Opening Day at HR Southwest Conference

Hello from Ft. Worth, Texas  and HR Southwest 2010!  It’s  been a great trip already and the conference has only been “officially” going for 47 minutes.  I had the good fortune to arrive on Sunday, along with my fellow bloggers/ social media cohorts Steve Boese, William Tincup, China Gorman, Franny Oxford, and Jason Seiden. The opportunity to spend time with that group and discuss what’s going on in the industry was invaluable.  What a group!  And, to think that I met them all on Twitter.  For anyone wanting to know the ROI of social media, there it is.  The opportunity to network with professionals online and then get to know them in person.  Priceless.

For day one here at HR Southwest, I’ll be attending the following sessions and I’ll be excited to share what I hear with you:

The Passing Zone– Opening Keynote with Jon Wee and Owen Morse that will highlight teamwork and interdependence, the value of trust, and how to build strong relationships with our partners and customers/ clients.

HR Happy Hour Live!–  Steve Boese will be interviewing a group of speakers from the HR Southwest conference, including me, so it should be a great way to hear about the future of conferences.  What do they hold, how are they changing, what are the challenges and demands?

Verbal Judo- Any session that talks about ways you can communicate more effectively without raising your voice sounds like something I need to hear.

Using Social Media Superpowers to Recruit and Retain–  Led by Kathy Rapp and Cheryl Farley, this promises to be an interesting learning experience.  There is a lot of discussion in the space about social media for recruitment, but it will be interesting to hear how we can use those tools to retain our top employees.

Follow all this up with an evening event hosted by Aquire, Inc. and you’ve got the perfect HR day.  If you haven’t considered coming to the HR Southwest Conference in the past, now is the time.  With over 1,800 participants (not including exhibitors and speakers) it is a good way to network with practitioners in a welcoming and sharing environment.