You Should Know
Australia:
Sea change hits skills pool
AN emerging shortage of IT specialists in Australia may not be caused just by poor enrolments in training courses.
It seems growing numbers of technologists are either opting out of the rat race and heading for the beach or demanding a more harmonious balance of work and leisure.  The appeal of a sea change, combined with the fast pace at which technology skills become outdated and the mounting need for people with hi-tech and business acumen, are key reasons why talented staff are becoming scare, according to chief information officers. (Australian)

Global:
Jerry O's Blogging Tips
Jeremiah Owyang has a long list of postings specifically chosen for the newbie. Here are the titles from around the net: (Recruiting Animal)

M. Susan Chambers A PEOPLE PERSON
As new executive vice president of the people division (a.k.a. human resources) at Wal-Mart, Chambers has her work cut out for her, with the company's wage, labor and health-care policies under fire. She caught flak last year for a leaked internal memo in which she suggested controversial ways to curb spending on benefits. But Wal-Mart liked her ideas and is rolling out lower-cost health-care initiatives for employees. Chambers will focus on other HR issues, taking part in a new advisory panel on ways to foster diversity and equal-employment ops, for example. "We've spent a lot of time listening to associates to make sure we are the best employer," Chambers said. Wal-Mart's critics will no doubt remind her if that's not the case. (Time)

SAP and Oracle Go Another Round
SAP threw another blow at the body of rival software vendor Oracle, announcing that is offering technical support and a conversion roadmap for customers running Siebel software.  On the eve of its Sapphire user conference beginning tomorrow in Orlando, Fla., SAP said that it was offering succor to Oracle customers confused and uncertain about the future. TomorrowNow, a subsidiary of SAP based in Raleigh, North Carolina, will provide Siebel customers with a low-cost alternative to their current service contracts. TomorrowNow will also provide Siebel customers with SAP's Safe Passageprogram, which is used to help enterprises migrate from Oracle-owned systems to SAP. (Internet News)

Yahoo Answers Expansion & Integration into Yahoo Search Results
Since its launch, the Yahoo Answers program has been seen as a concrete example of how user generated content and participation can lead, in some cases, to better and more relevant search results. It has been five months since the launch of the Yahoo Answers community Q & A service, and within this short period of time the program has become a success among Yahoo users, with last week marking the 10 millionth answer to a question on Yahoo Answers. (Search Engine Journal)

Going Vertical Search
iProspect's director of algorithmic search explains the when, why and how of using vertical search engines to better target audiences.
Side Step for travel. Healthline for medical. Indeed for employment. Seems like not a month goes by without some new vertical search engine cropping-up, promising to cater to an audience that's looking for specific information. But the skeptic in me wonders whether any of these engines will ever gain a large enough user base to be worth the time and effort to be included in a company's search engine marketing campaign. Clients often ask about the implications of new vertical search engines, and my response is always the same: it's too early to tell. At least for now, there is no need to immediately to be included on every new search engine that comes on the block. (imedia)

The workforce: No.1 export
Most of the 800,000 Bulgarians who work abroad send their money home to help out their families
A summer resort on the coast of Bulgaria (EPA/Mladen Antonov) Emil Koev works on a building site in Bergisch Gladbach and sends his parents 400 Euros three times a year. "My parents are ashamed that they have to rely on me." They have little choice; their combined pension of 70 euros only lasts them half a month, even though all they buy is milk, bread and the occasional bit of meat. To supplement this diet they grow vegetables, potatoes and fruit in their garden like many other Bulgarians. He remembers that "last winter they had to wear jackets and hats in their apartment because their heating had been cut off." The money that Koev had sent home with a friend had been delayed. (European Magazine)

Examining the roots and growth of Web 2.0

Heather Green and Steven Baker's excellent blog at Business Week has two interesting posts available this morning both related to the nature and extent of Web 2.0 tools. 

The most recent is an intro to a new Business Week online segment called Web Smart.  The series of stories will highlight in text and a podcast a different company "that's using the Web to improve productivity, reach out to the public, rev up marketing, or streamline internal operations." The first Web Smart profile is on Boeing, who apparently uses blogs both internally and externally.  Sounds like a great series.  Examples of corporate use of new web tools, amongst companies large and small, are very useful for those of us who try to get others turned on to the possibilities.  Perhaps Biz Week's series will shed some light on the debate over Steve Gilmor's statement that corporate executives are using RSS to bring them the information they need on their field - other discussion members said he was crazy and that corporate adoption of feed reading is in its infancy. (Discussion in some random recent episode of the otherwise great show Gilmor Gang, where some people say that "strong bloggers don't link" - so what's the point.  Grr....)

Speaking of RSS adoption, Heather Green's post on Saturday pointed to a Google Trends graph showing that the term RSS gets searched for on Google more than the word blogs and far more than podcasts.  Besides the fact that RSS is also the acronym for one of the largest membership organizations in the world, I was unsurprised when I saw results like this as well.  Here's what I left in the comments section of Green's post.  Would readers here agree with this assessment?

RSS is the foundation of all other particular Web 2.0 tools: it's what makes podcasts subscribable, enables us to read more than a handful of blogs, search with persistence and get the social out of social bookmarking when we subscribe to the feed for a tag.  It's what tells us when there's been a change made to a wiki page of interest.  All of those and more are made possible because of RSS, and most instances of each particular tool will make mention of RSS in the description of its use.  All the social media are exciting, and the read-write web is a major change from the past, but it's that combined with access to a quantity information increased by orders of magnitude - with almost zero effort required after an initial subscription over broadband - that represents the huge shift that is web 2.0 if you ask me.  (Social Software)

India:
Rediff enters into the vertical job search business
This is getting interesting. Rediff becomes the first big portal in India to dive into the vertical job search waters. Check this search for SAP FICO people. very interestingly, Rediff is scraping naukri.com's site. Last heard naukri slapped a case against bixee for scraping content. But what will they do against rediff's might?  (Gautam Ghosh)

Infosys to create diversified workforce
Technologies Ltd on Monday announced its plan to recruit graduates from foreign universities under the commitment to create a diversified, global workforce.  It would recruit 300 graduates from universities in the United States this year and 25 graduates from the United Kingdom in 2007, the Bangalore-based IT major informed the stock exchanges. (Economic Times)

UK:
Classifieds Search-Engine Oodle Launches in UK
Oodle, the search engine for local classifieds, is introducing its service in the U.K. Oodle includes listings from across the U.K. with 30 towns and cities at launch including Belfast, Bradford and Bournemouth. (AuctionBytes)







Deep Release:
IQ Quiz Tests Your Human Resource Marketing Acumen
Top five marketing misperceptions and other facts about the human resource and employee benefits marketplace.
HRmarketer.com, the number one on-demand marketing and media visibility service for companies selling to human resource departments and/or targeting employee benefit brokers and consultants, today announced the release of the"HR Marketing IQ Quiz." The quiz tests industry-specific knowledge and expertise in marketing to the HR Marketplace.

The 20-question quiz covers topics specific to the HR marketplace, including recent trends, HR marketing PR best practices, historical information and techniques for increasing marketing effectiveness. Here is a sample historical question:

Q: All of the following were actual names of HR suppliers in the 1990's. All either changed their name or were absorbed by another HR supplier. Which was never the name of a HR supplier?

A) Perks at Work
B) CFN
C) Rewards Plus
D) IIRC
E) Unlimited Benefits
F) Employee Communications Services
G) Whereiwork
H) Perks4U

Information in the quiz is based on several surveys of HR professionals in 2005 and 2006 and knowledge gleaned from the hundreds of HR and employee benefit suppliers who subscribe to HRmarketer.com. After the quiz answers are submitted, the participant receives the correct answer to each question with a brief explanation.

To take the quiz and test your marketing IQ, visit the HRmarketer.com survey at http://www.hrmarketer.com/home/survey.htm

As an adjunct to the quiz, HRmarketer has developed the following list of Top Five HR Marketer Misperceptions about the HR and benefits marketplace.

1) PR is dead
Overall PR spending increased in 2006. In fact, spending increased in 74 percent of all firms (based on 2006 surveys sent to thousands of HR marketing professionals). 68 percent of the survey respondents reported being satisfied or extremely satisfied with their PR firm with 38 percent of the firms having a full-time PR firm on retainer. The resurgence of PR is further evidenced by the growth of marketing PR. For more information on marketing PR best practices visit our HR white papers and research.

2) Marketing's primary objective is creating buzz and media visibility
Most HR marketing executives rate lead generation as their primary marketing objective over creating buzz and media placements. However, while this seems obvious, research by HRmarketer revealed that 44 percent of HR marketing executives still consider media placements as a key metric on how effective their marketing is.

3) Direct marketing is the most cost-effective way to drive leads
The truth is an integrated, custom approach works best. In fact, telemarketing leads all other lead generation tactics with the highest response rate at 5.53 percent. Marketing PR leads all marketing activities with the highest qualified response rate. For the response rates for all types of marketing mediums including dimensional mail, direct mail, catalogs, etc. take the HR marketing IQ Quiz and test your marketing knowledge.

4) HR is a niche industry
The HR software market alone is sized to be over $3 billion. There are over 600 media outlets and more than 300 HR print publications that have formal policies on accepting outside/byline articles.

5) Pay per click (PPC) placements are more effective than search engine optimization (SEO)
According to leading web analytics firms, pay-per-click advertisers can expect to receive between 3 percent and 7 percent conversions. Conversion rate is not necessarily a qualified lead. A conversion rate is defined as "the relationship between visitors to a web site and actions considered to be a ‘conversion', such as a sale or request to receive more information". A recent study by WebSideStory showed the following conversion stats for these major search engines:

- AOL traffic 6.17%
- MSN traffic 6.03%
- Yahoo traffic 4.07%
- Google traffic 3.83%

Search optimization (SEO) is far less expensive than an aggressive paid search campaign and gets you the same amount of traffic. Plus, the effects are longer lasting, and conversions are frequently in the same range (or even higher) than paid ads on engines.

To take the HR Marketing IQ Quiz go to http://www.hrmarketer.com/home/survey.htm
For more information on the concepts of Marketing PR, please see our HR white papers and HR research reports.
For more about HRmarketer, visit their website at www.hrmarketer.com .

About HR Marketer:
HRmarketer is a service of Fisher Vista LLC, a marketing and information services firm focusing exclusively on the human capital industry. The company services over 300 HR service providers, employee benefit brokers and consultants, helping them increase their visibility and generate sales leads.

Coming Soon

	HR Shared Services Summit Optimizing HR Shared Services to Achieve Excellence in Your Organization $1,999 May 22 - 24, 2006 · Sonesta Hotel - Coconut Grove, FL
NACE National Meeting & Expo Anaheim Marriott/ Anaheim Convention Center May 30 - June 2, 2006 More Info Register	3rd Annual Best Practices in Talent Management, Leadership Development and Succession Planning Conference 25th - 26th May 2006 Barcelona, Spain £2006.57 Register
Hunt Scanlon Advisors present Generating Higher ROI on Human Capital June 7, 2006 Chicago	OnRec Online Recruitment Conference Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre June 20 Westminster, London contact: Chris@OnRec.com More Info
2006 EREC 21-22 June 2006 ExCel London, UK Register	SHRM's 2006 Annual Conference & Exposition June 25-28 Washington, D.C. $1,350 Read more Register
OnRec Expo 2006 12-13 September 2006 Donald E. Stephens Convention Center Chicago Register	2006 Strategic HR Conference October 4-6, 2006 Westin Kierland Resort Phoenix, Arizona
Human Resource Executive's 9th Annual HR Technology® Conference Oct. 4-6, 2006 Navy Pier in Chicago, IL $!095 Register	2006 SHRM Workplace Diversity Conference October 16-18, 2006 Century Plaza Hotel and Spa Los Angeles, California
Hunt Scanlon Advisors present "Defining Leaders" New York city October 18 - 20, 2006 New York Palace	HR.com's Employers of Excellence 2006 October 25 - 27, 2006 Red Rock Resort Las Vegas, Nevada Register

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 







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