It’s Friday and I’m excited about it. Why? Because the weekend is almost here and that means that I am going to get to work with Ben Eubanks. We are in the early stages of pulling together basic ideas with the HRevolution team which includes Steve Boese and Crystal Peterson. Since the four of us have worked together on two successful HRevolution events, there are many things that will easily fall into place. However, there are a few logistics decisions still to make and that’s where you come in.
If you’re not familiar with HRevolution, it is a conference put together entirely by volunteers. It is all planned and promoted in a grassroots manner and because of that, we have people attend who each have personal ownership in it’s success. Since we all work together to make this happen, I’d like to hear your opinion on a couple items as we kick off planning:
- Where– What city should we head to this year? If you live in that city, can you help us scout locations?
- When– We definitely want to hold this in spring. Do you prefer March, April, or May?
- Topics– Give me your top two topics you’d like to see discussed, the more cutting edge, the better.
- Speakers– We heard last time that people want to hear more HR practitioners lead sessions. Who are the HR practitioners you would like to hear most? Are YOU interested in helping us lead a session?
- Sponsors– We can’t do this without the generosity of sponsors to help defer costs. Are you interested in sponsoring?
Hit me in the comments with all your suggestions or feel free to e-mail them to me today at trisham89@gmail.com.
42 Comments
Vegas is always good.
Post-April 5: NCAA basketball is over
Topics: Would like to hear more from Josh LeTourneau and Social Recruiting 3.0. More incentive stuff from Paul Hebert
@Matt- thanks Matt. Vegas is a great suggestion and I do have something special in the works involving Vegas and HRevolution. Love the idea of Josh speaking and of course, our long-time favorite, Paul Hebert. Thanks
I’d love to have us consider Cincinnati !! It’s central and there are already about 4.5 billion Social Media folks in the #513.
I agree with Matthew that April is a solid month. In between many things and outside of any chapter/conference cycles.
I know Cincy is another midwest venue, but I’m a little biased. I know a practitioner who’d love to be considered as speaking about bridging the HR community to the Social HR community . . .
Plus, I know this pizza place that would be a haven for all of us at least once during the gathering.
Honestly, I’m just excited that you’re moving forward with the next event !!
If you go with Vegas, don’t you have to do it during March Madness? How could you pass that up?
Alternatively, Florida or Arizona during spring training might offer some nice entertainment.
As to topics, I’m partial to the application of process improvement tools to reduce costs in HR. I’d also like to see more time spent talking about HR metrics and how to drill down from “traditional” metrics to meaningful business metrics. (The interest level will likely depend on the audience, of course.) A crash course for newly minted HR members might create a wonderful development opportunity and help draw interest.
Ok here is my two cents on HRevolution. I hope it would be the weekend thing again. Also, being a midwesterner I like the idea of the middle of the country say Cincinnati for example.
I would be willing to work on a panel or help putting something together as I do generalist soup to nuts HR.
And I will throw this out, once you get a city and a date, I would be happy to contact an airline or two and see if we could get one of those coveted discount codes for people attending our event.
And to all four of you Ben, Steve, Crystal and yourself thanks for your tireless efforts. What you are doing is making a difference!
I should have mentioned that I would be willing to help with content. I presented a session at the HRPS conference this year on Lean in HR, would be happy to do so again.
Can I just say that I’m salivating over here? Planning time with Trish is always awesome.
I would love London Trish!!
Seriously I will make every effort to be wherever you hold it in the US!! Prefer East Coast and major City with cheap flights though!!
Good luck for the weekend, what great company to spend it with!
So exciting just thinking about another HRevolution! I do agree the weekend thing is great. Location – somewhere easy to get too, since flights have been cut back. I too would love to hear Josh LeTourneau speak, that would be great.
Let me know if I can help out in any way. Try not to work too hard this weekend.
Thank you Trish, Ben, Steve and Crystal for all your hard work.
One of the great things about Chicago is that it helped pull in attendees who may not have come otherwise (in my opinion). A major US city (with cheap flights, as Mervyn mentioned) is a necessity if you want to repeat that type of outreach.
NYC, Orlando, Las Vegas, San Antonio, or St. Louis.
Late April or early May.
You guys rock.
Atlanta or Chicago again, March would be good, and April and I could lead a session (see how generously I am volunteering April for things? hehehe.) I can’t wait for the next one!
Trish – What about Phoenix (its warm, we can do it early in the year so its like a mini vacation for people to get out of the cold…) and we can ask Joel nicely about maybe using the Jobing HQ?
Otherwise – Chicago, Orlando are good options with affordable flights from pretty much anywhere (much more so than some of the smaller towns – Sorry Cincy & Cleveland)
I would be fine with going back to Chicago. I’ll be sure to wear my black suit and sunglasses and pick up Blue Lou and Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy on the way in.
I also think we should return to some of the ideas that worked in the first HRev, doing ‘101’ and ‘Advanced’ tracks on some topics so that we can reach attendees at varying levels of experience and comfort with tech, social, blogging, etc.
I cant leave Shauna alone for a minute before she starts getting me into stuff. 🙂
Atlanta gets my vote, easy to fly into and it’s driving distance for us in the south. A redo of Chicago would be good but we’ve been there, done that…as they say.
As far as content, I’m going to agree with Steve. I liked the varying sessions by experience. My favorite was the regroup at the end with a discussion amongst the group. That made HRev for me. Something similar for 2011 would be just peachy 🙂
@Steve How are you gonna get the band back together, Mr. Hot Rodder? Those cops have your name, your address…
This is exciting! Love all of the suggestions. I’m with April on Chicago, been there, done that. I’m personally leaning more towards Cincinnati but I’m flexible :-). And I’m with Steve on returning to what worked in the first HRev.
Thanks Trish, Ben, Steve and Crystal for your hard work. Cincinnati works well for me personally. If not there, I vote for somewhere warm, like the Virgin Islands. Short of that, Atlanta or Orlando would do.
Nice comments. I vote for the Midwest or Phoenix, and I like the idea of tracked sessions. I love to hear from practitioners because I am one, but consultants can still add plenty of value to discussions, especially those involving emerging issues or technologies. I missed the first 2 HRE’s, so looking forward to this one.
Looking forward to my next HRevolution – excited to hear the planning stages are beginning.
I agree with Spring and somewhere centrally located. Chicago is great (I am biased as I used to live there) — New Orleans might be another option.
I like the “track” idea.
Some suggestions for speakers – Kat Drum from Starbucks or Kerry Noone from Sodexo – both are doing some great stuff in recruiting and social media. I don’t have a specific speaker in mind but it would be great to hear from a practioner that is using social media internally for training, development, engagement or communication. Best Buy is doing some really interesting things. Another thought – I would love to hear Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson of Culturerx speak about Results Only Work Environments (ROWE)
If I can help – please let me know.
@akaBruno – And they probably have SCMODS as well.
I may be biased towards Chicago because that’s where I fell in love with HRevolution in the first place, but it was also really easy (and affordable) to get flights from the West Coast. I heard the same from folks on the East Coast and the South, as well. As far as I’m concerned, if Southwest flies there, it sure makes life easy.
I also think a major consideration has to be where you’ll have feet on the ground. Make it as easy on yourselves as volunteer organizers to make this happen so that you can enjoy it, too!
I love the idea of having it in mid-to-late April, as that’s the first opportunity for me to take a vacation after year end is over.
In the end, I don’t care where you have it…I’m coming!
Pick the date, time and place and I’m there. I prefer the weekend, an easy fly in fly out location and for topics . . . an incentive primer from Paul H would be top of my list – let me think about that a little more.
Did someone say Hotlanta? Happy to help if you come to my home town- Atlanta or Chicago are very big and easy airports and easy cities to get to – with lots of options-
loved the last venue-
@Dwane- Thanks for the suggestions. And, I love the idea of incorporating business metrics. We hadn’t done that in a track before. We’ll definitely mark you down as a willing speaker on Lean HR. Sounds very interesting!
@Dave- Love the midwest idea, and you know we’ll take you up on your offer to help. What a great idea about the airline special rate. I’ll touch base as we get farther into the logistics. thanks
@Steve Browne- You know we have a lot of love for our Cincy HR peeps! And, you make it hard to pass up the great speaker and pizza offer!
@Ben- You crack me up…salivating. lol
@Mervyn- HRevolution will not be complete without you here. And, I can promise I’ll make sure it’s a large enough city so that everyone has the easiest possible flights, and hopefully at the best prices. If it weren’t for that, I’d have it here in St. Louis. Nice and central but our airport is not a hub.
@Chris- I agree with you…we need to get Josh involved this time.
@Joan- I like your timing ideas and you know, NYC and San Antonio have both come up from other people too. Great ideas!
@Shauna- Ok, I’m counting on you and April now!
@Sarah- Phoenix would be an Awesome option. Wonder what Joel would say???
@Steve Boese- First, I know you need to buy cooler sunglasses for that. Second, you’ll be in charge of the sessions my friend, so start building your “Track Advisory Board” now…
@April- I’m going to task you to really give some serious thought to recommendations for closing keynote speaker(s). Thoughts?
@Crystal- You know you’re the one I need to keep happy from a logistics standpoint. You, me, Ben and Steve will vote on final location.
@Krista- Virgin Islands. I love the way you think. Or how about #HRevolution “the cruise”?
@RJ- Another vote for Phoenix. Can I count on you to help lead a track? Please….please…please? I’ll buy you a lunch or two. 🙂
@Janet- Thank you, thank you for all the great speaker suggestions. I’m definitely going to tap into your knowledge on this part and will put Steve Boese in touch with you as we begin to seriously consider the speakers. Thanks
@Teresa- I was personally leaning to March but I HAVE to have you there so that means we wait for April!! I’ll be picking your brain all along for ideas my friend.
@Debbie- I love that it’s called Hotlanta. HRevolution Hotlanta! That has quite a ring to it, now doesn’t it?
So exciting!!!! I vote for late April/early May. I think Atlanta would be a great location (central w/ lots of direct flights) or even Memphis. Someone suggested NOLA in which case you’ve got my feet on the ground to help. I think it’s key to find a locale with reasonable hotel rates – since, my guess is most pay on their own dime to attend. I love the ROWE topic and would like another diversity/inclusion topic,,,wouldhope Joe G could come and not get grounded this time. 🙂 Also, something on EE retention/strategies for retaining top talent.
Atlanta in April is pretty. Very exciting. You can count on my help.
I just surfed last weekend to see what the plans were for HRevolution in ’11-so glad to see this! Have had to follow via twitter feed for past two and would love to be there & get involved with this one.
Location: Here’s another vote for Phoenix: think amazing weather, airline hub, tons of conference & hotel space, spring training abounds, beautiful hiking & outdoor sports opportunities, Sedona, Grand Canyon, etc. Again, happy to help w/logistics as a local resource.
Content: Anything related to social media and the entire employment life cycle. Happy to assist on this too & would be honored to lead a session.
Sponsorship: Would love to talk to you all about sponsorship & see what I can do to bolster & secure local support.
Thanks for all your hard work & dedication to the cause. Best wishes in your planning. Please let me know how I can help!
i’m attending no matter where you have the event… i live in and love texas so selfishly i would love for you to have an event in dallas, fort worth, houston and/or austin…
I vote for Atlanta. Ben and I want to introduce Bree and Bella to everyone.
I’d second London! 🙂 But you know, if that isn’t possible……….
I have beein hoping to get a date on my calendar for this event. Happy to help where I can. Texas has a lot of cheap options for meeting space (we have all this open space – we have to do something with it!) I think middle of the country helped a lot of people.
I can also help you line up speakers as you look at which parts of HR you want to focus on. I am happy to reach out to people to fill the slots.
@Lois- Texas would be a great idea and so many accessible cities. I’ll definitely take you up on the idea of helping us with speakers. Steve Boese will be leading that piece this year as well as session topics. Thanks Lois!
Trish – Come to Boston! And talk about more than just social media. That stuff is important, but I’d actually love to hear some presentations and discussions around topics that tap more deeply into organizational culture.
Things like ROWE, dress codes and so on.
Cheers!
Chris
Love the Austin idea…Boese and I can probably find some place or two to revel in BBQ. Not sure about ease in getting there. Just from an fun unusual place, I would love Memphis. Baltimore might not be bad, decent airport, SWA flies there and is connected up and down East Coast by train. Hey, maybe SHRM can host it….oops brain cramp. Chicago would be good as far as accessibility, but been there. But, then there is Gettysburg…..Steve and Trish you got me hooked on that idea.
Early May would get my vote as far as timing.
@John- You know I am totally with you on wanting to hold it in Gettysburg. I bet it would just be me, you, Steve Boese and John Nyk there though! We definitely need BBQ wherever we choose.
@Chris- Boston is a great idea! And I agree, we need to keep up the momentum on the core HR areas like we did in the first two HRevolution events. Social media should just be woven into the day, not the sole focus. Thanks for weighing in.
Hi Trish! My suggestions are Gettysburg, Baltimore, or Cincy! April or May is great too.
Shennee
@Shennee- You know I love the Gettysburg idea. Wish that were easier to get to. Cincy has been a popular contender so we’ll have to see how that shakes out. Thanks for helping out!
Trish-
Gettysburg is accessible from Baltimore or Harrisburg Airports More direct non-stops from Baltimore. hmmm. We will have to see. Cincy sounds great too. What about Baltimore?
I vote for Atlanta. Most everyone flies there (except Southwest, but they go to B’ham and you could drive over with those folks.) The SHRM conference will be here in 2012, so it would be good to have the unconference here in 2011. I can work on sponsors. I think we need to talk about a goal date … HREvolved 2010
Late to the conversation but you’re all very much welcome to join us in Toronto!
(Of course, we’ll happily sponsor again regardless of whether you take us up on that 🙂 )
Jay Goldman
Rypple