Day: May 8, 2006

http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/04/moving_up_the_w.html 

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Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom (DIKW) hierarchy

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Interesting that the author feels we spend way to much time down at the data level and little if any time up at the wisdom level.

I agree. BUT, how does an organization or an individual move up that tree?

http://execunet.blogspot.com/2006/05/talent-management-vs-career-management.html

Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Talent Management vs. Career Management
Dave Opton
Norwalk, Connecticut, United States

http://www.blogger.com/profile/10891844

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What lots of us wanted to think of as company sponsored career management was really company sponsored talent management, and there's a significant difference as I am guessing anyone who has read this far already knows. Talent management is the WIFM for the employer. Career management is the WIFM for the employee. If they happen to match up from time to time, that's great, but make no mistake about where the interests lie for each.

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This sparks the thought that we have been fooled into thinking that things haven't changed.

The gold watch era, where the Greatest Generation stayed with an employer for a lifetime, ended silently. It started as we shifted from an agrarian society to a manufacturing one. It ended imho when the aircraft industry was caught firing older engineers to defraud them out of their pensions. That led to the government getting involved (always a bad idea) with the ERISA laws which dictated 5 year pension vesting.

This led to the era of what I call the "Five Year Employee". That lasted until the dot com boom, the entrepreneurial age,when working for yourself became the rage.

The government's tax structure had a hand in that too. As a consultant, I could deduct my commutation expense. As an employee, I couldn't. My employer can give employees qualifying health care tax deductible. As a consultant, I can deduct my own health care premiums. As an employee, I can't.

So, we have now recently emerged into the era where because of the entrepreneurial bust, people have gone back to working for companies. The standing joke is "they pretend to pay me and I pretend to work".

Defined benefit pension plans are being converted to cash value as quick as possible by companies who want to unload the liability. Litigation follows because people are being weenied. Pensions are now unknown outside of the government.  Existing pensioners and future beneficiaries are hung with an unfunded liability by companies that can go bankrupt to weenie them. Those with big fat pension funds are a target for rogue management or corporate raiders. It's not just social security that's a scam. The whole "retirement" metaphor is a risky scheme.

First rule: What you have is yours; what's promised is exactly that … … a promise. It has to be discounted by a number of factors. It all revolves around "collectability".

Second rule: You have to deduce what the new "rules" are for yourself.

WIFM (What's in It For Me)

I have to create a rule book that works for me. Everyone has to recognize that their "rules", as well as their mileage, will vary.

My thinking is that if one is "lucky" enough to collect on a promise, like a pension or social sedulity, you should thank your lucky stars because that is not everyone's experience.