My Farewell Speech to HR Florida (the other IMPORTANT part)

The HR Florida Wrap, hold the lettuce and mayo

Skylight shot (Photo credit: mvndrvrt)

I started writing this little farewell ditty to my role at HR Florida a few days ago.  I talk too much, and ran out of room to get it done on one post.  Then I ran out of time to get it done over the weekend.  So I’m doing it now, just before leaving for ERE Expo in Hollywood, Florida.

As I said the other day, this is my “I won the Oscar and now I have to say something” speech.  I have some thank yous to give out, some love to share, and even a small call to action or cause to share with you.  I already did the thank you part.  Here comes the love and call to action.

SHRM Volunteer leadership roles offer a bully pulpit

Over the past four years, I have been able to accomplish several things that I felt were very important to improving the HR profession.  I owe much of that to the voice that being a part of HR Florida provided to me.  Leading the social technology team allowed me to:

• bring together and work with some of the leading thinkers in the social HR space, and share their thoughts with my colleagues here in Florida.
• offer speaking opportunities at the state level to practitioners who typically don’t present to large state groups, if at all.
• build a network of HR professionals across the state of Florida and beyond.

The single most important thing that working at HR Florida has provided to me is the opportunity to share the efforts and knowledge on using social media as part of a state chapter conference experience with other chapters, including Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee, and Louisiana.   It’s really driven a change in these events as well as our own, and it’s still growing.   I didn’t do this alone, but I’m proud to have been a part of it.

Calls to Action

So here’s the call to action part.  It’s a two fold challenge – one for individuals, and one for the HR profession.  I think they link together.

If you have never been an HR conference volunteer leader, find the time and go do it for at least one year.  The returns are well worth the  work you will put in.

Finally, the big challenge for HR Florida, and my friends at all the other conferences who have been thinking out on the edge comes out of a discussion I had with one of the members of the social tech team at HR Florida, Amanda Hite.

Amanda Hite, @sexythinker on Twitter, is a paradigm-buster that will inspire you to drastically change the way you think and behave. I’ve known Amanda for several years, and she does big things. She makes big things happen.

Her question to me was this something like this.

“You’ve got all these smart people together here for several days.  Where’s the movement? What’s the big thing you guys are trying to do?”

I didn’t have a really great answer for that one.   What is the really big mission of an HR conference?  Networking? Recharge and refresh your business knowledge and skills? Get some recert credits?  Have some fun?  Nothing wrong with any of those, right?

I still found myself lacking an answer for Amanda, and that brings me to my own final challenge, for myself and for HR Florida, and all the other HR conferences striving to do great things.

What can we do to think even bigger, and bring a real purpose to our events? How can we create a new movement within the HR profession?  #BeTheChange

I’m going to go and get started on finding out.  Thanks!

 

Tagged as: #HRFL12, Florida, HR Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Ohio, Social Media, Society for Human Resource Management, twitter