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Whether the Why Not of Social HR Leadership: #TChat Recap

We’d thought we’d cause a rift in the space time continuum. Fortunately we didn’t.

That’s because the amazing SocialHRCamp attendees in Vancouver BC and the fantastical #TChat contributors collaborated together during the #TChat hour on the topic of Social HR: Engage the Humans for Social HR Leadership.

No rifts, but we most certainly did riff and make sweet rock and roll insight together. The folks who gathered on site of our generous hosts Talent Technology were made up of progressive HR and recruiting professionals ready to learn, share and take the lead in all things social and the world of work.

Many still struggled with convincing their leadership the value of social recruiting and social marketing and blogging and even using LinkedIn to source from, for goodness sake (which is the most embraced mainstream professional social network these days, although there were those of us who argued if it was truly social or not, but I digress).

Yes, the collective did indeed riff in one session after the other, and it all crescendoed during #TChat. Although at first there was hesitation, a groupthink holding of breath, the very fabric of time stretching at the seams, we all watched the livestream of the online #TChat stream away.

I then broke free and moderated away, and what ensued was a delightfully smart, provocative at times and sometimes heated exchange about how much of the personal and professional should we combine in our personal and professional lives. Should there be boundaries?

What we discovered is that we do all have our own boundaries of varying degrees, but when we get together live at events like this, ad hoc communities within communities form, and we do combine our personal and professional lives, solving our world of work ills from the inside out.

We’ve been spending so much arguing inside our companies of whether or not business leadership, including HR and recruiting, and including everyone down to the front line employees, should be using social media to do anything, when all along the argument should be whether the why not.

Am I right?

Click here if you missed this week’s preview, and check out the slide show below of prime-cut tweets from Wednesday’s chat. We can’t wait for next week’s conversation. Stay tuned for the preview.

Image Credit: Pixabay

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Engage The Humans for Social HR Leadership: #TChat Preview

There’s a fun event today, Wed May 16th – A Live Social HR Camp being hosted from Vancouver, BC Canada and six other locales spread across four countries. It’s the first-ever SocialHRCamp, an un-conference aimed at  helping HR professionals collaborate to determine what it takes to leverage and integrate social media within the workplace. Pretty cool stuff. Also, check out Hashcaster for the live tweets and of course your favorite Twitter client.

I’m also excited to play hostess, speaker for our Boston, MA event that will take place the first week of December here at Google Cambridge — Please stay tuned for more information on this event. This will be big fun and a hands-on social learning experience for all.

You can imagine, given my heart for social workplace and all things Canada (No, I’m not Canadian but sometimes I’m mistaken for – cue laughter), how much I’m looking forward to the event. Many of our community players will be here live. So many friends in fact that we’re integrating it into this week’s World of Work #TChat. As we Chat, we will be pulling in attendees from #SocialHRCamp from the cozy confines of Cambridge and around the globe.

I won’t have to bring a sleeping bag or worry about spiders or outside showers, but I will be a happy camper, chatting about our philosophy:  Leaders need to be more active and hands-on in social media engagement and strategies.

Regardless of your industries, roles, or belief systems, it’s critical, as leaders and HR professionals to be active in social media. Building trust with employees, customers and prospects through your brand, using social tools, is now a core competency. Together, we’ll also explore how (or maybe when) to combine personal and professional social as it relates to workplace and career to strike a fine balance, based on common sense and your own beliefs regarding brand humanization.

The theme for this week’s #TChat World of Work will be ‘Social HR: Engage the Humans for Social HR Leadership’

We’ll ask, and debate, the following questions:

Q1:  How should HR play authenticity and transparency when stepping into social for the first time? What tools should we use?

Q2:  How does social recruiting differ with Gen Y than other generations? Why or why not?

Q3:  Is LinkedIn just a job board pretending to be a social network? Why or why not? And should HR care?

Q4:  Should business leadership be blogging, tweeting and sharing on social? Why or why not?

Q5:  Should we combine the personal and professional in social? Should there be boundaries? Why or why not?

So grab your canteen and join us Wednesday on Twitter for #TChat. This is happening May 16th on Twitter from 7-8 pm ET (4-5 pm PT).  Please tune in from wherever you may be. I’ll be your moderator on Twitter @MeghanMBiro along with @socialmediasean and @brentskinner – We will be aided by our live Vancouver panel moderators @KevinWGrossman @SocialSalima and other community friends.

Think it’s almost summertime. Think camp. Think about how to use social media to engage as a leader or employee in your workplace or career role. Talk to you Wednesday!

Image Credit: Pixabay