10/1 UPDATE: Both open positions have now closed. We’ll be contacting candidates for interviews soon. In case you’re interested, there are two open Best Buy communications jobs posted on the company’s careers page and on IABC’s Job Centre. I know of a few people who have tracked me down via LinkedIn or by “Googling” me – and that led them here  to learn more about the jobs and/or the hiring manager (c’est moi), so I figured maybe I should offer my visitors (presumably, you) a little help when they show up.

First, the job listings. I should mention that unfortunately, we are not offering relocation with either position. However, the salaries are pretty darn good, and the cost of living in these parts can be quite manageable, so come to Minnesota! [More]

After nearly eight hours in the saddle, former neighbors Wayne, Sue and Colin and I crossed the finish line of the 2010 Jesse James Bike Tour Sept. 11 in Northfield, Minn. 104 miles! A century!

I’m not going to candy coat it: The ride was brutal. Take a look at the map below and you’ll notice that a huge percentage of the route points west and/or north. All day long, an 18-20 mile per hour wind blew in from the northwest, making those legs a painful grind. Nothing says headwind like pedaling down a steep grade at 15 miles per hour.

But once we crossed the finish line, all that was forgotten (well, that might be stretching it a lot) because we had accomplished the 100-mile feat we’d been eyeing since  we rode the JJBT 60-mile route last year. It was my seventh overall, but my first since 1993 (and by far my slowest). So it feels like a first ever.

Here’s the route …

A few of us here at the old Best Buy put our heads together a while back and came up with an employee communications heirarchy along the lines of what Abraham Maslow did in his 1943 Theory of Human Motivation. You know Maslow’s Hierarchy, which plots people’s needs on a continuum beginning with food, water and air at the bottom, and moving up through safety, belonging and self-esteem to self-actualization (vitality, creativity and meaningfulness) at the very top. When one need is fulfilled, it no longer motivates and the next need takes its place.

We applied the concept behind Maslow’s work to organizational communications, and what employees need from the companies for which they work. The bulk of our effort was aimed at answering the question, “What do our employees need from us (as a corporate communications function)?” and evaluating our work to see how well (or not) we align – structurally and strategically – to our audiences’ needs and wants. Secondarily, it was instructive to really see that responsibility for the most foundational aspects of our employees’ communication needs fall outside our purview.

Here’s what we came up with:

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