Today, I’m going to break down the 4th wall. To the outside observer, these weekly Friday roundups appear incredibly time consuming to compile. Often, I’m asked, “How do you track all of the links you post in your Friday wraps, and how long does it take you to write that post?”
The truth is that my “WIRTW” are the easiest posts I write all week. During the week, I use my RSS reader to save all of the blog posts that I find interesting from the blogs to which I subscribe. Then, it’s nothing more than cut, paste, and a little sorting to make the magic happen every Friday.
“What is RSS,” you ask? RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is a web format used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video. RSS feeds let publisher automatically syndicate content, typically through a feed reader. Users subscribe to a website’s RSS feed, and the site automatically pushes updates to the reader upon publication. In other words, instead of checking hundreds of websites each date, RSS lets me check one (my feed reader), which automatically updates every time a site to which I have subscribed publishes new content.
Up until this week, my RSS app of choice was Google Reader. Heck, I think it was the RSS app of choice of 99% of the blog-reading community. Then, tragedy struck. Google announced that it was closing Reader. My initial thought was how the heck am I going to keep writing “WIRTW” without my trusty Google Reader.
Then, I found Feedly. Feedly should be the go-to blog reading app for anyone who used Google Reader. Since Google announced Reader’s closure, 500,000 users (including me) have flocked to Feedly. Feedly was even so nice as to post an 8-step guide to migrating from Reader.
So, if you receive updated to my blog via RSS, I suggest you jump over to Feedly, import your Google Reader account through its automated process, and keep on reading as if nothing’s changed.
If you are new to the RSS game, give it a try. It will likely revolutionize how you consume Internet content. Or, you can always subscribe the old-fashioned way, via my daily email newsletter.
Here’s the rest of what I read this week:
Discrimination
- Can We Be a Christian Company? — from Current Employment
- Man fired over zero-tolerance sexual harassment policy loses appeal — from West Virginia Record
- Dear Evil Skippy: Is It Harassment To Post Pictures Of The New Pope? — from Evil Skippy at Work
- Is rejecting a sexual advance, without reporting it, protected activity? — from The Employer Handbook Blog
- When Bad Things Happen to Good Employers: An Equal Employment Opportunity — from HR Defense Blog
- Can Body Odor Fall Under Religious Protection? — from Evil HR Lady
- Is the EEOC Really Out to Force Employers to Hire Applicants with Criminal Histories? — from The Emplawyerologist
- Survey Says: Criminal Records Aren’t Automatic Disqualifiers for Employers — from EmployeeScreenIQ Blog
Social Media & Workplace Technology
- Don’t Ignore The Risks Of BYOD Programs — from Employment Law Watch
- Court: Hijacking ex-employee’s LinkedIn account violates PA law — from Ars Technica
- More Trouble With Work-Related Social Media Accounts — from Socially Aware Blog
- Ex-BP Engineer Accused Of Deleting Voicemails — from The Huffington Post
HR & Employee Relations
- Non-competes: HR’s version of the Prenup — from Fistful of Talent
- Office Pools in Connecticut: Jump In? Maybe — from Connecticut Employment Law Blog
- Mediating Non-Compete Disputes in the Medical Device Industry — from Non-Compete and Trade Secrets
- Electronic Cigarettes in the Workplace — from Minnesota Employer
- Employees: You Have The Right To Say No — from Screw You Guys, I’m Going Home
- Workplace Investigations: Assessing Witness Credibility from WinWinHR
- Firing for insubordination – the right way — from HR Cafe
Wage & Hour
- Supreme Court Rejects Plaintiff’s Attempt to De-CAFA-nate Class Action Lawsuit — from The Wage and Hour Litigation Blog
- Court Rules That Third Party Administrators Can Be Held Liable for FMLA-Related — from FMLA Insights
Labor Relations
- Can’t Say You’re Coming in if You’re Going to Strike — from Labor & Employment Law Perspectives
- NLRB Lightens Grip on At-Will Language in Employer Handbooks? — from Labor Relations Institute