I was lucky enough to lead a "Blogger Insights" panel at HR Tech last week featuring Bryon Abramowitz (The HR Technologist), Michael Krupa (InfoBox), Laurie Ruettimann (Cynical Girl, formerly Punk Rock HR) and Trish McFarlane (HR Ringleader).
Great panel, smart people. Some observations that were surprising to me:
-It was HR Tech, and over half the crowd attending our panel still worked for companies that blocked most forms of social media.
-I had a list of questions, and the only ones that worked were the ones that talked about broad social media concepts, privacy issues/the expectation of privacy that employees should have, starting a blog, etc.
-The pure HR Tech questions bored everyone in the room. Best of Breed vs. Suite? I glanced to the crowd while our panel shared great info. Crowd reaction: zzzzzzzzzzz. zzzzzzzzz. When we started talking about blogs or candidates using social media and whether we should peer into that window as organizations? Eyes wide open and engaged…
-Great questions from the crowd, but the questions really came in waves when…. The panelists took some risks and gave hard opinions….
My takeaways from that? The HR pros in the crowd long for their organizations to be open, and they have great opinions and insights. They're just trained to be leery of sharing them, which I think sucks.
The older I get, the more I'm convinced – there's a lot more rockstar HR pros out there than the world knows about. They just need to be discovered and allowed to speak.
PS – if you are the podcast type, check out this interview on Total Picture Radio featuring Laurie Ruettimann (Cynical Girl, formerly Punk Rock HR) and me. We didn't argue as much as I would have liked, but it's still a good listen related to the current state of social media in organizational life.
If you have to choose one conference next year, I'd make it HR Tech…
Thanks for moderating the panel, Kris!
I do have to say that I was also really surprised that over 1/2 the crowd was with companies that blocked social media. I wonder how many went back to their organizations and petitioned for this to be removed.
As far as the HR Tech topics, I think most in the audience were interested in learning more about how the panelists got started blogging and how they are able to continue it. They were also looking to learn more about social, as I’m sure their bosses are asking them all about it as it’s a hot topic in today’s recruiting / HR environment.
I also have to applaud whoever put together the panel as it was a really good group that had a good deal of different viewpoints on issues. Great job!
It is understandable that cash can make people autonomous. But how to act if someone has no cash? The one way only is to receive the personal loans or just bank loan.
I must say I was really surprised that more than half the people were with companies that social media is locked. I wonder how many have returned to their organizations and this request to be removed.