When are you hitting the office again? I have some work for you to do. Go to the corner office and without spilling coffee on the carpet out of sheer nervousness, ask the occupant what he or she does for a living. The trick is to tell them upfront that "playing golf" is not one of the options they can choose. That sobers them into really thinking hard.

I had the opportunity to talk to a student group on Employer Branding. When I asked them to name their number one choice of an employer, the overwhelming majority voted in favour of Google. Then I ask them for details that one would be expected to know about a potential employer eg the office location, the number of employees they have in India etc. All these queries draw blanks. I ask the group about what specific jobs at Google they wished to apply for.

I keep bumping into people who are completely uncool. I swear there are some who have not realized that our function is not called Human Resources anymore. We are about Talent Management. You do not hire fellows anymore. And you get a minus 5 if you think that it is the folks in Staffing or Recruitment that give you jobs. That department is now called Talent Acquisition.

Prof CK Prahalad wrote a book called Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid about the 4 billion people who live on less than $2 a day. He says that if only we could start looking at this group as a group of discerning consumers with specific needs, the corporations could tap into the immense opportunities that lie there.How about having the HR folks taking a look at those in the corporation who make up the bottom of the pyramid?