Guest Post Blitz #7

I heart Diet Mountain Dew

Leadership lessons from the 1920s? Feedback tips from a sign at Wal-Mart? Working with people who make you want to smash your face into a wall? No, I haven’t gone off the deep end (well, any more than normal, anyway). I’ve been playing in other peoples’ sandboxes! And I have to admit, it’s pretty darn fun.

I have several guest posts that went live (fairly recently) elsewhere that you may have missed. Some of them might be a bit different flavor than the usual upstartHR offerings, so be sure to check them out!

If you\’re interested in seeing some of my previous escapades, click here for the Guest Post Blitz archive.

I’m usually pretty long-winded, but I took a different approach with my post for Trish at HR Ringleader. This super short post teaches a few feedback lessons…

Lisa Rosendahl of Simply Lisa has been a great resource for me, and one of the first things I realized about her early in my career is that being a leader and being in HR aren’t mutually exclusive. That’s why I shared a post with her on leadership lessons across the ages. Plus, bonus coolness, it was chosen by Wally Bock (one of the best leadership guys around!)Â as a leadership post of the week!

I’ve mentioned my role in helping Alison Green create a resource on how to interview well. Well, I wrote a post for CAREEREALISM (one of my favorite career sites) talking about interviewing and its resemblance to endurance sports.

Long, long ago (in a galaxy far far away) sorry, that was Star Wars. Anyway, earlier this summer, I did a post for Krista Francis of Alive HR on friendliness and personal development. I think we’ve all faced one of those people, and I just had to spill my guts about the experience.

Oh, and sorta sidetracking, but Melanie and I finally got the story up on our adoption blog about the day the girls were born. Not sure if anyone wants to know, but it’s there if you do. :-)

Finally, I did a video recently on working with meaning and purpose. The guys over at Rypple liked it so much they asked for permission to share it on their Make Work Meaningful site. Awesome!

Whew! Staying busy, huh? Is there a guest post in there that you particularly like? If so, which one?

UAH Shooting: Workplace Violence in My Backyard

There are a few things I enjoy talking about, but workplace violence isn’t one of them. However, after the horrendous shooting at UAH (the University of Alabama in Huntsville) earlier this year, I knew that it would only be a matter of time before I covered the issue.

What I’ll remember

I was sitting in my supervisor’s office with a coworker for a short meeting. It was a Friday afternoon, so the meeting was considerably less serious than usual. We were cracking jokes and talking when we suddenly started hearing sirens outside. Within minutes stories began trickling in: there had been a shooting across the street at UAH. I went back to my office, finished up, and headed home. My brothers were attending UAH at the time, and I received word that they were okay. As I passed the school, I saw dozens of police cars and medical vehicles parked outside. I still get chills when I remember the scene outside as I passed by.

What happened that day Continue reading →

Help me blog (and change the world)

Update as of 8/30/10: I have received enough comments/emails to give away all of the gift cards. Thanks to everyone for sharing your thoughts! If you have an idea that you didn’t get to share, email me anyway! :-)

Hey, everyone! It’s good to have you here. No, really. If you weren’t taking your valuable time to read, then I wouldn’t use up my time to write. Hey, where do you think you’re going? Sit back down. I have something to offer you. :-)

I recently received some gift cards to give away from Global Giving. These gift cards aren’t like the normal ones you see for Starbucks or your favorite food place. These are used to help other people. And because I know you ladies and gentlemen are an amazing bunch, I think we can do this. I have fifteen $10 cards to give away. You can use them to help a number of people, depending on the project you choose from the Global Giving website. While $10 might not seem huge to us, remember that it can be life-changing for people in another part of the world.

Some projects you might consider that can be done for only $10:

Support the development of Mexican children left behind by migratory parents through a life skills and health education, school-based project link
International Medical Corps is saving lives of mothers and children around the world by giving midwives the tools and skills they need to deliver babies safely link
One hundred additional families struggling to survive in rural Zimbabwe will be able to grow enough food to feed their extended families and have surplus remaining to sell link

Here’s how you can get a free gift card

I need your help. I’m looking for ideas to write on that aren’t just interesting to me, but to you as well. Simply leave a comment on this post with a writing topic you’d like to see me cover, and I’ll send you a gift card. (The more specific/detailed your comment, the more likely I’ll be to actually fulfill the request.) The first fifteen comments that fulfill that simple requirement will be winners.Â It really is that easy. I’ll email you privately when the contest closes and we’ll take care of the details.

Let’s make a dent in the universe, people (thanks to Chris Ferdinandi for the terminology :-)).

If I knew then what I know now… (free eBook!)

If you’re anything like me, I bet you’ve said the following statement dozens of times in your life.

If I knew then what I know now… I’d be a killer chess player in Canada.

Okay, so maybe the last half of your sentence might be a little different, but you get the point. The idea is that you’d have extra knowledge to do more than you would otherwise have done. Today I have a free eBook titled “If I Would Have Known Just One Thing” to share with you on that very topic. Shane Mac asked me to give him a hand, and he’s just too awesome to turn down. Continue reading →

What do new HR professionals want?

I’ve been putting together a series over on my other blog about SHRM’s new Human Resources Young Professional project, and the series has covered some of the major issues identified by new HR pros. Those issues include lack of credibility, lack of challenging work, and lack of a definite career path. It’s a great read even for those of you who are experienced HR ninjas, because these topics are ones that reach out and touch everyone in our profession from the newest intern to the most senior VP.

I’d love to hear about any experiences you’ve had with managing or interacting with new HR pros. Are they up to snuff? Are they lacking in some pertinent skills (writing, communication, professionalism, etc.)?

How to Get Into HR (HRYP Series)

How can I get into HR? That question has been asked untold numbers of times, and the answer isn’t always an easy one. And then there’s the sticky issue of trying to figure out what’s next when you finally do get into one of those highly coveted and treasured positions in the the human resources field. :-) Let’s see if we can shed some light on those issues today, ‘kay?

(Note: this is a post in the HRYP (HR Young Professional) series. If you know a young HR pro, please pass this along to them. I’d appreciate it, and so will they!)

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