In an effort to bring more people to the free HR Ninja course, I’m going to go through the lessons myself and post my updates as it goes along.  Enjoy!

Weekly Topic

This week was all about networking and making connections. The final challenge of the lesson was to take advantage of the social media tools available to crank networking up beyond the ordinary “here’s-a-business-card-now-we’re-buddies.”

Weekly Challenge Continue Reading

I absolutely love blogging. It’s one of those activities that I can just lose myself in. I’ve wondered for a while now about whether I should do any blogging about, well, blogging! In that vein, I did an informal Twitter poll the other night and asked if anyone wanted to see more posts about blogging. There were quite a few responses (both public and private), and I think it’s worth a shot. While some of you aren’t bloggers, the information should be interesting and it could give you some helpful tips if your organization is attempting to make headway in the social media space. Plus, this is my house. I make the rules.

I’ll kick it off with a nostalgic post about why I started blogging.

In the beginning… Continue Reading

How to Sell Social Media

In a previous post, I talked about using social media as a competitive advantage. Today, I’d like to take a look at why people like me attempt to push  or sell social media on those who are not yet participating.

• Is it because I feel a bit awkward and want others to join me?
• Is it because I have benefited from its use and want others to do the same?
• Is it because I’ve been suckered into a fad and don’t know any better? Continue Reading

Fads. We’ve all fallen for one at some time or another. That’s why many businesses and people are wary of tools like social media.

What if we put a lot of time and money into this idea and it turns out to be a fad?

I have a question for you: what if you looked at social media not as a fad, but as a competitive advantage?

Many people (I freely admit my own participation) have made it their mission to evangelize and convert people and organizations to social media use. I have an interesting suggestion. Continue Reading

Social media is growing, and there’s no end in sight. Recently, Kris Dunn came and spoke to my local SHRM chapter about social media and its uses for HR professionals.  It’s interesting that he was slated to come in August, because I had proposed a chapter blog shortly before then. I envisioned something like the work that Stephen has done with HR Gumbo, but probably not as awesome. Anyway, a few weeks of frenzied work behind the scenes led to the current site.

One potential issue was that we weren’t sure how the blog would play out in the long run. What if I moved away? What if I suddenly hated blogging? To smooth that wrinkle, I promised updates every week on Monday, since most of the people reading wouldn’t be able to keep up with more than that. After a year, we will reassess and see if we can draw in more writers, because I would like to do more with the chapter in a hands-on capacity whenever possible.

And RocketHR was born.

I’m hoping that it can be used as social media “training wheels” for the members of the chapter (and anyone else out there who’s delving into SM for the first time). The first posts are directed toward those fresh faces, so make sure and point people in that direction if you think they can learn something useful!

• Have someone you’re trying to convert to social media? The post on the social web might be helpful as a primer.
• Need to explain Google Reader to someone? Keep the Google Reader tutorial close at hand.
• Know something that might be useful to someone new to the social media space? Leave a comment!
• Are you new to this stuff? If so, then please let me know what you’d like to learn!

And as always, any assistance in promoting this new blog would help greatly in proving its worth as a tool for my local chapter. Thanks!

And the snazzy logo was created by my good friend Allen Robinson (@logicwriter).