As I write this post I am on my way to the Louisiana SHRM State Conference.  I am attending as a co-presenter of a break out session and as a member of the Performance I Create Blog site.  I am not sure how this all came together but I feel quite fortune to be in this position.

Looking up the river in Baton Rouge

Looking up the river in Baton Rouge

No doubt Robin Schooling had a lot to do with this, but I think it is largely my willingness to put myself out here in the social space of HR and roll with it. If you think about it in this context, I am an HR guy from Central Illinois and I am traveling to Louisiana to talk about my craft and help promote the event; Wow!   I guess it has been an evolutionary process of meeting people, and being afforded the opportunity to share with a bunch of excited, like-minded bright and insightful people.

Sometimes this involvement centers around doing a lot of work, with little or no compensation while putting yourself out there with a significant risk of failure.  Not every blog post is Pulitzer Prize material, not every presentation gets rave reviews,  and a large portion of the things people do in the social space seem to go unnoticed, but yet we persevere.   I wonder if in the future this condition will get a diagnosis.

One of the outrageous benefits of being in this space is the people.  Nearly everyone I have met through SHRM and other conference associations is just a great person.  These people like Robin, and the entire cavalcade of Social Media micro-celebrities that will be at LASHRM, fall into this category. (You know who you are.)  Trying to understand what makes these people tick, might be a good project for Dr. Daniel Crosby to look into.  I am one of them and I am clueless as to what “really” motivates me.

So without being too self-serving I will say thanks to LASHRM and Robin for inviting me, thanks to my partner in crime Donna Rogers @HRWarrior  – I hope we don’t suck.

Also a shout out to all of my Performance I Create fellow bloggers.  I am really proud to be a part of this group and some of the amazing content we put out there.

I am looking forward to a great conference. Stay tuned for more tweets and dispatches from Baton Rouge…