Last week, our annual Employers Counsel Network conference came to Nashville, so I got to sit in on the sessions. One of the unexpected themes was iPads, as almost 80 percent of the employment law attorneys showed up with one. Two of the conference speakers — president of Newstex Larry Schwartz and Teresa L. Shulda, attorney with Foulston Siefkin in Wichita, Kansas — spent time talking about their favorite iPad apps for work, including:

1. Dropbox lets you store and share photos, docs, and videos. Any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all devices you have registered with the account, including computers, phones, and iPads as well as the Dropbox website, which you can access from any Internet connection. Shulda offers one caution about using Dropbox: It’s not a good place for confidential or proprietary documents or information because, while the information is encoded, Dropbox — not the user — holds the “encryption key.”
2. CloudOn allows you to access and work in Microsoft applications on your iPad, including red-lined Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint slides.
3. PDFpen allows you to edit  PDF files by adding or editing text (including signatures) and images, filling out interactive PDF forms, searching, adding notes, and more. read more…

One of the great things about the Internet is the access to information it allows us. Sometimes, however, all that information can be overwhelming, and it becomes hard to manage and keep up with all the sites that offer the information that interests you. This is when you need an RSS feed.

RSS — which stands for really simple syndication — is a way for you to gather information from several different websites in one place.  Instead of checking your favorite sites for news, weather, blogs, stock prices, legislation, and podcasts individually, you can set up an RSS feed as a one-stop-shop location for all your information needs.  In short, RSS feeds allow you to spend more time with the information you want and less time searching for it.

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About a year ago, I began planning and outlining Technology for HR: A Legal and Practical Guide for Managing E-mail, Intranets & Social Media. At the time, I considered myself fairly technologically savvy. After all, I was (and am) the master of the DVR, could build a playlist on my iPod, and even had my very own Twitter and Facebook accounts. Surely tackling the world of technology as it relates to HR would be no problem.

After some back and forth with my editor, Ralph Gaillard, we settled on the following topics for this first edition of the technology manual: e-mail, intranets, mobile technology, blogs, microblogs, social networks, wikis, online video and podcasts, and RSS. No problem . . . yeah, right.

As I dove in, my head began to swim, and I must admit I started to panic. There was just so much to learn. How could I possibly get a grip on all this information, much less distill it down into easy-to-digest nuggets? Over the next six months, I tackled each topic by reading about its history and development, looking for ways companies big and small were using the functions to improve the HR experience (for both the HR professional and employee), and, finally, wading into the deep end by actually using and building each of the items on the list.

A year later, my fear has all but evaporated because I feel like I can tackle almost any technology hurdle with enough time and effort (for those of you who don’t have the time, you can get a jump start with the Technology for HR manual). There are three rules that served me well on this technology odyssey: read more…