Promoting Professional Geekery #33 – Help Out In HR

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(For more Promoting Professional Geekery, see this Roundup of past columns.)

So you’re trying to promote professional geekery.  If you work at a company chances are you have an HR department that . . . isn’t.

HR is a tough profession, as is the entire hiring and hiring-related world of careers (which is why I recommend helping out recruiters).  It’s tougher when people don’t exactly get, understand, or otherwise know how to work with some people, like creative, technical, or scientific types.  Like, in short, geeks.

If you’ve ever been at an employer who didn’t “get” you, or worked with someone in a similar situation, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  I’m pretty sure you’ve had one of these experiences, if not both (I’ve had both).

This means less geeks on the right jobs, less happy geeks at the jobs they do have, and an HR department trying to figure out what wen’t wrong.  Yeah, I know, sounds familiar.

So this is where, you, the professional geek come in.  It’s time for you to offer your services to HR so they know how to deal with people like, well . . . you.

  • You can help them understand technical and career issues for potential interviewees – or for that matter help conduct interviews on subjects you understand.
  • You can get them up to date on cultural issues to help them understand if they’re misunderstanding people – or ignoring them.
  • You can set them straight on social media and other geeky things so they don’t make stupid policies.
  • You can advise them on training policies and skills people need to develop.
  • You can act as a bridge to less assertive progeeks to hook them up with HR to solve problems.

You can help your HR department understand and work with people like you.  It means more good hires, more happy fellow geeks, and less bad decisions.  It means more professional geeks doing what they do well.

A few suggestions:

  • Insert yourself into the hiring process to scope out how it’s going and help out.
  • Offer to research and discuss training needs, then present a report most anyone can understand.
  • Run lunch meetups with HR now and then to get to know people (if it’s a big company), and focus on areas they really don’t know.
  • Form a relationship with the people you get along with in HR and see how you can help out.
  • If HR has a wiki for terminology and standards, help out with it.  If not . . . it might be a good idea to start one.
  • Offer to read over policy documents and make suggestions.
  • Offer to read over or even compose job search ads (so you can give realistic feedback).

You may even find that HR could be part of your career, or you might be good enough to help with or even do hires one day.  Sure, you’re helping others, but it might help you out as well!

– Steven Savage

Best Buy CEO Resigns. Now what?

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In case you were too busy posting pictures on Instabook or Facetagram, the CEO of Best Buy has resigned. This caused a lot of discussion and some weird stock fluctuations.

Bruce Upbin at Forbes says he felt Dunn had to quit, citing the famous Downes article on why Best Buy was going out of business.

My take?

  • The departure of CEO Dunn indicates that Best Buy plans to keep making massive shifts and is at least vaguely aware they have to. We haven’t seen it all yet.
  • Dunn’s background is telling. He literally worked his way up from sales associate in 1985 to CEO. He’s experienced – but also he may have been tragically old-school. Wether he can’t move with the times or his replacement is symbolic . . . his replacement is symbolic if you get my drift.
  • Best Buy is going to be fighting public opinion here since their challenges, cuts, and now this make them look quaintly old-school. This could be another case of a tarnished brand – and that’s a challenge they’ll have to overcome.
  • Best Buy’s challengers are many – sure there’s Amazon and Apple, but they were – and are – being nickeled and dimmed by others. Streaming replaces DVDs, DLC replaces in-store game purchases, Target is expanding to be an everything store, and you can still get your fancy appliances at a number of different places. There is, simply, no reason for Best Buy to exist as a unique entity.
  • The kiosk-like approach to stores may be viable, however. If they can leverage a few big warehouse stores and a lot of “starlets,” get some brand awareness, and find the right niches/services they may make it.
  • That being said, I see one advantage they may have being service, and it hasn’t been too impressive.
  • I still wonder what they can do in the age of vending machines for tech. I just don’t see them taking advantage of that.

In the end, I’ve got a gut feel that Best Buy is going to fade away in a Radio Shack like way. I can see a way out, but until I see what Dunn’s replacement does, I’m not going to count on it.

Now, ask what happens if they fade into obscurity. Who’s going to get blamed? Who will others target? Who will step into their place?

– Steven Savage

Facebook Buys Instagram

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Unless the rock you’re living under lacks the internet (unless your destiny is a rock), you’ve heard that Instagram was bought by Facebook.

I’m trying to figure out the point of this really.  Some are worried that Instagram may stop being multi-network capable, but that issue’s already been addressed.  At the same time, it does give Facebook enhancements to it’s photo sharing capacity, and maybe they figure it can’t hurt to branch out beyond themselves.

But $1 billion?  I don’t know.  I look for any input from you guys out there, because I’m stumped.

– Steven Savage