For two days, once every two years, the cry of “Yurop” rings out. The blue flag with the circle of  stars is waved with vim and vigour.

Flickr cc photo attribution. Llywodraeth Cymru thanks

When deploying HR software remember that it is not the Ryder Cup. There is no such thing as a European requirement when it comes to HR. Things turn nationalistic. The French, Irish, Germans, British and Luxembourgers all do things differently.

“What about privacy or working time?” you ask. Well even European “laws” aren’t really laws, they are Directives, which are  then implemented at the national level, often in markedly different ways and pace.

When HR vendors talk of their European or worse an  EMEA strategy, I get worried. It means they don’t get the space.

Carol Bartz‘s lacerating eccentricity may captivate Silicon Valley, where she’s cutting costs left and right. Not so in Europe: When Yahoo tried to shut down operations in France, workers made this surreal, defiant video. And went on strike, naturally.Their point: Yahoo made about 1 million euros per worker from Yahoo France alone last year, and used to hype how “it’s important to have [locally] concentrated engineering activities… to innovate” in France, where it would base “one of [its] most important centers in Europe.” Yahoo France’s engineers will now stop working until Yahoo agrees that they shouldn’t have to stop working. At least they’re fact checking the internet company’s hype along the way.

(thanks Valleywag).

There is a  lesson for all “global” high tech companies. HR practices that work in the US don’t necessarily travel well. I have quite a bit of research in the pipeline on a related topic. I have seen global HR projects derailed because of worker and union opposition, forcing system redesigns and huge delays.

I’ll predict that the software industry will face increasing collective and industrial action. Social software makes it easier to organize and motivate around an issue, and create a strong collective even without the presence of a union. It makes it easy to reach the broader public too.  We have seen the power of the disgruntled customer using social media to mobilise support and opinion. Employees have access to the same tools and media. Executives of global software companies will need to get a lot more savvy about global HR issues. Gosh, that degree I did in Industrial Relations might actually be useful one day.

It is full of excellent nuggets. Obsess about your customers, not your competitors. Invent. Think long term. Be prepared to be misunderstood.  I wonder how many other CEO’s could present their business principles in this precise yet genuine way?  I believe the presentation was mainly aimed at the employees of Zappos. Amazon recently acquired them.  If I was a Zappos employee this would go a long way to making me feel welcome. 

Last night I was chatting to a colleague of mine in the US about ERP’s future. We then ended up discussing the history of the software industry. At what point do the ERP vendors of today face significant new forms of competition, and how will they react, what will threaten them, who will adapt and who won’t?  History can be a useful guide. We briefly touched on DEC, IBM, Dun&Bradstreet, Cullinet, ADR and so on. I suggested that he read Martin Campbell-Kelly’s excellent "from Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog- A history of the software Industry."  While we were talking he ordered it on his Kindle so that he could read it on the beach. He then proceeded to convince me that the Kindle was "awesome", which in turn then led me to read some Gartner Research on e-paper so that I could figure out how the Kindle could work in bright sunlight when I should have been working on my e-Recruitment Magic Quadrant.

The Kindle has started a bit of a blaze (bad pun I know). I’m following the "1984" incident with interest. Bezos’s apology was rapid, genuine and appropriate, but as Cory Doctorow points out, there are more issues around the Kindle that require resolution.  The Kindle is not only creating issues for Amazon, it is creating challenges for copyright law, publishers, and authors. How this plays out will impact fundamentally how we read. That is a big responsibility.

click here if it doesn’t display.

via the TED site. Ushahidi — a crisis-tracking tool with roots in TEDGlobal 2007 — has been awarded a $200,000 grant for development from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Spend a moment watching Erik in Action. link here if it doesn’t display in your reader.

Well done Erik and the gang.

Web 2.0 technologies are having an impact on UK politics too.