HRmag

April Showers...

VOL 1APRIL

Philadelphia’s own Ben Franklin said only two things are certain in life: Death & Taxes. But we’d like to add a third item to that list: c o m m u n i c a t i o n . In this and upcoming issues we’ll share with you what we’ve learned, things we’ve done and other fun tidbits brought to you from our world headquarters here in Philly.

If you haven’t done them... you’re late!

Draw a line in the sand. Know what you stand for, and know when to say, “No,” both to your coworkers, and to your clients.

Minimize at-work interruptions. As Jason said, interruption does not equal collaboration. His advice? Try “Silent �ursdays” in your o�ce. Have all of your employees communicate online only the entire day.

Eliminate “need, can’t, easy, fast and ASAP” from your vocabulary. Or at least from the way you talk to your coworkers or clients. Overusing these words ends up either demeaning your coworker exaggerating an issue. Here’s our policy on this: Call things what they are. Know how to say, “I’m sorry.” In other words, avoid things like, “I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused…” What you mean is, “I’m sorry.” �at’s something anybody can understand and appreciate.

Accept the fact that your estimates probably suck. And since they do, keep deadlines and approximations as close to the current time as possible. Jason suggests only planning two weeks at a time, or at least re-evaluating every two weeks. �is will keep everybody happier and stress-free.

On April 1, 2010, we went to see founder and CEO of 37 Signals, Jason Fried, speak in Philadelphia. Here’s a summary of his thoughts on how to make work better in your o�ce:

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P A I D A D V E R T I S E M E N T

From the desk ofF�nk Ro�e

A W A R DBattledecks: An o�-the-cu� descrip-tion of funny slides that the presenter has never seen before.

Sitting in the front row to hear �e Doors lead guitarist Robby Krieger talk about the craziness of �e Doors success.

Seeing “�e Parking Lot Movie.” If it’s on a screen near you, go see it.

Shaking Quentin Tarantino’s hand while just walking down the street in Austin.

Winning an awesome Gibson Les Paul guitar and then carrying it around during the music festival.

�e total creative infusion that being around coders, �lm bu�s and musi-cians can bring in one of the coolest cities in the world.

Keep Austin Weird. (Yeah, that’s their city slogan.)

Lines. If you’re the impatient type, SXSW isn’t for you. Especially the �lm festival.

Bar-B-Que. Man, I loved the �rst 300 lbs of beef that I ate. �en I could have used some variety.

Hotel. I stayed in a wonderful hotel...that was just outside Austin. If you go, stay in town. Commuting in is a buzz kill.

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Best of SXSW (South by Southwest)

Worst of SXSW

Your taxes aren’t the only thing with a deadline. Check out IFRACTAL’s

promotion of the month

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HIT OR MISS?Our take on the best and worst public

communication pieces each month.

MISS: Found at: American Pants Company (11th and Market St., Philadelphia)Webster will never see “fer” as an accept-able substitute for “for.” And neither should you. This sign should be recalled.

HIT: Found at: Diesel (15th and Walnut St., Philadelphia)We all know sex sells. Our neighborhood Diesel store used that to its advantage with this storefront sign. Bet it caught your attention.

Notice a hit or miss in your neighbor-hood? Email a photo our way.

March, 2010APEX AwardsOur entries are in for last year ’s communication pieces. Check them out here. Wish us luck!

March 11–21, 2010SXSWFrank, Andy and Shawn jetted o� to Austin, Texas, for 11 days to experi-ence innovation at its best. Read Frank’s recap of the best and worst parts of his trip here.

March 16, 2010Edward Tufte Course: Presenting Data and InformationBethany and Dan learned how to engage and communicate with an audience at this one-day course. Sign up for a course yourself here, but if you can’t make it, just look over Bethany’s top takeaways.

April 8–9, 2010Philadelphia Emerging Technolo-gies for the EnterpriseOur four developers, Charlie, Peter-Mark, Dan and Shanna rocked the technological casbah at this two-day event in Philadelphia last week, where they learned about every-thing from Test-Driven Develop-ment (TDD) and HTML5 to data-bases like Voldemort, Cassandra and Mongo.

Where we’ve been

Where we’re going

April 20, 2010PEBA’s 28th Annual Forum

HR used to write the rules. Now, employees have an open mic to shout out to the world. This forum explores the new rules (or non-rules) of the social media environment and o�er some tips to HR pros on how to use social media to their advantage.

April 20, 2010Greater Valley Forge Human Resources Association

This session, intended for HR professionals and managers who are tasked with communicating with diverse employee groups, will cover what techniques work, which don’t, and what to say during tumultuous times. We’ll cover the rise of social media inside and outside companies, how people learn, and how key messages get results.

May 16 – 19, 2010World at Work: Total Rewards 2010

This workshop outlines how IFRACTAL helped Motorola imple-ment a successful worldwide stock option exchange, which was done in 40 countries. Learn the processes, challenges and how to develop an implementation plan for a successful exchange and use communication tools and techniques necessary to get large numbers of options exchanged.

May 25, 2010Social Media Plus

What’s next for Social HR: Internal and external talent communities. This workshop will discuss how external and internal communities are being built within organizations and how it changes every-thing in employer/employee relationship from recruiting to employee communications and succession planning. You won’t want to miss this compelling panel in discussing one of the next big steps for HR in social media.

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Battledecks: An o�-the-cu� descrip-tion of funny slides that the presenter has never seen before.

Sitting in the front row to hear �e Doors lead guitarist Robby Krieger talk about the craziness of �e Doors success.

Seeing “�e Parking Lot Movie.” If it’s on a screen near you, go see it.

Shaking Quentin Tarantino’s hand while just walking down the street in Austin.

Winning an awesome Gibson Les Paul guitar and then carrying it around during the music festival.

�e total creative infusion that being around coders, �lm bu�s and musi-cians can bring in one of the coolest cities in the world.

Keep Austin Weird. (Yeah, that’s their city slogan.)

Lines. If you’re the impatient type, SXSW isn’t for you. Especially the �lm festival.

Bar-B-Que. Man, I loved the �rst 300 lbs of beef that I ate. �en I could have used some variety.

Hotel. I stayed in a wonderful hotel...that was just outside Austin. If you go, stay in town. Commuting in is a buzz kill.

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THI

NK TANK

It’s been nearly seven years since the day that Frank and Sarah sat around Barnes and Noble with a couple of Moleskines, tossing around ideas for the name of their new company.

We’ve worked on a lot of great projects since then. We traveled to some incredible events. We grew. We grew some more. And then, to accommodate that growth, we moved.

Needless to say, there’s a lot of good energy in the o�ce right now. To keep up with our momentum, we knew it was time to take the next step—update our look. And we’d like to show you �rst. Check out our new logo.

S i m p l e , e l e g a n t , e � e c t i v e .

Our new logo captures the proactive mindset of our o�ce right now. We’re serious about communication, and we’re serious about using all of our talent to bring you the best of what we can do. (Not to mention this new design is just really nice to look at.)

We still help you talk to your employees in a way that makes sense for you and for them. We still interrupt the pattern to bring you expert, professional work you can trust. And since we’re still the company who likes to call things what they are, it’s only �tting that our logo shows what we actually do: make work better.