I went to SHRM for the first time this year. I heard the warnings. I heard the rumors. But I paid no attention.
I don’t do anything halfway, so I threw myself into SHRM-living on the first day and I’m really glad I did.
After meeting and drinking with some of the more social HR folks and bloggers after “knowing each other” online for several months, I realized I had more wise snippets from the parties at SHRM than I even remembered hearing.
You guys were crackin’ some eggs of knowledge on me everyday, yo.
So here’s what I learned:
Being a professor is the best job in the world. And the Brewers are worth a second look.
From Matt Stollak (pictured right w/me)
Your experiences are only as epic as you can retell them. After walking more than a mile in decorative sandals in the close-to-100-degree heat, being led astray by a kind, but confused, homeless man and seeing out-of-the-trunk street dealings in the parking lots of downtown Atlanta, we had no choice but to crank that story up to 11 and make it a 6-mile walk with a gang of hoodlums selling cocaine openly on the street corners.
From Robin Schooling
The HR community is built on common interest, good intentions and shared misery.
Between working with Tim Sackett and Jennifer McClure on a project that took two times as long as it should’ve because of technical difficulties and talking with Dwane Lay about the benefits of community in HR and how much people work together in the space, I left with a totally fuzzy feeling about HR pros and the common desire to push the community forward, to help others succeed and to make long-lasting relationships.
HR people love them some semi-choreographed dances.
The Wobble, the Electric Slide, a Conga line … there were enough choreographed dances for all of the weddings around the world, I think.
From TLNT.com and Bright.com at our 2nd Annual TLNTup
The expo floor full of more than 650 vendors makes it a bit hard to stand out.
So seriously, you might need our help for next year.
From The Starr Conspiracy
SHRM is making huge strides on the social experience of the conference. The Hive, I’m sure you’ve heard, was the bee’s knees. Since this was my first conference, I thought they were all like that and, even still, I was immediately impressed. But learning later that it’s a new initiative for SHRM made it 10x more so. The conference was so social … the only way I knew where everything was happening was through the hashtag (which trended officially on Twitter, by the way).
Props to SHRM’s Curtis Midkiff for killing it in social this year
So I know I’m telling you 10 small things that you probably already knew about SHRM12. But give a girl a break, will you? I walked into the Georgia Convention Center like a kid looks at their first waterpark. The conference is so well done, it was an impeccable experience. And I might still geek out over #SHRM12 (perhaps all the way through to #SHRM13) even if you’re sick of hearing about it. So get ready for that.
