Back to the #HRFutures PART 1

I was lucky enough to attend Michael Specht's first #HRFutures conference in Melbourne this last week, it was an event to explore the use and/or need for companies or corporates to embrace the web2.0 or Enterprise2.0 in this new millennium. A road map if you will on how to embrace this technology, bringing it away from being the playground of Gen Y's and Bloggers to mainstream corporations.

After starting this, I have decided that there is too much to say for one blog post. This will be the first in a series from me.

This conference was attended by HR and Recruitment professionals from around the country from wide ranging backgrounds. Internal HR teams from Government institutions, Healthcare, Research facilities as well as Job board owners and Recruitment Agency hot shots, even the odd Internal Recruitment person. Thought leaders in the Australian HR/Recruitment industry, maybe, but as labelled on Twitter, definitely a smattering of the Australian Recruiting mafia. Some of the most engaged and contributing people in the Australian HR/Recruiting Web community. It was a great bunch to mix with, it was impossible not to learn from just being in their presence.

The conference was kicked off with Stephen Collins (AKA @Trib) enlightening all there about his experiences at TED. Stephen was a person I was following on Twitter, not because of anything really, just because he was linked to a number of people I really respected. Now, I will religiously read his tweets (even if they are about the Rugby Union) and add his blog to one of my "must reads" on my blog roll. See Stephen's version here

TED as depicted by Stephen was an inspiration. Stephen's delivery was engaging and confident, obviously someone you want to listen to. One of the main messages I took from @Trib presentation was the need to engage, collaborate, trust and motivate your people. The need to be PRESENT where ever you are, not to just turn up and do the day to day. Be present in the moment, focus on what you are to achieve, personally, professionally and corporately. If you are there for someone else, BE THERE for them, his illustration of having the whole group sing "Happy Birthday" is definitely an eye opener. Proving it doesn't matter how well you sing as long as you are there for someone (ie YOU), good or bad the effort given will be worth it for that person!

He spoke of how, even through these tough economic times, the people at TED were remarkably passionate and driven to make a difference. They were aware that now is a time of massive cultural change across the world.. and they wanted to be part of it. Terms such as it's time for a "Global re-boot", the "curse of business as usual", working where "practical wisdom is a guide (not policy)".

Going over my notes, today, I think the best thing about Stephen's presentation was the fact that it made me think, and how I could implement these ideas into my organisation. There are so many jotted notes all around my page of things I need to explore, or questions I need to ask, or things I just must implement at my company. that is the sign of a great presentation to me.

Ideas of Leadership v Management
A shared vision
Give trust, get trust
Foster creativity (the market has moved from a focus of making things to creating things)
Removing "Dumbplexity" loved that term. (in other words, making things happen! not meetings for meetings sake, be decisive, cut down silo's and walls)
Connect, engage your people's networks
Allow failure, encourage it (favorite analogy, Thomas Edison made 1000 light globes before one lit up)
Allow conversations, collaborations build your corporate community.

Imagine, Re-imagine, Think, Re-Think.

If this presentation doesn't get you champing at the bit to go and make a huge difference to your company, or the world... well, I don't understand you. Thanks Stephen.

The focus them came to the practicalities of implementing such a thing, with Sean Liew (@sean_liew on twitter) BearingPoint giving us a real life view of how he and BearingPoint have engaged with this technology to enhance their business and their business offerings to their clients. This also resonated with me as the BearingPoint model can relate to mine relatively easily.

His journey with their Wiki, showed the need for such technology in an organisation, and the fact that employees crave such a thing. The wiki was implemented from a practical need to make his life easier when working on tender documentation in a collaborative manner. It was just too time consuming to continually download these 200 pages documents every time someone made a little change. Bottom line results.... within one year this corporate wiki had 24,151 unique visitors, 117,000 visitors and over 1,000,000 page views. If that doesn't illustrate that people are craving such involvement and collaboration, I'm not sure what does. Presentation slides found here

A quote stood out for me in this presentation.

A companies "ability to learn faster than it's competition may be the only was for sustainable competitive advantage" (Peter Serge MIT)

This really resonated with me, and will be the crux of my message when I next meet with my Management team.

This was all before morning tea.... I will continue this series later on, let me assure you the other presenters were equally thought provoking.