Back in my beautiful Montana, home from my first visit to New Orleans, I took a couple of days to figure out what I wanted to say about the SHRM conference I attended. This was my first year attending and I was registered as a student. That means I had an opportunity to attend sessions all day Saturday in addition to the ‘normal’ conference. Overall, I was impressed by the experience and I’m sure I’ll go again. I’m just not sure that every impression was positive–though most were.
Student Conference: Starting with a networking dinner on Friday night where students could talk to ‘seasoned professionals’ through evening through Saturdays sessions, I was impressed with an opportunity for HR students to join together. On the down side, several of the ‘HR Students’ there were part of a single class in HR and interested, for the most part, in other avenues of business. For them, this was simply an opportunity to rub shoulders and be part of a conference organizing committee. That lead to very basic questions (expected by students, I know) and somewhat more remedial dialogue than anticipated. However, there was a session on ‘Career Derailers’ with coaching tips offered which was quite informative. More on that in a later post.
General Sessions: While I did not attend the session on Wednesday, I typically enjoyed the general sessions. Jack Welch caused a stir but I enjoy his ‘business, bottom line’ (albeit theoretical) approach to HR. Earl Graves Sr. was, for me, middle of the road. By far the best speaker of the bunch was John Kotter of Harvard. Hilarious, relevant and inspiring.
Concurrent Sessions: I plan on blogging about what I learned in each of the sessions I attended in greater detail this week. Suffice it to say, most were pretty good. Some standouts with some totally wasted hours. I think most of these sessions are suited to people around where I am in my career–manager level or a bit below. I cant imagine that someone in a Director level would be truly surprised or informed by the majority of the material offered.
Highlights: The ‘New Media’ movement of bloggers, of course! There was a tweet-up, a panel discussion and my introduction to some of the coolest HR people I’ve met. You’ll find links to their blogs up here in the next couple of days.
Overall, I’m left with the notion that this conference was typical except for the attendance levels. And that leads me to wonder about the draw for future years. Is the only draw later in a career to attend sessions for re-certification hours? As a student, the conference is great but where can you talk about/apply what you’ve learned? With the adult-learner trend and so many ‘uncertified’ people working in HR, will the student conference model change to adapt? I do know this–it feels as though there is a revolution brewing in HR right now and it is going to be an interesting ride! And I love interesting rides!
