The next installment of HRevolution, the original 'unconference' for Human Resources professionals. will hold its third event this April in the Peach City - Atlanta, Georgia on April 29 and 30, 2011.
For past attendees of HRevolution 1 and 2 in Louisville and Chicago respectively, you will be familiar with the general format and vibe of the event. Loosely structured, participant driven, and hopefully delivering on the promise of relevant, challenging, and interactive content and conversation.
Unlike traditional industry conferences, at HRevolution the 'speakers' or 'presenters' don't really do much speaking and presenting. That is not the idea.
Rather, they serve to guide and facilitate a conversation, debate, dialogue, and even an occasional dispute about their subject area or topic.
For the last two events, those of us on the organizing committee have not had a formal or official call for presenters. The first event was very small, and it was pretty easy to recruit and organize the needed number of facilitators to present what was an engaging, if compressed program. At HRevolution2 in Chicago, the event got much larger in terms of attendees, but our approach to organizing the program was more or less the same as the first event. Talk to our friends and colleagues, put together a diverse and compelling (we thought) program, and hope for a good outcome.
While those approaches to program organization and speaker solicitation did work well, as we begin the planning process for HRevolution3, we have come to the conclusion that the same strategies might not result in the kind of program and event that we really want to present in Atlanta. If we simply reach out to our personal networks, and to the people we already know and respect, we will get a solid program for sure, but we are not convinced that we will be doing ourselves and the attendees any favors.
Recently we opened up a discussion on the HRevolution LinkedIn group to get some input and ideas for topics and sessions and the overriding sentiment from the 40 or so replies was that we needed to try and branch out, to extend the conversation into areas like finance and operations, to engage a CFO or CEO type to lead a session at the next event. In short, people are getting tired of hearing the same kinds of sessions about the same kinds of topics.
I am not talking about 'seat at the table' horsecrap, the HRevolution 1 and 2 presenters were far too good for that, but what people are saying is that we shouldn't simply put on another event, talk about the same seven topics, and have a big party to tell each other how fabulous we all are.
So as the organizing committee commences preparations for HRevolution3 in Atlanta, we realize that we need to try and find and recruit some new and different voices to the conversation. Voices that may be front-line HR practitioners, or people from marketing or manufacturing, or even business leaders that ethat really don't think all that much of HR.
In that spirit of expanding the arena of potential topics and session facilitators, we have decided to set up a simple 'Speaker Submissions' page on the HRevolution site. If you are interested in speaking/facilitating at HRevolution3 in Atlanta, or know someone who would be a great facilitator at the event, please head over to the site and let us know what you are thinking.
We are hoping to program a different kind of HR event, a different kind of HRevolution even.
So to start the process of generating, gathering, and assembling the best ideas, the ones that participants will value, please head over to HRevolution Speaker Submissions page and let us know what is on your mind. We will be soliciting ideas via that form until the end of December or so. But remember, we need our facilitators to guide, enable, and frame conversations more than we need them to 'speak'.
Because if there is one thing we have learned over the last couple of years, HR people are pretty tired of being spoken to at conferences, and are much more interested in having their voices heard.
If you have any questions at all about speaking/facilitating at the next HRevolution, shoot me a note - steveboese at gmail dot com, hit me up on Twitter, or leave a comment or start a discussion on the HRevolution LinkedIn group.