SHRM Tuesday: Oh My Tired Feet

Apparently eating delicious (but unhealthy) food, drinking hurricanes and walking 1,000 miles in one day isn’t a good way to avoid waking up with a foot cramp. That’s how SHRM Tuesday started out for me. It was a great day after that.

I spoke in the morning with Silkroad about their talent management suite and what they are seeing from their client companies. I was familiar with their Red Carpet on-boarding software but didn’t know much about it either. The most exciting part (to me at least) is that they are launching a blog soon. My advice? Keep it real and keep it focused on delivering great content.

Jennifer McClure (Cincy Recruiter) told me that her post about her post about executive presence just blew up. It was picked up by Guy Kawasaki and retweeted everywhere. Great to see the recognition for all of the great content she puts out.

After my meeting, I headed over to a session about effective planning put together by blogging buddy Sharlyn Lauby of HR Bartender. I loved the presentation but people said I looked grumpy. Hey, I loved the session and the message. Thoughtful planning cures a lot of organizational woes. Great video in the presentation too.

After that, both Sharlyn and myself went to lunch with my good friends and sponsors Halogen Software. Great conversations especially between a practitioner, vendor and consultant about performance management (surprise!). Honestly, this is one conversation I walked away with a different point of view than the one before. Call my wife, she won’t believe it.

I touched base with the Bureau of Labor Statistics because they reached out to me. I was honestly shocked they would contact a blogger to talk to about their new programs. They were really fantastic though and talked about some resources that HR professionals can use to get started talking about compensation and benefits. All of this, of course, free of charge. Glad to see them make the effort.

Lastly, I talked with Benefitfocus to talk about how their benefits software helps companies improve their overall benefits comprehension and enrollment levels. They actually had a customer that was sort of a walking testimonial which I thought was a different marketing tactic for sure.

I had an opportunity to meet up with Judy Clark from HR Answers in Portland which was just fantastic. I am not joking when I say we spent an hour and a half talking and we hadn’t met in person before today. One of the best conversations I had at the conference and that’s not a joke. We’ll be getting her set up blogging but she is already on Twitter and is a great example of a leader in HR who really and truly gets it.

We had the big tweet up Tuesday night too and I think most people who RSVP’d ended up coming for most of it. Thanks so much to Austin from WorkNOLA and Franny Oxford for organizing it and the sponsors for their help with the food. Just a couple quick thoughts about this event:

• Turnout was great and we even had some of the SHRM exec Twitterers in our midst. Next year, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the numbers triple if we continue to adopt technology at this pace.
• I love that Gary Rubin (SHRM CPO) shared with Laurie and I that he had such passion for William Shatner’s “music.” Interesting facts that you share become easy ways for people to remember you. And honestly, I think Shatner is brilliant too.
• Please take an accurate photo of yourself for your icon. It helped people spot me very easily (I am easy to spot and sort of loud so that may have helped). I blanked on a couple people tonight because I had a hard time associating their Twitter icon with them.

After the tweetup, Laurie and I were going to go out to dinner with Mary Ellen Slayter from SmartBrief Workforce. This turned into a huge group of 14 people having a loud, fun time at Broussard’s in the French Quarter. It ended with Michael Long playing guitar. You know we like to party.

Tuesday was the last of my formal meetings and Kris Dunn asked me if I would schedule that way again if I had the choice. I told him Monday was too much but that I loved the way Tuesday worked out. I thought it was important to maximize my opportunities at SHRM.

My presentation tomorrow will be live streamed on YourHRGuy.com today starting at around 11:30am CENTRAL time zone. Stay tuned!