HR Technology Conference – It was about the Tweeps

Wow. What a great time I had at the HR Technology Conference in Chicago last week. The show floor was overwhelming and my brain is full from the sessions and keynotes. I will be blogging over the next week about my impressions from the conference sessions and keynotes.

I have to say that the biggest impression I had from the conference was not from the show floor, sessions or keynotes but from the time spent meeting and getting to know all the tweeps I have been conversing with on Twitter. Over the course of the conference I was able to connect with my tweeps randomly at lunch, at a session, at an after party, clown car ride from the convention center to the Hyatt Regency, crazy cab ride to the Parthenon restaurant, Dinner or the tweetup on Friday morning. We spent (mostly) serious time packed into a room for HR Happy Hour to discuss our thoughts on the conference, played pranks on each other at dinner and then had a final opportunity to say hello and goodbye at the final tweetup. By the end of the conference the tweeps had become peeps.

I met CEOs, HR Bloggers, Industry Titans, Consultants, HR Professionals and Techies. Everyone was more than generous with their time and knowledge. I look forward to talking to my peeps on Twitter, email and the phone over the coming weeks and hope to catch up with them in person again soon.

Here is the list of wonderful people I was able to meet in person (in Twitter alphabetical order):

@bryonabramowitz – Website here
@debbiejbrown
@ChareeKlimek – Website here
@Devoted2HR
@InFullBloomUS – Blog here
@jcorsello – Blog here
@jessica_lee – Blog here
@kris_dunn – Blog here
@loismelbourne – Blog here
@lruettimann – Blog here
@mpbennett – Blog here
@sarahw79 – Blog here
@Seiden – Website here
@stelzner – Blog here
@SteveBoese – Blog here
@thelance – Blog here
@TrishMcFarlane – Blog here
@TRITZ1263

Update: In an unforgivable lapse of intelligence, I forgot to mention an extremely important tweep that I did get to meet at the Friday morning tweetup. He was dragged kicking and screaming and kicking and screaming to Twitter but continues to tweet anyway. Without him, there would be no HR Technology Conference, no shoot out MC and no one to stand up in a session and say he is sick to death of the discussion of using social media in recruiting since it is a no brainer. He hosts a wicked smart radio show that is a must listen. I hope he forgives me and still considers me a peep. Ladies and gentlemen I bring you Bill Kutik:

@billkutik – Radio Show here

If there is anyone else I did meet at the conference but did not list above, leave a comment or send me a DM on twitter.