Skip to content

Posts from the ‘Blogging’ Category

Jul 14

3 Comments

A Year of Not Knowing

I haven’t been writing. I’ve wanted to, but I’ve been deep in a trough of not knowing. It feels pretty awful, but I’ve been here before and I know the drill. I have to keep going and eventually I’ll come out the other side.

Writing on the internet, even if it’s just a blog, or a tweet, seems to favour the certain. Or at least it can feel that way. When I’m in the trough of not knowing, I can vaguely remember being certain, the same way I remember summer when it’s mid-February. It’s a warm pleasant memory and I can’t wait for it to return. Until then, I have to fight the convincing belief that everyone already knows everything, except for me.

Read more

Jan 1

2018 Writing Reflections

Welcome to 2019! I didn’t plan to write or publish this 2018 reflection on blogging, but I got up today and that’s what happened… I think this is a good annual practice for me to get into in order to think about the year in review and the year ahead, and who knows, maybe a few people will find it interesting. So here goes:

Read more

Sep 23

6 Comments

You Are What You Read

We are awash in great writing. There’s never been a time in history when so many have had access to so much high-quality content, often for no more than the price of a monthly data plan.  As an avid reader, this is a blessing and a curse. I’ve failed again and again to deliberately direct my attention to the things I plan to read, rather than be distracted by enticing articles or blog posts floating along in the current of my Twitter feed.

One of the strategies that’s helping me get better at this has been outsourcing my reading decisions to trusted curators by subscribing to their newsletters. I route these newsletters into a folder in my Gmail inbox and work through them on the weekend. This batching process allows me to scan any links shared in these newsletters in one go and decide which, on balance, seems most relevant, interesting, and thus worth the investment of my reading time.

Read more

Jun 3

Bear-Spotting in BC

I leave for Whistler, British Columbia first thing tomorrow morning for Actionable’s annual Consulting Partner Summit, and while I generally pride myself on packing light, I had to level up this time since I’m bringing a bunch of print materials for the event, as well as planning for both warm days and cold nights.

Read more

Oct 19

Countdown to Post 100: #2

This is it…the penultimate post in the countdown to #100. Without further ado, here is the second most read post on Talent Vanguard:

HR’s Future: ‘People Persons’ Need Not Apply – May 2013

Read more

Oct 12

Countdown to My 100th Post: #3

Hi! We’re getting close now… a few short weeks until I hit post 100. Hope I don’t run out of ideas for 100 and just type “People are our most valuable asset” 100 times…

Anyway, I’m sharing my third most read post of all time this week. But I’m sort of cheating. This is the third most read post on this site, but back in 2012 Business Insider was re-publishing some of my posts (with more click-baity titles) and this one racked up over 10,000 views on their site (and some really nasty comments, because the internet, amirite?). On the other hand, I got more e-mail about this post than any other and it was all from lovely humans 🙂

Read more

Oct 5

The Countdown to my 100th Post Continues: #4

Hello again and happy Thursday. As part of the countdown to my 100th post (on October 29th), I’m sharing my top 5 most-read posts of all time, and a few that I really liked, but that hardly anyone else read.

Here’s my 4th most-read post of all time:

Read more

Sep 28

The Countdown to my 100th Post is On!

Well, times flies when you are trying to think of something coherent to say 100 times…that is how the saying goes, right?  Maybe not…I can tell you that it does feel like yesterday that I started blogging in an unnoticed corner of the internet, and a lot has happened since then (that was in 2012).

I’m glad I’m still here, and over the coming weeks I’m going to countdown to post 100 by sharing my top 5 most-read posts of all time (and some that I like that hardly anyone read…ha ha).

Read more

Jul 16

5 Comments

Why HR Should Talk Less About Culture

This week an old post of mine, HR’s Sloppy Thinking About Culture, was shared on LinkedIn and then Twitter (thank you very much Simon Jones and Rob Briner). Once I got over the initial shock that five years have passed since I wrote it, it seemed like a good opportunity to revisit the topic of organizational culture.

Read more

Dec 20

1 Comment

I’m Back and Pre-Conference Blogging at LiveHR!

Hello there! Season’s greetings to you. It’s no secret that I’ve taken a significant break from blogging here at Talent Vanguard in the past several months. Life got pretty busy in 2014 and I suddenly found myself chairing a committee which runs the largest mentorship program for HR professionals in Ontario, planning a wedding, painting a house, and managing a busy job. These are all wonderful things that I am immensely grateful for, but over the summer my ‘overwhelmometer’ redlined and something had to give.

Anyway, I’m writing this because I’m back! I’ll be live blogging the HRPA’s Annual Conference in January over at LiveHR, and I am determined to return to a regular blogging schedule here at Talent Vanguard in 2015. Ahead of that please check out my pre-conference post “An Insider’s Guide to Selecting Your Conference Sessions” over at LiveHR where I offer some sage advice (if I do say so myself) on the art and science of selecting one’s conference sessions – a task that anyone who has attended an HR conference will know can make or break your conference experience.

For anyone attending the conference here in Toronto, I can’t wait to see you. May 2015 bring great things for us all.

P.S. It feels so good to be about to hit Publish in WordPress right now 🙂 I missed this…

 

 

« Older Entries