For those of you who have not met me, I’m a high heels kind of gal.  I love them and wear them almost every day.  In fact, I’ve always been this way.  One type of shoe I’ve never owned and would feel like a total sham wearing is THE classic-  Chuck Taylors by Converse.  

Now, here’s where it gets interesting.  If you believe that the way that we express ourselves in our clothing and in our shoe choices somehow links to our beliefs and behaviors, we’d be in agreement.  You might even think that I’d feel most comfortable surrounding myself with other heel-wearing ladies.  But, this is where I’d lose you.  When I think of many of the professionals that have a solid impact and influence on my thinking about the present and the future of HR, one theme emerges.

They all wear Chuck Taylor’s.

Some of the great industry thinkers I know like Ruettimann, Boese, Nykolaiszyn, and Crosby, to name a few.

I wonder what that says about me.  I hope it says that I’m smart enough not to surround myself with only like-minded people.  I hope that it shows that I like to associate with people that may have the same passions as I do but vastly different opinions and approaches.  I think there is something to this.  And, maybe I’d stretch myself a little by lacing up a pair myself once in awhile.  You know, try to walk a mile in their shoes….

So, maybe next time we’re thinking about diversity, we should look down.  After all, what kind of shoes are you surrounding yourself with? They just might make you a better person.

I was listening to the radio the other day and the hosts were talking about the new movie Black Swan. I haven’t seen the movie yet, so no chance of me spoiling it for you.   The hosts were saying that there is a scene so powerful it makes the whole movie worthwhile.  This led them to talking about other movies in 2010 where an actor or actress really made a movie better by what they did in the scene.

I started thinking of that from a business perspective.  In my own organization, my number one scene maker is my colleague Cathie Meyers.  Since I started this job in February of this year, it’s been Cathie who supports and guides me.  She’s also the one who has a sarcastic “jab” every time one is needed.  She makes me laugh and makes every scene she’s involved in better.

From an online perspective, I was hoping you’d help me recognize the people who have made a difference and MADE our scene. I’ll list a few to get us started:

• Steve Browne- For bridging the online HR world with practitioners through his HR Net.  If you’ve not seen it or want to be part of it, reach out to Steve today.
• Victorio Milian and Ben Eubanks- Always leaders in thinking of new ways to collaborate and bring people together, they created Project Social. Be sure to check it out if you haven’t already.
• Laurie Ruettimann and Mark Stelzner- This year they created the 1st ever online Career Summit.  To have the vision and creativity to bring some outstanding voices together from the recruiting arena for the benefit of job seekers, these two deserve an award.  They made the scene for sure!

So, there are a couple of mine.  Think back through the year…..who made the scene better for you?  Let’s recognize as many people as possible in the comments!

I woke up this morning feeling thankful.  Thankful for family and good friends.  Thankful for a job, and not just a J-O-B to collect a check, but a job I am passionate about showing up for each day.  What better way to spend a Friday by thinking of all the good things I am grateful for?

I want to share a couple:

• I am grateful for the opportunity to collaborate on the Women of HR blog with Lisa Rosendahl, Shauna Moerke, and all the other contributors.  We shared some of the motivation behind creating the site on the HR Happy Hour show last night.  Be sure to give a listen if you missed it.  AND, let me know if you have any interest in being a contributing writer at Women of HR.
• I’d like to thank Al Gore for creating the Internet.  Well….you know what I mean.  Seriously, being involved in social media helped me have a relationship with China Gorman, so I’ll thank Al Gore and whomever necessary for that one.  China is a real inspiration to me on a daily basis.  Seeing her in person this week just solidifies that.  Thanks China.
• I’m thankful for my friend Sarah White.  For reasons too numerous to name, just “thank you Sarah” for being you.
• I’m SO thankful for people who are “real” and tell it like it is.  #1 in that category for me this week is Laurie Ruettimann.  Sure, we all see the snarky side on her fantastic blog, The Cynical Girl.  What you don’t all get to see is the fierce friend that she is.  LUV her!
• And, it’s not all about women.  I’d like to say how grateful I am for the following men in my professional life because each of you made a difference for me this week:  Steve Boese, Ricardo Moreno, David Cook, Eric Winegardner, and Jason Seiden.  Special thank you to Jason and Steve for being my partners in crime at HR Southwest in the session on social media.  Loved our presentation!

So, who are you grateful for this week?  Come on….I know you want to tell me in the comments….. Let’s see how many we can get!

It seems that the blog roll may have seen better days.  Before Twitter lists and FaceBook fan pages, I think the blog roll was much more important.  Now, I’ll be the first to tell you that I really do love all the blogs I have listed on mine.  The only problem is that these lists become too long and I can’t possibly tell someone new to this medium why each blogger is so special to me by just throwing them each in a category.

So I came up with a solution.

I am going to blow up my blog roll.

Instead, every two weeks I am going to highlight 3- 5 blogs and tell you why I like them.  Some may be blogs you already read and hopefully, some will be new to you.  I want you as readers to understand why these writers inspire me, challenge me to think differently, and why they make a difference in my life. Then, I’m going to put these posts on a special tab so people can come back to them.  So, there’s no better time than the present to tell you about a few I love.

Punk Rock HR

So, for me, I am starting with THE Queen of the HR blogs.  Punk Rock HR is authored by Laurie Ruettimann.  Laurie is brash, bold, stratight-forward, smart, and snarky.  Oh, and did I mention cute?  We’ll, lets just say she’s the total package.  I’ve been reading her blog for years and she is the person that inspired me to write mine.  Why should you read Punk Rock HR?  She posts answers to some tough HR and business questions, she posts humor, and she rants and raves occasionally too.  Another plus, if you write a comment to Laurie, she always responds.  Even if she has 100 comments.  You’re important to her.

Bottom line: A++ for her honesty and integrity.

Know HR

Frank Roche of iFactual has a blog I just do not ever skip reading.  If he writes it, I’m reading it.  What I like about Frank is that he doesn’t necessarily post like other bloggers.  Some of his most inspiring posts may only be a sentence or two.  He’s direct and when you read the wisdom of Frank, you have those “ah-ha” moments.  Another plus is that Frank will use whatever means necessary to reach out to you.  He writes, he uses video, pictures.  All things to grab your attention and not let go of your brain all day.  Of all the blogs I read, I keep more of his posts than anyone else’s. Bottom line:  Smart guy, smart writing.  Read it.

i2i- Incentive Intelligence

Paul Hebert makes me a better person.  He makes me a smarter business professional.  He makes me question what I know and what I don’t know.  He makes me think about employee motivation and intelligence in a whole new way.  He can do the same for you.  Paul writes these incredibly smart posts that often make me pause before commenting.  It’s because I want to live up to the thought he puts into his posts by giving equal thought to my response.  I also recommend Paul’s blog because if you are in HR and only focus on pure HR blogs, you will miss quite a lot of great information. Bottom line:  Challenge your brain and read Paul’s blog.  You’ll be glad you did.

For the past two days, I have been participating at the Senior HR Executive Conference hosted by The Conference Board.  This conference is viewed in the HR community as one of the top conferences for HR executives to attend.  The speakers are some of the brightest HR leaders from top companies in the US (Humana, Inc., General Electric Corporation, , The Boeing Company, PwC, Xerox, Corning, and Unilever, to name a few) and the content is top notch.  For more information on the conference and The Conference Board, please click on this link http://www.conference-board.org/conferences/conference.cfm?id=1980.

There are several HR bloggers in attendance and I encourage you to read their accounts as they are posted.  Bloggers include Steve Boese, Laurie Ruettimann, and Frank Roche.  We are excited to be assisting The Conference Board with incorporating social media into the conference experience for future events.  We are also advising on how future conferences can begin to incorporate Gen X or Gen Y participants.

I will be posting conference content later today.  In the meantime I have three questions for you:

1. Are you familiar with The Conference Board and this conference in particular?
2. Is this a conference you aspire to attend?  Why or why not?
3. What generation are you part of?

Please respond in the comments.  I will share them with The Conference Board to help guide how future conferences will be planned.  Now is your opportunity to help shape the future of HR conferences.

More soon…