This is part of a multi-article series on the book Made to Stick.

It was 1961, and the United States was in the middle of the cold war. For years, the US had prided itself on being the most technically advanced nation in the world. But at that moment, Russia was beating them in the race to space.

In May of that year, President John F. Kennedy gave an address to congress, outlining how he felt America could maintain its leadership during the cold war. He requested funds for various strategic goals – everything from international aid to civil defense.

But he ended his address with a very unexpected statement:

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.

JFK’s idea – send a man to the moon and back in less than a decade – unified a nation and helped drive ten years of incredible scientific achievement.

Made to Stick

Why do some ideas stick while others refuse to catch on. That’s the subject of brothers Dan and Chip Heath’s book, Made to Stick.

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I just moved into a new role at EMC. I’m now the Community Manager for our internal Career Community for our services group.

In plain English, that means that I’m responsible for creating a community kind of like this one, but with a focus on career development for our service folks. It’s a place to find career and development resources, connect with other people, and share ideas.

Kind of cool, right? EMC has a fantastic internal social network, EMC|One, that we can use for everything from collaborative team projects to entire social communities built around work groups, locations or functions.

With this new role, I get to put the skills I’ve developed in creating and growing Renegade HR to use inside my organization. Exciting stuff!

So, how do you train and develop remote employees?

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Photo by Mike Epp

Over the next several weeks, I’m going to talk to you about how to develop and implement an employer brand through social media.

In order to get the details, I think it’s important you understand how they fit into the bigger picture. Here’s what we’re going to be talking about:

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If you visit a lot of blogs, you’ll notice that many of them have what’s called a blog-roll in their sidebar. This is basically a list of other blogs that the writer of another blog finds interesting.

Garr Reynolds at Presentation Zen has turned me into a bit of a simplicity nut, so I don’t have a blog-roll on my site. I hate having too much crap cluttering up my sidebar.

That said, I thought you still might be interested in what’s in my RSS reader, so today, I wanted to share with you the list of blogs that make my short list.

Many of them are less about technical HR skills, and more about how to market and spread ideas. Since Renegade HR is about transforming our profession into something way awesomer, I think those are pretty important skills to have.

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How would you like to learn more about leadership, innovation, getting things done, marketing your ideas and more?

I read a lot of great books (and a few crappy ones), and I want to share and discuss them with you. So I’m starting a book club.

You don’t have to read anything in advance. You don’t even have to buy the book!

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This is part of a multi-article series on employer branding through social media.

Photo by Herval

How would you like to have a pipeline of qualified candidates who were incredibly excited to come work at your organization – before you’ve even posted a job opening?

I want to talk to you about employer branding, and how it can help you hire better people with less effort.

Keep reading…

Something I believe very strongly, in life and in business: Do the right thing.

If you do the right thing for your employees, they’ll do the right thing for your customers. If you do the right thing for your customers, your company will thrive.

Same applies to your community and the environment.

The results may not always be immediate, but I think it’s a damn good long-term strategy.