Well, in the past couple days, a lot of interesting ideas have been runnging through my mind.

The first, spurred by my speaking engagement and attendance at The Social Media Conference put on by The Canadian Instutute in Toronto on December 4 and 5. Really, way too much info to share at present in this quick blog entry, but one of my short term goals is to get rid of this archaic Grey Matter blog entry tool and update to WordPress. I also need to investigate my domain host to see if there is WP support – to make my life easier through less programming.

Yahoo Pipes. Can’t say enough. If you don’t know what it is – check it out. Some great personal applications for it, but if you are in any way responsible for your corporate or recruitment brand, you should be using products like pipes or be on sites like Ice Rocket and Technorati.

Finally, this brings me to the recruitment topic. I was recently consulting with a freind on his resume and we were speaking about a similar discussion I had with an attendee at the aforementioned conference. Not to the same degree as with the hiring manager from the conference, but we were speaking about resume structure.

The discussion that arose at the conference was in relation as to what is the norm and/or what is acceptable in relation to resume formatting, style, punctuation, etc. Between candidates being less formal (I think it is an age and instant messaging type thing) and technology not allowing for “pretty” resumes – these documents are being reduced to skills lists and inventories. So, my answer to her was a simple… Assess the resume against the requirements of the job. If you are hiring an AJAX developer/programmer, do you want a big story-like cover letter and perfect spelling, or aer you happier if the person’s time is spent perfecting coding skills. But, perhaps your marketer or PR manager should have a higher degree of attention to detail and a “more verbose” resume. I’m sure I could go on and on here.

Bottom line, do what works for you. Assess against the job – but, if you are in an HR or Recruitment position, it is YOUR job to coach your managers in what to look for and how to assess to find the best suited candidate for each and every job.

Comments are turned off right now, until I get new blog software implement, but I’d love to hear, and maybe even post your thoughts if you send them to me at gr@iQd2.com

Been pretty quiet on the blog front these days – well, I’ve managed to get some good stuff up, but I thought it might be nice to share a little of what I have been reading recently.

A couple months back I finished “Love is the Killer App” – a book by Tim Sanders, a former broadcast.com and Yahoo! guy among others. Great book if you’re into business networking and winning over the hearts/minds of people. It’s a pretty quick read.

Somewhere in the spring I got through “Waiting For Your Cat to Bark” – the author escapes me, but it was a loaner from on of the Yahoo marketing guys. It focuses on consumer behaviour and using the art of persuasion to alter or influence opinion through marketing and advertising efforts. It’s got some great examples spicific top the shift from offline to online marketing. Not a read you’d think would have been up my alley – but, I do like to imerse myself in the businesses I am supporting, and this book was recommended as a good start. I liked it.

Then, there was “Made to Stick:Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” – this one by Chip and Dan Heath. One is a consultant, the other a professor (brothers, of course). I bought it in an airport when I was out of reading material – it had a bright orange cover with a decorative piece of duct tape imprinted across it, so, being a typical guy I bought it. I highly recommend this one. If you want to learn to communicate, have people understand and retain your messages and buy into your ideas – give it a try. It’s a “catchy” read – I had a hard time putting it down.

I read iWoz in the fall. I saw George S. (forget it, I’m not even trying to spell it) of The Hour on CBC interviewing Woz and talking about the book. I’ve never been a Mac guy, but thought I would give it a try. OMG – I now have so much more respect for Macs and their architecture. I was a little iffy on the writing style, but loved the book. It gets very technical in places, and I now know more about computer engineering than I ever thought I would care to. BTW – Woz and Jobs were suchs pranksters in their youth. Oh yeah, forgot to mention the author of this one is Steve Wozniak (apparently currently one of the lowest paid employees of Apple).

Back to the business books, I had read “Principal Centred Leadership” about a year ago, so I thought it was about time I put first things first (another good book, btw) and read “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” – by Stephen Covey. Ugh… A dry read, but some good concepts – developing your inner self, focusing on your outer persona and interacting with others, yadda yadda. Good basic read, but nowhere the top of my recommendation list from an interest perspective.

Finally, and most recently, as I write this in December 2007, I have just finished “A Dream With A Deadline” – by J Horowitz and A Ohlsson-Corboz. Basically, about implementing a vision, realistic execution, changing minds and changing culture, impacting and influencing. It’s a good book to give you background if you are looking to affect positive change in a business environment. It’s got lots of past practice examples (GE and Best Buy come up a lot) and even some tips and a worksheet. It’s a recent release and worth a look-see.

Now, on to one called “5-D Leadership”. Recommended by a personal coach I’ve recently met, who coaches based on the principles of the book. More to come later on how this one turns out…

Happy reading and fire me an e-mail to read@iQd2.com if you come across and good business/development books that you recommend.