February 13th, 2008
I had a great conversation over breakfast last Friday with some very cool people, and the topic of our conversation was Social Networking / Social Networking Sites (and to a lesser degree some other Web 2.0 applications) and how they are being used / could be used in the human capital / talent management / HR / OD / diversity arenas. It was a wonderful conversation and it is a conversation more people are starting to have. One of the reasons I think that this conversation is so incredibly important right now, is that these emerging technologies are a huge opportunity for innovation in the human capital / talent management / HR / OD / diversity arenas. The problem is that I do not see or hear very many human capital / talent management / HR / OD / diversity leaders even talking about these opportunities.
Interesting data in the February 2008 HR Magazine:
Web 2.0 and HR : In December of 2007, content security speicialist Clearswift, released the results of a poll of nearly 700 HR decision-makers in the United States. The findings showed that despite the rise of popularity of so-called Web 2.0" social networking sites-and the business applications Web 2.0 technology can have – a significant number of HR professionals have yet to fully understand them.
HR professionals that:
- Do not understand Web 2.0 sites or has never heard of them = 23%
- Actively use Web 2.0 technologies = 34%
- Are familiar with the sites but do not use them = 42%
- Said their companies Internet use policies cover the use of Web 2.0 technologies = 35%
- Did not know if their employers’ policies cover the use of Web 2.0 sites and technologies = 25%
- Block access to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace = 64%
- Block access to wikis and blogs = 63%
- Prevent their employees from accessing video- or photo-sharing sites such as YouTube and Flickr = 70%
Here is a site worth checking out. It is a list of large companies (mostly F500) that are actively blogging as well as some reviews of those blogs. It gives you an idea of some of what is out there and being used.
But the question remains…will HR as a discipline (leaders, thought leaders, associations, consultants) dive into Web 2.0 or will HR be drug kicking and screaming and then be frustrated when they are referred to as less than innovative and less than strategic? How is your knowledge regarding 2.0 stuff? Does your organization use blogs (real blogs, not blogs where the CEO (read corporate communications) post something profound and generic for others to admire) to facilitate dialogue with and between employees? potential employees? customers? vendors? neighbors? Do you blog, read blogs, do you know what a wiki is, are you using pod casts, are you aware of the potential knowledge, power, creativity that is lying dormant in the social networks of your employees? This is heavy stuff and powerful stuff. If you have not jumped in yet, it is probably a good time to start. Fortunately for all of us, it is fairly easy to do that.