Upcoming Attractions

Whew! With all the serious stuff lately, I haven’t had time to catch up with what’s going on in my little world (like you all are just dying to know). :-) A few things…

Adoption

Melanie and I are sitting on our butts with the adoption. We have finished all of our tasks, but now we’re looking/waiting for a baby. Why am I telling you? We just need one person. Yeah, it’s a little strange for most of you. To y’all, I’m just a guy writing about HR. Well, luckily there’s a place you can go to learn all about the hope for adoption that I share with my wife. Some of my great friends at HRev took the time to ask about how it was going, and I appreciate the sincerity and concern!

HR Carnival

Back when I did my first HR blog carnival, I prepared everyone with a post about how they need to share the stuff with people outside our little bubble. I think it’s pretty darn funny that Lance and Laurie finished off HRev with the same advice. Anyway, I am running the carnival again here this week, and the theme will be the event that I helped to create, so I’m really excited about bringing all that HRev goodness back to the home front. If you would like to contribute but don’t have a blog, I take email submissions!

Oh, the Irony

"Irony"

I just realized something. I wrote a post a while back about how I was so productive and I planned to teach you all a few ideas on how to do the same. Then I never even finished writing the series. Is that hilarious or what?

New eBook Project

I’ve been looking for my next eBook topic. I haven’t written one since Rock the PHR. Nothing has really sounded that appealing to me. But one day last week I had lunch with my web design partner and he mentioned a recent post as a great point of expansion. All that for a teaser, huh? :-)

Google Reader trends screenshot

Getting Out of HR

Check out my Google Reader screenshot above. That’s how I read the blogs and keep up with everything that goes on in the blogging world. I’m cutting HR blogs and adding other subscriptions to my Google Reader (click here to learn how to use Google Reader). I love you guys. Really. But there are two constraints. First, I can’t keep up with everyone. After resigning myself to that fact, I moved on to the second reason. My life is more than just human resources, and I have been trimming my HR blogs and adding more on topics like marriage, relationships, communication, web design, graphic design, search engine optimization, marketing, and sales. Way off topic for the day job, but infinitely helpful in so many ways.

The Breakup

I alerted the people on the free Rock the PHR newsletter this week, but some of the rest of you may be interested. Ning, who has traditionally offered free social network building tools, is canceling their free service. That means I get to scramble for another option or just pay the fee. And due to their customer service flub I mentioned, I think there are better alternatives. Breaking up is hard to do… I’ve used them for almost half  a year to run a network that is a bonus benefit to those who purchase the RTPHR eBook, and now I’m on the hunt again for another option.

Blog Stuff

I had a great chat on blogging tools and tips last week with Charlie Judy of HR Fishbowl. When I had my super-secret Rock Your Blog group running a few months back, I wrote a few articles with ideas on Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, Feedburner, and search engine optimization. That’s Greek to most of you, but it’s like heroin for us bloggers. ;-) Anyway, I’m putting them together into a guide and have made some videos showing how to do general stuff with WordPress. If anyone’s interested in learning how to get a blog off the ground, just let me know and I’ll hook you up. Or if you’re wondering if blogging is even a remote possibility for you, I can talk you through that, too. I’m always up for some email.

HRCI-You’re Doing it Wrong

I have to let it go. HRCI (the Human Resources Certification Institute) is stepping into social media and they are going about it all wrong. But instead of being purely negative and jumping down their collective throats, I want to offer some suggestions and positive points. I should have a post up on this by Friday. Stay tuned.

And that’s about all I have going at this exact second… What about you? Doing anything interesting? Don’t forget to stop back by on Wednesday for a great collection of HRevolution posts as I host the HR blog carnival!

Interview with Curtis Midkiff, SHRM’s “Social Media Guy”

Before I went to HRevolution, I heard rumblings about a new guy on Twitter. Curtis Midkiff (aka @shrmsocmedguy) is SHRM’s new guy in the social media space. And with China Gorman stepping out (video below), they’re going to need someone stepping in to keep ’em on the right track in the social space. I caught up with Curtis for a quick email interview earlier this week…

  • How did you get connected with SHRM?

SHRM has been exploring ways to maximize our use of social media platforms both as an organization and as a service to our members. As a part of that one of the first items that our CEO and the rest of the global leadership team decided was that there was a need to have someone added to the SHRM staff that could be a leader in the area of social media and how we use it to engage our employees and our members. And I am lucky to have been the one they selected to carry out the job.

  • What is your goal as the “SHRM social media guy?”

My goal is to really to work with the folks here at SHRM to make sure that we are using social media tools as a way to educate and engage our members while also connecting with others within the HR profession to increase awareness of SHRM. I also hope to be the Ashton Kutcher of the HR Twitter world…can you help me get to a million followers Ben? [Considering my paltry 2,400, I’m probably not the best resource, Curtis. :-) ]

  • What’s something fun/interesting that most people don’t know about you?

Hmmm, I am a buffalo wing conneisseur with in-depth knowledge of that subject. I will be releasing a list of the best wing spots prior to the SHRM annual conference…stay tuned.

  • The 2009 conference blogger panel was a big moment for those of us in the HR/social media space. Any idea how SHRM is going to involve social tools in the SHRM 2010 conference?

I am excited about what we are doing in that space this year. In addition to being able to follow us @shrm10 and on Facebook, this year we are debuting the social media lounge. This will be an area at the conference for registered bloggers to congregate to post their blogs and videos. We will have plasma screens, video back drops, and computers kiosks and wi-fi as well. In addition, we are going to have a “blog squad” of SHRM members that will cover the people, places and events of the conference. The blogs and videos that we post will be featured on the annual conference website.

We are also hosting an official tweet-up on June 28th at a secret location in San Diego… How\’s that for marketing? But seriously, we are going to host an event for folks to connect the dots with their “tweeps”.

  • If someone is on the fence about attending SHRM 2010, what would you say to push them over?

They will get to hang with the SHRM social media guy, wouldn\’t that be enough? And once their laughter died down, I would say that there are a number of people working hard here at SHRM to put together a conference that is worth every penny. Another interesting event this year is our voluntourism event with the uso where shrm members will create packages that will be sent to our troops.

The sessions are going to be great and folks will get to connect with over 10,000 hr pros in lovely san diego. And hall and oates are gonna bring back the 80s and some good memories.

Make sure you catch up with Curtis (Curt?) on Twitter. He’s @shrmsocmedguy over there!

China Gorman’s “Thank You” Video

HRevolution-My Dinner with (Uncle) Andre

Is it really evolution if nothing changes?Today’s post is a good one, and it’s even better because I was able to get the fantastic Robin Schooling to share it with all of you! I had the opportunity to meet Robin last weekend, and she was as wonderful in person as she is online. Now have a seat and listen up. She has a lesson for you…

It’s taken me a while to process and think about what I took away from HRevolution.  Other than “The HR Apprentice” session where I was a team captain (thanks Steve Boese) and talked up out of necessity, I primarily sat quietly absorbing content and was the most active-listener I have been in a long time.  I continue to think about (and even dream about – yikes!) conversations and comments and moments.  I had a conversation with my CEO on Monday and told her that it was the best event I ever attended (and my first unConference) but also that I was feeling a bit sad. Continue reading →

Workplace Culture, Netflix, and Teams (Video)

Check out the short video below. I have recently become increasingly interested in the topic of workplace culture, and I think people underestimate the power it holds. Companies like Netflix know what their culture really means, and taking the first step to define it is a big part of the process.

(Subscribers may have to click through to view) Continue reading →

#HRevolution 2010 in the Books

steve boese lance haun hrevolution coffeeIt was an amazing night at the Monster Social HRevolution event, and Saturday was no different. My sincere hope for this weekend was that everyone would finish the day saying, “I would gladly do this all over again.” With the feedback I’ve heard so far from our attendees, that’s been the case for the most part.

I’ve already seen half a dozen posts on the event from various people, and I know more will be coming soon. Don’t forget that I’ll be handling the HR Blog Carnival on May 19th, so get me a link to your post by the 17th if you want to participate! I’d love for it to be the most comprehensive collection of HRevolution material that’s available anywhere.

How to stay in touch now that it’s over: Continue reading →

#HRevolution-The #MonsterSocial Recap

Whew! It’s 6:00 am as I write this and it’s time to start getting ready to head over to Catalyst Ranch. A little bit of news…

The Monster Social event held last night at TheWit Hotel was simply amazing. My good buddy Eric Winegardner from Monster outdid himself this time. People started arriving to the event half an hour early just to get a head start on meeting everyone. If you weren’t there, you totally missed out. A few high points for me… Continue reading →

HRevolution-A Different Kind of HR Conference

HRevolutionEvery month at NASHRM Mentor University each individual gets to share something about what’s going on in their life/work. This month I proudly shared about the HRevolution event I’ll be attending later this week. Not only will I be going to Chicago for the first time, I will also have the opportunity to interact with more than a hundred other rock solid HR pros from across the globe.

So, what is it?

Here’s a blurb from the website.

HR social media thought leaders and practitioners from around the country will be converging for 24 hours+ of mind-bending, trend-setting discussions on HR, social media, communications, leadership/development in an unconference format that emphasizes interaction over passive listening.

Sounds neat, huh? When I helped to develop this event last year with my friend Trish McFarlane, we had no idea how popular it would become.

So, why do you care?

We all know that the use of social media is affecting our work. I believe it has the power to fundamentally change how many things work in our organizations. For instance, it has an effect on:

  • Employer Branding
  • Employee Communications
  • Workplace Culture
  • And more!

I helped to found this unconference in order to teach others. This weekend, that’s definitely going to happen. I’ll be speaking on blogging, and we have others who will be doing recruiting, diversity, healthcare, and other more traditional tracks.

It’s too late for me to go. What can I do?

We’re really hoping to gather as much video and audio as possible to share, because I know this stuff is too valuable to let it just disappear into the ether when the event is over. Stay tuned and I’ll do what I can to let you know what sort of great things I learn this weekend.

If you have any questions about social media use in your own organization, I’d love if it you would let me know. I bet I can help you find an answer!