20 May 2008

From Human Resources to Talent Management

Seth Godin (marketing guru) speaks about the (bad) image of the "HR" department (which would be better to use "Talents", instead of "HR"). Well, AIESEC already did that some time ago. Read the article: Marketing HR.

Just a little part of it:

Understand that in days of yore, factories consisted of people and machines. The goal was to use more machines, fewer people, and to design processes so that the people were interchangeable, low cost and easily replaced. The more leverage the factory-owner had, the better. Hence Personnel or the even more cruel term: HR. It views people as a natural resource, like lumber.

Like it or not, in most organizations HR has grown up with a forms/clerical/factory focus. Which was fine, I guess, unless your goal was to do something amazing, something that had nothing to do with a factory, something that required amazing programmers, remarkable marketers or insanely talented strategy people.

Why I have this dream to change how education is made

"Schools, at every level, prefer to teach what can be taught, rather than what needs to be learnt."
- Charles Handy, in Myself and Other More Important Matters

19 May 2008

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams



Very interesting lecture (a bit long, but you don't even notice the 1h) from this guy who is dying from a cancer and wished to give his last lecture. The lecture is about how he achieved his childrood dreams, how he helped others to do that and what he learned in the way. The things he say is kind of self help, and you may or not like it, but what is really interesting is how he delivers the lecture, capturing people's attention with mastery. I definitelly want to learn how to do that - and as I can see, it's a lot about telling stories. People like stories.

It's personally very inspiring because I want to be like this guy myself - NOT dying like a middle-aged man with cancer, but to help people to learn, to improve education by having less books and more group work, to facilitate people in achieving their dreams (what I prefer to call, fulfilling their potential).

I hope I can break, walk around or bend all barriers to do that.

12 May 2008

AIESEC is changing lifes, including mine

Link to one article that talks about AIESEC and leadership development, including and example from me:

AIESEC, um case de desenvolvimento de liderança [in portuguese].