Where do I begin? This class honestly exceeded my expectations.

Jun, without a doubt made each class session interesting and I always left each session with something to ponder about. Whether it was learning the functionality of Google Sites, Wikis, blogs, Workday, DataDimensions, Mr. Ted, Successfactors, and many many more -- I never managed to stop learning something new in this class. Each of my classmates always brought something new to the table, making each session an engaging and extremely interactive one. The two together made this class one I didn't want to miss.

I accomplished doing two new things in the 10 wks - one skyping into class & delivering a presentation w/out using "paper". Skyping into class was a first and probably last time, because I don't know any other professor who would let us do so. Delivering the presentation paperless was nervewrecking and awesome all at the same time. Thanks to Jun & my classmates for giving me the courage to do so. I will def. remember both these moments.

I learned what I had hoped but unfortunately as it is ending it is making me yearn for more. I really had hoped to dive more into each system and gain a better understanding of HRIS as a whole. I guess the 10 wk session didn't leave us time to get into minuet detail...but it did leave me with the basic knowledge to grasp any new system I come across in the future.

I now can confidently speak about What web 2.0 really is and check in with Bill Kutik if I need direction.

Thank you to all the individuals who brought in snacks. It made each session feel like we were a family and the bonds we made will hopefully helps us to keep in touch.

Signing out...

-Ekta

As Jun mentioned the other day, this week or next week we will be listening to a presentation from someone at SuccessFactors. After hearing this I realized I didn't have any real background on who they are. Looking around at their website I def. learned a great deal. SuccessFactors is a human resource company who emphasizes on the relationship between managers & employers. They focus on business alignment & people performance. One part which was really neat in the Business Demo was the Ranker page. You can clearly identify your over-achievers and low performers. You can also scale them on a 1 to 5 graphic rating scale. The software also helps you to eliminate any gaps.

The interface reminded me slightly of Workday. Clean, crisp, and easy to pick up. They def. seem to emphasize more on performance then anything else. Getting the right people in the right place to achieve the right goals. I think this software would be more beneficial to a larger organization.

I'm excited to see more of SuccessFactors in the coming weeks.

This class seems to keep amazing me again and again. :) I'm gonna be a rock star in Web 2.0 after this! j/k :)

Tonight I explored the world of Google Forms. Super easy, Super convenient, Super efficient, Super friendly, Super pretty, Super Super Super! I created a form in matter of minutes. I love the form templates, and how clean and crisp they look. They have such an elegant feel and professional touch. This is definitely one feature on Google that I will be using a lot, recommending and bragging about!

Tonight I decided to take a look at Zoho Creator. I started off by surfing around the website to pick up some general knowledge of the SAAS based database. The interface is straightforward & easy to navigate. The templates they provide are a superb feature for someone who is new to the site. I love the schedule feature!!! You can have all sorts of reports scheduled to be delivered to your inbox on specific dates. This is extremely convenient and a great add-on to the site. I like how you can customize the database to suite your individual needs. And the last thing that I found pretty neat was that you can embed any of the forms onto your own website directly from the Zoho creator site.

I'm sure to an expert database creator, Zoho may not fill its needs but for a newbie this definitely does the job. I will for sure keep Zoho Creator in mind for the future. Zoho Creator was intuitive & very impressive.

Plateau

Hey Everyone,

Sorry I have been MIA for sometime. I'm excited to dive back and learn more about HR Technology. Today, I started off with learning about Plateau Systems. Plateau, is a SAAS based Talent Management System. Looking at the Plateau 6.1 Interactive Tour was extremely informative in getting to know this product. I can definitely see a large company or fast paced company benefiting from this type of SAAS. The four elements in their package include performance, compensation, career&succession, and learning.

Plateau along with others out there are focusing on shifting from an on-premise to being a SAAS based company. You can definitely get that vibe from surfing on Plateau's website. They emphasize the benefits of being a SAAS talent management provider. Bill Kutik's podcast featuring Paul Sparta the Chairman & CEO of Plateau was a great podcast to listen to if you want to hear more about SAAS vs. On-premise. A few of the companies he discussed were Taleo, Workday, Verve,Plateau and more. I believe SAAS is the way to go, being a web 2.0 country this type of software is more efficient, streamlined and easy to pick-up. The Workday presentation yesterday in class was a great example of how SAAS is taking over.

Watching this video was similar to reading the article "What is Web 2.0?". The difference, this article focuses more on the back end of websites. I liked watching it to see the differences between HTML and XML. Learning about the format in which sites are written is a whole new world to me. I sometimes wish I could grasp this topic a lot better. Reading how XML separates form and content doesn't make complete sense, I get the gist but its not completely clear. Watching this video definitely helped to give some clarity.
I love blogs and think they are a great source of sharing information. Except I'm really bad in checking my google reader or my blogger dashboard to keep up with new items. I wish there was some type of push notification or an application where you can glance easily. I'm sure you can keep your google reader/blogger dashboard open in your window but you still have to manually check it.
Web 2.0 is definitely changing society and the way we should think. Taking this class seems to be the first step since we're all communicating in the cloud.

The Machine is Us/ing Us YouTube video

Having a background in online media and being pretty internet savvy I thought I would breeze through this article but I was wrong. I definitely got the gist of what web 2.0 is but all the computer babble kept making me re-think what I read.
Being part of the Generation X crowd I witnessed the move from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. In the section about RSS feeds I realized how convenient web 2.0 has made things. In the past I would have to go to 10 different websites just to get all my news and now I can use an RSS feeder or Google reader. Web 2.0 has definitely made things more efficient and easily accessible.
My husband always talks about how Perl is starting to get outdated and his company currently uses it. At first it was just a foreign language to me but now I get what he is talking about. He mentions how his company is trying to move into Ruby on Rails. He told about the site Tiobe which tells the current rankings for programming languages.
Soooo, I've heard over the term VOIP(VOICE OVER IP) but never really truly understood what it meant. But after reading this article I realized I use it every single day through my house phone line OOMA. Ooma lets you make free U.S. calls over the Internet with your existing home phone.
And the last item I want to mention is AJAX. Allowing pages to update without reloading makes the user experience extremely seamless. After reading about AJAX, I noticed how many sites that I use on a daily basis use this function. Some examples are Flickr, Facebook, Googlemaps, Twitter, and ESPN.

I'm really lucky Jun introduced me to Bill Kutik's podcasts. After listening to just one podcast I think I'm HOOKED! I selected at random Bill Kutik's interview with Doug Berg, the Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Jobs2web. And let me just say, I think everyone should listen to this one. It was the perfect first podcast.

Bill and Doug Berg discussed the movement of companies from standard traditional recruiting to a more social recruiting outlook along with that competitor advantage. Doug states how companies are currently playing the field with social media recruiting.
He discussed how companies are tapping into Twitter and Facebook with a company page to gain interest in potential candidates. As a whole these companies are trying to be more socially accepted. For example, if I applied to three jobs and one of them was on twitter and facebook, I would lean towards the social one vs. the corporate. I feel that my decision is based on the generation that I am in. The Boomers may look towards the social site but would probably prefer a more standard approach. The older generation looks at facebook and twitter as an open site. A place where everything is publicly visible and known. They prefer to keep their social networking and corporate network seperate. For example, my husband and I are part of LinkedIN but our parents don't want a part of it. My dad does look daily at job boards to see what is out there, but gets hesitant to e-mail out his resume. He prefers a fax or phone call. In relating back to the podcast I can definitely see Twitter & Facebook as a new tool for recruiting but it will take some time for the Boomers to get on board.

Interesting Facts in the Podcast:

* Currently, 300 Million searches on google for job related information per month (not unique)
* Top Time to Search for a job Wednesday 1pm CST. 8-10pm for Executives.

The Bill Kutik Radio Show

Wow, I didn't know how far we've come in Technology after watching this clip. Things have become simplified but yet are still so complicated. For example, when my daughter was born, having technology to help in those first few months was essential. Something as simple as curing diaper rashes or how to figure out if the baby had gas was right at my fingertips. For the older generation, it was a lot more difficult. They had to go through pages and pages in outdated books to see what they needed. Whenever their was a situation, I would search on google however my parents would discuss old home remedies and suggest to call the doctor. Sometimes we didn't need to call the doctor all we needed was to see what other parents did in the same situation. And sometimes when we would call the doctor they would mention the exact same thing we found online. Using technology was fast, easy and the majority of the time relevant.

http://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2010/04/02/02gigaom-10-simple-google-search-tricks-58674.html

This was extremely helpful to me, so thought I'd share :)

Taking a Big Girl Pill to Succeed in Business & Life

This has to be one of my favorite articles. Yes, the points she makes are pretty obvious but its so vital. Diving into HR some of the points she points out are so important to me. For example #1, its so easy to lose yourself in that one candidate who you thought was perfect for a position and didn't get it. And #2, Learn from everything is so true. I realize that more and more in the UC Berkley program. I've already met so many individuals with such diverse corporate backgrounds. Each person brings something new to the class and to think about. These are just some examples in this article I found interesting. I really think this article is a keeper for my future endeavors.

"Top 10 Predictions for HR in 2010"

Yes, the ending of 2009 was a tough one. With the millions of jobs lost and cutbacks left and right - everyone was left with no hope for the future. It's definitely tough when a recession hits because valuable and experienced people are let go without any reason. No thorough explanation or validation of the dismissal of certain positions. Looking towards 2010 I feel that companies will be precise and smart in their hiring decisions. As the article states "It is important to hire and sustain the right talent, and that means talent management will play a significant role for HR in 2010." While employers did layoff individuals, re-design plans and more dismissals will occur to hire the new and proper staff.
As an HR personnel efficiency is extremely important. If what the article poses is true, that we will consolidate to one system, HR processes will become streamlined. That one streamlined process could very well be a SAAS - in the cloud type service. As noted "The future is in the cloud—SaaS solutions like Workday are poised to reach the tipping point in the enterprise world.".
Recruiting employees has already made the shift to a SAAS type world. Employers are looking torwards LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to scan profiles. Recruiters are tapping into a vast amount of online job sites.
The future employees will be more self-taught then instructed. Having access to everything from your fingertips brings upon a lot of self-learning. This seems to be the ideal situation, being able to do everything from your home, but this will also result in employers having high demands. They will expect immediate responses and will be able to monitor employees every move.

Found this article and it reminded me of the conversation we had in class regarding online reading..."In E-Book Era, You Can’t Even Judge a Cover"

The Future of Work

"High Tech, High Tough, High Growth"
In the olden days everyone was running towards getting a finance/economic degree. As a person growing up in NY I am a witness of this great desire. Everybody and Anybody wanted to be on Wall Street. And if you weren't a person going towards this goal you were looked down upon. But as the years passed the glamour of being one of those individuals faded into a more diverse outlook.
With technology booming its safe to say that the job market will shift to a diverse, tech savvy market. Therefore,"The key to finding the jobs of the future will be knowing where to look."

"Training Managers to Behave"
Experience is vital in the marketplace. Education is vital in the marketplace but maybe not as much as experience....

"The Search for the Next Perk"
I wasn't surprised to read that many companies are shifting their benefit costs from employee to individuals. As we go through a tough economic period its hard for an employee to understand why their health care benefit costs are increasing. From an employer's view they need to do what they can to face inflation. "It costs the average American company more than $14,000 per year to provide coverage to an employee and her family." Looking forward Gen X, Gen Y, and boomers all are in need of different health-care options.

"We're Getting Off the Ladder"
Reading this section of "The Future of Work" made me think of 9/11. Society is more family oriented, and companies are becoming more lenient. Back then, requesting to work from home or travel less would make you look absurd. Today, employers are more understanding and willing to listen. More employees are telecommuting and carrying out a flexible work schedule. Employers have to adjust to the changing economy, making sure that when the economy picks up the moves won't affect them drastically.

"Why Boomers Can't Quit"
As time goes on investing in a 401(k) will have its ups and downs. Due to the recession many individuals lost money in investing in mutual funds, and other stock & real estate. As the article states "In 1998, the average 50-year-old who had been working for at least 10 years had a 401(k) balance of $85,000, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Factor in the recent market drop, and more than a decade later, that worker's 401(k) has grown to just $93,000." While the boomers try to save their money they invested in their 401(k) plans, Generation Y individuals look forward to a better tomorrow.

"Women Will Rule Business"
Now how can I not like reading this section???? Yes, Women are powerful and I'm glad society is starting to realize that. But in all honesty I really believe that it doesn't matter if your a man or woman. As long have you the skill and expertise to carry out your strategic business goals you should be set. Although, managerial style does play a big part in this game. With the right management and right person on the job anything can be done. Management should be open-minded yet cautious about their work-life balance choices.

"It Will Pay to Save The Planet"
Go Green!!! Woo Hoo!!!!

"When Gen X Runs the Show"
This section said it completely right "collaborative decision-making". I definitely see the future ruled by Generation Xers. Just looking at technology skills they are the experts and will continue to be. As society gets more advanced Generation Y and Boomers will need the Generation Xers. But I think the same goes the opposite way. Generation Xers will have the ideas and the skill sets but will still need the older generation to help them carry out the plans.

"Yes, We'll Still Make Stuff"
There's definitely a battle when looking to out-source jobs vs. keeping them in house. In the article Corinne Lyle states "We like to keep close tabs on our processes." I definitely see the labor market moving more in-house.

"The Last Days of Cubicle Life"
And to close it off this section was on the ball. With technology booming the life of cubicles will eventually be dismissed. I can definitely see more telecommunication and out-sourcing of jobs.

Slightly old article but good view of how technology is advancing.

IM the newest and apparently the most efficient form of communication.

IM the boss, be more productive

Very interesting yet humorous article. Now we know where to look for a job

Job board for applicants who like to drink

Walking into Jun Cruzat's class for the first time was exciting and nerve wrecking all at the same time. I was excited to meet him as well as my classmates but nervous to be walking into the world of unknown. HR Systems & Technology has always been a great interest to me and I'm excited to put my foot in the door and get moving. As a beginner though there is a threshold of information I hope to grasp as I go through this course.

Going through the chain of evolution in the technology world was such an eye opener. Seeing the floppy disk made me feel so blessed to have Wifi! We forget how much we have grown and how advanced systems are today. Can you think back to when we had to physically go to a company to drop our resume off instead of just sending that quick e-mail? Or NOT being able to browse the internet for everything and anything. What would we do if we couldn't find a link between Kevin Bacon and Julia Roberts? We are incredibly lucky to be where we are today. I can't wait to see what the future holds for us.