Changes for 2011 - New Contributors to IL SHRM Site

It is the year’s end and at Illinois SHRM just like at many other volunteer organizations personnel changes usually take place around this time of year. At the top we have a new incoming State Director – Donna Rogers. We also have a new Director Elect Cathy Plouzek, and we have the outgoing, Past State Director John Jorgensen. While we have a number of personnel changes we also have some folks like your truly are hanging around for another year or two.


One of the things that I am going to do next year is add some new voices to this blog site. For the most part, postings so far, have come from me, Dave Ryan, the Director of the Social Media for the State Council. Having looked around at other sites and other organization I have invited more folks who are involved with SHRM here in Illinois to be contributors and give new and varied content  in regards to  what is going on in the World of Human Resources.

The three folks mentioned earlier, John, Donna and Cathy all have agree to generate 4 to 5 posts for next year. In addition to the IL SHRM executive gang, we have lined up IL SHRM’s membership director and all around great guy Jeff Williams to our crew. Jeff currently writes at his own blog site HDLeader. Our Director of Marketing and Communication Heather Hammitt will also be contributing to our blog site.

To another prospective, from the staffing portion of Human Resources, Chloe Rada, The President of Staffing Management Association of Greater Chicago will be a regular contributor to the site.

We have been fortunate to grab two more contributors who have been instrumental in creating a new SHRM chapter in the Metro East area. We are thrilled to have Trish McFarlane who regularly blogs at HRRingleader, and her co-conspirator Chris Frede who also has her own site, HRBouy, as regular contributors for 2010.

So if I go back and count up the bolded names I see nine names listed. The plan was to have 12 regular contributors. So if my math still works I need three more regular contributors. Please let me know if you would be interested in contributing.

In addition to the weekly contributions, we plan to be presenting guest posts from upcoming conference speakers, and others who are present on the HR scene. So be looking for exciting thing coming from this the Illinois State Council of SHRM and this site next year.
- Dave Ryan Director of Social Media Illinois State Council of SHRM

Blog Post # 1

This will be known as blog post # 1. Coming on the heels of the 2010 SHRM Annual Conference is the 11th Annual Illinois State Council Conference. This year’s conference is August 2nd and 3rd in beautiful Oak Brook, IL. The conference features some keynote speakers on a wide range of topics. It promises to be an exciting event with more than 450 registrants and 55 exhibitors at the time of this post.
In addition to the conference ISC board members are working to make this a social media event as well. Perhaps not as was done on such a grand scale in San Diego by the SHRM mothership. While we may not be the mothership, ISC does have its Captain- SHRM’s own Curtiss Midkiff (a.k.a. SHRMsocmeguy)who will be in attendance. Curtiss along with SHRM National’s help is going to dial up the transparency of this event as there will be lots of live blogging and tweeting going on at the event; the likes of which many of you may have never seen.

Also to make sure there are a number of good blog posts coming out of the event, the council has confirmed guests and Blogging Icons Trish McFarlane (who blogs as the HR Ringleader), Mike Vandervort ( who blogs at The Human Race Horses) and Sarah White (who blogs at I’m So Sarah). No doubt they will have some thoughts on the conference and the speakers. They will also be around, in the event that you would like to meet or speak with them during the conference.

The ISC will also be hosting a tweet-up on Monday evening. This is going to take place at the Hilton Hotel, adjacent to the conference. Unfortunately this will be an invitation only event.

So if you have not made your plans to attend the conference, it is time to do so NOW!