5 Ways To Conquer One Critical Technology Mistake

Technology can bring positive disruption to your business, even though it doesn’t always trump old-fashioned tools. Whether social media, e-commerce, 3D printing, robotics, cloud computing, or something barely dreamed of yet, using technology for your business can put you ahead of the competition.

That is, when you use it correctly. Do it wrong and you can spend time and money in an arms race that doesn’t give you the boost you could get.

The issue is how you consider technology. To invest more intelligently and get a bigger ROI, you need to place your bets with more care. Here are five ways to get smarter about using technology to improve your business.

Go for the right kind of innovation

Technology can be an enabler of innovation. But there are multiple types of innovation. For example, you can have massive breakthrough ideas or perform refinements on something that already exists. Harvard Business School Professor Clay Christensen and Senior Lecturer Derek van Bever have mentioned the concept of the Capitalist’s Dilemma. Entrepreneurs can choose to invest in innovation that expands the possibilities of the company, or they can focus on cutting costs to save capital. In saving pennies, you may pass on the opportunity to generate significant dollars.

Factor in your competitive advantage

Your competitive advantage is what enables your business to really take off. All of your strategy should take the competitive advantage into account. Will your technology investment help or hurt it? There’s nothing wrong in supporting other aspects of the business, of course, but you’re on the wrong track if you aren’t considering the deeper strategic issues in choosing what to implement.

Look at the true price

A classic mistake in technology is to not consider the full cost of implementation. Have you calculated the necessary additional hardware, software and infrastructure? Training? The cost of reengineering business processes? The investment that a larger market would have to undertake for compatibility? If your company developed a new type of payment system that worked with phones, you’d have to consider whether the market had the equipment to be compatible and, if not, whether it would be on average willing to invest. One investment that might seem more expensive in the short view could turn out to be cheaper, offering a higher ROI.

See what your rivals do

Technology strategy is more than looking at what you want to do internally. Implementing something new should let you offer more value to customers in one way or another. Otherwise, you’re back to the concept of cost cutting your way to greatness, which rarely happens. To decide where to invest, keep an eye on competitors or companies that are similar to yours but not directly competitive to see what value they’ve been providing to customers. The analysis might suggest some paths you could take.

Do you need a trampoline or a ladder?

Location is everything in real estate. It’s also important in making strategic decisions because it shows context. Deciding on a technical investment should depend heavily on where you are. If you’re behind competitors and the market in general, you need to put your money into ladders that can get you out of the pit you’re in. If you’re already on level ground, build a trampoline to propel yourself ahead of others.

Technology will always be important in various ways to your company. Think through your relationship to it and choose where to invest, so you can get the most benefit for the price.

via 5 Ways To Conquer One Critical Technology Mistake | Inc.com.

5 Ways To Conquer One Critical Technology Mistake

3 Ways to Tell Employees They"re Getting Paid More Than They Think

One of the main perks of having a job is having steady health insurance. And yet only 70 percent of small businesses report offering health insurance to their employees.

That’s a rising figure (up from 66 percent in 2009), but it means that three of every 10 small-business employees still don’t have employer-sponsored health insurance.

If your company does provide health care as a way to communicate that you care about employees’ well-being and help retain top talent, your stellar benefits package won’t have as great an impact if employees don’t understand just how much you’re contributing toward their benefits.

A benefits package is certainly part of compensation–just as much as a paycheck is–but Millennials tend to value the extra zeros at the end of a paycheck, not the health insurance they use to visit the dentist twice a year. On the other hand, older employees who have been in the work force for several decades may take benefits for granted, because the rising costs of health care have been virtually invisible to them.

Health is an intangible value, and it can be difficult to get your employees to understand how much they’re actually being paid.

Here are a few ways to communicate the value of your company’s benefit package and help employees get more out of it:

1. Have an open discussion about health care

No, you don’t have to tag along to the doctor with your employees. But if your company values transparency, health insurance should be an open discussion, along with your financials and sales figures.

Show your employees that premiums have been on the rise, and give them an open forum to request and receive feedback on their health care.

2. Put it on their paychecks

Whether your employees have a $500 deductible or a $5,000 deductible, let them know how much the company is contributing to health care. Try including both the monthly cost for the employee and the company on employee paychecks so there’s no uncertainty about what you’re providing.

3. Make information accessible with tech

If you’re an old-school company that stores all of its health care info in a binder on your HR person’s desk, it’s time to get real. No one reads that.

Instead, give employees online tools they can use to navigate the health care system effectively. Concierge services like Health Advocate provide cost-comparison tools, information, and help locating the best prices for medical procedures in your area. If employees can use their benefits to the best of their ability, they’ll value them–and your company–more.

As a leader, you know that employee benefits are the second-largest expense on the annual budget. But if your employees don’t know how much you’re spending on their behalf, your company won’t reap the full benefits of providing health care.

If you want to show employees how much they’re really being paid, start an open discussion about the cost of health care. It will show employees how much you value them and make them value your contribution even more.

via 3 Ways to Tell Employees They’re Getting Paid More Than They Think | Inc.com.

3 Ways to Tell Employees They"re Getting Paid More Than They Think

Infographic: Big data’s future in education

Data collection and analysis has become a big priority in colleges and universities, with 79 percent of institutions experiencing substantial data growth and 57 percent of institutions reporting that analytics is a priority when it comes to big data, according to a recent study sponsored by Dell.

Most schools aren’t changing their daily lesson plans based on big data analytics, experts say, but the innovations in data management/analytics systems are promising.

“A lot of teachers are using software to organize data, but it’s an emerging industry,” Steven Ross, a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Research and Reform in Education, told Tech Page One.

Specialized data software assesses students with a number of indicators that include the social, emotional, physical and mental health of students to gain a holistic understanding of a student’s learning.

“If a student is trailing on these indicators, they get an ‘off-track’ symbol, and teachers can work with counselors and other administrators to intervene,” Ross said.

With the software, “you work with the student on a social and emotional basis rather than drill after drill,” Ross said.

Many software systems also allow educators to log how a student performed on a particular lesson. After they’ve logged data on several lessons, they can identify a student’s strong suits and what skills need work.

The main objective of data collection and analysis is to individualize student learning.

“The more you know about where a child is in terms of learning, the more you can customize the learning process,” said Iwan Streichenberger, CEO of InBloom, which makes data tools for educators.

Educators can use big data to make decisions about class, small group or individual projects.

“For instance, teachers may decide to group top performing students together for group projects, or they may group a top performer in an area with a group that needs help,” Streichenberger told Tech Page One.

Collecting, aggregating data

Merely collecting student data simply isn’t effective for educators.

“Collecting data just for the sake of having it is not nearly as important as how actionable the data is,” said Andy Myers, CMO at Renaissance Learning, which also makes a data analytics tool for educators.

Aggregating student data — having teachers, counselors, administrators and other school employees log information on students and then share it — is “critical,” Myers told Tech Page One.

Streichenberger agreed with that sentiment.

“The challenge isn’t processing data, but making it available to the right people at the right time,” he said. “For instance, if we’re trying to find predictive factors for kids dropping out of school, we can look at the data and know what to look for because we know their health, personal life and academics.”

Privacy concerns

Anonymizing that information to some extent and setting privacy controls on data sets through software programs is the next step.

“When you take data and you remove personalized information and anonymize it, you can learn what’s working, what’s not working and how schools are improving,” Myers said. “You can then look at all schools across the country from a macro perspective or you can use it on a micro level in the classroom for precise, timely instruction.”

About 58 percent of institutions in the Dell study reported that security is the top challenge when it comes to student data.

Given the need for secure software, Streichenberger said educators can expect to see innovations in terms of sophisticated privacy settings in data analytics software in the future.

“Privacy is a science,” he said. “There’s a complex way to create value for the users with data without potentially compromising their privacy.”

The future of big data

In general, synthesizing student data should be a high priority for schools, some experts say.

Ross said public school systems rely too heavily on testing to assess students’ understanding of material. Instead, big data should be at the forefront.

But the tides appear to be turning as more schools and universities adopt data analytics programs.

“Eventually, we will back away from [rigorous testing]” to focus on big data, Ross said.

Check out the infographic below for more interesting statistics on digital education.

via Infographic: Big data’s future in education.

Infographic: Big data’s future in education

#1 Tip For Acing An Interview: Mirroring

Want to know the key to acing an interview? Imagine stepping into a deep conversation with a friend. You may share the same posture, hand gestures, tone, and rate of speech. You can also tell when other people are in deep conversation by similarities in body language.

What’s happening is mirroring. It’s subconsciously helping those in conversation maintain rapport through similarities observed from body language. There is a sense of ease talking with one another and a sense of the same mood.

Establishing good rapport is vitally important during a job interview and it may make the difference between getting an offer or not. Remember, people hire people they like so, the next time you find yourself in a job interview, apply the technique of mirroring to help you get a better handle of the other person and to make everyone feel at ease with the conversation that is taking place.

Mirroring is about observing the other person’s body language, which may include posture, hand gestures, facial expressions, tone, volume and rate of speech, and applying it to your body language. Of course, mirroring should be sincere and natural.

Keep in mind the following tips to help observe body language and apply mirroring subtly.

Body Posture

Review body posture, which may include sitting upright, leaning forward, and placing hands on the table. Wait at least 10 seconds after observing before making adjustments to your own body posture to match.

Hand Gestures

Watch how your contact makes hand gestures when talking and, if applicable, do the same when it is your turn to talk.

Voice

Review the tone, volume and rate of speech when your contact speaks and apply the same when you are responding with comment.

Head Movement

Look out for head gestures such as a nod or tilt of the head and respond accordingly.

Facial Expressions

Facial expressions may include a raised eyebrow or smile. Make a connection with your own facial expression to exemplify that you understand what the other person is saying and that you are engaged in the conversation.

Be careful though. If mirroring is not done sincerely, you can come off as dishonest and it can ruin your chance of making a positive impression. Take care in applying the tips above and avoid mirroring negative connotations in body language. Negative connotations may include crossing arms over the chest, looking at the clock or watch, leaning the chin on the hand, yawning and turning the body sideways.

Mirroring is a technique that is effective, easy to apply and offers a simple way for you to establish a connection in new ways by reinforcing perceptions and physical behaviors. Apply the technique during a job interview, networking, and many other instances in life to help build rapport and relationships with important constituents.

via #1 Tip For Acing An Interview: Mirroring | CAREEREALISM.

#1 Tip For Acing An Interview: Mirroring

Big Data in Recruiting

Recruiting rockstars is almost as critical to the future of a business as having an amazing product offering that meets a critical market need. The human capital of any company truly is one of its most valuable assets. But unlike the technological advances in marketing, customer support and sales, recruitment at most companies hasn’t seen significant improvements that support analytics-driven, evidenced-based talent acquisition. According to a recent survey, 90% of startups rank talent acquisition as their biggest challenge. And finding the right candidates with specific skills is just as much of a problem for bigger companies too.

In recent years though, the advent of big data in hiring is exponentially changing the game, empowering recruiters and their organizations like never before. With the right data, recruiting the best candidates is faster, more strategic, cost-effective and objective, which explains why an increasing number of companies are making it a priority.

A 2013 ABI Research report forecasts that big data spending will exceed $31 billion in 2013 and reach $114 billion in 2018. A separate industry study revealed that a whopping 91% of Fortune 1000 company executives said they had plans to or were already implementing big data initiatives.

People analytics, also referred to as “Moneyball” for human resources, gives recruiters insights into when to hire, how many people to hire and whom to hire, while keeping costs low, increasing the efficiency of the process and widening the pool of candidates. Big data also helps recruiters identify which sources and job boards generate the largest volume of the specific types of candidates they’re looking for, empowering them to control their talent pipelines and optimize hiring.

In the end, big data surfaces talent that regular hiring channels can’t, helping companies hire employees who are more qualified, easier to train, happier and more likely to stay with the company. But, without a scalable plan, navigating through big data to find hiring insights can be a daunting task, even with the right people and tools. Here are five important big data questions that recruiters should be asking:

1. What analytics and data currently define your hiring process?

Many recruiters employ a mix of analytics, personal opinions, feedback from peers and intuition to make hiring decisions. The most commonly used hiring analytics include college grades and majors, employment history, skills, keywords and answers to computerised tests. Although this helps narrow the applicant pool, it doesn’t help identify the ideal candidates among them. It’s also important to analyze how you rate your preferred job boards and the quality of applicants on them.

Another factor to assess is how “subjective” the hiring process is at your company. How much do your recruiters use “intuition” to move a candidate to the next round? As much as we’d all like to believe that hiring isn’t biased, there are many examples that prove the opposite is still true.

As a use case, look at Xerox, where the HR team cut attrition by 20% using evidenced-based criteria. To do this, Xerox stopped assessing call center job candidates based on experience, as data showed that it didn’t matter as much for that role. What mattered more was personality. During a six-month trial period, the company had all applicants for its 55,000 call center jobs take a screening test with questions designed to assess personality types. Maybe it’s time to change some of your hiring criteria based on big data learnings.

2. Are you gaining data insights from the job boards you use?

In today’s connected world where candidates are on multiple sites seeking out job openings and employee feedback on a company’s work culture and employee benefits, it’s important for recruiters to be everywhere that candidates are. Today, most job boards offer innovative tools and data insights to help identify the right candidates, promote job openings and facilitate more automated communication with applicants. Since 10 to 20% of hires come from job boards, make sure you choose yours wisely.

Does your job board analyze hundreds of data points being captured on candidates and employers and share actionable insights? Job boards can tell you the best day of the week and time of day to post a new job, job titles and keywords with the highest click-thru rates, hiring trends and patterns, and how your posts are performing compared to industry averages. Based on these insights, recruiters can tailor their listing frequency, timing and content for optimal talent acquisition.

3. Do you have tools and resources to make sense of big data?

While big data can help recruiters find the best possible talent, gathering and sifting through volumes of data to find insights can sometimes be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Not every HR team has the time, money or resources for deep data analysis. But, there are many third-party services and software, like Umbel and Evolv, that can help alleviate the workload. Plus, for a fee, websites like LinkedIn offer access to useful and actionable recruiting insights.

Documenting successes and convincing top leadership at your company to dedicate money and resources will help fill the gaps in critical talent areas and grow the business. In the long run, hiring the wrong candidates can end up costing the company a lot more than spending on recruitment. For example, in a 2013 Career Builder study, 27% of U.S. employers surveyed estimated that every bad hire could cost their company more than $50,000.

4. How are other companies using data to improve recruiting?

Gate Gourmet, an airline industry catering provider was struggling to lower an unusually high 50% attrition rate among 1000 employees at the O’Hare Airport in Chicago. Using data captured by internal systems, and external data like salaries, demographics and transportation options, the company confirmed its suspicion that the attrition rate was directly related to the distance and transportation options from employees’ homes to the airport, allowing them to change their hiring process and reduce attrition by 27%.

Royal Dutch Shell asked candidates to play two video games called “Dungeon Scrawl” and “Wasabi Waiter,” and analyzed the data to determine which of them would be better at creative thinking and idea generation based on persistence, creativity and the ability to learn from mistakes while playing the games.

Richmond Management LLC, a waste-disposal company in Flint, MI employs 200 garbage collectors. The company wants to eliminate job applicants more likely to hurt themselves and claim workers’ compensation so they use a customized online test to gauge candidates’ emotional stability, work ethic and attitude toward drugs and alcohol. The company reduced workers’ compensation claims by 68% since they started using this test to eliminate high-risk applicants.

5. Will big data replace recruiters and put them out of work?

Deloitte predicts that global spending on integrated talent management systems will grow by 17% to more than $6 billion in 2014. The 2014 HR Service Delivery and Technology Survey, a global survey of 1,048 companies, found that one in three respondents plan to spend more on HR technology in the coming year. But that doesn’t mean that recruiting will become automated by predictive analytics or algorithms. It’s only going to morph into more of a man-plus-machine role.

In addition to all the data insights, companies still need human recruiters for competitive intelligence and talent identification. At the most basic level, recruitment is still about people and requires high emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills that machines don’t have.

As more people are becoming concerned about their privacy every day, a lot of senior level executives are hiding their online job search from anyone outside their trusted circles. A recruiter can still reach these candidates by picking up the phone and calling them directly. In addition, more data often means more headaches and more margins for error. Recruiting even with big data will still depend on who’s actually using that data, and the human ability to connect with one another.

via Big Data in Recruiting Big Data in Recruiting | UmbelSmartData Collective.

Big Data in Recruiting

Tech Companies Hold Tryouts For New Workers

The New York Times profiled five tech companies this morning who make workers go through temporary trial periods of varying length before they agree to hire them.

While the internship has for decades given companies an opportunity to evaluate people (mostly) fresh out of school before signing them up full time, companies like WordPress creator Automattic are expanding the try-before-you-hire process to workers of all experience levels.

The Times reports that the web tools company puts every single potential new hire through a contract period that can last from two weeks to a month and a half, during which the employees are paid $25 an hour for their work.

For smaller companies like Joor, a tech platform for wholesale retailers with 50 employees, one or two bad hires can cause significant setbacks due to turnover.

Its founder and chief executive Mona Bijoor tells The Times that the company’s use of a 30-day contract work period, which in its first run yielded three new employees out of seven participants, has made it easier for the company to avoid hiring people who are a bad fit.

“They are willing to take the risk because they believe in what we are doing or see themselves working for a start-up,” Bijoor says of the people who brave the company’s temporary employment experience.

Noticeably absent from the Times’ story were the voices of employees who had gone through these so-called test drives, both those who succeeded in getting jobs and those were turned aside.

While a trial period could benefit workers by preventing them from stepping into a job that is a bad fit for them, it does serve as an impediment to applicants who cannot afford to quit their job or halt their employment search for a position that could be gone within a month or two.

If the trend continues, it will be interesting to see whether companies begin holding tryouts instead of offering internships, which are generally framed as learning experiences but in many cases serve only to provide companies with temporary, usually low-cost labor, and the opportunity to evaluate someone for a full-time gig

via Tech Companies Hold Tryouts For New Workers – Business Insider.

Tech Companies Hold Tryouts For New Workers

The academic perks of data visualization for MBAs

Data science and data visualization are starting to make an impact in academia, and the University of Virginia’s (UVA) Darden School of Business provides a worthy use case with its application of products from Tableau Software, Inc., putting them to work in multiple classes and projects. Former student and current LinkedIn Manager of Business Operations Analytics Andrew Kritzer was the one who piloted the use of Tableau at UVA. In an interview for theCUBE earlier this week at the annual Tableau Conference, he discussed how students can incorporate Tableau into their classrooms.

Kritzer rolled out three projects in bringing Tableau to UVA. In partnership with an MBA professor, he introduced Tableau to his classmates and coordinated a visualization challenge that offered an award to the team that told the best data-driven story using one dashboard. In the second year of his MBA program and as president of the Darden Technology Club, Kritzer worked with Tableau to hold workshops on best practices. He also conducted an independent study for the business analytics concentration, where he collaborated with San Fransico-based video advertising startup Vungle, who relies on Tableau to identify trends, monitor performance and present results.

For college students interested in incorporating Tableau into projects on business operations, Kritzer recommends going to a local business and asking for information regarding points of sale or periods of time. Also, let the business know that you won’t share any of its information without permission.

Regardless of the industry, gathering information on your own is a key skill that students need to learn for the future, and Tableau is a great tool to use in order to do that. “Get the information you need to make the decisions, and you’ll be the one making them eventually,” Kritzer advised.

via The academic perks of data visualization for MBAs | #data14 | SiliconANGLE.

The academic perks of data visualization for MBAs