open.See More

This second week of the Exploring Personal Learning Networks cMOOC was about defining Personal Learning Networks - and let me just say, there were LOTS of definitions.  So much so that in all honesty, it confused me because I was getting bogged down in the details trying to grapple with everyone’s definitions, explanations and reflections.  Luckily, however Jeff Merrell then asked us: "How will you define Personal Learning Networks to your mother?" Phew. That’s what I needed. Someone to take my hand and pull me out of the murky depths and make it simple enough for me to understand. Then I had some anxieties. Crikey, I’d have to explain it in Greek for her to understand. But then, maybe that’s a positive for me as my Greek isn’t so good.  I’d have to really take it to the basic level of definition. This is how I think my definition would have transpired… All mirth aside I decided to use my PLE to solve a little problem that I came across this week at work. The intention was two fold: I wanted to get some ideas for the actual project (more creative ideas I would never have thought of myself; and lack of time to develop anything new from scratch - besides I don’t like to do work work on weekends and I had to have my brief to my manager in by 0830 Monday morning) I wanted to use this as an example of a "real life organisational problem and how the PLN added value" for the MOOC assignment where we have to pitch to the CEO.  (I needed real life examples, hard data, testimonials, figures, results…you know ‘tangibles’ ) I was tasked to provide some recommendations around an induction (onboarding) program at our work.  I was not involved in the original brief and the team who had created the induction program were not subject matter experts in learning design or development.  In fact, I got handed the whole induction pack and program and was told to "finish it off and get it out there as quickly as possible" by the client. The hairs on my arms stood on end when clients tell me this. I don’t like taking orders. Luckily my manager supported my view of that we critically review and assess their program and provide recommendations for how it could be improved. We could then seek their support and approval to redesign and develop it in the way that we saw best for the organisation and for the new employee. When the client describes their working environment and current induction as, "survival of the fittest" I don’t know about you but for me, alarm bells start to ring. She was desperate for this to change - why wouldn’t she be! But this got me thinking about induction stories and whether there were people in our organisation who had experienced a great onboarding program somewhere. What made their induction memorable? Why? So I posted the question on Twitter and got a few responses with some links and leads to companies who do it well.  (Thanks to Joyce Seitzinger for mentioning about iPads in induction as I threw an offhand remark about this idea in the meeting about this and they stopped short - you could see their minds thinking about it). I did a search on Google + and found the same question was asked by Harold Jarche in his post New Hire Practices back in 2011 and there were some great resources there that I could use.  Finally, I put the same question up on Yammer, our internal social networking tool expecting little or no response, but I got 11 responses within the first two days. One person helped me out even further (and he’s a member of my PLN no less) also did a Yammer tag search on #induction and come up with another 38 different responses when the question was asked two years ago by Simon Terry and posted it up on Yammer for me to see.  So within the space of 2 days, I had an abundance of personal stories, links to companies who do it well and some wonderful ideas to include in the induction program! Now if that’s not proof of a PLN working to solve a small issue or answer a question, I don’t know what is. There would be no way I could have got the same amount of responses any other way without doing some formal survey and taking a lot longer to design, develop, roll out and collate responses…and not as personal. This week I also asked a few members of my PLN to create short videos (less than 2 minutes) on how their Personal Learning Network helped them in their role and provide specific organisational examples.  I’ll collate these responses as part of the final assignment pitch and put it up on the blog at a later date.  They form part of the ‘testimonial’ side of the pitch to the CEO because let’s face it - I want to make it personal and social because it’s not always about the numbers and hard data anymore.Filed under: Development, Work Narration, XPLRPLN Tagged: 2013, October, October 2013, Personal Learning Networks, PLN, XPLRPLN

Rick Howard's blog post was featuredWhen It Comes to Cybersecurity, Look Past Your EmployeesHardly a week goes by without media reports of a well-known business or agency having its data center hacked and sensitive information being stolen or damaged. When news of these attacks breaks, the cybersecurity industry does a lot of hand wringing and pontificating over what is to be done about the increasing frequency and sophistication of today’s cyberattacks.Many security professionals are quick to blame the user. I’ve been in many a conference hall or closed-room meeting when the speaker, while sharing a story about how a user opened an email they shouldn’t have, turns to the audience and says with a knowing smile, "You can’t fix stupid."This kind of thinking really chaps my hide.The Internet is an incredibly complex system of systems. Even individual computers are so enigmatic these days it’s tough even for experts to explain how everything works. I used to teach computer science back in my younger days (I think I still have the slide deck somewhere that explains how the CPU functions by adding 1s and 0s together really, really quickly).But even I have trouble getting my head around the fact that adding 1s and 0s together at high speeds allows me to play World of Warcraft -- complete with three-dimensional graphics and a head-set enabled communications system -- with my friends in Korea. Even I think that somewhere between the 1s and 0s in the CPU and the "Trip to a Dark Portal" quest in World of Warcraft, something magic happens.To expect that cybersecurity experts will know everything they need to know in order to stay safe on the Internet is debatable. To expect that from a normal user is laughable. Yet enterprise security teams continue to spend resources training employees to be security conscious; the idea being that if employees are the weakest link in the chain than that’s where we should spend a lot of time and effort in order to improve network security.I respectfully disagree. Expecting non-security professionals to be able to identify and stop the intrusion methodologies of today’s cyberadvesaries is unrealistic, costly and provides little benefit for the effort required.By no means am I saying that employees shouldn’t receive cybersecurity training. But that training should be focused on making them aware of the organization’s security policy and procedures, not training them to be cybersecurity experts.Users should know how to use the corporate VPN, where to store sensitive documents, how to construct a corporate approved password, how to authenticate, and who to call when they think they’ve done "something stupid." We should not be spending time trying to make employees experts at spotting phishing emails or determining which web sites are good or bad based on how the URL looks.Protecting the enterprise is the security team’s job. If one of your security team’s best security controls is relying on an enduser to stop the bad guy, then your program has some serious issues.Instead, the security community should be designing systems that protect their employees. This will take work from both the vendor community as well as internal security teams, but it is possible. Threat prevention is the key. Security teams will never be able to keep out every advanced adversary, but they can make it extremely difficult. Here are some best practices:Deploy security controls at each point in the Kill Chain.Realize that these security controls don’t work by themselves out of the box. They must be configured to function in the manner that you want them to. You have to bend them to your will.Regularly capture metrics for each deployed security control to confirm it’s doing what you originally wanted it to do.Regularly review your initial network security needs so you can make appropriate changes. When done, go back to the top of the list and start over.Threat prevention is an ongoing process; it’s not something that you do once and walk away. So stop spending time and money trying to make users security experts and start spending on improving your threat prevention program.Rick Howard is the Chief Security Officer for Palo Alto Networks. See More

Guest Post by Peter Moore I’m spending this week on a spring break adventure at the ocean with my family. So, it’s only fitting that Peter Moore, whom I recently met while speaking to the Pasadena Chapter of PIHRA, fill in for me with a story of his own vacation on the water… and the lessons it offered far beyond sailing. With great anticipation of the three-day weekend ahead, two friends and I headed off to a local river to begin our slow cruise in our small outboard- engine-powered boat. With a slight breeze blowing, blue skies (well, mostly/partly blue, this was England after all) above, and many much-anticipated hours ahead, we slid the boat off the trailer into the welcoming waters. The river section we chose flowed slowly — we weren’t white-knuckle white-waterers — so we’d be meandering throughout the weekend.  That was 30-some years ago; many specifics of the weekend are now beyond recall, but the insights and learnings we gained are still clear enough to write about today. Despite its peaceful, calm surface, the river also held hidden traps. I knew drifting too near the bulrushes’ roots or sailing into a submerged sandbank could snarl up the engine and scupper the vacation.  I’d been thinking about a strategy to address these possibilities and came up with a plan to focus on a particular tree at the end of each river curve, then arm-lock the tiller.  It made sense, I thought, to pick out the tree as the goal to head for and aim the boat at it; turns out mine wasn’t the best plan. Of course, corrections I navigated the first few bends trouble-free, firmly focused on the chosen trees.  But, on the next stretch an imperceptible side-current slowly eased me off course. Slow enough, fortunately, that I could make the necessary corrections.  However, it took me more time and effort than expected to redirect the boat back to the safe middle course.  In my attempt, I initially over-corrected, giving myself even more of a problem.  From then on I realized, regardless of the surroundings I had to continually change focus. Every minute I had to be ready to nudge the tiller all the while gauging the currents and the distance to each bank. This alertness kept things under control when stronger-than-expected side currents suddenly welled up and started to push me off course yet again, more quickly and strongly than before. Learning to adapt quickly (eventually successfully) greatly added to my satisfaction that weekend.  And becoming skillful at finessing my course corrections — how much and when to steer to the right or the left - gave me self-confidence in handling those major as well as minor forces. Similarly, on the voyage of our professional lives we often can and will experience times of potential or veritable shipwreck - the cause being ours or others. Consider the following questions as they relate to your professional life: What "overcorrecting" situations have you experienced and gained from? What have you learned from having to finesse a situation (or survive a wild pendulum swing)? What times of having your finger windward have helped steady the ship? Conversely, have times when managers haven’t been alert caused a veritable mutiny due to their being unprepared for those inevitable issues, personal and professional? Ways to control, if not conquer, the wayward currents How can those lessons from that time on the river also apply to business and interpersonal relationships? Develop peripheral vision. For me it meant keeping a 180 degree perspective - a visual finger to the wind; for the business world it means taking in all that’s going on around you. It could be thought of as "pre-listening": gauging the climate/sensing the crew’s mood.  This will prime you before the time of your next one-on-one listening occasion. (Which might be sooner than you think -or want!) Determine to connect more intimately with people. Especially at a time of needed focused listening. I constantly must ask myself: do I really listen to - not just hear - someone who’s talking to me? Life’s successes greatly hinge on being known as someone who listens to people — much will follow: mutually needed respect, understanding, relationships and results.  A good site for a reality check of your listening habits is listeningimpact.com. Don’t put it off! There was a Guinness ad: "I don’t like it because I’ve never tried it." We really only have now (today) to "try it." So make the most of each moment: reflect on what happened. learn from course corrections (good and bad). imagine challenges (plan for but don’t obsess over worst case scenarios) and how you’d prepare for and handle them, then move on. "Leadership involves remembering past mistakes, an analysis of today’s achievements, and a well-grounded imagination in visualizing the problem of the future." -Stanley C. Allyn In life, as on the river, the currents are ever-changing; yet such lessons allow us to prepare for what we can and respond to the rest as they occur as we go with the flow of the river of life. Bon voyage! The post River of Much Return: Life lessons from a time at the tiller appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

This week we had our People Day. Over 400 people across Australia in the Human Resource function travelled to Melbourne to gather and hear our Leadership Team talk about the challenges of the future and how we can work together to face them.  Although I will not go into detail here about what was covered, suffice to say that the key messages were all related to what we read about on the internet everyday.  That is, the impact and speed of which technology has changed the way we work and how we can work with it.  The underlying theme was that change is the new norm and that we don’t have a hefty manual to tell us what and how to do things anymore. While sitting in the big plenary room, I glanced around me and saw that no one had their devices out. No iPads, no phones, no tablets.  Sure we had paper and pens and some people were scribbling notes but I felt awkward to have my tablet out sketch noting presentations and taking photos.  People looked at me with curiosity wondering why I was bothering taking photos. Some time ago, I had written a note on Yammer, our organisation’s social networking site on the power of the backchannel and how we could use groups and hashtags to capture internal events and conferences and share these out across our organisation.  Of course, it’s one thing to write about it and another to do it. I had been thinking about using the hashtag #PeopleDay and sharing my notes on Yammer but as no one was doing the same, an awkwardness overcame me as the ‘odd person out’ and had thoughts such as, "Maybe this isn’t the done thing? Maybe they don’t want this to be shared? Maybe I’m doing the wrong thing by sharing to Yammer? Maybe there are different rules for internal conferences and external conferences?"  During the morning break, my colleague Paul came to me and asked me if I was going to share my notes on Yammer.  When I told him my concerns, he was feeling the same way. He was the only one on his table, like me, taking notes on his tablet and having strange looks come his way. I’m sure people thought that we were being rude with our heads down madly tapping at our tablets. We decided at that point to just ‘do it’. Just post our notes, photos, sketchnotes on Yammer to our team group with the hashtag #PeopleDay and see what transpired. What did we have to lose? Besides, the leadership team was espousing knowledge sharing and collaboration.  This was our go ahead to try something different and apply it immediately. So we started uploading our photos, notes and sketch notes and over the course of the day, we saw that a few others had seen the posts and started commenting on it.  Then, we saw photos being uploaded and amazingly, all tagged with the hashtag! I was chuffed.  This was a real win for us because it immediately broadened the scope of how Yammer was being used in our division. Paul and I demonstrated the power of the backchannel by being the first two to start the ‘movement’ and the rest followed. The next day, we had our Capability Day (our department’s team day) which was much more hands-on, interactive and a lot of fun.  By this stage, people were accepting of us using our tablets to capture what was going on around in the room.  Some people had asked what we were doing and when we told them, they too, contributed their own posts and photos. However the power of what we had done didn’t reach us until the next day when we were back at our desks. The head of our department had heard what Paul and I were doing and asked me to send her an email about it as she was keen to learn more.  I wrote the email and explained what a back channel was, how a hashtag is used and how Yammer has helped create a storyline of events, information and posts that would be beneficial for those people who were absent on the day.  I explained the value comes when people contribute their thoughts and reflections past the event and that it is ‘kept alive’ as people are talking about it online. At the same time, I was glancing at the Yammer page and watching the traffic of people viewing documents and photos in our Group, the stream was too quick. It showed me that people were on Yammer interacting and engaging with the content that was uploaded. I shot a quick message to Paul to check the traffic in Yammer.  Both of us were like excited little kids because this was a real win for us. Although we didn’t have the volume of people participating and contributing to the online conversation, we did see that many people viewed the content.  There is a level of ‘fear’ of the use of Yammer and as many people have an online profile, many of them also don’t post anything related to their thoughts or their own work.  We still have a way to go in this sense but at least we have made a step in the right direction.  Once we have our senior leaders also contributing and responding in this tool, then I believe things will change. In the meantime, I’m still counting this as a win. We received congratulations from our head of department and our team members…. And now we can say that people know what a back channel is and how it can be used to capture and share information…. As a result of this action, yesterday afternoon, I was approached by the Culture team to work with them and look at how we can use Yammer in sharing our work and yes, the word ‘networks’ was mentioned. YES! Score! Fist pump! It looks like people in our team are now curious and want to know more. Curiosity leads to questioning why we do the things we do. Questions lead to experimenting with a new way. Experimentation leads to learning something new. Learning is then shared. Networks are created. … We’re on the right path. Filed under: Development, Work Narration Tagged: 2013, October, October 2013, People Day, Yammer