The founder and CEO of H3, not the Hummer, the referral tracking and monitoring tool. (When we asked how his business was going, he said "Humming."  We asked him if he knew there was a little old lady upstairs. he said "No but if you Hum a few bars, I'll fake it.")

Hans has paid his dues in the publishing industry, running Reed Elsevier and Lexus-Nexus. He was president of Monster for a while. Now, he's learning the ropes of entrepreneurial startup companies. There are few people we disagree with so regularly.  That makes his view well worth our time and energy. Here are his thoughts about 2006:

• Revolutions don't happen too often.
  The birth of the job board in the mid-nineties simultaneously created by Bill Warren and Jeff Taylor, and both acquired by Andy McKelvey before web 1.0 talk became fashionable was the last big revolution in our industry.  We're still waiting for the next big one.
   
• Delorean v Toyota. Declaring yourself a revolutionary may sound like fun but leads to grief 99% of the time.
  Acknowledging and improving other's inventions upon quietly from a green field base pays out perhaps 50 % of the time. Better odds.
   
• Most revolutions are evolutions people choose to ignore.
  Not even Big John can get CEO's and hiring managers to really take actions today to mitigate the demographic hole that our labor markets are heading to irreversibly.  In due course folks will pick a random date and call it a revolution, whining why that damn Sumser never warned them!
   
• Outsourcing your #1 headache will come back to bite you in your bum if it happens to be your most critical business process.
  Too many companies prefer to employ recruiters & sourcers as contractors, or even use RPO's. Many sourcers happily comply as it increases their short term earning capability, and they're mostly superb networkers who often don't worry about their next gig, since they own assets all employers covet.
   
• Meta-data?
  What's up with people not getting that the internet has converted pretty much all data (incl. resumes, job-postings) into widely available commodities? What's really important is the data about the data, i.e. the meta-data. I don't mean people tagging themselves in the coolest of terms, or inviting others to write sweet LinkedIn recommendations for them! 
   
• So who owns the meta-data?  
  Can employers keep / use Outlook contact files built up & enhanced by employees through their relationships? What about their LinkedIn connections? Plaxo records? MySpace? Alumni network relationships? Many of us sign agreements that state clearly that the employer owns all the great ideas we have while employed. 
   
• There are 500,000 recruiters / sourcers in this country – the highest number of votes for the ERE recruiting blog award for one blog was 241? 
  How many emails did you get asking for your vote? Enough said.
   
• There're 5 million hiring managers in this country who do not have the pleasure of a professional recruiter in their company. 
  They don't read recruiting blogs; don't go to recruiting industry tradeshows (which typically serve 300 to 5,000 attendees?). In time with social networking tools becoming more mainstream they may be well positioned to do all right / better by themselves.
   
• Who cares about web 2.0 or 1.0 or 3.0?
  Recruiters like CEO's and sales people have very accountable roles: you either achieved your 100% measurable objectives or you didn't. Don't try "Sorry for not filling this position, but we did use an official Web 2.0 tool" or "we saw the demo on YouTube". 
   
• Hans Gieskes will not yet start a Blog in 2007.  
  Am sure it's fun to write one, but I'm too busy with our H3.com evolution and for now I rather listen (i.e. read) through the filters of a handful of smart beacons, who somehow are kind enough to read some 50+ recruiting blogs for me, add their opinion which I respect. AND: free of charge - I like, but then again I'm Dutch.