With 2012 coming to a close, its time to look back on the year in movies, TV, books, music, videogames, and food.  Over the course of the year, I viewed 107 movies, read 55 books, watched countless hours of TV, played countless hours of Angry Birds, listened to a lot of music, and ate a lot of food.  So, what tops the list in 2012?

Sight
The Best Things I Saw In 2012

1. Sherlock: Season 2, Episode 1 - A Scandal in Belgravia - The most exhilarating hour and a half of viewing this year.  Well-acted, great script.  Well-worth your time
2. Key & Peele: East/West College Bowl - I've seen it well over 30 times and it never fails to make me laugh out loud each time.
3. Bill Clinton, Democratic National Convention - One of the best speeches I have ever seen.

1. Argo - Excellent effort from Ben Affleck
2. Moonrise Kingdom - A return to form from Wes Anderson
3. Cabin in the Woods - Forget "The Avengers," this was the better Joss Whedon film

Like most, I've been ruminating over the weekend over Friday's tragedy in Connecticut, and watching the various pundits pontificate on the various issues (gun control, mental illness, violent videogames and movies) and potential solutions, many of which I mentioned in yesterday's post.

However, a crucial conversation has been missing.  

Much of the discussion has been about gun rights to the point where gun rights advocates feel they are victims as well.  However, what is being ignored is while we have a 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, why do so many choose to exercise it?

The purpose of gun ownership, as far as I can tell, is two-fold:
1.  For hunting and sport
2.  For protection

We have a strong police force that supposedly serve to protect us.
We have significant laws that supposedly serve as a deterrent to crime.
We have an insurance system that most of us pay a significant amount of money to supposedly protect us in case of loss.
Many communities have adopted neighborhood watch programs to look out for one another.

In other words, we have a strong web of support in the community that should mitigate our need for gun ownership.

Yet, estimates indicate that U.S. citizens own nearly 270 million guns, most of which, I would guess, are NOT typically used for hunting or sport.

So what is driving this passionate need to own a gun?  What are we needing protection from?  What is driving our fear?

For example, a portrait of Nancy Lanza, the mother of the Connecticut shooter Adam Lanza, is coming to light:

Last night it also emerged Nancy was a member of the Doomsday Preppers movement, which believes people should prepare for end of the world. 

Her former sister-in-law Marsha said she had turned her home ‘into a fortress’. She added: ‘Nancy had a survivalist philosophy which is why she was stockpiling guns. She had them for defense.
‘She was stockpiling food. She grew up on a farm in New Hampshire. She was skilled with guns. We talked about preppers and preparing for the economy collapsing.’

• It assumes the teacher will have firepower sufficient to take that individual or group of individuals down
• It assumes that the gun is quickly and readily available at the teacher's side instead of being locked away in a desk or closet that might take some time to access when the assailant enters
• It assumes the teacher will be able to accurately identify whether the person entering is a threat or simply another student or colleague.
• It assumes that even if the teacher was able to access the weapon quickly enough, and make the correct identification, she will be able to act both quickly and accurately enough to get off shots that will not only disarm/diable/kill the assailants, but conveniently does not hit one child.

Growing up, it is not uncommon for many of your childhood friends to be the children of your parents' friends.  The parents would get together for dinner and drinks and, inevitably, the kids would be thrown into the mix.

A couple of years ago, we had a holiday gathering with some of those long-time family friends.  We were reminiscing on the many memories we shared, and the question arose from one of our parents, "What do you feel was the worst thing we did as parents?"  The grown-up kids went around the room sharing what they felt was the biggest transgression they experienced.  Looking around the room, jaws were agape, as the parents were not expecting the answer that was given.

So, we turned it around and put the burden on the parents; "What do you feel most guilty about as a parent?"  Again, stories were told, and, much to their dismay, we had little no recollection of the things that haunted them. 

With that in mind, you may want to ask your employees or boss similar questions.  You just might be as surprised as we were with the answer you get.

There is a lot of talk about HR being a strategic partner/leader today.  Yet in most organizations HR is not part of the executive team.  So, what is required to be a strategic HR leader?  And what must HR do when it has a "seat at the table?

"You're Not That Great" by Dr. Daniel Crosby

Imagine, if you will, your sales and marketing team making broad claims of success for your organization - gaining significant market share, increasing sales volume, what have you.  However, at the end of the year, not only were they wrong, the were widely off the mark.  

What do you do?  Fire them?  Pat them on the back and say better luck next time?  What is their responsibility for their inaccurate claims?  Do they remain credible?

With that in mind, its been interesting to see the fallout from the 2012 election of a similar group of claim makers - the political pundit.  Think about it - their one job during an election year is to analyze the race.  They have the inside connections, the ear to the ground, the background that should be able to make more accurate predictions than simply throwing a dart at a dartboard.

On the one hand, you have Nate Silver, whose fivethirtyeight.com blog at the New York Times. Using statistical analyses and poll averaging on a daily basis, he laid out the likelihood of the outcome of the Presidential outcome as well as who would win the electoral votes in each state.  He was pilloried, particularly in the last few weeks of the race.  Joe Scarborough, on the Morning Joe show on MSNBC, took particular offense, stating on October 29, “Anybody that thinks that this race is anything but a tossup right now is such an ideologue, they should be kept away from typewriters, computers, laptops and microphones for the next 10 days, because they’re jokes.”

Mr. Silver was more than willing to back up his claims, offering Mr. Scarborough a bet on Twitter of $1000 on the outcome of the race.  

On the other hand, take Peggy Noonan, for example.  In her Wall Street Journal blog on November 5, she wrote:

Who knows what to make of the weighting of the polls and the assumptions as to who will vote? Who knows the depth and breadth of each party’s turnout efforts? Among the wisest words spoken this cycle were by John Dickerson of CBS News and Slate, who said, in a conversation the night before the last presidential debate, that he thought maybe the American people were quietly cooking something up, something we don’t know about.

I think they are and I think it’s this: a Romney win.....All the vibrations are right.....

On Tuesday, the monthly #SHRMChat focused on the vexing topic of chapter programming - where do you find your speakers?  The lack of collaboration among chapters sharing information about successful speakers was noted as well as a desire for a Yelp-like tool where chapters could identify good (and not-so-good) speakers.  Hearing about this, the St. Norbert College SHRM chapter sprung into action and put together a tool using list.ly for chapters to utilize in addressing the programming issue.  Sharing the details is guest blogger, Jenna Ray Hines, President of SNC SHRM: 

Have you ever had a difficult time finding a quality speaker in your region for your SHRM Chapter or Conference event? 

We have created Crowdsourcing SHRM Chapter Speakers for that exact reason. 

We wanted to create an outlet for chapters to find and recommend quality, cost efficient speakers within their respective regions. After a chapter has a quality speaker, they can post on their list.ly regional page to promote the speaker and presentation topic as well as mention if it was HRCI-approved. 

This social media tool will be useful for chapters to collect ideas, collaborate, and share successes. 

We are using list.ly, a social media website that allows users to create and share lists that other users can build upon, to host our five regional lists. Each one of the regional pages represents one of the five SHRM HR regions and can be used by them to collect their list of recommended regional speakers:

Dear Target Employees,

We hear you (as well as your friends at Toys R Us and Wal-mart) are upset about the possibility of working on Thanksgiving day, taking time away from your families.

If Target corporate backs off, will you be joining us for some popcorn and a showing of "Life of Pi" or "Red Dawn" that evening?

Regards,

Your local movie theater employees

One of the classic pieces of management literature is Steven Kerr's 1975 (updated in 1995) piece, " On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B."  Kerr's central point is that the behavior that is often desired is not necessarily the one that is rewarded.

Kerr highlights a number of examples:
*War - In World War II, soldiers did not return home until the war was won.  In Vietnam, soldiers had the same goal - to get home - but that reward was earned when the tour of duty was over, not with a victory

*Health care - As costs continue to rise, we want doctors to look at providing health care more efficiently and effectively.  However, physicians over test and overserve, perhaps in fear of malpractice suits.  Similarly, what incentive is there as consumers to keep costs down and demand less testing, particularly when they bear so little of the costs with insurance.

*Universities - The job responsibilities for a professor are to teach and advise students, conduct research/engage in scholarship, and serve the community.  While the student probably values the first option most highly, the route to tenure and promotion is through successful research.  Hence, when time is tight, the astute professor will dedicate his or her time to research at the expense of quality teaching.  Further, mediocre teaching is rarely punished.

Which brings us to this week's topic - politics.  Kerr writes:

The American citizenry supposedly wants its candidates for public office put forth operative goals, making their proposed programs "perfectly clear," specifying sources and uses of funds, etc.  However, since operative goals are lower in acceptance, and since aspirants to public office need acceptance (from at least 50.1 percent of the people), most politicians prefer to speak only of official goals, at least until after the election.....Instead, however, the American voter typically punishes (withholds suport from) candidates who frankly discuss where the money will come from, rewards politicians who speak only of official goals, but hopes that candidates (despite the reward system) will discuss the issues operatively.

Yesterday's post dealt with the issue of why we vote on Tuesday and its impact on the workplace.

Another challenge is simple voter participation - how do we increase the number of people turning out to the polls?  Civic duty has long been perceived as the reason most people vote.  Yet, a significant portion of individuals choose to ignore this duty; an estimated 50 million Americans won't vote today.  Only 56.8 percent of the voting age population cast a ballot in 2008.

Beyond changing the date, what might increase that participation?  In "Get Out the Vote," Donald Green and Alan Gerber found that automated calls only generate one vote per 900 calls (yet, the constant ringing at my home this past week suggests campaigns haven't learned this lesson).  Campaign flyers, they suggest, are not much more effective than doing nothing.  E-mails are useless.

If those don't work...what does?  

Shame.

In "Social Pressure and Voter Turnout:Evidence from a Large Scale Experiment," Gerber, Green, and Christopher Larimer sent out four different pieces of campaign mail to nearly 300,000 people urging them to vote in the 2006 Michigan primary. All four treatments carried a similar message - "DO YOUR CIVIC DUTY  - VOTE," but differed as follows:

• "Civic Duty" - Households receiving this type of mailing were told, “Remember your rights and responsibilities as a citizen. Remember to vote.”
• "Hawthorne Effect" - Households receiving this mailing were told “YOU ARE BEING STUDIED!” and informed that their voting behavior would be examined by means of public records.
• "Self" - The “Self” mailing exerts more social pressure by informing recipients that who votes is public information and listing the recent voting record of each registered voter in the household. The word “Voted” appears by names of registered voters in the household who actually voted in the 2004 primary election and the 2004 general election, and a blank space appears if they did not vote.
• "Neighbors" - The fourth mailing ratchets up the social pressure even further by listing not only the household’s voting records but also the voting records of those living nearby. Like the “Self” mailing, the Neighbors” mailing informed the recipient that “we intend to mail an updated chart” after the primary,showing whether members of the household voted in the primary and who among their neighbors had actually voted in the primary.

With the U.S. national election tomorrow, its going to be politics week on the blog.

Today - Why do we vote on Tuesday?

According to whytuesday.org:

In 1845, before Florida, California, and Texas were states or slavery had been abolished, Congress needed to pick a time for Americans to vote. We were an agrarian society. We traveled by horse and buggy. Farmers needed a day to get to the county seat, a day to vote, and a day to get back, without interfering with the three days of worship. So that left Tuesday and Wednesday, but Wednesday was market day. So, Tuesday it was. In 1875 Congress extended the Tuesday date for national House elections and in 1914 for federal Senate elections.

Far from a diva demand, the candy clause was a brilliant safety feature.  Van Halen shows required tons of gear that required specific fixtures to run safely.  One look at the M&Ms told the band's manager whether the venue had read the whole contract: Brown candy meant potentially deadly working conditions.

Last Sunday, the fifth iteration of HRevolution took place in the West Wing of the McCormick Place with over 100 attendees and guests in place.  Already, reviews have come in fast and furious - check out:

• Ben Eubanks: HRevolution 2012 - What Just Happened
• Bonnie Titgemeyer: No Nudie Pictures on LinkedIn & Other Tips from HRevolution
• Robin Schooling: Communal Collaboration
• Robin Schooling: The Pushback on the Push-Pull

• High-Quality Content - We'll have to wait for the conference evaluation survey to go out, but I heard few complaints about the sessions were offered.  At each breakout time, attendees were offered at least two quality breakout sessions.
• Cost - Given the quality provided, the registration fee still feels like a bargain compared to many SHRM day long conferences
• Many New Attendees - Nearly 50% of attendees had not been to a previous HRevolution event.  It's always great to see fresh faces and new perspectives.
• Sponsors - Aquire, Ceridian, Pinstripe, and SilkRoad were helpful in keeping attendee costs down.
• McCormick Place - While it is an expansive locale, we only needed a small number of rooms in a confined space, and McCormick Place fit the bill (other than having no Diet Coke and being far away from coffee)
• The planning team - As always, Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane, and Ben Eubanks were dedicated to making sure the event was a success and were wonderful to work with.

• Chicago - As much as I like the city, putting the event on the same day of the Chicago Marathon made travel to McCormick Place difficult, as well as hotel cost prohibitive.
• Missing Friends - While I loved seeing many new attendees, I missed seeing some usual attendees as well as there input.
• Combative Conversation - Perhaps it was the quality of sessions, but for the ones I attended, there was a lot more one-way presentations with questions than discussion about the HR issues of today and tomorrow.

• New speakers and content - While our sessions and speakers were great, there were many familiar faces who have spoken at HRevolution before.  Then again, the 1997 NBC campaign for reruns comes to mind - "If you haven't seen it, it's new to you."  With so many new faces, it was great for those attendees to see some of the best in the business.
• Sponsored Bloody Mary Bar - I don't know why we haven't seen it before, but given the inevitable Tweetup the night before, providing Bloody Mary's the next morning seems apropos...and I believe at least one potential sponsor has already been identified.

1. Hire the greatest employees with a passion to solve customers problems.  Aquire has a dedication to its employees that has placed it on several"Best Places to Work lists."  In addition, through initiatives such as the "Aquire culture club," employees can give back to the community.   This has enabled Aquire to not only maintain a strong retention rate, but serve the customer in a meaningful fashion.  Click here to learn more about working at Aquire.
2. Aquire InSight - Taking workforce planning and analytics to the leaders of organizations in a visual and powerful way, Insight allows individuals to determine the root cause of performance issues, without keeping that valuable information and knowledge in a back room with only the data crunchers.  Click here to learn more about InSight.
3. OrgPublisher mobility - Aquire's OrgPublisher has long been a leader in organizational charting and workforce reporting software.  Now, like the Who, it is "Goin' Mobile" by enabling OrgPublisher to be used in on the iPad and putting talent data in the executives hands.

Check out this recent ad for a Humanities position at Colorado State University.   Focus on the following:

Required qualifications:

1. Ph.D. in English or American Studies or closely related area awarded between 2010 and time of appointment.
2. A promising record of scholarship/research in pre-1900 American literature and culture.
3. Ability to teach a range of subjects in American literature and culture between 1600 and 1900.