Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Silicon Valley Women in HR...& Friends Mailing and Event Announcement

Dear Friends,

How are you?   Happy September!

If you strictly want information about the next event, please look at the links to the right and go to Event Registration.

Deanna J. Mouser was last month's speaker and her weblink is on our Previous Speakers' Page.  Many thanks to our volunteers Delbar Jahanian, CMFC and Michael Benjaminson for planning and leading a great event.

We're deep in what political analysts call the "silly season."  Passions are running high, debates are happening in person and online.  And sometimes we step in it, and that includes me.  I've used various sites for a long time and am an experienced browser.

I was on Facebook and saw an image on a friend's page I agreed with, and reposted with a comment.  That wasn't the problem.  The issue was that the reposted item carried the somewhat upsetting title of the originating page, and I did not realize this until I started getting comments.  When I realized this was upsetting some of my friends, I deleted the post, explained why and apologized for hurting any feelings.

I'm not backing away from political comments but it is not my desire to hurt people or insult them.  I know how that feels on the receiving end and that's a terrible way to feel.

I bring this up to remind you to watch what you post and how, and keep in mind that if you're checking colleagues or potential candidates, honest mistakes happen.

I'm an involved voter, reading the platforms, studying candidates, looking at sites such as FactCheck and the Voter Participation Center for unbiased information.  TV and radio hosts are interesting, but I'm looking for facts, not opinions.  Voting is our most fundamental right in a democracy and it is our duty to vote and take it seriously.  I wrote about this previously on one of my other blogs.  Part A is at: http://marciastein.blogspot.com/2004/09/precious-and-hard-won-right-to-vote.html.
Part B is at: http://marciastein.blogspot.com/2004/09/and-more-about-voting.html.

We have a page on our site for advertising. I have updated links to Amazon products at present and may add other affiliates. You'll notice our site also has Google ads, and you're welcome to click on relevant links. The focus is on HR and Business, but we are human beings and need relaxation, too!

REMINDER ANNOUNCEMENT FOR HRCI POINTS: You can earn HRCI recertification points through blogging and I’ve set up this site so you can be an occasional blogger. You are responsible for adhering to their guidelines, and I cannot guarantee your points.
· Read the HRCI information
· If you’d like to post, write your piece to the HRCI specifications. (My first post is opinion and does not meet their criteria.) Email your post to mstein@ourhrsite.com and be sure to include the subject line, your bio and links to your LinkedIn page and/or website/s. I will not edit posts but will review them quickly if I have time. Otherwise, I’ll simply upload.

You can subscribe to the blog, share it on Facebook or Tweet it. Let’s get this off the ground!

Join us on LinkedIn.

Because of this volunteer work, family, friends and paid work, unfortunately, I can’t mentor you, and please don’t send me unsolicited resumes. I wish I had the time to individually mentor you, but I don’t. Come to an event and meet someone who can help. I receive a lot of unsolicited resumes (from our group and strangers) and if I’m recruiting for a position or I’m paid to work on the resume, that’s one thing, but other than that, I’ve got other things on my plate. I refer people to the forum at www.ourhrsite.com/forum. See the blog post for more thoughts. http://marciastein.blogspot.com/2009/02/setting-boundaries-and-professionalism.html

1. HR Women and Friends Community Event: Wednesday, August 15, 2012 6:30-9:00 p.m.
2. Discounts
3. Using our Bulletin Board (Forum)
4. Spam Filter Alert
5. To change you email address
6. Unsubscribe
7. Potential Speakers/Topics
8. Notifying us of upcoming events and discounts.
------------

1. HR Women and Friends Community Event: Wednesday,August 152012 6:30-9:00 p.m.
Margaret O’Hanlon presents "Compensation Programs Have A Lot to Say -- Let’s Listen Closely."  Click here for event details and the response form.

2. Discounts and Offers – view them online. Discounts for health related products or services are solely used at your own discretion. The group and I have no responsibility for these services or products. Thanks for extending the discounts to our group!

3. Using our Bulletin Board (Forum) When you contact me regarding jobs, events, and other issues, I refer to our Forum at www.ourhrsite.com/forum. You can view all messages without registering, but you must register to reply or post a message. You are not automatically registered because you receive this email – it is separate software. Please review the Terms and Conditions available under any topic on the forum. It’s your responsibility to keep track of your user name and password, and if you change email addresses, please log in and update your profile. If privacy is an issue, please be careful when you post anything: use a separate email if necessary and you can skip your street address if you’d like.

4. SPAM Filter Alert: please add mstein@ourhrsite.com to your address book.

5. To change your email address, click here.

6. Unsubscribe To discontinue mailings please respond with "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the subject line or go to the form. If you receive mail at more than one email address, please note all addresses to delete.

7. Potential Speakers/Topics. Please see http://ourhrsite.blogspot.com/p/potential-speakers.html for details and a form to submit your information.

8. Notifying us of upcoming events and discounts. If you email me right after I’ve sent a mailing, I can update the website, but I can’t send a separate mailing to the group. It will be in the next mailing. Please keep this in mind and plan ahead.

I hope to see you soon.


All the best,

Marcia

Marcia Stein, PHR - www.linkedin.com/in/marciastein

Author: "Strained Relations: Help for Struggling Parents of Troubled Teens" and "Recruiters on Recruiting"
Blog: http://helpingparentsofteens.blogspot.com/
http://www.tellmeaboutyourself.info/
www.scribd.com/Marcia_Stein

Silicon Valley Women in Human Resources...and Friends
http://www.ourhrsite.com/

Stein Consulting
http://www.stein-consulting.com/

Visit our Associates and Advertising Page

Monday, August 27, 2012

It's Amazon Day!

We are Amazon Associates, and if you use our link to purchase an item, we receive a small commission.  Remember I said "small" and it in no way covers our web costs, but it's nice to help!  Please be aware that outside companies may use tracking cookies and you should read their terms and manage your browser cookies.  I have selected some links and books for you to consider.  Thanks for clicking.

Amazon Home Page
Shop Amazon's 100 Best Books of 2011
Visit Amazon's Book of the Month Site
Shop Amazon's Gift Cards - Perfect Anytime
Shop Amazon Computers - New Laptops for 2012
Shop Amazon's New Kindle Fire
Shop Amazon's Kindle Accessories Store
Shop Amazon's Gifting Page
Apple iPad 2 Tablet (16GB, Wifi,) NEWEST MODEL
Kindle DX, Free 3G, 9.7" E Ink Display, 3G Works Globally

Business Books


Sunday, August 19, 2012

Free Online Courses and Classes

This is an ever-changing area with many options.  Major universities are offering classes, some are several weeks in duration and others are hour-long videos.  If you live near a public library, a good librarian can help you find additional classes.

An article on eHow provides information about how to make the most of your online training.  Just scroll down to the Tips & Warnings section.  http://www.ehow.com/how_4930220_online-classes-yale-harvard-berkeley.html

Many top universities provide content and you may earn a degree.  http://www.academicearth.org/subjects/onlinedegreeprograms/

Carnegie Mellon University  http://oli.cmu.edu/ 
Courses are listed here:  http://oli.cmu.edu/learn-with-oli/see-our-free-open-courses/
 
Coursera   www.coursera.org 
Coursera offers courses from Princeton University, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and University of Pennsylvania.

EdX currently offers HarvardX, MITx and UC BerkeleyX classes online for free.
Explore the classes at https://www.edx.org/courses.

GCFLearnFree.org  http://www.gcflearnfree.org
Courses include computer basics, reading (for English speakers and English learners), basic math and many other topics including how to create a budget.  Good tutorials for kids, too.  A full list of categories is at http://www.gcflearnfree.org/topics.

Courses are listed at http://h30440.www3.hp.com/learningcenter/Classes/ClassAll.aspx.

You don’t have to have an Apple product to use iTunes.  Download iTunes onto your computer or phone and look for the iTunesU image.  Free classes from top universities are offered. 

Over 3,000 videos, most are relatively short, on a wide variety of topics.  Great for adults and younger students.

Over 7,000 video classes…and counting.  This site is targeting high school students, but some of the classes could be good introductions to subjects.  If you want to learn a new language or brush up on history or grammar, this is a good place to start.

Over 600 free online courses from introductory to advanced level, each takes between 1 and 50 hours to study.

London School of Business and Finance:  LSBF Global MBA http://www.lsbf.org.uk/
“This internationally renowned business school is offering its entire online MBA program for free. Anyone can sign up for their Facebook application to gain access to all of the course content from the program, including hundreds of hours of videos, lessons, assignments and educational resources. Students who would like to earn the degree can apply to LSBF and pay tuition retroactively at the end.”



Courses are listed by department at http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/.

Notre Dame OpenCourseWare   http://ocw.nd.edu/
Areas of study listed at http://ocw.nd.edu/courselist.

Free courses, books, audio books, online courses and much more.

Project Gutenberg  http://www.gutenberg.org/
Download free out of copyright ebooks.

Stanford’s Free Online Courses  http://stanford.edu/online/courses

UC Berkeley Video and Podcasts for Courses & Events  http://webcast.berkeley.edu/  (also on iTunesU)

University of California Irvine  http://ocw.uci.edu/Welcome.aspx  - also on iTunesU
Courses are listed at http://ocw.uci.edu/courses/index.aspx.

This is an educational channel with lectures from many universities.


Sunday, July 1, 2012

Silicon Valley Women in HR...& Friends Mailing and Event Announcement

Dear Friends,

How are you?   It's July already - how'd that happen?  This year is flying by.

If you strictly want information about the next event, please look at the links to the right and go to Event Registration.

We had a very interesting speaker last month, Professor Terri Griffith, Ph.D., a Professor of Management at Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business and the author of "The Plugged-In Manager: Get in Tune with Your People, Technology, and Organization to Thrive."  She talked about how you use negotiation strategies to mix human, technology, and organization decisions.  A copy of her presentation is downloadable from our Previous Speakers page.  She mentioned a few books about negotiation skills and I uploaded links for them and a few more, just click here.

Many thanks again to our volunteers Trudy Schapansky, Christine Young and Jenny Vonderwerth.

I took a courtesy van while my car was in the shop and had a conversation with some fellow riders.  One woman had immigrated first to Canada and then to the USA, and although she likes it here, she is appalled by the political rhetoric and the general feeling in our country.  Canada is very civil in their disagreements, they're polite about it, or so I hear.

A man around my age said his sister just found a job after 3 years of unemployment and although it pays around 50% of her former salary, she's thrilled to have work.  He saw what she went through and how these job losses contribute to the anger and depression we're feeling in America.

If you listen to the extremes of talk radio or watch certain TV shows - you know which ones, you may have a certain impression based on politicians and talking heads.  Of course there are extreme views among everyday people, but most of us are somewhere in the middle. 

We are taught at a young age to be polite and civil when we talk, and even among people whose opinions may be different, we know how to listen and discuss, maybe learn from each other, but it's hard to see that represented by politicians and in the media.  There's a lot of screaming and that leaves an impression about who we are, what we're like, how we treat each other.  They're terrible role models.  Sensationalism sells; civil discourse is not high in the ratings.

I've traveled a lot and lived in various places, and I know that Americans are good people.  We want a solid country, a good education and solid economy.  Any disagreements there?  We find small and large moments of kindness.  Tsunami in another country?  Hurricane or forest fires in our country?  We organize drives and raise millions of dollars and blood and platelets and don't ask for anything in return.  We're a very generous country.  You can find many local examples of grass-roots efforts to aid others in society and every now and then, something gets published about those efforts.

What if we started advertising other people's acts of kindness and generosity?  What if we took that link to an article or website and posted it on social media?  It's another way of passing it on and giving other people ideas of how to help or places to donate.

To those who arrived recently and to those who've lived here a long time:  yes, I see the ugliness out there and I also see great possibilities and hope. 

We have a page on our site for advertising. I have updated links to Amazon products at present and may add other affiliates. You'll notice our site also has Google ads, and you're welcome to click on relevant links. The focus is on HR and Business, but we are human beings and need relaxation, too!

REMINDER ANNOUNCEMENT FOR HRCI POINTS: You can earn HRCI recertification points through blogging and I’ve set up this site so you can be an occasional blogger. You are responsible for adhering to their guidelines, and I cannot guarantee your points.
· Read the HRCI information
· If you’d like to post, write your piece to the HRCI specifications. (My first post is opinion and does not meet their criteria.) Email your post to mstein@ourhrsite.com and be sure to include the subject line, your bio and links to your LinkedIn page and/or website/s. I will not edit posts but will review them quickly if I have time. Otherwise, I’ll simply upload.

You can subscribe to the blog, share it on Facebook or Tweet it. Let’s get this off the ground!

Join us on LinkedIn.

Because of this volunteer work, family, friends and paid work, unfortunately, I can’t mentor you, and please don’t send me unsolicited resumes. I wish I had the time to individually mentor you, but I don’t. Come to an event and meet someone who can help. I receive a lot of unsolicited resumes (from our group and strangers) and if I’m recruiting for a position or I’m paid to work on the resume, that’s one thing, but other than that, I’ve got other things on my plate. I refer people to the forum at www.ourhrsite.com/forum. See the blog post for more thoughts. http://marciastein.blogspot.com/2009/02/setting-boundaries-and-professionalism.html

1. HR Women and Friends Community Event: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 6:30-9:00 p.m.
2. Discounts
3. Using our Bulletin Board (Forum)
4. Spam Filter Alert
5. To change you email address
6. Unsubscribe
7. Potential Speakers/Topics
8. Notifying us of upcoming events and discounts.
------------

1. HR Women and Friends Community Event: Wednesday, July 18 2012 6:30-9:00 p.m.
Connie Hampton will present "Targeted Networking and Your Next Career Step."  This event will be useful for current and future job seekers and recruiters.  Click here for event details and the response form.

2. Discounts and Offers – view them online. Discounts for health related products or services are solely used at your own discretion. The group and I have no responsibility for these services or products. Thanks for extending the discounts to our group!

3. Using our Bulletin Board (Forum) When you contact me regarding jobs, events, and other issues, I refer to our Forum at www.ourhrsite.com/forum. You can view all messages without registering, but you must register to reply or post a message. You are not automatically registered because you receive this email – it is separate software. Please review the Terms and Conditions available under any topic on the forum. It’s your responsibility to keep track of your user name and password, and if you change email addresses, please log in and update your profile. If privacy is an issue, please be careful when you post anything: use a separate email if necessary and you can skip your street address if you’d like.

4. SPAM Filter Alert: please add mstein@ourhrsite.com to your address book.

5. To change your email address, click here.

6. Unsubscribe To discontinue mailings please respond with "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the subject line or go to the form. If you receive mail at more than one email address, please note all addresses to delete.

7. Potential Speakers/Topics. Please see http://ourhrsite.blogspot.com/p/potential-speakers.html for details and a form to submit your information.

8. Notifying us of upcoming events and discounts. If you email me right after I’ve sent a mailing, I can update the website, but I can’t send a separate mailing to the group. It will be in the next mailing. Please keep this in mind and plan ahead.

I hope to see you soon.


All the best,

Marcia

Marcia Stein, PHR - www.linkedin.com/in/marciastein

Author: "Strained Relations: Help for Struggling Parents of Troubled Teens" and "Recruiters on Recruiting"
Blog: http://helpingparentsofteens.blogspot.com/
http://www.tellmeaboutyourself.info/
www.scribd.com/Marcia_Stein

Silicon Valley Women in Human Resources...and Friends
http://www.ourhrsite.com/

Stein Consulting
http://www.stein-consulting.com/

Visit our Associates and Advertising Page