Looking for my next gig

So after one and a half years with Philips in two roles I am ready for the next challenge. What can I do?

• I can help HR teams leverage social technologies for employer branding, social recruiting, social recognition, internal communications and social learning
• I can help HR technology vendors craft their marketing strategy, find partners and get to the right decision makers
• I can connect vendors and clients to influencers in the media and social media world to make an impact

Interested in what I can offer? Email me at gautam dot ghosh at gmail dot com 

Twitter and Blogging for Learning & Development Leaders

Last week I was invited to present to a group of global learning leaders of a BPO/KPO firm on my Twitter and Blogging journey.

This is the presentation I made.

Looking forward to your feedback

Social media for learning leaders from Gautam Ghosh

Indian HR is ready for the Tech Revolution - thoughts from #TechHR14

Around 10 days ago I attended India's first ever Tech HR conference organized by People Matters in Gurgaon. I was privileged to be invited to speak at the unconference track in the event and host a Google Hangout with analysts Alan Lepofsky and Holger Mueller. It was also an opportunity to listen to industry leaders like Abhijit Bhaduri, Frank Ricciardi, Debjani Ghosh, Anand Pillai and Sameer Patel. I was also looking to catch up with innovative learning professionals and friends Kavi Arasu and Sunder Ramachandran.

Here's my takeaway:

• HR Technology is simplifying. The large players are moving to the cloud from on-premise and HR's dependence on the IT function is reducing. Most of this tech even between solutions by different vendors is becoming easy to integrate.
• HR leaders are increasingly seeing technology not with the earlier view of "eliminating inefficiencies" but understand that tech will transform HR and the workplace.
• There was a lot of talk about big data and analytics - but I missed the sessions. However I believe that soon we will see a lot of different kinds of people working in HR, like data scientists. 
• Employees will expect technology to be easy to use, intuitive and not go through a learning curve to use it, and for it to work across devices.
• There are quite a few HR Tech startups in the Talent Acquisition and Employee Engagement space. Some that caught my eye were Jombay, Talent Auction. Now it is incumbent on HR leaders to try out such innovative Indian startups.

Do check out the PDF report put together by the People Matters team about the event. Also read Sameer Patel's perspective on difference between the HR conversation in India with the US. A post by Rakshita on my session.

Panel on Social HR at @SMWMumbai on 23rd Sept #SMWMumbai

So I'll be speaking on a panel discussion on "Social HR" at Social Media Week Mumbai 2014.
My fellow panelists would be:

• Heather Saville Gupta - Chief Talent Officer, 120 Media Collective (Moderator for the panel) 
• Madhur Ramani - Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Stratum Consulting 
• Ranjit Nair- Founder and CEO, Germin8 
• Suveer Bajaj - Co-Founder and Director, FoxyMoron

Do check out the other panels and talks here, and the list of speakers here. If you are in Mumbai do try to join us!

Hangout with @alanlepo and @holgermu on "Emerging Trends in HR Tech & the Future of Work"

During the recent TechHR Conference organized by People Matters I had the pleasure of interviewing Constellation Research's analysts Alan Lepofsky and Holger Mueller

Here's the Google Hangout video of the conversation with Alan and Holger

Attend the #TechHR14 expo and Unconference for free on 22nd Aug at Gurgaon

Am so excited that the People Matters' team is organizing India's first conference focused on HR technology called The Tech HR Conference on 22nd August at The Leela Gurgaon.

If you're in the Delhi/NCR area and can't pay for the conference don't fret! You can still attend the Expo and the Unconference for free! Details here

I would be doing some stuff in the unconference :) For one I would be moderating a Google Hangout with Constellation Research Group's Alan Lepofsky and Holger Mueller and we are going to discuss about the Global emerging trends in the area of HR Technology and how future of work is going to look.

In addition I would be also giving a talk on how HR and other professionals can leverage emerging social technologies for their own professional development and success.

And there's going to be lots of other fun stuff too :)

Apps to get the best Twitter experience

Getting to understand Twitter and using it well is not easy, since it is not a "social/professional networking site" but rather an "information stream". Here are some of the tools that I use along with Twitter to have a great Twitter experience.

1. Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck was one of the third party clients which got acquired by Twitter. And it is the primary interface by which I use Twitter on the desktop. As you can see it makes your different streams visible on the same screen and you can add various columns to make twitter work most usefully for you. Tweetdeck also helps you post from multiple accounts, schedule posts, and mute and filter tweets. Go head over to http://tweetdeck.twitter.com and sign up for a better Twitter experience.

2. Mobile Apps for your Smartphone

Twitter has its own apps for the major smartphone platforms - and one of the real time feature of Twitter is most useful on the mobile. These apps are connected to camera and therefore make easy sharing of pics on to Twitter. Very useful when you are stuck in traffic or see something interesting :) Go here and download

3. Content sharing apps

Buffer and Klout are two applications I use to share and schedule content to Twitter. Both are also great content discovery platforms. Install their browser extensions and when you come across a great article you want to share click on the extension. If you use a RSS Feedreader like Feedly you will also see icons to share posts via buffer and other apps.

4. URL Shortener - Bit.ly

Yes Twitter has its own URL shortening system - but Bit.ly is when you want to keep a track of stats of the links you have shared. Specially useful if you are using Twitter for business reasons.

5. Searching Twitter Bios - Followerwonk

Twitter's own search is quite effective - however there is one thing it can't do very well - searching Bios on Twitter. For that there's Followerwonk.

6. Comparing common followers and following - Twiangulate

Twinagulate makes it easy for you to track the common followers and common followers between two accounts.

7. Managing very active and inactive accounts - ManageFlitter

ManageFlitter has lots of great tools like knowing what time you should post, whom to follow and unfollow - from the very active to the inactives. It also tells you which time you should post for maximum visibility. And like Followerwonk has a great Search for Bio capability.