A thought leader is someone who has innovative ideas and concepts – someone who, despite what is going on around them, defies convention and tries something new and succeeds. It is a term that was coined over fifteen years ago and has a lot of new dynamics in the current age. The advent of social media and the continuing advance of technology makes being innovative and sharing those innovative ideas. How do we utilize these things to share our ideas? What things are there for us to use? Here are a few suggested resources you can use to help share your ideas with those who can help support you on your way to thought leadership.

1. Your community! While the internet has boundless forums and websites and so on and so forth that can help you share your ideas and gain recognition, the first place to always go is your own community. Your colleagues, customers, friends, and family – all of these people will listen to your ideas and it is very likely that if they like it they will share it with their own colleagues, customers, friends, and family. The power of speaking with those around you is surprisingly strong and people are usually quite eager to help those they know out if they believe in their ideas.
2. Social Media. I know I talk a lot about social media here, but that is because it can be a useful tool. There are both good and bad ways to utilize it, but that’s for another blog. Sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr, and many others can be used to help share and connect with people who may have similar ideas to you. Also, using Google to find more specialized forums and think tank type sites can help you as well. Be vigilant!
3. Self-publishing. If you have formed your idea enough, the world of self publishing is a very useful one. Many of the major publishers look to self publishers as a way of finding new and upcoming manuscripts so if you are confident enough about your idea you can take that next step by writing about it in a manuscript and going from there – who knows who could pick it up, or who could read it – the possibilities are endless.
4. Listen to advice! That’s my biggest tip, if there is any tip to give it is this one. Anyone who offers you help or gives you advice, listen. There are many bits of genuine information lying in a lot of the places you would least expect to find them. If you just look, search, and persevere, the right path is always there.

In the end, being a thought leader comes down to you. It comes down to your confidence and your drive. It comes down to your desire to really share your ideas with the world. If you believe you can change it, there’s no reason not to try. To stay at the edge of issues on HR and staffing, be sure to subscribe to the Human Capital Supply Chain Blog.

Are YOU an HR Thought Leader ?? is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

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In the January 18, 2010 issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek, writers Peter Coy, Michelle Conlin, Moira Herbst and Carol Matlack penned an article titled “The Disposable Worker”. This negative article painted a picture of temporary workers as abused and undervalued by the corporations who work with them. These writers could not be further from the truth.

Peter Cappelli of the Wharton Business School laments that “the brutal recession has prompted companies to create Just-In-Time labor forces”, where companies hold all the power and “all the risks are pushed to employees”. Professor Cappelli is partially correct in that companies ARE moving to Just-In Time human capital supply chains, but for different reasons. Cappelli and the writers paint a picture of greddy corporate executives taking advantage of temporary workers to fatten their profits and bonuses. Except for the Gordon Gekkos of the banking/investment industry, this is not true. Whether we Americans like it or not, the world is not standing still and companies around the world are producing products and services at costs lower than the United States. In the past, we could ignore their footsteps because of their shoddy workmanship and poor quality, BUT NO MORE. We need to develop less expensive quality sources of labor and the U.S. Temporary “nonstandard” Worker is our greatest resource.

The writers also state that 26% of U.S. workers are nonstandard who are “easy to shuck off when unneeded” and includes temps, independent contractors, part-timers, and freelancers. Because the writers are ‘Stuck In The Past”, they missed the point that the American workforce has changed and workers no longer work their entire life for the same company with a lifetime pension and 100% benefits forever. Those days are gone !!!

Americans are an independent lot of people that would rather depend upon themselves than any company or government. We prefer to manage our own careers, use our 401k to save for our own retirement, pay our own way through college and choose what doctors we see. When you think about it, the Temporary “nonstandard” lifestyle is a better fit for the American free spirit than wearing a corporate blue suit every day.

At first, I thought the writers were members of the AFL-CIO or the Teamsters with their antiquated view of the American worker. The fall of the American auto and steel industries should be proof enough that the unionized approach to unbending work rules, the normalization of the American worker and 1960′s style pensions/benefits are no longer competitive in today’s integrated global economy. The flexible Temp model is the business model of the future that can help raise Americans back to the peak of economic power and improved wages for all workers.

The problem with the Land of Layoffs that America is currently experiencing relates to the fact that companies of any size are terrible at predicting their workforce needs over time and have never invested in workforce planning technologies to improve that situation. We have spent billion on improving the just-in-time delivery of parts to our factories to reduce waste and rework, BUT we have not spent an equal amount of time and money to better understand and manage our Human Capital Supply Chains. Maybe NOW is the time for that change.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek Stuck In Past is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

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