HR whY?

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I’m back! After months of ridiculous hours between a huge project at work and preparing for the 2010 HR Florida State Conference & Expo my life has somewhat returned to normal.  I returned home yesterday from a week in Orlando for #HRFL10.  I wanted to share some thoughts about something I noticed while at the event.

Each year our event schedules three keynote speakers (one for each day) to deliver a variety of messages to the mass of attendees in a general session.  These keynote speakers range from high level practitioners to celebrities whose presentations tie-in to the human resource profession.  The keynote’s schedule usually looks like the following:

• Fly in one day prior to the event starting
• Arrive on-site where they are whisked away to their room at the hotel
• Up early to be guided to the general session room
• Gather themselves and pace back and forth pensively waiting to go onstage to speak to 1,300+ attendees
• Walk on stage to a round of applause and/or standing ovation
• Deliver their message
• Return backstage where they are whisked away to a book signing
• Get a hand cramp, take lots of pictures and then they are off to the next event

This year we had one keynote speaker who did not follow the normal “keynote” schedule.  China Miner Gorman, former COO of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) was invited to address our audience of over 1,400 human resource professionals.  China clearly went above and beyond.  In addition to her keynote, China flew in a day early to address 50 human resource students from across the state at our SHRM sponsored student networking event.  She encouraged students to find a mentor to serve as a guide for their careers and described the importance of engagement and networking with peers in their chosen profession.

China was also our special guest at the second annual HR Florida State Conference & Expo Tweetup.  Sponsored by Monster.com, the Monster Social was a huge success with over 100 human resource professionals and social media advocates in attendance.  China made a concerted effort to meet and network with other guests and truly showed her authenticity in support of the HR/social media movement, HR Florida and SHRM.

China completed her presentation early Tuesday morning and came backstage with a smile on her face and a look of relief.  She joked with volunteers and thanked everyone for their work and then…she hung around.  She wasn’t whisked away to a waiting car or plane.  She gathered her items and headed off to the exposition hall to chat with vendors and sponsors. For all three days of the conference China attended a long list of concurrent sessions as an attendee.  She genuinely participated – with a smile.  What a refreshing interaction to witness.  China described her experience and made recommendations on her blog.

I cannot thank China enough for showing our attendees, sponsors, exhibitors and volunteers gratitude and validating her interest and dedication to the human resource profession.  I hope that more keynote presenters follow her lead in the future.

Follow China Miner Gorman online at her blog or via Twitter.