So… I finally finished the Rock Your Chapter eBook! It’s been a long time coming, but I hope it’s really useful to the volunteer chapter leaders out there. Know someone who’s in a leadership position with a local chapter or state council? Share this guide with them. I’d appreciate it and so will they. I’m passionate about helping our volunteer leadership with leading and growing their chapters, and this guide is just a small piece of what I’d like to do overall. Thank you to everyone for your support!

Click here to download.

Want to help?

I love giving these things away for free. The best part for me is knowing that it’s helping a person somewhere that I don’t even know, simply because someone like you shared it with them. Here are a few ways you can help me (and other chapters in your area):

• Send an email to your local and/or state board with the link to this page
• Share the link on twitter
• Post it on your local chapter or state council Facebook page or LinkedIn group
• Tell other volunteers you know about how much you enjoyed it (assuming you did!)
• Tell me about how it helped you so I can make the next one better

Testimonials for Rock Your Chapter

Ben hits the nail on the head. “Rock Your Chapter” rocks!!
Posted by Lori Goldsmith, SPHR, GPHR
Thanks for putting your ideas on paper and working to make us all better.
(Cincinnati HR)
Posted by Julie Johnson
Hey Ben – nice work!
Posted by Michael VanDervort
This is great stuff! I will share with the Guam and Saipan chapters and let you know the results. Thank you for taking the time to put this together.
Posted by Katherine Gillespie Dote
Ben,
Nicely done. Finally had a chance to download and read. Will happily pass along to others as well!
Thanks!
Posted by Bradley Galin, SPHR
Great book Ben. I printed it, read it and have sent links to my Chapter Board Members. I also posted a link on both the Georgia SHRM State Council LinkedIn Group and the Georgia SHRMState Council Membership LinkedIn Group!
Posted by Kevin Smith, SPHR
Ben: Thank you. I am sharing with our Board (Charleston West Virginia) and State Council Director.
Posted by James Wells, SPHR, IPMA-CP
Great guide! I’ll be sharing with my board colleagues in the Volusia/Flagler Chapter (Daytona Beach, FL)
Posted by Cheryl Perreault

Your document “Rock Your Chapter” is excellent. Thank you. As the Charleston West Virginia Chapter 2011 – 2013 President I have shared with our Board, and as a West Virginia State Council District Director I have encouraged the State Council Director to share with each Chapter in our State. Thank you.
Jim

Congratulations on your production of a useful tool for chapters.  Many of your ideas will fit any non-profit organization. Thank you for your efforts.
Mike

Good stuff. I’ll be sharing with my local ASTD chapter during our board retreat in December.
Traci Cuthbertson

Just finished a podcast about the SHRM Leadership Conference with my good friend Bryan Wempen of DriveThruHR. We talked about local SHRM chapters, the volunteers that make up the backbone of the organization, and my sweet little babies. Click the button below to listen to the show.

Also, my good friend Dave Ryan had a go with Bryan on the show just before I got a chance to get on. Dave’s interview can be found at this link. Big shout out to Dave for allowing me to share his hotel room for SHRM Leadership. I offered to sleep in the floor, but he got his room changed to have a second bed just for me. I promised him blogging assistance in return.

SHRM has some work to do to catch up on social media, and a while back they hired a guy named Curt Midkiff to make that happen. You may remember me writing about Curtis before (part one and part two). Well, it’s been six months since his first appearance here, and I thought it was time for us to give him a performance review.

What do you think went well this year? What did you accomplish?

When I came to SHRM in April, our team had several initial goals for the balance of the year which were:

1. Enhance our engagement with some of the key “HR voices” in social media.
2. Increase engagement in our Annual Conference via social media.
3. Create some initial beta platforms for engagement via social media.
4. Be a resource for other SHRM departments and leaders looking to engage external audiences via social media.
5. Get Ben Eubanks to become a SHRM member
6. Work with the collaborative social media team here at SHRM to develop a strategic approach to social media.

I think that we achieved some of those in these first six months but there is much more we want to next year!

2. Do you see any areas that need improvement?

Hmmm… Let’s see. Quicker blog posting from my SHRM10 blog squad (my fault guys, we will get all your work up next year in Vegas… ). And maybe we need to enhance our cloning software here at SHRM so I can be at six or seven places at once especially all the great social media conferences going on. But seriously, I think that next year offers a great opportunity for growth in the social media space here at SHRM. We have a number of people here at the headquarters that are integrating it into the work they are doing so collectively you can expect to see some cool things next year.

3. Goals for the Upcoming Year

1. To enhance our external social media platforms. I think we made a good start in these areas but in 2011 we can plan to do more. We will generate more content (videos, blogs, etc.) to give people a fuller picture of the work SHRM is doing as a global organization.
2. Annual Conference 2.0 — We are already working on some interesting things for 2011 to really increase engagement via social media. The feedback we received from the Social Media Lounge, The Blog Squad and TweetUp last year has now set the bar much higher and I think we are up to the challenge. At least from a social media perspective, we want to make sure what happens at Annual Conference in Vegas doesnt just stay in Vegas!
3. Equip our Leaders and Members with Social Media Tools — I think that we will be in a position next year to provide more tools for our Volunteer leaders and our Members which will enable to understand the power and potential of social media. As I mentioned before, we have a great cross-divisional initiative going on here at SHRM that is going to better equip our employees in the social media space which we can then pass along to our leaders and members.
4. Blogapalooza 2011 — We really want to get out there among the members to talk about social media and also listen to some of the best practices happening in the “field”. In my travels this year, I have met SHRM members like yourself (who by the way along with Victorio are doing some great work with #ProjectSocial) who are making some great strides in social media. We can assist as well as learn from these experiences as well. I am headed to Ohio in Dec and some of our other state conferences in 2011 so the tour bus is ready to roll.
5. SHRM11 — As I mentioned before we looked at Annual Conference 2010 as a launch pad for enhanced social media engagement. Since then, we have had a presence at our SHRM Thought Leaders Retreat, SHRM Strategy Conference and our Diversity and Inclusion Conference. You will be happy to know that Annual Conference 2011 will be the next step in that progression. As is everything at SHRM its a team effort, so we are working witn a number of departments here on a social media presence that will build upon last year’s “beta test”. Stay tuned.

Peer reviews (360 feedback)

In an effort to get a well-rounded review for Curtis, I asked a few people to tell me about their own perception of him and the work he’s done so far. I asked for honest feedback, and that’s what I got!

I have met with Curt several times (at SHRM conferences) and found him to be engaging and knowledgeable. The overall impression he gives regarding the possibility of national SHRM adopting social media and encouraging its use is commendable. I still see national SHRM conferences offering sessions that lean more toward the control of employee use of social media platforms, but I do not see this as something that Curt alone can impact.

I would like to see him continue to reach out to HR practitioners in the field who are using sites in their organizations successfully. By sharing those cases with SHRM leadership, he’ll continue to advance the positive image we need. I also recommend having Curt pull together a round table of these same professionals to talk with SHRM leadership about the benefits and how we’ve overcome the concerns of social media use. –Trish McFarlane

Curtis has done the best job he can in his short time with SHRM. He in essence has two bosses, the people at SHRM and the social media HR community. SHRM writes the checks. The challenge lies with SHRM itself and the red tape and seas that Curtis must navigate to help bridge the gap between SHRM and social media.

I would like to see Curtis spending more time engaging and leveraging the social media HR community while also learning more about what it’s like to be a HR practioner. I’d recommend that Curtis spend at minimum four weeks shadowing a typical member and learning about some of the obstacles and issues they face. This will increase his knowledge and credibility among the human resource members he serves. –Jessica Miller-Merrill

As a member and volunteer leader, I was super-pleased when SHRM named Curtis to his position (better late than never, hey SHRM?).  He’s had a lot to accomplish in a short time, but has gamely engaged with his audience of members; an audience which is often clueless, afraid and reluctant    I particularly enjoyed participating in the Curtis-led CLA Membership webinar – “Social Media for Chapters and State Councils.”  Well played Curtis – I hope you can keep it going! –Robin Schooling, SPHR

And that, my friends, is a review! Have any thoughts on the work Curtis is doing? Let’s hear ‘em!

Well, it was bound to happen eventually. In a week I’ll be venturing to Washington, DC in order to attend the SHRM Leadership Conference. It’s geared towards SHRM Volunteer Leaders, and I definitely have an interest in becoming one. Much of what I do now isn’t exactly in the spotlight when it comes to helping SHRM leaders learn and grow. Things like the SHRM chapter leadership guide are pretty unobtrusive, but they can really help chapter leaders to think about things critically instead of running their chapter “the way it’s always been done.”

I pushed hard to attend, talking with my local chapter, reading up on the requirements, and even going so far as to pitch the idea to SHRM to help me get there (yeah, right, but I still had to try). In the end my local chapter backed me up (as they always seem to) and the big boys at SHRM didn’t (as they always seem to). I thought the pitch was a good one. I’ve included the text of it below.

I have heard so many great things about the leadership conference, but the problem is that it has all been from word of mouth. I’ve never read another blogger really dig deep into what happens there and how they benefited from attending the event. While I spend a considerable amount of time volunteering with my local chapter, my position as webmaster/social media coordinator doesn’t qualify me for a ticket to the event. Bottom line: I would love to have the opportunity to share about the event and promote it to my audience and network.

I know it is more of a niche event, but I believe it has the potential to radically change how SHRM reaches and guides its volunteer leaders. I so strongly believe in the idea of bringing volunteer leaders together that I have created a LinkedIn group to gather feedback and form some close ties to the SHRM leaders in the field.

Because I’m also involved with the HRYP committee with Chuck, I’d love to find a way to help reach the young volunteers and help bring them into the leadership conference experience. WIthout them seeing the value in attending, the event will be losing a lot of attendees in the coming years.

I’d like to write about the leadership conference from several angles:

• First, from that of a first-time attendee. What’s it all about and is it even worth the trip?

• Second, from the young volunteer leader’s perspective. Is this a tool that can provide me and my chapter with value?

• Third, from my blogging persona. This event really is where a lot of connections and changes are made that other people never even have the opportunity to observe. I want to push bloggers to learn more about SHRM and share how their experiences have influenced their careers and organizations, because this is where the magic happens.

See? Not really a hard sell, but it has a lot of potential if they want to prove the value to the young HR professionals and other new and future SHRM volunteer leaders around the country (world?). Anyway, like I said, my local SHRM chapter made it happen for me, so I’ll be going and focusing on ideas to really help them in the coming year. I have a lot of ideas on my mind already, and I’ll be traveling with our president-elect, so there will be some deep discussions on chapter strategy on the trip to DC. If you’re going, shoot me an email. I’d love to meet you there!

By the way, my friend Dave Ryan did a little survey and realized that only 1.57% of the attendees for the event are active on Twitter. Not sure if that’s above or below the average, but I’m interested to see what happens when we get together.

Back when I surveyed SHRM volunteer leaders about what really frustrated them, one of the most common responses was a lack of interaction among leadership. Another big issue was a sense of being the only one out there. So from that point on I resolved to help remedy that.

The long story

Interesting story… I usually take it easy on Friday nights and coast through the weekend, then pick up steam on Sunday night to get back into the week at full speed. Well, I had about half an hour of free time last Friday night. Melanie had the girls, and I felt like I needed to get something done before they got home.

Of course I had to write a post about the new social media mentoring project I’m working on, and I also went through cleaning up my email. One in particular struck me.

I had talked to a few people a while back about creating a resource to help SHRM chapter and state council leaders connect and collaborate with each other. Then the email conversation stalled out. Everyone was positive about the idea, and they all agreed it needed to happen, but that’s where it ended.

Let’s make it happen

So, if you know anything at all about me, I’m a doer. I need some action, baby. So I created a LinkedIn group called SHRM Chapter and State Council Leadership.

Fair warning: It’s not for everyone. I don’t want everyone joining.

No, I’m not being a snob, it’s just that I want the conversation to be highly targeted to topics that would be beneficial for chapter and state council leaders. They need this kind of thing.

Leader? Don’t look at me!

I’m way new to this SHRM stuff. I’m not even in a leadership role in my own chapter really (unless webmaster/social media coordinator counts!). But I know that there are amazing people out there who have the knowledge and abilities to help fill this group with helpful ideas and other information. My goal is for this thing to be the resource that SHRM volunteer leaders turn to in order to network and learn how to do their job the very best they can. Just a few ideas for conversations I’d like to see crop up:

• How can we attract and retain members in our local chapter?
• What are some of the big steps in planning a statewide conference?
• Is there a good way to develop a chapter succession plan?
• How can we jump into social media as a chapter?
• Who can share some tips for finding compelling speakers?

Heck, those are just off the top of my head. And like I said, those people who are already in there know more about this stuff than I could cram into my noggin in a year. It’s a brain trust, and it’s going to change how SHRM volunteer leaders do what they do. If you are in a leadership role or you know someone who is, please send them the link to the group (or to this post for more info). I’d really appreciate it!

What the heck is an HRYP?

HRYP stands for “human resources young professional.” Yeah, sounds like a mouthful, so HRYP is the easiest way to say it, ‘kay? HRYP is an initiative kicked off by SHRM’s go-to guy for everything on the “young professional” end of the spectrum–Chuck Salvetti.

I had the pleasure of meeting Chuck at SHRM10, and since then I’ve learned more about what they are doing for young professionals in the HR space. I have to say… I love it. My goal from the very beginning was to serve as a resource for those just getting started in human resources, and this initiative is something that closely aligns with my goals for this blog.

With that in mind, I have built a series that links together the strengths and knowledge of some of my trusted resources in the HR arena and the questions/needs of the HRYP community. I am an active participant in the HRYP group on LinkedIn, and I encourage other young HR pros to join (I’m also a fan of the HRYP Facebook group, but I don’t participate there as much). I have had some interesting discussions with the people there, and I am excited to share some helpful information with non-HRYPs related to those conversations.

Top 3 HRYP Concerns Continue Reading »

Despite the intense annoyance he must have felt after meeting me , Curtis Midkiff, SHRM’s new Social Media Guy took the time to do a short email interview to talk about the event and what he sees for the days and weeks ahead. Whatever your thoughts on SHRM may be, this guy is doing some great things, and I can’t wait to see what’s next!

So, Curtis, we’ve seen you here before on the blog in the days ramping up to SHRM10 (meet Curtis Midkiff). Out of all of your predictions for the event, do you think it went as well as you hoped it would? What was the best/worst part?

I think that the overall engagement effort went as I hoped. Continue Reading »