Whew. It has been quite a week. By the time most of you read this I will be a few miles into a 50 mile, 3 day stage race on some gnarly trails in Birmingham, AL. Yes, I have a running problem; however, it beats a drinking problem, and in HR, that’s almost a job requirement. :-) I’m hoping that I get a lot of brilliant ideas and clarity out of the most difficult physical challenge of my entire life, but I’ll probably just end up with some really sore legs and hobble around like an arthritic 90-year old for a few days. I’ll try to post something semi-coherent on Monday (we’ll see). Now for some very cool updates that I’m hoping everyone is excited about (because I know I am!).

Updated signup form

Anyway. I’ve updated the signup form for the blog. You can now sign up for per-post updates, the HR Ninja series (grand reopening with updates coming soon), or even a weekly digest if you prefer to have fewer emails in your inbox. More on that here. If you are not signed up, you are missing out.

“Grand reopening”

I like the idea of “grand” anything, so why not a reopening of the almost-3 year old HR Ninja email course? I’m doubling the number of topics and adding some strong challenges to encourage people to break free of their daily rut and really make a strategic impact as an HR professional. Once I’m done I will make an announcement so people can sign up for that. If you sign up now you will get the old version, which is still good but was done at a time when I was a little less polished. Not that I’m polished now, but you get the point. :-)

More cool tools

I’m also creating a very useful series that will go out exclusively to those who sign up for the blog updates (sign up here if you went temporarily blind and missed all the subscribe links above). These will probably be delivered once a month for 12 months. My goal was to be very unobtrusive in terms of quantity and very high in terms of quality. But you better believe it will be a veritable flood of knowledge.

Each of the 12 emails will have a different topic focus, and all will be geared toward helping you to be a better HR pro (that’s my mission, people!). If you are subscribed for email updates to the blog, you will see these automatically when they start going live.

30,000 word challenge

November. A few years ago I talked about the NaNoWriMo phenomenon. I am not writing fiction, and I don’t have time for writing 50k words in only 30 days.

I’m looking at another challenge that is similar but less crazy and more focused on those of us who blog. Contentpalooza. I’m still formulating a plan but will probably end up writing 50 blog posts and creating some high quality resources for you guys during the month of November. I’m collecting as many topics for blog posts as possible in an effort to knock out that 50 blog post goal, so if you have something to share feel free to leave a comment or send me an email at ben@upstarthr.com.

�Work

Anyone want to swap places? November is 1) open enrollment and 2) annual performance review and�3) compensation planning month. On second thought, I am probably going to need to take up drinking before this is all over…

What’s up with everyone else?�