HR Florida - A Bold Attempt is Half of Success

The leaders and organizers of the HR Florida State Conference have welcomed and embraced the social media community in a proactive and meaningful manner.

The second annual blogger/social media panel (which was a trip, even if I got the shaft 'Family Feud'Mike V style), the presence and continued coverage of the team from Voice of HR, and the support and accomodation of two live HR Happy Hour shows from the conference location, are just some of the social media elements running through the conference.

Heck, in every concurrent session an announcement is made explaining that they are numerous bloggers in attendance, and the tweeting during the sessions in actively encouraged. 

I talked with Mike VanderVort , the organizer and the moderator of the blogger panel about the thought process undertaken by the HR Florida leadership team that has led to the social media component to be so strongly apparent and even emphasized at the event.  Mike shared with me that the leadership committee felt strongly that social media, social networking, and knowledge/skills necessary to leverage these tools in the modern workplace would transform the way people work, and how HR leaders will be in position to drive results in their companies.

Just like the traditional and expected impacts to HR professionals and the workplace from US Healthcare reform, the effects of a long term economic downturn, and the seemingly ever changing and increasingly complex labyrinth of workplace legislation; the leadership of HR Florida felt that the impact of social media and social networking was of enough importance that their membership and their conference attendees would be well served by the presentation of visible and relevant education and dialog about these new tools and strategies for their use inside organizations.

Welcoming the sometimes unpredictable world of bloggers/tweeters etc. into your event is not without some risk and definitely some uncertainty.  Occasionally a tweet may be negative or accusatory, a blogger might use some shall we say more 'colorful' language than what is typically heard at these kinds of events.  The 'message' is no longer in complete control of the conference organizers and the presenters.  Lack of control, rogue comments, potential exposure of negative aspects of the event, or the content.  

Heck, the exact same concerns that made up the first five audience questions to the blogger panel.

The truth is, neither HR Conferences nor HR professionals at organizations can 'control' the message any longer.  What is really cool about HR Florida, pretty much as traditional an event as I have ever seen, is that it has come to terms with this new reality, and in many cases, much, much sooner than the HR professional that are their customers.

The conference is to be commended for this vision. The event, just like the inside of organizations, can't be sure what will result from this experiment. But in the immortal words of the chocolate covered fortune cookie I had last night - 'A Bold Attempt is Half of Success'.

HR Florida and Doing the Right Thing

I am attending the HR Florida State Conference and Expo and participating on the second annual HR Florida blogger panel later today. Huge thanks to the HR Florida team for inviting me to attend and be a part of the show.

The first session I sat in on was called the 'ROI of Compassion' presented by Lisa Murfield.  Lisa shared the story of United Bulk Terminal, a small Louisiana employer that was faced with massive business disruption, personal hardship, and even devastating tragedy as a result of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Of United Bulk Terminal's approximately 150 employees, 83% lost their homes, and though damage, infrastructure problems, inability to get supplies to the facility, business operations were shut for over two months.

Using a concerted and coordinated program of support, outreach, and committed communication, United Bulk Terminal was able to successfully resume business operations while retaining over 50% of the 'pre-disaster' employees.  That may not sound like an impressive percentage, but considering the personal devastation, the forced evacuations, and the incredible trauma that the vast majority of the employees suffered, the 50% figure is really quite remarkable. 

How United Bulk Terminal demonstrated a truly committed and compassionate response to its family of employees makes for a fantastic case study in corporate response to massive natural disaster.  But for the vast majority of organizations, the kinds of employee trauma that the company will have to deal with are more common, mundane, and certainly predictable.

Death of a loved one.  Financial loss.  Issue with the health or the behavior of employee's children.  Even the loss of a pet.  

These are the kinds of tragedies that are impacting every workforce, in every city, each and every day. 

Having a plan for massive environmental disaster and large scale business disruption is certainly sound business strategy and planning.  

Having a plan to adequately and compassionately support an employee in their more personal and everyday tragedies might be more important and more impactful. Here is my offering in the creation and administration of these policies - Do The Right Thing.

Thanks to Lisa Murfield for an interesting and enlightening presentation.

Redesigning Everything

I am totally fascinated with a contest called the 'Dollar ReDe$ignProject'.

The project, organized by brand strategy consultant Richard Smith, is a tongue-in-cheek attempt  to revitalize the American economy via a 're-branding' of some of our most visible and tangible manifestations of economic activity, the set of US Federal Reserve notes.

From the 'About' section of the Project site:

It seems so obvious to us that the 'only' realistic way for a swift economic recovery is through a thorough, in-depth, rebranding scheme – starting with the redesign of the iconic US Dollar – it's the 'only' pragmatic way to add some realistic stimulation into our lives! Therefore, you must take part and we really want to see what YOU would do.

Various designers, students, folks that like to play around with Illustrator and Photoshop have offered their suggestions for redesigning the set of bank notes that for the most part still maintain their basic design structure from the 1930s.

One interesting example from the contest, submitted by the graphic design firm Dowling Duncan is on the right.  Their designs for the various notes and denominations attempt to link the face value of the note to an historically significant figure or event. In the example on the right, the re-imagined $100 note refers to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's famous 'First 100 Days', when a number of significant legislative actions were approved to combat the economic depression of the 1930s.

Besides the collection of really engaging, creative, and amusing submissions (somewhere in there you can find a 'Steve Jobs' $50 bill), the project and the enthusiasm of the design community to participate reveal some interesting lessons that I think could be relevant in an organizational setting as well.  

Sacred cows - What 'wrong' with the $1, $5, or $100 bills?  Well I suppose nothing.  But could they be improved? Absolutely.  Could that improvement actually drive downstream benefits far beyond the redesign itself?  Quite possibly. But unless the attempt is made, you'll never know.  

The crowd - Sort of an obvious conclusion, and one that doesn't need to be pointed out yet again.  Or does it?  It still seems to me that more organizations and even smaller divisions in organizations don't do a great job soliciting ideas from their version of the 'crowd' for improvements, creative ideas, and even feedback. Making the submissions public, improves the process as well.  The better ideas surface more readily, more people can get involved in improving the ideas, and the entire process gains more relevancy and a larger degree of trust. For almost every issue, someone out there is passionate about it, and likely would want to get involved if given the opportunity.

Fun - Looking at the redesigned currency is fun. Creating the designs certainly had to be fun for the firms and individuals that have participated.  Even judging the contest I imagine is going to be a blast. What is wrong with a little fun in the organization? Unless you are in one of the lucky (or smart) organizations that has managed to navigate the last few years unscathed, introducing a bit of fun into the routine would be most certainly welcome.

What do you think?

Is redesigning the dollar bill a good idea? 

Smarter than you

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.

I'd like a calculator that plays music, please

Everything keeps getting more and more complex even at the same time as technology is meant to make our lives easier.

Compare the TV remote control you use today to the earliest ones you remember.  Today's remotes have enough buttons and functions to select, pause, rewind, fast forward, slow mo, super slo mo, record, mute, and probably a dozen more things I can't remember. And that is just for the TV itself.  

The latest in remote control technology, such as the Logitech Harmony One, can support up to 15 separate devices, 'making it easy to control even the most complex home entertainment systems'.

That's pretty cool, I guess.  I mean who really wants 15 separate remotes scattered about.  Let's not quibble over the details like what happens if the 'can control 15 different devices' remote malfunctions, or goes missing, or the dog chews it up and chaos ensures when you can't access your recorded TV shows, play tunes, or close the garage door. And is there anyone that actually has 15 separate devices that could stand remote controlling anyway?  No you can't count your kids/animals/in-laws in that reckoning.

But cynicism aside, we know that technological advances in consumer as well as enterprise technology generally do make our lives easier and more enjoyable even while introducing progressively more of a burden on our capacity to understand and adopt to them.

Having access to the controls of 15 different devices at once is truly fantastic but if all you do with that power and capability is tune into the latest installment in the misadventures of The Situation and Snooki, then the promise of the technology is largely wasted, and you likely overpaid to boot.

But the problem is that simpler is not always better. Having to get up off the sofa to change the TV channel was a royal pain, and arguments to my 9 year old to the contrary, it did not make us better people.  

As KD pointed out today on the HR Capitalist, more and better technology doesn't always deliver the kind of essential capability that the organization requires. The technologies certainly help us and the organization 'do' things better, more efficiently, etc, but we still need to know what things to do in the first place. 

The real innovation in remote technology won't just control more and more devices, it will help bubble the best shows up to the top of the list, and not just the ones I have watched in the past, but maybe the ones I could use to round out my overall game.

Once again, a post without a real point, but I can't take the time to sort one out.  I think my smartphone is finally charged back up and I need to get back to email, texting, Tweeting, reading the news, and watching a few YouTube videos.

As for the title of this post - it was inspired by the image on the left, proving that as far back as the 70s we wanted our gadgets to do more and more.