3 Things I Will Do Differently following the HR Unconference

Posted by: Alison Chisnell on: October 22, 2010

• In: Blogs | ConnectingHR | Development | HR | Social Media
• 18 Comments

What an amazing day it was!  I must admit for the first 10 minutes or so I wondered whether it was the maddest thing I had ever done, having only really joined Twitter about 3 weeks ago.  It was a real revelation though to see how an Unconference can work, how engaged and passionate the participants all were, how willing everybody was to take accountability for leading discussion topics, sharing knowledge and getting to know each other.  I really had a fantastic time and learnt a lot, as well as meeting some great people.

Before the euphoria fades, I want to really consider and share what I am going to do differently as a result of the Unconference and make sure I capture the sense of empowerment that it brought me and others.

So, here goes!

1) Find my voice and start to blog.

This was quite a revelation for me.  I had previously thought that in order to blog you had to be immensely funny, popular, original etc.  And to be fair, I’m sure all those things help!  But what the Unconference helped me to realise is that we all have things to say and that we should be proactive about sharing knowledge and finding our voice.  Sharon Clew (@redspringsmedia) gave a great example of how one of her most popular blogs was on top tips to have difficult conversations with employees…really straightforward, pragmatic stuff that can be incredibly useful to people.  And for anyone else who didn’t know how or where to start, I was given some great advice to go to posterous.com which so far has been really easy to work with.  If you’re reading this now, then it has defintiely worked!

2) Rethink my recruitment strategy and what part social media plays in it.

I took part in a great session where we were sharing ideas about recruitment and what works and doesn’t work with social media.  I realised that I have been quite naive in assuming that just posting a job on LinkedIn will get a fabulous response from all the professionals we are seeking to attract, and that actually what I should be doing is going back to basics in understanding what we are wanting to achieve with our recruitment, to what degree social media will play a part in that, either now or in the future, and how much resource we are willing to dedicate to it.  It was also clear from our discusions that it is key to fix and improve some of the basic things we do, such as our corporate jobsite, otherwise any social media ventures pointing potiential applicants towards it will almost certainly be in vain.  Much food for thought on this topic especially!

3) Coach others in my organisation on social media

I am going to be proactive in sharing the knowledge I gained from the Unconference and run some beginner clinics for any of the HR people in my organisation who are keen to find out more, but perhaps don’t know where to start.  I know from my own experience how much it helped me when Kay @PRforHR helped get me started and introduced me to a totally different way of using Twitter and connecting with other HR people.  I am also sure that once they get the hang of it, they will be able to teach me plenty of things, so that we can form an active learning set and become ever more fabulous together.

So, those are going to be the 3 main things I take away and action, to make sure I really implement the learning from yesterday.  I’d love to hear anyone’s comments, either on the above or ideas for what others are going to do differently as a result of the Unconference.  Above all it was great to meet such a lot of fantastic, inspiring HR professionals and I look forward to staying in touch and continuing to share ideas…and of course to the next Unconference or Tweet-up!

Alison