ILSHRM Annual Conference Re-Cap

This is available on youtube, but we wanted to put it here for all to see - as our youtube site has little content and you would not likely stumble on to it. Also - MY BAD - in the wrap up video there are no pictures of Mike VanDervort, Trish McFarlane and Charee Klimek because I did not include any pictures or you.  Sarah White is pictured only because she hooked up and installed a router!

A big thanks to all who helped make our 2010 conference a success.

A Big Thanks to the 2010 Illinois SHRM Social Media Crew

Last week was my week in the big leagues. As the social media guy for the Illinois State Council, I found myself in the middle of our annual conference and our state council's social media efforts. Long story short, the event found me hanging out with, talking with and socializing with our blogging crew and SHRM’s social media guy. Prior to this conference, I had met Mike VanDervort, Trish McFarlane, Charee Klimek and Curtis Midkiff at previous events although I had not had the pleasure of meeting Sarah White.

To anyone who has met any of these folks, you all know this, but I feel compelled to tell the world that they are all genuinely nice people who have no airs about them. Although the reality is they all have large followings on their blog sites and with their twitter followers as well. They were all very welcoming and spoke to anyone who engaged them in conversation.

In one instance, I read a blog post response where a conference attendee was uncomfortable walking up to Mike, although she had seen him at the conference. Mike did follow up with her in a blog comments section and offered up a phone call. In another instance, another commenter thanked Sarah for spending one-on-one time with her after a session answering questions about social media. Trish enticed all of the women on the board of the ISC SHRM when she asked for guest posts for one of Trish's many projects The Women of HR blog.

To some degree, each of them possesses a talent often seen in our children. Their multi-tasking was amazing - tweeting, blogging, questioning, talking - all at the same time! They all did it; this was intriguing to watch.

During the second day luncheon, sponsored awards were handed out. Without any prompting or requests, the blog squad in unison began tweeting out thanks to the award sponsors (Blue Cross) and quickly received a tweet back from Blue Cross. That’s what they do, and boy do they do it well!

So, in summary, and, on behalf of the entire the SHRM State Council, I would like to send out a big thank you to our 2010 blogger crew and SHRM national’s Curtis Midkiff for all of their work in helping us deliver this year’s conference to the whole world via the internet. It was truly my pleasure getting to work with and know each of you.

Stay tuned and see what Trish, Curtiss and Mike bring us from HR Florida, no doubt it will be interesting!

It's Over... Next Up HR Florida

The 2010 Illinois SHRM State Conference is in the books.  While this blog may be somewhat biased the event was a success, with some fabulous keynotes and great break out session. Having a great conference was the objective. Mission accomplished!

Another objective for the year was to interject a substantial level of social media into the conference. We did that too, and quite well I think.  Along the way we did have one session that seemed to garner a lot of attention out on the tweet stream.  If you are reading this there is a good chance that you have already looked at this but the complete tweet transcript is located here.

I don’t want to expound upon who was right, or who was wrong. Here is what happened in my opinion. As technology and communication are evolving those of us who use these tools have to change to keep up with those change.  Sometimes these changes come so quickly, we as the users aren’t sure of the best way to use the tools. 

Mark Stelzner commented on the matter saying that it is just like a bad play review, only quicker.

More discussion has taken place on a blog post from Lance on Rehaul.  Again, these are just opinions here.

What does it all mean?  Times are and continue to keep changing.  The lines are going to continue to blur.

Sometimes things don’t work out exactly like you plan. 

In the end, it was all good.  No animals were harmed!