by Michael Krupa on June 21, 2010
Yes I know I am very late in blogging about my thoughts on HR Technology at HRevolution 2010. I have been staring at this blog post for weeks trying to figure out what to say. The problem is that I am trying to write about something that well…didn’t happen so I’m giving up and finally finishing this post.
In case you missed it, Ben Eubanks hosted the HRevolution Carnival of HR over at his fantastic upstartHR blog. Ben’s Carnival seems to be the most thorough roundup of thoughts regarding HRevolution. By my count there were 45 blog posts mentioned in this Carnival. I read every single post and guess what? If you set aside social media and mobile technology, only 2 people mentioned technology in their blog post. At the conference, Bill Kutik, Bryon Abramowitz and I were co-session leaders of the HR Technology session. We did the usual introductions, made a couple of comments about HR technology and then opened it up to the crowd of about 25 people for questions. The session mostly centered around Abra HRMS, some questions about Taleo and a request for information about recruiting technology vendors for small companies. Questions were asked and answers were given so I hopefully some people walked away with new technology information. However, I sensed that many of the session attendees did not even know where to begin to ask HR technology questions.
Let me be clear that this blog post is in no way a criticism of the HRevolution conference, the conference organizers or the conference participants. The focus of the conference was not on technology and I had a great time, learned lots and was able to connect and re-connect with wonderful people. But what my experience at the conference does tell me is that we still have a long way to go to get HR Practitioners to think about technology. Unfortunately I do not have any earth shattering ideas right now on how to approach this. I do think I will reach out to my session co-hosts Bill and Bryon to brainstorm ideas for getting more discussions going with HR Practitioners. Then I will reach out to some of the HRevolution attendees for their thoughts as well.
If you attended HRevolution, did you have the same experience as I did regarding HR Technology discussions or something different? Do you have any ideas for me on how to engage HR Practitioners in technology discussions? Come on, help a guy out here.
by Michael Krupa on June 2, 2010
I’m currently sitting on a plane heading from Portland to Denver. The person in front of me has reclined their seat leaving me no room to use my laptop. Being a good tech guy, I pulled out the iPad I won at HRevolution and am typing this out using the iPad WordPress App. Okay, Okay, I might have finished up this blog post back on the ground but rest assured that the majority of the blog post was indeed written on the plane using my iPad. Now would probably be a good time to thank all the good people at Monster.com (especially my new best friend Eric Winegardner) for sponsoring the opening night party and for the iPad raffle that somehow I miraculously won.
A couple of weeks ago was the HRevolution 2010 conference in Chicago. I was not able to attend HRevolution last year as it was darn near impossible to get from Portland Oregon to Louisville Kentucky in a reasonable amount of time. Unlike many people who attended this year, I did not go to specifically pickup nuggets of HR knowledge. In some of my previous posts I lamented HR department’s lack of interest in technology so I didn’t go to HRevolution with the hope of a tech breakthrough. It’s a good thing since for the most part I witnessed the status quo. But more on that in a future blog post. I did not go to HRevolution to pick up HR technology information; I went for the opportunity to spend time with my HR thought leaders outside of the sessions.
I arrived on Friday afternoon and with casual meetups over snacks, the parties, the sessions and impromptu hallway discussions I managed to have great conversations. I also managed to squeeze in a couple of sessions. Of course one session I didn’t miss was the HR Technology Q&A session since I was co-facilitating with Bryon Abramowitz and Bill Kutik. Again, stay tuned for a future blog post on my observations on HR Technology conversations at the conference.
I could write about what worked and did not work for HRevolution but as it turns out many of my fellow conference attendees have already blogged about it better than I could. One of the HRevolution planners, Ben Eubanks, has already rounded up the HRevolution blog posts into the wonderful Carnival of HR-HRevolution Style. Go ahead, click that link to open up the HRevolution Carnival in a new window and read all the wonderful blog posts. I’ll wait right here until to you return. As incentive for returning, there is still a matter of the blog title to resolve.
I would be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to my partner in crime and an amazing blogger Paul Smith who kept me highly entertained from morning until late at night and to the HRevolution organizing committee. Finally as I end this blog post, some of you are thinking, what’s the deal with the Dirty Martinis in the Blog Title? Well…I ended the conference on Saturday night at the rooftop bar at theWit Hotel by sipping a Blue Cheese Olive Dirty Martini along with Shennee Rutt and many many others. Good times were had by all.
Stay tuned for my next blog post when I beat you all silly for not having a proper backup strategy for your personal computers. 
by Michael Krupa on April 14, 2010
by Michael Krupa on April 4, 2010
The latest Carnival of HR is up over at the Precept Employee Benefit Blog. This carnival is a celebration of the American Red Cross. The wonderful people behind the Precept Employee Blog have made a donation to the American Red Cross on behalf of all the carnival bloggers. I would love to point out a couple of posts that caught my eye but this time I enjoyed all the posts. So head on over to the Carnival of HR to see all the goodness that awaits you.
