HR: Where is the H in it?

If you are in the market for a job, you know what I am talking about. This is past the horrible experience that you have with phone service interviews. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (or SHRM) website, an HR generalist role typically includes things like creating policies and procedures; maintaining regulatory compliance, and; the administration of payroll, benefits and employee records. When you boil it down, the bulk of work that falls into HR is aimed at keeping your current, former and prospective employees from suing the company. Said differently, HR is all about risk reduction. And somebody please explain to me what the hell a "career pathing program" is. I'm not diminishing the importance of this work. A mature business must do all of these things well. Just like a mature business needs to maintain accurate and organized accounting records. But the skills and mindset of someone who thinks all day long about creating and following rules does not fit the mindset required to succeed in recruitin. The sad truth is that the "H" in HR has been missing for some time. In fact companies are nothing more than a collection of people organized around a shared set of strategies, principles, products and customers. Not processes.

Extending Deadlines

If deadlines are extended, the consequences are usually not in the most favorable condition. One of the reasons as to why extending deadlines does not equal better work is that we lose motivation to work on the project or issue. Whenever you push back a deadline, you are increasing the distance once again between you and the finish line. Now more urgent goals will loom large and your original goal will languish in the back of your mind. Another issue that arises is that we tend to procrastinate which means that the deadline extension would in effect be utterly useless. If that software development project would have another deadline, most of us would stop working as hard on it and end up finishing at the very end anyway. Also, we are terrible judges of how long things will take. First, we routinely fail to consider our own past experiences while planning. As any professor can tell you, most college seniors, after four straight years of paper-writing, still can't seem to figure out how long it will take them to write a 10-page paper. The solutions? Set smaller deadlines and spell out what you have to do and how long you think it will take.

Paperless Office

For decades now, commentators have been calling for the death of paper. A Businessweek article from 1975 proclaimed that, by 1990, nearly all business records would be strictly electronic. And yet, 38 years later, printing remains big business. There have been some major changes as far as paper use goes. Part of that is thanks to internet faxing services as well as email, not to mention mobile technology. The widespread adoption of tablets, and other ultra-portable computers like Ultrabooks may be fueling the shift. Although email is nothing new, the ability to pull up electronic documents on a computer that weighs less than a pound and easily fits in a briefcase, is. Moreover, the increasing popularity of cloud storage solutions like Google Drive and Dropbox make sharing electronic files easier than ever before.

Future of the Internet

What will it mean for the world and the economy if millions more people will have access to the internet? Jared Cohen had recently co-authored a book that talks about the impacts of the digital age. One of the biggest things that he stressed was that there should not be as big of a debate about whether technology and application development is good or bad but how it will affect the world because the fact that millions of people are going to be connecting to the internet is not going to change anytime soon. Another part of the discussion is that there will be no delete button and parents need to talk to their kids and start early about the importance of online privacy and security. Greatly put but the author, "technology will make revolutions start happening faster, but it'll make them harder to finish. Technology can't create leaders and cause institutions to appear." Just something to mull over as you are browsing the web.

Technology Changing the World

Obviously, this goes without saying but technology is tackling some of the biggest problems and diseases that have plagued the world, especially in third world countries. Today, cell phone usage in Africa is commonplace, with more than 10.7 million mobile phones in Senegal alone. Mobile technologies and other communication services are empowering those who were once isolated and transforming the ways they communicate. While 75 percent of the world has access to a mobile phone, smartphones make up only 15 percent of the global market. biNu is a platform that allows those with feature phones to have a smartphone-like experience through cloud-based apps and services, providing them with immediate access to email, news, books, health information and social features. That means the world's information library is available through not only smartphones, but also conventional mobile phones. Children are able to read books they could not afford and have access to educational information they otherwise would not. Access to information is also giving people the means to have more control over their circumstances.

Feature Phone Sales Dropping

For the first time feature phone sales are not outpacing the smartphones. In the second quarter of 2013, approximately 225 million smartphones were sold worldwide – an increase of 46.5% over sales figures for Q2 2012. Sales of dumbphones, meanwhile, slumped 21% to 210 million. Much of the smartphone growth comes from overseas – the Asia Pacific region, to be specific. Another piece of interesting news in the Gartner report: Four out of every five smartphones in the world now run a version of the Android operating system. This is likely because Apple phones are indicators of wealth – less-affluent people worldwide simply can’t afford to pay $650 for an iPhone when Android phones sell at a fraction of the price. What type of OS and phone services do you have? I always thought that I never needed a smartphone but then I ended up getting one because of the great deal that was offered. Now I really do not know what I would do without it. Though I do have to admit that I spend too much time on games and internet phone services.

Cable and Phones

Most people have cable and that cable is most likely bundled with phone services and probably internet as well. As far as being able to understand the billing and the changes from month to month, you almost need a degree in billing which in itself is another language. As of late, the cable prices have been outrageous and continue to increase. Those price hikes are at the core of a recent slew of major disputes between cable companies and broadcasters. Consumers have to be able to draw the line somewhere, especially when the cable bill is about $270 a month on average. Cable is really the perfect lightning rod for consumer dissatisfaction. It's the biggest part of your bill and the most consistent rate increase. Plus it's tougher to replace your cell phone or Internet provider than it is to find an alternative for pay-TV, which faces a long list of semi-competitors: Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and many more. Are you one of those dissatisfied customers ready to cut the cord.