HR Tech Chat - At a New Time

The monthly HR Tech Twitter Chat is set for today, Wednesday September 2nd at 1:00 PM EDT.

This is a new time for the Chat, as we thought we would try a time that might encourage more participation from multiple time zones.

A quick review of how these Twitter 'theme' chats work:

At 1:00 Bryon Abramowitz of Knowledge Infusion or myself will officially start the chat with a quick welcome message. Folks who are participating are asked to Tweet out their name and role so that we can all get better acquainted. 

An example would be 'Hi, I am Steve Boese, HR Technology Instructor at RIT in New York - #HR_Tech'

We will then get the discussion going around this month's topic - HR Measurement and Metrics.

Some questions that could be explored:

1. What are the key metrics that HR leaders need to measure?

2. Are they succeeding in measuring these key items?  Why or why not?

3. What vendors and solutions seem to offer the most robust and flexible solutions right now?

These are just a few ideas, in reality the conversation will go where the group takes it and that is most of the fun of the chats.

Some Tips for Chat participants:

• You participate by Tweeting with the hashtag '#HR_Tech' included in your update (usually at the end of the Tweet)
• Follow the flow of the conversation by tracking all Tweets with '#HR_Tech' using one of the following
  • Tweetchat - http://tweetchat.com/room/HR_Tech, you will need to sign in using your Twitter credentials, but this gives a nice overlay to the chat and will automatically append the hashtag to your updates
  • Tweetgrid - www.tweetgrid.com. Allows you to not only monitor the chat, but also your 'normal' Twitter stream and/or other search terms.  Takes a few minutes to setup but it is pretty neat.
  • Tweetdeck - If you are already using Tweetdeck just set up a new search column for the #HR_Tech hashtag. 
  • Twubs - I have not used this site yet, but I have heard many folks say it is pretty nice for following a 'theme' chat in Twitter. http://twubs.com/hr_tech.

These chats can be really interesting and informative, but honestly they would be greatly enhanced if we get some more 'non-Tech' HR folks interested and participating.  So if you are an HR pro and have some questions or comments about Talent Management technology, or quite honestly any HR Technology, it is a great opportunity to corner at least a dozen HR Technology professionals at one time.

Hope to see your #HR_Tech Tweets tomorrow!

HR Tech Chat - HR and Collaboration

This Wednesday, July 8 at 9:00 PM EDT Bryon Abramowitz and I will be hosting the third installment of the Twitter #HR_Tech chat. This time the theme is 'The Role of HR in Internal Collaboration Projects'.

With the increased emphasis on internal collaboration using tools like wikis, blogs, microblogs, and internal social networks there is both a challenge and an opportunity for HR departments to take on a leadership role in organizing and leading these initiatives. We plan on discussing this and hopefully some good insights can be shared on how HR can truly be effective in these projects.

But just what is #HR_Tech chat you ask?Flickr - Kamoda

It is a Twitter 'themed' chat. Folks participate by sharing their thoughts, comments, and questions on the topic and append the hashtag #HR_Tech to all the Tweets. This makes the overall stream of conversation reasonably coherent, and allows the uses of tools like Tweetchat or Tweetgrid to assist in following the conversations. Amybeth Hale just posted an excellent overview of themed chats on her Research Goddess blog if you would like a better description of the idea.

At any rate, I hope to see many HR and HR Tech folks in the chat on Wednesday and look forward to a great discussion.