Tag Archives: Project:Social

What I’ve been up to lately

I’ve been beating myself up about not posting as frequently here lately, but it’s for good reason(s). Really. Here is the full slate I’ve been working on these days, just in case you are interested. And if I’m slow to respond to an email or a phone call, now you know why!

HRevolution

I’ve been doing some work on HRevolution lately, getting neat stuff posted like speaker interviews and sponsor info. I figure posting here will slow somewhat until May gets here, but I just wanted to set expectations early. :-) By the way, if you want to go there are 8 tickets left at the time this is published. Snag one if you want to attend an event like no other.

The day job

People still ask me about my job that I started back in November. The most common question is, “Do you still like your job?” And my answer is a resounding yes(!). I get to do fun stuff and get paid for it. What kind of fun stuff? Well, lately I’ve been working two big recruiting initiatives to bring in helicopter pilots and survival instructors. How cool is that?

When I’m not working on that kind of effort, I’m developing training for managers, handling our benefits, and creating systems and processes to help us prepare for some growth we are planning for later this year.

I have an amazing manager, the culture is fantastic, and the free Diet Dew in the fridge doesn’t hurt. Plus I get to interact with our CEO, Mike Durant, on a regular basis. Hard to get that kind of access to senior leaders in other companies. One of my friends has this offer to come work for another company locally for about $10k more than what I’m making now. I told him if I ever started hating my job I’d be there in a heartbeat, but it doesn’t look promising. :-)

RocketHR

If you aren’t reading RocketHR, you should! I post there about once a week and most of the time it’s new, unique content. Click here to get it delivered to you. A few recent posts include reasons why you should read blogs, the SHRM blog carnival, and a video about really being ethical.

NASHRM

In my spare spare time, I also am the Social Media Director for my local Society for Human Resources Management chapter. Not only do I write the RocketHR blog, but I’ve made myself available to anyone and everyone locally who is looking for information or advice on getting involved with social media. It’s so much fun helping someone make the leap from “interested” to “practitioner.”

Project Social

If you’ve been following Project:Social for long, you know it’s a social media mentoring program for HR pros. We are in our second round of the program and are looking to get the third one started soon. Some people have asked why Victorio and I haven’t had more people in the program, but as you can see with other things I am working on, it is definitely a challenge to devote time to this and if you don’t have a good experience, then it wasn’t worth it anyway. We are looking at ways to scale the program to have more mentor and mentee pairs working at the same time.

SHRM YP Council

I’m about halfway into my term as the SHRM YP Council Chairman, and it’s been interesting so far. We are creating a guide that will be used to help young professionals get more involved with their local chapters. It also has some great tips and advice for volunteer leaders to help them connect with those individuals. I’m definitely glad that I am in the group!

On the home front

Don’t know that you specifically care, but I thought I’d offer my house up if anyone’s interested in buying. :-) Seriously, we are looking to move now that we’ve outgrown our little place, and if you’ve ever been through the process, you know how much that process takes out of you. We are also having so much fun watching the girls grow up. They are always doing something new and interesting, and I’m doing what I can to keep up! A few pics: Bree (our little puppy), Bree at dinnertime, Bella taking the car for a spin, and both girls first thing in the morning (FYI-Bella on the right, Bree on the left).

And that’s just to get me started. What is everyone else up to these days?

Project:Social-Round Two

So! If you haven’t heard about Project:Social yet, you might want to check out this announcement. It’s a fair summary of what we are trying to accomplish.

Back in late 2010, Victorio and I put together P:S to help connect those HR pros who wanted to know how to use social media with those who were already doing it well. We matched up three sets of mentors/mentees, and with little guidance sent them off into the wild blue yonder hand in hand. And you know what? It worked! (Here was a mid-stream review of the P:S happenings.)

We heard some great feedback from both sides of the relationship. Mentors said it was fun to connect with someone new/fresh and to get some ideas from someone just getting their feet wet. Mentees said it was comforting and reassuring to have someone there ready to answer questions and counter concerns at a moment’s notice. Win-win, right?

So Victorio and I wrapped up the first semester (although we encouraged the pairs to continue the relationship as long as it served them) and have moved into the second. We paired (okay, confession: Victorio is awesome at pairing people up, so I just got out of the way and let genius happen) up three more sets of people and will be doing more within the next month.

If you weren’t chosen, it’s not that we hate you. I promise. We just want to be able to offer as much support as possible to you and we are working a plan right now to make managing more mentor/mentee pairs a reality. We want it to be immensely useful for you. Seriously, if it’s not valuable, why do it at all?

Our three new pairs

Congratulations to the new pairs! You guys are in good hands.

  • Inshirah Muhamut and Joan Ginsberg
  • Pawan and Lance Haun
  • Thad Figlock and John Jorgenson

Our new LinkedIn group

We wanted a place where people could go to support each other, ask questions, and further the relationships in a safe, simple way. LinkedIn is the network of choice for business professionals, so that quickly won the vote. Here is the link to the Project:Social LinkedIn group. You’ll notice that it is a subgroup of the HRevolution LinkedIn group. That’s because they share much of the same vision. Both were created to facilitate connections between HR pros who not only love using social media to be better/smarter/faster, but also love to share and teach that to others. Go ahead and join both. The more you participate the more you get out of it!

Follow the action on Twitter

If you’re using Twitter, the relevant Project:Social hashtag is #projectsocial. If you’re not using it, why not sign up for P:S so we can help you learn how useful it is? :-)

If you want to sign up to participate in an upcoming session of Project Social, please fill out the survey at this link.

Social media mentor update (Project:Social)

It’s been almost two whole months since Victorio and I announced Project:Social, and we have had an amazing response. So far there have been three mentees matched with someone who can teach and guide them in the ways of the social media world. Those groups have been our “beta” testers, and we have received some good feedback from them on their experiences.

I even got to plug Project:Social during the SHRM Leadership Conference social media panel. What a great way to help the volunteer leaders in SHRM to learn how to use social media!

Anyway, our participants have also been prolific, from cross posting on blogs to sharing topics/ideas and more.

Lisa and William Continue reading →

Project: Social

So… Project:Social. What is it? Well, here’s where I explained how the whole social media mentoring idea began. I told everyone to stay tuned for a way to sign up and indicate interest. After you watch the video below (subscribers may need to click through), you’ll see the link to join up. Warning: the video and audio tracks messed up and aren’t synced. Therefore this looks like an old Japanese movie. My lips will be saying something but you’ll hear something else. Just listen well and you’ll get the good stuff. :-)

Here’s the catch: we’re in a “beta” phase for a short time. While anyone can submit their interest, we are going to try to match 3-5 couples and measure the results after a week or two. Then we plan to move forward with the rest of the candidates. Why? Well, we want to work out any kinks so that everyone has the best possible experience, and we’d like to be able to provide a little guidance if necessary until these relationships can get on their feet. Don’t let that stop you from applying, though!

Click here to sign up as a mentor or mentee.

Throughout the whole process Victorio and I have been telling people to share this thing. That’s where the real magic comes in. If you want to tweet about it, here’s the Twitter hashtag: #ProjectSocial (by the end of your mentorship, you’ll know what a hashtag is if you don’t already!). :-) Feel free to email your friends and coworkers. I’d rather have to scramble for mentors than have too many of them sitting around with nothing to do. :-)

And, as always, this is a work in progress. Feel free to share ideas or comments that you think might help us continue moving forward. Don’t forget to sign up if you’d like to help or be helped!