Relax, your 401(k) bounced back - time to make plans for Las Vegas in October

This post was more or less completed over this past weekend, and I fully intended it to run yesterday. But after the bloodbath across global equity markets on Monday, it seemed a bit ridiculous to run a piece on Tuesday morning with a pitch to attend not one, but two events in Las Vegas this October. Sure, they are both fantastic, can't miss type events, and yes, I can offer you a really attractive discount to attend one or both of these events, but let's be honest - was anyone on Tuesday going to think seriously about approaching the boss for some travel budget, or consider a little additional personal investment in their professional development on such a disastrous financial day?

But then, perhaps shockingly, the markets rebounded yesterday, and while certainly the uncertainty surrounding US and global economic conditions are likely to persist for the time being, the sting of Monday's sell off has been assuaged at least somewhat, and I figured I'd better make my case quickly this morning, since who knows what might happen when the bell rings a couple of hours from now.

So here are the facts, and once I lay them out it will be clear what the only logical conclusion will be for you, the Human Resources or HR Technology professional at which to arrive:

1. The 14th Annual HR Technology Conference is set for October 3-5, 2011 and will be held in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay Resort. This event continues to be the pre-eminent event in the world of HR Technology, and in fact, rivals (and likely surpasses), any mainstream Human Resources conference for its sheer number and depth of exceedingly outstanding sessions, the scope and breadth of the solution providers that exhibit in the Expo hall, and the opportunity to rub elbows, break bread, and engage with the sharpest and savviest thinkers in the world of Human Capital Management.  

2. If you skip this event, you will lament your decision for the remainder of 2011, and will almost certainly begin scheming planning to attend in 2012. Why put yourself through a year of regret?

3. At no other event can you attend presentations from executives from the most important, innnovative, and exciting technology providers in the space, see case studies from innovative organizations like Facebook and Groupon, and even get the opportunity to hear from me, your dedicated servant not once, but twice during the course of the event, as I have the privilege to co-present a session with the HR Ringleader, Trish McFarlane, as well as participate on a HR and Social Media panel moderated by the HR Capitalist, Kris Dunn.

4. If you move fast, (or really before September 19th), you can use the discount code STEVE11, (all caps), to receive a $500 discount off the published registration price. Again, the conference information and registration details can be found here. And you should really take advantage of this opportunity. Truly.

But wait!  There's more!

If you act now you can double your learning experience in Las Vegas this October!

Here's how:

The 4th HRevolution conference for Human Resources and talent professionals will be held on October 2, 2011, one day before the HR Technology Conference kicks off. HRevolution has partnered with the HR Technology Conference to present the latest in what has become well known in the HR community as a challenging, engaging, informal, and boundary stretching program of facilitated conversations that is sure to enhance and support your HR Technology experience. With sessions from leaders from Zappos and Glassdoor, as well as some of the leading voices in HR and social media today, the HRevolution - Las Vegas is the perfect way to get your HR Technology Conference experience started. And thanks to the partnership with HR Tech, all attendees of HRevolution will receive a special, top-secret discount code (even better than STEVE11), that will give you the best value for HR Technology that you can find.

So here is what I really think you ought to do:

1. Register for the HRevolution event on October 2nd. You can get your tickets here.

2. Then take your HRevolution discount code and register for the HR Technology Conference here.

3. Book your room at Mandalay Bay or at any one of the dozen nearby Vegas hotels offering rooms at half the price.

4. Get ready for the best learning and networking experience you will ever have.

Take my word for it, or better yet, ask anyone that has attended HR Technology or HRevolution, you won't regret it! 

Calling all HR revolutionaries - #HRevolution Las Vegas is Coming

There are lots of events in the Human Resources and Talent Management space, and plenty of opportunities for HR leaders and practitioners for professional development, for furthering their knowledge and capabilities, and for networking with like-minded and engaged peers. And we know that everyone is busy, budgets in organizations for travel and development initiatives are still tight, and for HR pros, figuring out where and how to invest their limited time and resources is proving to be a more complex endeavor each year.

That's why it is more important than ever to make the best choices about where to invest your development dollars, your energy, and most importantly your time. 

The HRevolution event for Human Resources leaders and professionals is staging its next event on October 2, 2011 in Las Vegas, at the Mandalay Bay Resort. The HRevolution is partnering with the HR Technology Conference, that will also be held at the Mandalay Bay from October 3-5, 2011, to offer HR and HR Technology pros a fantastic combination of content, networking opportunities, and exposure to the latest and greatest in ideas, tools, technolgies, and innovations that are impacting the workforce today.

If you are not familiar with the HRevolution events here is a quick primer - the HRevolution is a grass roots, practitioner-led, non-traditional Human Resources experiences that while presenting fantastic content and session leaders, is much more about the people who attend than about a bunch of talking heads delivering boring PowerPoint decks about typical HR topics. At HRevolution you will be challenged by new ideas, expected to engage and contribute to the conversations about the current state Human Resources, and also where the profession is headed. At HRevolution you'll learn about new technologies, talk about new ways to engage the workforce, and most importantly, meet and connect with over a hundred like-minded people that are just as passionate as you are.

The HRevolution - Las Vegas event is shaping up to be one of the highlights of the Fall/Winter HR conference season, where HR thought leaders and practitioners from around the globe will be converging for a day of exciting, provocative, and cutting-edge discussions. With session leaders like China Gorman, Kris Dunn, Joe Gerstandt, Jason Lauritsen and more the event is shaping up to be a 'can't-miss' opportunity. But since the HRevolution is a different kind of interactive and participatory experience, space is limited, so you will want to get your tickets soon.  

You can learn more about the HRevolution event here, and register for event here.

And as an added bonus, when you register for HRevolution - Las Vegas you'll receive a major discount code good for the subsequent HR Technology Conference.

HRevolution 2011 - Thoughts and Thank-You's

Wow.

What a fantastic event.

HRevolution 2011 took place over the past weekend in Atlanta, Georgia and at least for me, was the best of the three HRevolution events we have put on thus far. And certainly as one of the members of the HRevolution organizing committee I could be accused of having a biased opinion. I freely admit it - I am biased. So if you don't want to take my word for it, connect with any of the 130 or so people that attended, keep an eye on the Twitter stream for the tag #HRevolution, and read some of what are sure to be dozens of reflection blog posts that will be posted in the next few weeks.

I am not so biased though as to suggest that somehow HRevolution is better than other events, be they large and traditional major conferences like SHRM, or the many other 'Unconferences' that one can find these days. But I do believe HRevolution is different, and really kind of unique in the space, and really quite special. The level of commitment, passion, engagement, and enthusiasm for this event, at least for me, surpasses what I have seen and experienced for any other event in our extended industry.

Attendance at professional conferences and events can be driven by many reasons - some are attended for specific learning opportunities, some for the chance to meet and network with one's colleagues in a professional community, and some simply are used to re-charge and energize and hopefully re-ignite passion for one's career. I think HRevolution succeeds as an event because it offers attendees all of these things. Intelligent and insightful session leaders, relevant and engaging content, a format that encourages connection and engagement, and finally the chance to spend time with 130 other folks as passionate as you are about the worlds of Human Resources, Recruiting, Talent Management, HR Technology, or whatever precisely matches your interest.

After the event one of the attendees Bonni Titgemeyer tweeted the following:

It is a fantastic and interesting question, and I think gets to some of the core or the essence of why so many people feel so passionate about the HRevolution event.

Particularly for first-time attendees, the event can be seen as a bit of an enigma. It kind of looks like a 'regular' conference - we were in a large, professional conference center, there was an excellent catered lunch and a General Session room and smaller breakout rooms; some of the sessions had elements of more traditional presentation formats. But other sessions had attendees standing in front of the room holding up posters of cartoon characters and rap stars, and as Matt Stollak and Dawn Hrdlica-Burke both observed, the F-Bomb was dropped sort of casually and reasonably often during the day. But contrast that to the big-brained Josh LeTourneau exploring the depths of complex Social Network Analysis, a topic and conversation to challenge your ideas about talent management to their core.

So is HRevolution a phenomenon, movement, or a cult?

I am not sure. Maybe it is all three. For a small event, the HRevolution manages to be a collection of different, complementary, and interesting elements, and to me, that is why it really is unique and special. Maybe the event is anything the attendees want it to be.

Lastly, many, many thanks for all who attended, presented, supported, and come toghether to make this event what it is.

Most importantly, my thanks and undying respect and admiration for Trish McFarlane, Ben Eubanks, and Crystal Peterson. It is an honor and pleasure to work with you.

HRevolution Sponsor Spotlight - PeopleMatter

Note - The third HRevolution Event for Human Resources professionals will take place April 29, 30 in Atlanta, Georgia. This post continues a series where we recognize and thank the generous sponsors that make the HRevolution event possible.

PeopleMatter provides talent management software for the service industry. PeopleMatter's software tools help their customers in the service industries like hospitality, convenience stores, restaurants, and grocery stores to manage the processes for hiring, scheduling and engaging their talent - all from a single, integrated platform.

I first met Nate DaPore, CEO of PeopleMatter at the HR Technology Conference last fall.  Nate, along with his colleague Charles Wyke-Smith were kind enough to take some time to talk with me about PeopleMatter's Talent Management solutions, and to review some of their ideas and vision for the HR technology space, and more specifically, where they felt PeopleMatter could continue to innovate to deliver leading-edge talent management solutions for their customers.

PeopleMatter focuses squarely on developing solutions to meet the need of the service organizations; the type of customers that have significant talent management challenges. Traditionally high turnover, seasonal swings in talent and staffing requirements, the need to quickly and efficiently onboard high volumes of new staff, while simultaneously meeting myriad regulatory and legislative requirements for filing and reporting. Anyone that has tried to work in HR in these kinds of environments will attest to these conundrums.

Think about the importance of talent management to service providers like restaurants or hotels - their employees are face-to-face every single day interacting with customers, customers that often have lots of choices about where to spend their time and money. For service providers, having the 'right' employee, properly trained, and engaged enough to deliver superior customer service, can make or break the customer experience. And in the age of social media, we all know what one bad customer service experience can do to a brand. One tweet, one YouTube video, one ranty blog post and boom - years of hard work and accumulated capital and goodwill gone. PeopleMatter helps their customers better manage this challenge and uncertainty with their suite of integrated tools for hiring, onboarding, and engaging staff.

Nate DaPore, CEO of PeopleMatter will be attending and presenting at HRevolution next week, and if you are attending, be sure to connect with Nate. He is a super guy and has some great ideas about how to improve the talent management space that just might make that next trip to Starbucks or 7-Eleven a better one.

Thanks Nate, and to the team at PeopleMatter for your support of the HRevolution 2011!

Connect with PeopleMatter on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

HRevolution Sponsor Spotlight - Monster.com

The 3rd iteration of the HRevolution Conference for Human Resources professionals is coming up in just two short weeks, April 29-30, 2011 to be precise.

This event is pretty special to me, as one of the event organizers, and to the small, but extremely tight-knit community of HR professionals that support, attend, and present at the event each year. HRevolution in some ways is a high-point in many of our busy professional schedules. There are lots of HR events to attend, but none are quite like the HRevolution. We will not have a giant expo hall, booths full of swag, and a series of presentations put on by consultants and lawyers. You'll get no strategic credits here.

If those things are what you are after, there are plenty of opportunities for that elsewhere.

It is a kind of unique, almost 'family' vibe, and truly the people that give up their personal time, and reach into their own pockets to attend, are a special group.

But this event would not be possible, at least not in the form that it currently enjoys, without the consistent and generous support of a very small, but very important set of corporate sponsors. And across all three HRevolution events, one sponsor that has been there since the beginning, and demonstrated a consistent and genuine concern, interest, and fantastic amount of support in what the HRevolution events are trying to achieve, has been our friends at Monster.com.Monster.com Mobile Apps

The relationship between HRevolution and Monster.com is a pretty special one. For the biggest, most long-lived, most widely-known career site in the United States to get behind a small, grass-roots event like HRevolution is a testament to Monster's commitment to the practice of Human Resources and Recruiting, and more importantly, to their respect and commitment to the  practitioners of Human Resources and Recruiting. 

And that is pretty cool.

So while you don't need me to tell you about Monster's services for employers, or that thousands of candidate resumes and open positions are loaded to the site every day, or that Monster has continued to push the envelope on the development of advanced technologies for Human Resources, or has embraced the mobile and tablet age, and has created new and exciting Job distribution and advertising platforms; you might not have been fully aware of the level and commitment the organization at Monster, (and truly, the people of Monster), have shown to their core constituents. These are the front-line, in the tenches, passionate and dedicated HR and Recruiting professionals that make up the HRevolution attendees.

On behalf of the HRevolution organizers, and the professionals that will be attending in Atlanta in two weeks, many thanks to the team at Monster - it is fully accurate to say there would not be an HRevolution without you.

See you in Atlanta!

Note: For more on the possibilities of the evolving world of work, visit Monster’s Thought Leadership Blog,www.monsterthinking.com.  For more Monster Thinking, follow @monster_works and @monsterww on Twitter and like us on Facebook!