Hey, I’m live today at the national SHRM 2013 conference in Chicago – please don’t rob my house while I’m gone!

This hit me this morning as I woke up in Chicago and thinking about the 15,000 plus participants here at SHRM with me, who’s watching their stuff while they’re out!?  Do you think there is a business opportunity here? House sitting for SHRM could be big business – for watchers or robbers! 😉

Here’s what I’m doing today –

– Meeting with Glassdoor and ADP – two companies that I think most people don’t really understand what they actually do now, compared to what we think they do.  (Check out Fistful for live interviews!)

– Live at The Hive at 2:30pm with the entire Fistful of Talent crew.

– Pimping the Expo floor to see what is new and innovative for HR and Recruiting.

– Hugs.

– DJ Jazzy Jeff cocktail party at the house of blues.

Initial perception – most companies are trying to be everything for everyone in HR.  We do talent management, we do payroll, we do succession, we do all HR all the time.  The problem is – they don’t.  Sure the software systems are probably much better than what you have currently – but it’s still a piece of software.  HR is ‘done’ by technology it’s done by people having conversations with other people, and solving problems.  The tech helps you do all of that faster – but you still have to do the heavy lifting and difficult conversations.

Don’t think you have to have the next big fancy thing to do great HR – you don’t.  If you have money and work in an environment that needs to move fast – there is some great systems available.  If you don’t have money – don’t use a tech excuse of they you can’t do great HR! The SHRM Expo has so many great things for HR and Talent Pros to buy, but all of them are nice to haves, not must haves.

One last thing – apparently at SHRM I’m a blogger – I’m not press. I’m cool with that, I don’t want to be considered press – to me ‘press’ is real writing – my writing is more graffiti than real writing.  But (there’s always a but!) – if you want me to ‘interview’ and meet with your vendors get the ‘press room Nazi’ off my back when I want to do that in quiet in the press room!  I was actually told today “You’re not press! You have to do that in the bloggers lounge!”, in front of the executive I was bringing in to interview!  Nothing like traditional SHRM making you feel like a second class citizen!