I debated for a couple of days on whether I was going to write a SHRM 2008 recap, but then decided to after receiving a couple of e-mails from people asking, “Should I go to the National SHRM convention?”  I actually haven’t even responded to these e-mails yet, because I think it is sort of a tough question to answer because it really depends upon the individual and what you hope to get out of it.

Why I go to National SHRM?

I really go to the convention for two primary reason and three secondary reasons.  I think it’s important for you to know why I go, so you can also understand what I got out of it.

• Inspiration – I look for inspiration at SHRM. I look for it on a personal level and I look for it on a professional level. I like to be inspired to make changes in my life to become a better person and I like to see that what I do in my career can and does make a difference.

• Skills and Knowledge – Depending upon what is going on with my current company at the time, I tend to come to SHRM looking for specific tools I can take away to help me tackle things back at work. For instance, in 2007 I was looking for different ways to promote accountability in the organization. This year I was specifically looking for information on change management and improving communication.

• Networking – I come to SHRM for networking. There were about 15,000 HR professionals in Chicago this week. I figure there are a few of them I should know.

• SHRM Exposition – I come to see what is new and exciting in areas of technology, consulting, Comp and Benefits, etc.

• Certification Credits – If you happen to have your PHR, SPHR, or GPHR certification from the HR Certification Institute, there is not really a better way to get a ton of recertification credits at the same time.

What I got out of SHRM 2008

When I look back at SHRM 2008, I probably give the Chicago conference about a C- for me personally. Again, this is why I think it was important for you to understand why I go. Here is a recap in each area.

• Inspiration – I did come away from SHRM 2008 inspired to improve my life.  It’s very hard to listen to someone like Sydney Poitier speak about the barriers he has broken down, the impact he has had, his upbringing, etc., without being inspired to do better. Patrick Lencioni gave a great presentation on his new book, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job, that helped me realize some of the good things we are doing here at my current company.  A couple of other speakers I thought were very inspirational were Steve Gilliland and Mikki Williams. They both talked a lot about self-empowerment and living the life that you want to live. I did also enjoy Laszlo Bock’s presentation on how they practice “People Operations” at Google. It was interesting to hear the different things they were doing around promotions, people development, recruiting, etc.

• Skills and Knowledge – SHRM 2008 fell flat for me this year in skills and knowledge. Now, let me say that I thought it was fantastic in 2007, when I was looking for accountability, and pretty good for 2006, when I was looking more for a seat at the table. So, it very well might be that I picked the wrong sessions or the speakers just weren’t available for communication and change management.  The best session I attended by far was called “Long Story Short: Communications to Engage Light-Speed Leaders” by Ellen Nichols. She did a great job of providing very practical advice on how to work with leaders who are in the fast-paced, Blackberry enabled, ADD, world that we are living in.  Her tips on how to communicate effectively with those leaders were things I could take away and start using when I got back to Atlanta.  I came to Chicago looking for a silver bullet around communication and change management, but I didn’t really find it. (More on that in a minute.)

• Networking – I think networking at the national SHRM conference is hard if you go by yourself as I have done the last three years.  There are 15,000+ HR people at these conferences and that can be pretty intimidating. It was interesting for me this year, because I actually felt like I did more networking online with Twitter, Friendfeed, and live-blogging than I did meeting people in-person. Now, don’t get me wrong, I met some nice people and had some good conversations, but I know I will be taking my online relationships with me into the weeks and months ahead, because it is easier to keep in touch. My advice if you want to network is go with a small group or connect with local SHRM chapter before you go to find out who else is attending, so you got a built in network going into it.

• SHRM Exposition – This fell flat for me as well. This is a huge event with every conceivable type of vendor a SHRM profesional could need in their career. But, I wasn’t really inspired. What I saw was a field of job boards, drug test companies, selection companies, consultants, etc., but I didn’t see anything new. If anything, I saw several industries that need to go through some consolidation or partnering to differentiate from the crowd.

• Certification Credits – Although not sexy, the certification opportunities are numerous and easy to be had at the national convention. You can earn up to 12.5 hours of recertification credits in 3 days. So, that is pretty cool.

While I did rate my experience at SHRM 2008 as a C- for me this year, I did want to say that not finding that silver bullet on communication and change management is a blessing for me.  I realized that communication and change management takes hard work and I need to influence my senior leadership to get onboard with re-energizing our culture and driving the business forward.  There isn’t an easy answer for this one. I guess that is why they call it work

So, that is my recap for SHRM 2008. I think the biggest advice I can give someone considering the national conference is to have a good idea of the types of knowledge and skills you are looking to develop and then check out the conference line-up before registering. A semi-final conference schedule is published months in advance and you can decide if you are going to get what you want out of the sessions before paying anything to go.

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The Setting

My boss came into our regular weekly staff meeting this week as usual. He started the meeting by challenging us to not be complacent. He knows there is a lot going on with our company right now, but we need to stay focused.

Now, first of all, he is absolutely right. As a senior leadership team and really an organization, we have grown complacent. To give you a little flavor, we are in the middle of an investigation, there are some acquisition rumors floating around and we are starting to talk about cutting some costs, which always makes people nervous.

This comes after working intense hours for two years as we have started up this division and it has been wildly successful.  Successful, but people are now tired and burned out.

The Solution

But, how do you break out of the funk? I’ve had several people come to me since Tuesday and ask how we actually re-discover the intensity that has made us so succesful. Here are my thoughts

1. It starts at the top – The fact is that the people around that boardroom table are the ones that have to commit to change first. If we don’t decide to change our attitude and raise our game, there really isn’t a lot that can be done. Employees know when you are just doing lip service to the whole thing and don’t really care. It’s in the body language, the closed door conversations or the lack of urgency that you express in your day-to-day interactions.  You don’t always have a lot of choices in life and a lot of things get handed to you. But, you can chose your attitude. I need to keep reminding myself of that one.
2. Admit you have a problem – OK, I understand that is the first step in most 12-step programs, but I think that is the case again here.  I think you need to acknowledge openly that you are in a funk.  Tell people that you know there are rumors and things are tough right now, but we have a lot of work to do and it is good, valuable work that has an impact.  Acknowledging that things are a little tough right now makes you human as a leader and lets people know that you hear what is going on and you are focused on getting the job done.
3. Refocus – This might be the perfect time to dust off that strategy you put together in January and re-prioritize your goals for the year. Not because you don’t think you are going to hit those goals, but because you want to make sure you are focused on the right things.  Re-prioritize, make some changes, and then push it back down in the organization to get people re-energized around what you are doing and what you are doing to accomplish.  In my experience there are a lot of things that are important to employees; compensation, benefits, manager, flexibility, etc. But, I also know that people want to understand why what they do matters. By refocusing and re-prioritizing, you should get most people working on what matters.
4. Celebrate – I think the other thing that you have to do at times like these is celebrate some success stories. I’ve found in organizations today that you hear a lot more bad news than good. You should be doing this all the time, but especially when you are in a funk, it’s time celebrate some of the things you are accomplishing each and every day.
5. Increase Intensity – I think this is also a good time to push people a little bit. Now, I am not talking about putting in false deadlines or pushing people for no real reason. But, If the normal environment in your office is that you sort of plod along until you get things done, try putting in some 30, 60, or 90-day aggressive action plans to get some things accomplished. Again, if you have prioritized well, and you are working on the right things, start with number one and knock that off of your list earlier than expected. Then, refer to #4, celebrate the heck out of it. The old adage is very true. I believe that “Success breeds Success.”
6. Do something “crazy” – Not crazy in the run naked through the office sort of crazy, but if your environment can pull it off; do something really unusual. I’ve heard of organizations burning bad project plans in the parking lot or having funerals for dead initiatives. If something like that will work in your organization, this might be a great time to give it a try.

Those are just a few thoughts from me. I’d be curious what others think as well. What have you done in your organization to get out of funk?

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I am going to try to keep a bit of a diary/journal as my two collegues and I try to evaluate whether we should make a go of this start-up opportunity we have in front of us.

How do we put a man on the moon?

Last week on Wednesday, we had an offsite meeting where we sort of layed out the business plan in a broad sense and then started to take a look at what were the items we really didn’t know or understand.  In some ways, we used the NASA approach of what it would take to launch this business by October 1. What are all the things we would have to solve for in order for that to be possible?  That was a very, very long list.  But, at the same time, it was good to sort of get it up on the board to see what we were facing.  The good thing is that these guys have been in my industry for years and years. So, there are some things where they say they are guessing that I know we are probably pretty close.

How do I contribute?

The second thing that I realized is that I can really bring a lot of value to this team. I am probably the one who has some of the more broad experience. I understand the call center world pretty well and I also have a pretty good idea of some of the things that are possible to do from a technology perspective. I might not be able to code it, but I feel like I can explain to someone what we really need and almost be the go-between between my partners and the people who would probably have to code our website.

I’m also very excited from a personal level, because I feel like these are guys are looking at me to contribute on the business side. If I want to handle the administration from a Human Resources perspective, that is fine. But, that isn’t what they are looking for me to do.

Next Steps

From that meeting on Wednesday, we divided things up into some broad categories. I am going to take the call center and technology pieces. Matt is going to take a financial look into the cystal ball and also look at the best ways to incorporate; and Dave is going to work on Marketing and Demographics to see what we have. We are going to report back this week on what we have found. I would guess we will know in the next couple of weeks if we are going to really do this or not.

One piece of news

We did find out this week that there are some other players in this space. On one hand, I think we were discouraged right away because we thought we were first. But, on the other hand, it’s good to know other people are trying to be here too. Then it comes down to the product and execution.  I know we can execute. We’ve been doing that together for 3 years.

I have to say that I think I might be at the hight point of my career as a HR professional right now. As you can see in my previous post, I’m considering a couple of start-up options and I am wrestling with my own internal debate of wanting to do a true start-up and trying to beat back the self-pessimist that is inside me.

But, the reason I think I’m at the high point is that I have two business colleagues that want me to join them in a new business venture, but not as the HR person!  They want me onboard because they appreciate my insights, guidance, business sense and previous experience from working together the last 3 years. The great thing about my current job is that I have really spent a lot of time learning the business and providing input into our business decisions that drive our strategy and our day-to-day practices. I haven’t been scared to ask the hard questions or provide new ways of looking at things when we were facing a tough issue. So, because of that I think I have transcended from being “The HR Guy” to a business professional who happens to practice Human Resources.

In short: I think I’ve made it!

I love the feeling of a new idea. The type of idea that makes your mind race with the possibilities of what could be and how your life could change. In my case, that euphoria generally moves fairly quickly to . . . “Wait a second. If this is so easy, why isn’t someone else doing it?” as my internal self-pessimist takes over.  I’m generally a glass half full and a big picture kind of a guy (aka dreamer). But, for some reason when it comes to my entrepreneurial dreams, my ability to accept risk dries up and I sit on the sidelines beating myself up.

That is why I admire serial entrepreneurs who will start-up companies, work crazy hours with unbelievable dedication to get it launched, maybe sell it or run it, and then do it all over again. I’m jealous of the adrenalin and thrill they feel as they start down the “road less traveled” and don’t really know how it is going to end up. But, they seem confident that if they work hard enough they will be successful and if not, they will land on their feet and be just fine.

I’m in the enviable position of looking at two start-ups right now. I’m also gainfully employed at the moment, with what has been a high-growth, start-up, so I have the luxury of thinking these things through the right way and making an educated decision.  One of the ideas is mine and I think it is a fantastic idea that solves a painful problem for millions of people that occurs several times per year. I’m excited about it and really feel like I have stumbled upon something that will really make a difference.

The other idea is one that two of my current colleagues brought to me and they want me to be involved. I’m not quite as excited about the second one, but this is really a matter of being in the right place, at the right time, with the right idea. It my potential business partners align with my values around “why” we would do something like this, I think it could really work. Heck, it might even finance option number one.

So, that is my dilemma my friends. Yes, I need to choose between the two options in front of me. But, really the most important thing I need to do is figure if I am going to be a risk taker or am I going to settle back and let life happen to me.

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I am really enjoying the conversations, heated opinions, and name calling that has occurred over the last couple of weeks around the issue of data portability (aka Facebook versus Google) and the uproar over websites like Friendfeed and Disqus that shift conversations/comments from a blog to a third-party websites.

There are many an eloquent writers who will do more justice to these particular arguments than me and in fact, I have included links to a few of the posts below and linked to some of the people in the conversation as well.

However, I wanted to offer this argument:

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana

This entire conversation reminds me of America Online. I was employed by AOL from the mid-90s through early 00’s. You can make all the bad comments you want about AOL (Internet for Dummies, The Internet with Training Wheels, etc.), but there was a time where we were certainly the most powerful company on the internet.

In my mind, AOL was Google before Google was cool. We had fantastic employees who were smart as hell and we worked out butts off. We had great leaders like Steve Case and Ted Leonsis who kept us motivated and on track. When you told people you worked at America Online, there response made you feel like you were someone special. You felt like you were changing the world and in many ways we did.

However, let’s take a quick look at where AOL went wrong and how it compares to what is happening today.

Proprietary System

One of the key failures for AOL was not changing its proprietary content system (Rain Man) to the more internet friendly HTML language much earlier. It is well known that we eventually did change, but it was too late to ensure that our users had access to the services and content that they really wanted and eventually left to find. To use the training wheels analogy, we had literally millions of members ready to ride their bikes and we couldn’t find the wrench to take off the wheels. If we had the wrench, and we made it easy to come and go, I believe many of them would make their way home.

Dear Facebook – Your users are going to grow and change. They are going to want to do new things that you are not going to want to provide for a variety of reasons. However, experience has shown me that if you provide sticky content, create a community, and your website is easy and fun to use, that even if they leave; they will also come back. If you don’t make it easy for them to try out other services, eventually they will make the same choice millions of AOL subscribers made in that they will leave to find “their” internet and not the one you are providing.

Adaptable and Innovative

I’m still amazed how stubborn AOL was about sticking with the same subscriber based business model when the horse had not only left the barn, but had crossed the field and was heading down the road before change really began to occur.

Now, I do understand the pull of billions of dollars in revenue and I also understand wanting to protect that revenue stream for as long as you can. But, AOL needed someone to grab them and drag them kicking and streaming into the 21st century. I believe you need to be working your current revenue stream for all it is worth, but at the same time a key group of leaders needs to have one eye on the future. Those same leaders have to be willing, and be supported, to push the company in a new direction a little earlier than the company will feel comfortable. That way you will find yourself on the horse leaving the barn, while you are still getting strong revenues necessary to fund the new innovation.

Dear 1.0 Bloggers – The horse has left the barn. The disappearance of partial RSS feeds was your first hint and websites like FriendFeed and Disqus, and the conversations on Twitter should be a slap in the face. Please, like Duncan Riley at The Inquisitr, who had a great post about his change of heart regarding FriendFeed. It it is time to embrace these innovations and jump in with both feet. Focus on the user. Listen to what they want and figure out how you can deliver it to them in the best possible way. Great writing and interesting content have to be there, but if you want more people to listen to what you have to say, they aren’t going to come to you anymore. You have to go to them. People like Robert Scoble, Louis Gray, and Hutch Carpenter are showing you the way. The horse has left the barn, but you can still catch-up if you can get yourself unstuck.

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Now, let me get this out of the way up front. Yes, I am a Mac guy. But, I’ve been Apple guy since the early 80s when Dad and Mom bought us our first computer, which was an Apple II. Because my family is in the newspaper business, I grew up with Macs and my father has several of the 1st Edition Macs in the back of his office that as he says “I can’t even use as a boat anchor.” But, that isn’t what this post is about.

Wow, what you do as a company to have the Apple brand name?  It is just amazing to me how powerful the brand is and how fanatic the fan base is for the company. They opened their Boston Apple Store yesterday and there was a line for MORE THAN A MILE to get in.  Now, keep in mind that there was no special announcement. No new iPhone came out yesterday, although I wish it would, this was simply a new store opening.  Let me tell you the funny thing. There are eight more Apple Stores in Massachusetts to chose from for your Apple shopping needs.

Yes, for those of you in Boston, I do understand this is Boylston Street and the store itself looks very cool. I also believe that you will be able to test drive almost every Apple product and accessory known to man. But, still, there are 8 other stores!

I thought of this post today because I saw something on Twitter asking if the Apple Store was down, so I immediately jumped to it in order to see if there was a new iPhone announced. While I was there, I checked out the latest Mac and PC commercials, which are very funny, and then Twittered about the fact that if you  need a “mood enhancement” watching a few of those commercials will really turn things around for you. I’m completely sold on the Apple brand and I’m evangelical about it. I am so enamored with Apple that not only do I watch the commercials online, but I tell other people to do it too. That my friends is a brand!

Well, anyway, enough for now. I will say this though; it does irritate me when companies complain about the Apple brand simply for the fact they feel it is over hyped.  I have a hard time figuring out why having one of the most popular brands in the world would be a bad thing, but for those of who complain about it, it seems like jealousy would be the right thing to be writing about and not the Apple Brand.

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I’m having a debate on using WordPress or TypePad to host my blog.  The easy facts of my debate are that I like the way the WordPress blog looks from a visual perspective and the fact is that my blog is free if I use WordPress right now. My concern with WordPress is that it seems like it is a little more of a walled garden and they don’t allow as much customization on their blogs.  Another thing that bugs me is that you can’t sign-up to have your own Google advertising on the website. There is a note on WordPress that you will be able to upgrade in the future to have your own advertising, but I personally would like that option now.

With TypePad, I feel like you can do almost anything. You can sign-up for services like Disqus and other third-party applications that that enhance the blog, but their stock blogs are not just very attractive. You can add Google Ads to the website with ease.

Now the funny thing is that I’m not really doing anything with Google Ads now anyway, but it is more of a matter of control for me on what is displayed on my blog. I don’t like th idea of someone else putting up advertising on my blog and I don’t get a say in what is displayed, much less actually get paid for it.

OK, I spent some time playing around with both TypePad and WordPress and I’ve decided that I am going to go with TypePad. Yes, visually it just looks better. I love the way my blog looks with the picture on the top and the cool blue tones that make you feel the tundra!

But, it also just seems to be a little faster, a little more stable and after reading some other people’s thoughts, it just seems to be a bit more professional. I could be completely wrong, but I’ve made my decision, visited GoDaddy to change the URLs around, and I’m moving forward from here.

I do still hope that WordPress opens up the walled garden a little bit, but for what I’m doing right now, I think I am going to be really happy.

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Ahhh, those are the words that you just never want to hear from your boss.  Especially a boss that you really, really like. And, I just got out of a meeting where he said that to me, asked who I thought should sit in the big chair, but then couldn’t tell me anymore more than that right now. Great, thanks.

I know he had a meeting with his boss in Tampa this week and I know it was important to him that it go a certain way and I’m guessing that it didn’t.  Man, this stinks.  It’s not that he is the best boss I’ve ever had or even that he is the best leader, but there is just something about working for a genuinely good person that makes life a little bit easier to live with when you are working side-by-side for 40 to 50 hours per week.

There have been some tough times with the company, but this isn’t one that I expected right now. I guess change is always supposed to be good, but it doesn’t feel like it right now. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that it is time to brush up my resume. I really don’t want to look for a job right now.

More to come . . . I’m sure.