- Have you ever tried to register your content as a speaker at a major conference?
- Do you ever wonder if anyone reads the post session survey cards that you fill out?
- Do you think the whole concept of the Exhibitor Hall has lost it's intended purpose?
- Are you offended by speakers who work sales pitches into their educational content?
- Do you find attendee objectives to be against the intended conference purpose?
Now you have an avenue....SOCIAL MEDIA!
The 2010 Society for Human Resource Management Annual Conference was inundated with real time reviews of the sessions, the speakers, the event culture and tips on the hottest swagville give-aways. Those who missed certain sessions, were working a booth or didn't attend the conference were able to get real time reviews from our favorite Social Media Opinionists via the #SHRM10 Twitter conference board. Not only did I find the influence of the hash tag culture informative, I was impressed by SHRM's willingness to embrace this inevitable movement of people empowerment.
It is assumed that vendors could give two shits about session content and are simply there to hand out logo-ed head bands - not so in my case. As such, it was great to track the insight of:
Mark Stelzner, Laurie Ruettimann, Michael VanDervort, Jennifer McClure and Matthew Stollak during sessions.
It was also encouraging to see SHRM giving Curtis Midkiff a forum to reign in the 'reviewers board' in an attempt to encourage healthy conversation.
Jessica Merrell and Robin Schooling gave me a full overview of their climb to influence, the power of the unconference and the undeniable influence that is being recognized to the power of the pen (keystroke). For the record, I have seldom met a group of people more willing to educate...I must say the formal education process is not always as forthcoming.
My challenge to SHRM is to continue to evolve content by presenting an alternative track where the unconference thought leaders can facilitate round table discussions. In doing this, those attending can challenge views of the content and present the objectives that make best sense to their organizational culture. Content without interpretation is just notes on a page; never to be revisited.
I applaud SHRM for opening the can of Social Media worms. HR is understandably the last to adopt personality driven directives...but, the Blogger Bus has arrived at the conference center!
- Do you want those with a voice to millions to be a promoter or a detractor?
- If we pay $1,200 to attend/exhibit at a conference shouldn't we get more out of it than a bag full of swag and a hangover?
Baby Steps.....
Don't Forget to Remember!
Dave
David,
ReplyDeleteWe appreciate your thoughts and please know that this is the just beginning of our SHRM-wide efforts to keep our members engaged at our events via social media. In doing so, I and the rest of the SHRM family starting with CEO Lon O'Neil (a new voice on twitter) are open to your ideas, thoughts and suggestions. The good news is that thanks to you and your comrades driving the HR conversation on social media platforms the #SHRM10 convention is able to continue beyond the close of the on-site conference via the web to set the stage for #SHRM11. Keep up the good work.
@shrmsocmedguy (Curtis Midkiff)
Thanks for following the #shrm10 hashtag and some of my tweets. I've personally gotten a lot of value from following other events or sessions via hashtag when I wasn't able to attend and while it can't replace being there in person, it does offer an avenue to get a tone of the event/conversation.
ReplyDeleteI think it's great how in a very short time since Curtis has joined SHRM, that they have begun to embrace and figure out how to utilize social media to help spread their message and content and engage more members/non-members in the conversation!
Jennifer McClure aka @cincyrecruiter