We would like to wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving. I know we have a lot to be thankful for . . . our spouses, children, health and country. We hope that you have lots to be thankful for as well. Every year in elementary school, my youngest son always comes home with a new bit of information. As you might have guessed, he always draws me in on these trivial tidbits. I did some fact checking on the internet and provided some links to support them: The true beginning of the present Thanksgiving Day is believed to have come in the 3rd year the Pilgrims settled in the… Read More
Continue ReadingDoin’ Time On The North Side
Minnesota is not only a beautiful state to live in, we apparently have a popular federal prisons up here too. Jeffrey Skilling of Enron “fame” is going to do his time up here. According to the Pioneer Press, we have had some other infamous prisoners in the state: Former television evangelist Jim Bakker (convicted of bilking followers) Richard Miller, the first FBI agent convicted of spying Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, terrorist linked to Osama bin Laden Presidential fringe candidate Lyndon LaRouche (fraud, tax evasion) Comedian Tim Allen (cocaine trafficking in his early 20s) I don’t think that list is going to make it to the Chamber of Commerce literature.
Continue ReadingVeteran’s Day
This Saturday, November 11th is Veteran’s Day and I hope you will observe this holiday by remembering the sacrifices of our military men & women including their families. I would like to share a little bit of history with you regarding this day of remembrance. June 28, 1919 – Treaty of Versailles was signed, officially ended World War I. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier for that reason, November 11, 1918 , is generally regarded as the end of the war to end all wars. November 11, 1919 – President Wilson proclaimed the first commemoration of Armistice Day. June 4, 1926 – United States Congress officially recognized the end of… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Blogosphere
Abcnews.com references the latest Technorati summary of the blogosphere in A Billion Bloggers? As you may have guessed from the title, there are many blogs out there. A taste of some statistics from the lengthy article: Put simply, the growth of the blogosphere since March 2001 is the upward trajectory of a sine wave, from zero “weblogs” then to 57 million blogs today. And the number continues to grow by 3 million blogs per month, or 100,000 per day. A total of 1.3 million posts per day. At times, I believe I have my RSS reader set up to read every one of those posts.
Continue ReadingThe End of Quarterly Reports?
Interesting, quick story – ‘Big Four’ Accounting Firms: Nix Quarterly Results Reporting. Surely the speed of the Internet has to be the main force behind this suggestion. The heads of the “Big Four” accounting firms . . . said the standard financial reporting model used in the last century is growing less relevant and meaningful. Instead, the firms proposed static quarterly financial statements be replaced by real-time, Internet-based reporting, including a wider range of performance measures. I’m not a financial advisor, but, at first blush, this change would be dramatic. I suspect much of the corruption schemes would be difficult to perpetrate with this almost real-time approach.
Continue ReadingWho is the Toughest?
In a recent a recent Workforce Management newsletter it had quick article that caught my eye. It was titled: Who’s Tough and Who’s Not (sorry no link available) and looks to see what is the toughest group in corporate America. PsyMax Solutions, a human capital assessment company in Cleveland conducted a survey and reached its conclusions after studying the responses of more than 2,000 employees. It found that middle managers are the most resilient, are better able to accept criticism, manage stress and bounce back from frustration and disappointments.
Continue ReadingTime to Vote
I know you will hear it often today, but please take the time today to get to the polls and cast your vote. All of us at The Hire Sense will be taking time today to perform this civic responsibility that much of the world does not have the freedom to enjoy. See you at the polls.
Continue ReadingDaylight Saving Time and Y2K?
Most peole do not put much thought into daylight saving time, until it is time to adjust your clocks. In SHRM’s recent newsletter, they offered a short article that got me thinking that there is more to it than this. A quick Google search revealed there are over 500,000 articles that come up when you search on daylight saving time. I had forgotten that the law was actually passed back in 2005 and at the time I was amazed as to why they were not going to implement the change until 2007. For decades, candy manufacturers have lobbied for a daylight saving time extension through Halloween. What is interesting about… Read More
Continue ReadingiPods at Work
Full disclosure – I don’t personally own an MP3 player (my kids do), but I do use one from time to time. This past week I have come across several articles about the use of them at work, the pro’s & con’s of allowing them and whether companies have policies regulating their use. Here are some of the articles and the interesting points I found in them: iPod @ Work – StarTribune.com Some problems that occur related to the wearing of iPods/MP3s include the users not being able to hear others when they address them, inaccuracies and mistakes on the job due to being more mentally engaged in the music,… Read More
Continue ReadingFortune 500 Blogs
Business blogs seem to be the topic of the day here at The Hire Sense so I putzed around with Google and came across this interesting wiki site that is amassing the active public blogs concerning Fortune 500 companies. Their preliminary findings: According to our research, 40 (8%) of the Fortune 500 are blogging as of 10/05/06 Some of the blogs are written by employees while others are truly corporate-sponsored blogs.
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