Yesterday Shauna Moerke, the HR Minion, posted a thought provoking and really interesting piece about the nature of the online HR community, and examined whether or not this community (like pretty much every community from middle school, to sports teams, to the workplace) possesses its own share of cliques or sub-communities.
It is an excellent post, and if you are at all interested in taking a closer look at this (still tiny) micro-community of Human Resources folks that travel, circle, and populate this space it is very illuminating. The many comments as well shed some light on what some of the most active and well-regarded folks in the space feel about the discussion.
The inspiration for the piece seems to be the idea that some people, especially people new to the world of blogging, tweeting, attending the seemingly limitless conferences that are in turn live-blogged and live-tweeted, can find the notion of getting involved, in participating, in contributing very intimidating.
And I guess in some ways it is.
To some of the many HR professionals just getting their feet wet in this whole online blogging/social media world it can be kind of disarming. And I think there will be many, many more great HR pros getting involved. Look at pretty much every HR conference from SHRM National, to state SHRM councils, to HR Technology - all of them are bringing in 'HR/social media' types to help educate and spread the message. Dive in, participate, engage, etc. - that is the gist of the message being carried far and wide.
For someone new to the space it can be easy to look at 'Blogger XYZ' and see that they have years worth of posts racked up, scores of comments, hundreds of Facebook fans and thousands of Twitter followers, and feel a bit intimidated, and even uncertain about their own ability to make an impact.
But to let fear or uncertainty, or shyness hold anyone back from diving in, adding their unique and personal perspective, and contributing to the community (such as it is), is exactly the worst possible outcome of all. We can't have a growing, vibrant, interesting, and valuable community without a constant influx of new voices and ideas.
To anyone, seasoned pros, recent grads, or students - you know who is smarter than you? No one.
And everyone.
Everyone has something to offer and it would be sad to think that anyone, be design or by accident holds you back from joining in.