Birthday Girl Circa 2000
Missing #HRTechConf this year meant, even more than the loss of professional learning/networking/vendor briefing/audience interaction/etc., not seeing good friends. Since many of my closest friends began as professional colleagues — and that process continues — I really missed our annual “reunion.” But I truly was where I needed to be, supporting my closest of friends when she lost her son tragically and unexpectedly.
All the more reason I’m planning now for #HRTechConf 2011 in Las Vegas, and I hope you’ll be there too. I had planned some surprises for this year’s show, to include announcing my latest professional resolutions. There’s nothing more motivating when you really want to keep resolutions than announcing them to a thousand or so colleagues, many of whom will tweet/blog/chat/generally call out your accomplishments or lack thereof. Since I plan to report at #HRTechConf 2011 about how well (or not) I’ve done with my 65th Bday professional resolutions, I thought I’d build momentum for their accomplishment by committing to them publicly — right here and now:
1. Meet as many as possible of the Enterprise Irregulars — when I was honored with membership in this group, just less than a year ago, little did I realize at the time what a powerfully smart, knowledgeable and generous group I would be joining. I’ve learned a ton from the @irregulars this past year, so much so that at times my aging brain goes into overload. We’ve celebrated each other’s triumphs and tribulations, dissected each other’s thinking (and I do mean dissected),and plotted how to improve enterprise performance through best practices in all things tech. But I’ve never been more proud of this group or honored by my membership in it than in how they rallied to support our colleague Vinnie Mirchandani when he learned recently how very fragile and precious is good health.
2. Blog more often — I had such good intentions when I began my blog 11/8/2009, but life has truly gotten in the way quite a bit this year. Since I can’t even consider retirement until I’ve said everthing I have to say about HRM, the HRM delivery system, HRM software and vendors, HRM outsourcing and providers, and many more professional topics of interest, I’ve just got to do a better job in 2011 of finding time and focus to blog.
3. Travel less — business travel, no matter how productively you use your time on the road, is a giant time waster, good eating habit destroyer, and exercise routine disruptor. After more than forty years on the road, I know the price paid by family and friends who don’t see you enough, community needs that you can’t meet, wardrobes that never get replenished except in crisis mode, and household responsibilities that get only barebones attention. While I love seeing clients, vendors, conference attendees in situ, and speaking face-to-face with as many in our profession as possible, I think it’s time to open up the conference room Casa de Ranas for more such meetings and encourage everyone to consider Fort Myers, FL as a choice locale for their conference/meeting/etc.
4. Go deeper and push harder in support of HRM SaaS InFullBloom — I’ll write more about the sea change now underway in HRM software, but what’s important about what’s happening is that, unless we educate everyone involved about the importance of great HRM SaaS (as opposed to old data/process design and architectural crap dressed up in new clothes, as happened all too often as we went from mainframe to client server HRM software), the opportunity of this moment will be lost. HR professionals must drive business outcomes by distinguishing between pretty UIs and profoundly important technology enablement to better HRM decisions by managers and workers. And HRM software professionals must know how and when to reinvent themselves and the software they create and support.
Wow, just writing up those four resolutions was exhausting, so imagine what actually accomplishing them is going to take! Back to 2011 vacation planning, because I’m going to need them.