Eric Winegardner speaking at HREvolution 2010

Bill Kutik speaking at the Catalyst Ranch – HREvolution 2010

 HREvolution is coming up next month, and I am really looking forward to attending. I am going to get to visit with some old friends, meet some folks face to face that I have met online, make some new friends, attend some mind-bending sessions which will help me grow and learn, and to get out of town and spend a weekend in Atlanta.  

Last year leading up to HREvolution2010, I was a relative newcomer to twitter.  I was trying to figure out what all the chatter was about.  The one thing that everyone was buzzing about was this HREvolutioin conference.  I really wasn’t sure what in the heck the conference was all about and who all of these people were.  I had met a few of them and but most of them were unknown to me. The conference was in Chicago (200 miles from me) and cost $100. I figured what the heck, I should attend.  I thought even if I went and it was a bust I would only be out a few hundred bucks.  

Since attending the conference at the Catalyst Ranch last year, I have really dove head long into the social media scene – and am thankful that I have had the opportunity to do so.  I don’t know that all of these things happened as a direct result of attending, perhaps, but even if they were not a direct result they were a by-product of attending HREvolution.  

Since May of 2010 these are some of the things I have been done… 

• I was asked to become the Social Media Director for the Illinois State Council of SHRM
• I was invited to write a guest post on Blogging for Jobs about the SHRM Blog Squad
• Launched a blog site for the Illinois State Council of SHRM www.ilshrmblog.org
• Attend SHRM Annual Conference in San Diego
• Meet a number of the notable HR Bloggers in San Diego
• Worked with IL State Council, John Jorgensen, Curtis Midkiff, Mike VanDervort and Trish McFarlane making the IL SHRM State conference a social media event
• Started my own blog (here)
• Was a guest on Drive Thru HR (twice)
• Attend the SHRM Leadership Conference participating as a Social Media Panelist
• Hung out with Ben Eubanks at that conference learning that boomers and GenY can in fact get along
• Met the HR Florida gang at SHRM Leadership (Social media royalty)
• Met many great HR folks on twitter and look forward to getting to know them better (Steve Browne, Kimberly Roden, Jay Kuhn…just to name a few)
• Planning for a really exciting IL SHRM conference in 2011 which is going to be huge and I get to be a part of it
• Planning to attend OHSHRM and WISHRM and bring back ideas for ILSHRM
• Became a fan of HRHappyhour 

So a big thanks to Ben, Steve, Trish and Crystal for putting together and pulling off this HREvolution thing. It has treated me well and provided me with a lot of opportunities.  I will be in attendance and happy to be there. I hope to see you there.