Normal business attire for Sackett. Click to enlarge.

Ever since Laurie Ruettimann suggested a Tim Sackett day, I’ve been stoked.

Not because I think Tim deserves any sort of recognition, especially on any of those influencer or top blogger lists. Because, really? It’s entertaining as hell when he doesn’t get picked.

I played kickball when I was a kid in school and there was this little kid named Ricky who was kind of an annoying little wise ass. And while he was good at kickball, he always got picked for our teams way too late. He’d be picked in the fourth round and he would just be livid about it because, in reality, he was definitely first or second round material.

So one day, the kids who picked teams decided that neither one of them was going to pick him, just to see what would happen. And so his face got more and more red as each successive round passed. He finally got picked: dead last.

Everybody figured he was finally going to lose it. Little Ricky was going to blow a gasket. But instead, he played the most aggressive game of kickball anyone has ever seen. It’s all fun and games until a red playground ball comes flying at your head.

I’m not quite sure why that story is relevant but it made me think of Timmy. I can see him sitting in his office, somewhere between here and the east coast, pounding out a dozen phone calls, making a placement and writing a post that was still better than mine. It only hurts when I think about it for too long.

It is also great talking basketball with him and the other guys in the 8 man rotation. I’m not exactly sure how well Sackett fits in when he goes to the Palace at Auburn Hills but his short whiteness would look good in Portland. Just in case he is thinking about where to retire early.

In all seriousness, Tim is a good guy, getting things done and making things happen. He’s always open with his talents and has been tremendous to the success of TLNT, the place that signs my checks. And when I helped him get his blog up and going, he sent me a Michigan State T-shirt. Then I got to see him jump off a perfectly fine tower in Vegas (and nail the landing).

If you don’t know Tim, you need to check him out at:

• The Tim Sackett Project
• Fistful of Talent
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Connect with him, know him. He’s a smart guy, even if he’ll never ever make a list.

“The web is about transparency and you have to be yourself!”

It supposedly makes for more compelling content. Or something. If you’re willing to share a lot of information about yourself, you can be famous. Tentativeness aside, being yourself (or maybe being a glamorized version of yourself) might be the best way to make it big. And if you’re unwilling to do that, there are thousands of other bloggers, social media personalities and bottom feeders ready to take your place, strip off their dignity and show every piece of themselves to the world.

Let them.

Every one of you is a unique snowflake but unless you’re famous, powerful, adventuresome or a moving train wreck, nobody cares much about your transparency.

From 2003-2007, I wrote on an almost daily basis on my personal LiveJournal account. 1,400+ entries and over 12,000 comments received, almost all of which were personal, transparent, raw and real (and none of which is currently available to anyone other than me). In some ways, it is uncomfortable to read about how lonely, moody and insecure you once were. I was there, being transparent and telling my story, and a few people paid attention to me. Good people, mind you, but very few.

I’ve spent about the same amount of time being active in the HR and recruiting space with this blog, Twitter and the other places I’ve ended up over the years. As far as the people I’ve connected with, things I’ve learned and ways I’ve grown, there is no comparison. And yet, my most casual readers probably know a minuscule amount of information about me. Even those who follow me on Twitter or Facebook don’t get anywhere close to the whole story. Selective facts about me that work in concert with my content not withstanding, what you see is a picture of a person that you can believe and trust. I’m not a mindless byline but I’m not your best friend Deb either. Hopefully, I hit something in between those two.

And guess what: it works. And it works much better than opening my heart and soul to the internet ever has ever been. Yes, I can certainly be more successful but it has nothing to do with being more transparent. It is about being a better writer, finding better content, having a stronger voice, meeting more people, reading more, being more bold and tweaking my posts.

Now you don’t have to leave everything personal off the table. If it is something interesting, you should absolutely include it. But let’s not pretend that every instance of TMI leads to great pageviews. And we should also face the fact that in some of the more extreme examples cited, almost none of them are solely related to transparency or being true to themselves.

* * * * *

With that being said, maybe we could stop focusing so much on being “real” online and spend more time focusing on being “real” in real life? Let’s not talk about the same five subjects I could talk to any stranger in an airport about. I want to have real conversations with real people.

For all of the joy and wonder that the internet brings, it can also be fairly dehumanizing. That’s why I don’t talk about religion or politics anymore on it (especially on Twitter). I’ll tell you all about myself but I just don’t want to publish it online. Most of it is boring and irrelevant to why I’m here, anyway.

Mostly though, I worry about being old-fashioned about staying in contact, about getting on the phone, or grabbing a cup of coffee and having a conversation. That I feel disconnected if we haven’t talked for a few months but you might be perfectly content by staying in touch solely online because you share so much more than I do.

In the rush to embrace social media, it feels like we leave a few pieces behind. When someone strives to expose themselves to the voyeuristic instincts of their audience, I don’t feel the need to connect with them as much. The mystery, the interest in getting to know them, slowly vanishes with every revealing stroke until there is no more.

The real you, the one I want to care about, isn’t being broadcasted on Twitter. It’s found in between stories of business deals won and lost, spouses, kids, cats, dogs, sports, tech gadgets, social media and everything else. So while you focus on making yourself accessible, real, and transparent online, don’t leave behind the things that actually matter to people.

About a year ago, I met a guy at a pub for lunch to talk about recruiting, human resources, social media and Portland beers. The guy was really intelligent, funny and knew his stuff about the world I live in. At the end of the conversation, he handed me a business card and also told me the address of his blog. I wrote it down and put it in my pocket.

A couple of days later, I found the card while cleaning out my shirts in preparation for laundry. I grabbed it and headed over to my computer to take a look at his blog. My eyes slowly glazed over as I read post after post of… well, stuff that would even put me to sleep. It was stiff as a six inch thick board. At first, I had hoped that it was just a post or two but pages into it, I realized it was this way all the way through.

When I called him about an unrelated matter, I also briefly talked to him about his blog:

“So I read your blog…”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think it captures you well at all. I would’ve never guessed this is the person I was talking to the other day if you hadn’t handed me this card.”

“I know…”

His marketing team said he should blog. The reason: we have to blog. The other reason: other people are blogging. And so they threw him out there with a WordPress blog, no instruction and a vague directive. With so little guidance, it is amazing he made it that far. He said nobody reads it he probably would stop if his marketing people would allow him to do so.

You might think this post is about getting my new friend educated on how to reach an audience, how to add personality or how to really get the best from it. It’s not. I told him he should do all he can to abandon it. And I told him I would have been more reluctant to meet with him if I had read his blog first. Again, he’s a smart guy and his blog reflected poorly on him (I thought, and he at least agreed with me a bit). He had no desire to work on it, it was a distraction from other business and he could have used that energy elsewhere.

My advice wasn’t taken right away but I noticed they had another writer the last time I checked. I don’t know if the blog is much better but at least his time isn’t being spent on it anymore.

The point being is that you don’t have to blog, especially if your talents are elsewhere. Would Jerry Seinfeld be a great blogger? If his book is any indication, probably not. That doesn’t take away from his brilliant performances though. And if someone has talent in other areas that is better utilized for the company, why try to force the round peg through a square hole?

When someone comes up to me and says “I don’t like blogging or even writing so why should I blog?” I say, “Don’t do it.” It’s pretty simple. Just because someone at a conference says you should blog doesn’t make it right for you. If you don’t like writing but still want to get involved in social media, there are plenty of ways to do it now. No matter what anyone tells you, you don’t have to blog. Period. Full stop.

P.S. Unless that person is your boss of course. You still may be able to reason with them though.

Like most of the people I’ve met in the Midwest, Rosendahl has always been kind, willing to help out and when necessary, give honest feedback about projects or hot topics in the industry. Her thoughtfulness online is reflected in her real life personality as well (and that, as weird as it sounds, is refreshing).

Army Officer to HR Pro

After a biology degree and a ten year stint in the US Army where she served as an officer for a decade, Rosendahl was looking at getting a job in what she had trained in: supply logistics. She was interviewing for a logistics position at a paper company when they asked her if she would be interested in an HR position instead. “I said no, the idea of sitting in a room processing pay changes wasn’t all that exciting to me,” said Rosendahl. The paper company wouldn’t take no for an answer and gave her a shot at the HR position anyway. “After spending a week with a real life HR/OD department at one of their paper mills, I was hooked,” she said. “I took the job and never looked back.”

After HR roles at several organizations, she settled into an HR Director role with the VA Medical Center in St. Cloud for the last seven years. It seems appropriate to me that she has returned to serve the country in a slightly different capacity. Her passionate take on leadership and finding ways to make things work within the framework of the federal government is nothing to cough at either. Her ability to advise leadership is helped by her strength of technical knowledge. “I have my junior lawyer card right here somewhere,” she says half jokingly. “But to be able to advise leadership or brainstorm about courses of action and to know what the heck I am talking about. It’s my credibility at stake.”

Women of HR, MN SHRM and Thought Leadership

One of the interesting things I’ve had the opportunity to see Rosendahl’s work is with the Women of HR blog. Through my small involvement with the site, I’ve seen the type of effort she puts into her role as Editor-in-chief. “Women of HR is the labor of love at the moment,” she said. “We have the beginnings of something powerful here and we are only just touching on the value of the site.” What’s been amazing to me has been the amount of new voices they’ve pulled out of the shadows. The founders of the site have built a powerful community but the content mix along with the editing of blogging newbies has to be incredibly important to the growth of the site.

She is also involved in the planning committee for MN SHRM 2011. Like many state conference organizers I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to, Rosendahl says that they are grappling with how to present social media use to the diverse group of HR pros there. She says they are working on a track that will devote significant time to the topic.

And speaking of social media use, Rosendahl is a great example of a person who has harnessed this powerful medium. The writing on her blog Simply Lisa is what initially attracted me to get to know her better. And when she doesn’t have time to blog, you can find her dispensing little nuggets of wisdom on Twitter. If you get the opportunity to talk to her, ask her how her nine year old is negotiating a trip to Paris. I’m hoping to use the same tactic to negotiate a trip to Hawaii late next year.

The HR Stars Series is sponsored by Rypple, social software that makes feedback easy and fun. Our software is built around people, not process, which means teams actually get things done. Managers don’t waste time. People get the useful feedback that they want. Teams stay on track, learn and adapt faster, and get recognized for great work. Learn more at http://rypple.com.

If you’re wondering how easy it is to connect with me, use McFarlane as an example. Almost two years ago, she reached out to me on Twitter to say she was starting a new blog. And that’s it, we had something to talk about. When we met at the HR Technology show in 2009, it was great getting acquainted with someone through social media and then making the real life connect. It is something that she lives, day in and day out.

Accounting, FBI and HR

McFarlane started (like many of the folks we have profiled) not heading into HR right away. She went to school for accounting because that’s what she was told would earn the big bucks. Wanting to buck that, she looked at the FBI as an option. For those of us who have done an investigation in HR, this may hit a little too close to home. I know at times I wished I had that FBI background.

She had the opportunity to shadow an HR manager and figure out what she did. “I really liked her,” said McFarlane, “But I really liked how passionate she was about what she did.” The manager became a mentor for her and guided her into HR. She has been there ever since in several different capacities.

Though Detective Trish McFarlane sounded pretty cool, it wasn’t meant to be.

Another Evolution, Women of HR and a new SHRM chapter

To get a feel for how much time McFarlane gives to the online community, look no further than some of her active projects. She is one of the founders behind HRevolution. Coincidentally, tickets have gone on sale for the event in Atlanta in the spring and she is excited about the next iteration of the event. If their goal is to continue moving the event further from my hometown, congratulations. Will the next event be in Miami or London by any chance? I suppose there are enough events in Vegas to suffice.

Another endeavor worth mentioning is her involvement in Women of HR, a website devoted to, well, women in HR. While it may seem funny to have a website devoted to women in HR (if you have ever been to a large HR conference and look around, you’ll get my point in about five seconds), there are certainly some representation issues at the highest levels of HR in the Fortune 1000. What’s neat is that in between some of the posts that talk about working as a woman in HR is a lot of great posts about leadership, innovation and good old fashioned HR issues.

Last, but certainly not least, is McFarlane’s involvement in bring a new SHRM chapter to light in East St. Louis. “What’s really unique is that there is no existing group, we’re just building it from scratch,” she said. “That’s unusual for SHRM because most of the time, they will incorporate an existing group.” When we talked about some of her goals with building a new chapter, I was impressed but not surprised. She’s bringing in the online community to the chapter and differentiating it from the big brother chapter in St. Louis. In her spare time, she’ll simply be the president of this chapter on top of all of the rest of her duties.

Blogging and Making Connections

Her tireless work doesn’t stop with large, unwieldy projects. In her spare time, she blogs 4-5 times a week on her blog aptly named HR Ringleader. What can you expect to find there? Everything from personal stories to doing your HR job better to just being a good person. She keeps an active profile on Twitter too so you can keep up with the shenanigans, the kids sports events and commentary in 140 or less.

Want to start a conversation with her? Talk about some football. Tell her how great the Seahawks are doing for a good laugh too.

The HR Stars Series is sponsored by Rypple, social software that makes feedback easy and fun. Our software is built around people, not process, which means teams actually get things done. Managers don’t waste time. People get the useful feedback that they want. Teams stay on track, learn and adapt faster, and get recognized for great work. Learn more at http://rypple.com.

All of that intrigued me and I was glad when he was nominated for this series because he was a person I wanted to get some more background on and figure out.

Getting a foot in the door

I get asked questions all of the time about how to get your foot in the door in HR. It’s always me hemming and hawing because many of the folks I know who went into HR did so through non-traditional means. And even many of the folks who did go the traditional route of starting with HR internships and moving their way up sometimes find out it isn’t the best role for them.

In any case, Judy’s story is another example of how someone could take a completely divergent path into HR. After school, he got his CPA and spent the next eight years doing accounting and auditing work for Deloitte. He decided he didn’t dig accounting and decided to move elsewhere in the company. “There was a chance to be the Chief of Staff for the Firm’s Chief HR Officer out of New York – I applied, interviewed, and got it,” he said. “While I didn’t know a lick about HR mechanics, I had managed people, was intimate with the firm’s inner-workings, and knew how to manage the hell out of a project.”

He started off by simply helping out the CHRO and it turned into a career that he is doing a dozen odd years later.

What keeps him going

Judy told me that what keeps him passionate about HR now that he’s over a decade into the field is reversing the trend of complex and intricate HR policy into simple, people facing service. “HR has battled the perception that we were inconsequential to the business only to trip over ourselves and the complex programs and systems we created in the process.” he said. “I’m passionate about removing that complexity from our business.”

In light of that he has tackled two major initiatives at his current company. One being variable executive compensation and the other integrated the company branding with the employment brand and getting more social media savvy. As he explains, “I like playing change agent – particularly when the odds are against me.”

One of the great things about HR is that it is such a different field depending on where you are. Even if you go from doing HR over one functional area to another in the same company, things can change dramatically. I think his career has shown that you can spend an entire HR career doing different things and never leave the field.

Getting into social media

One of the reasons I’ve been able to get to know Judy is because of his presence on social media. He has a must follow Twitter account and a great blog called HR Fishbowl where he talks about many of the issues that impact Trench HR. One of the things I hope he does continue to work on is bringing practitioner’s stories to life through his blog. One of the most rewarding things is being able to bring people and stories to the limelight (even with our limited audiences) because people connect with that. They say, “I’ve done that!”

Another place I’ve enjoyed hearing his take on things are at conferences (or unconferences if you will). The first one being at HRevolution where he was the good type of outspoken participant and the second one being Recruitfest where he was one of my favorite speakers.

In any case, the beauty of social media makes it easy to connect with Judy. You can get a taste of his ideas and thoughts for leading HR forward and you can always connect with him for more insight.

The HR Stars Series is sponsored by Rypple, social software that makes feedback easy and fun. Our software is built around people, not process, which means teams actually get things done. Managers don’t waste time. People get the useful feedback that they want. Teams stay on track, learn and adapt faster, and get recognized for great work. Learn more at http://rypple.com.

I’m going to start blogging. About work. My work. HR.

So I posted. It wasn’t that captivating or interesting. So not knowing any better, I continued posting. Even when my content wasn’t great or I wasn’t feeling inspired, I posted. Through difficulties (both personally and professionally), I kept posting.

For nothing. Zero dollars and zero cents most days. Or, as close to nothing as possible.

The secret of blogging is a lot like the secret of basketball (namely that neither one is about blogging or basketball). The secret is the people I’ve met, the ideas we’ve generated and the things we’ve accomplished are more important than what I’ve published here.

So if you want my advice after four years of doing this, it would be to stop killing yourself over content. Click publish and then do what blogging is supposed to do for you: make connections, percolate ideas and make shit happen.

And don’t think for a second that I am the best at that either. If I have been unsatisfied with one thing, it is that I still spend too much time generating content rather than generating connections. Let’s fix that this year if we haven’t already.

For everyone else who reads and reminds me I’m not just talking to myself though, thanks. It means everything to me. Here’s to another year.

FREE #ConnectHR Tweetup – Wednesday January 27th at 6pm

I was invited to attend the ConnectHR event hosted by my friends at SmartBrief, Society for Human Resources Management and RecruitingBlogs.com. I am looking forward to connecting to a bunch of smart people that will be there.

Are you in the Washington DC area? Screw it. Can you drive there within a day’s time? You should come. You’re going to meet awesome people. You are going to get great food for free. Jessica Lee tells me the drinks are amazing.

If you’re in DC and you’d like to get together while I am there (26th-30th), contact me and we’ll make something happen.

Why am I going to a tweetup 3,000 miles away?

Normally, I don’t make trips like this but Laurie Ruettimann insisted I go. How much did she insist? She got me a flight out there. I’m not joking. It is good to have friends like Laurie (and not just for the free flight in a super awesome McDonnell Douglas 80). She wants me to be at events she attends because together, we make events awesomer. And I heard she has a pretty nice blog or something like that. Maybe she’ll even hit the big leagues some day.

Anyway, big props to Laurie. She’s pretty awesome.

Looking forward to seeing you all there. And don’t forget to sign up!

Am I thankful for the recognition? Of course. I just wanted to make sure I got that out of the way.

To me though, it is always a question of priorities. Doing great things is always number one. Getting recognized is secondary. Getting both is great (obviously) but man, I’d much rather be a barely known person who does awesome things. Hell, that’s what I hope I am doing right now.

I am not going to belabor the point though. Laurie has a good write up on her reservations with lists like this that I hope you’ll appreciate.

With that in mind, I’d like to take the time to recognize seven people who didn’t make the list but actively influence the HR side of me and do really great things. Any of these people could have replaced me on the list and I wouldn’t have blinked. That’s not some trite, false modesty bullshit, these folks are really fantastic.

• Frank Roche – Frank influences my writing. He pushes me to be a better writer. His posts take on a “less is more” quality and are as poetic as you can be about HR issues. Reading him over the past couple of years has probably helped me more than anything.
• Jason Seiden – Jason influences my thinking. He pushes me to expand my thinking. He helps me think about how to remove boundaries in the way I think about problems and solutions. His books are fantastic too.
• Trish McFarlane – Trish influences my commitment to community. She pushes me to give back. Through her actions, she’s done more to sustain HR’s involvement in social media than most. She’s willing to give without return.
• Mike VanDervort – Mike influences my commitment to consistency. He pushes me to make every day count. I have an opportunity to speak to an audience every day and I should be there for them. Mike is someone who does that.
• Steve Boese – Steve influences my thoughts on technology. He pushes me to look ahead. Not only that, Steve thinks about the human impact of technology more than most technologists. If only there were more like him…
• Paul Hebert – Paul influences my thoughts on incentives. He pushes me to challenge my views on motivation. Here’s what I know: Paul has been doing this for a long time and still has a strong passion for it. I hope I am only so lucky.
• Shauna Moerke – Shauna influences my sense of humor. She pushes me to not take myself seriously. The reason why many people are attracted to this blog is because I am not the super serious HR guy. Thank God for that too.

Let’s democratize this a bit more. Who influences you? In what way do they influence you?

I lost my job in late July and after it happened, I was nervous. My wife wasn’t which is the role reversal of the century by the way. She worries for two of us most of the time while I worry for none of us. She said I hadn’t worked for three years on my blog for nothing and that everything I have put into that and the connections I have made because of it would come full circle. It always does.

She was right. She usually is.

The one unintended consequence of this is that it has changed my risk profile completely. I have slowly but surely realized that I don’t have to miss opportunities because of their risk and that others can feel more at ease taking a chance on me because I am able to throw my weight behind it without worrying about how I’ll eat down the road if we happen to fail.

Without you, none of this happens. I may have been unemployed. I would not have as many fantastic friends and business partners. I would be bugging the crap out of my friends and family about HR ideas of the future instead of discussing them with people who are a much bigger deal than I am.

There are no other words to express my appreciation other than thank you. Thank you for your e-mails, phone calls and in person conversations. Thank you for sharing the stuff you dig with your friends and network. Thank you for demanding my best every time I sit down to write.

Have a great Thanksgiving!