Next week, I am attending the CIPD social media conference, and have the pleasure of being part of a panel discussion about being a social HR practictioner with very cool tweeps Mervyn Dinnen, Tim Scott and Neil Usher. You can see Tim’s take about being a social HR type, here: http://timscott.net/hrblogs/socialmediais/

I’m passionate about social HR. If you follow me on twitter then you’ll probably already know this.

Social media is a great place, a challenging place, a fun place. A place where I have made professional contacts, a place where I have found collaborations, a place where I have made genuine friendships. A place where I can seek advice, find insight and ideas, share, converse, engage. A place to talk to HR professionals all over the world, or just down the road.

On twitter I chat to people I’ve met, people I’d like to meet, people I’ll probably never meet. We connect, we engage, we discuss. It started online, and then moved to the real life.

Over in the blogging world, I find things I agree with and things I don’t, things that make me laugh and things that make me angry. I find ideas I’m going to remember, to try, to share. I find ideas I would simply never have thought of. I’ve read blogs that literally make me stop in my tracks, take my breath away. I find writers I admire, writers I respect, writers I would like to be as good as. My own blogging has defined my thinking. Given me a place to think, to be the real me.

One of the things that I value most about social HR, is that what happens on social media, doesn’t stay on social media. This year, just through relationships from my social media engagement, I’ve done a whole host of things that without social media would never have happened. I’ve blogged from, and spoken at, the national CIPD conference. I am writing a book with someone that I met on twitter, through someone else that I met on twitter. I converse with HR professionals on the other side of the world. I’ve met some wonderful people that I have gone on to work with, and hope to work with some more. I contributed to a crowdsourced book. I visited CIPD Towers and hung out with Peter Cheese. I even adjudicated an arm wrestling contest in a chip shop following a tweetup (please note: to the best of my knowledge this is not a typical outcome from joining twitter).

Other things in my life changed around the time I started to get social. Sometimes it’s hard to know where one ends and the other begins. But I know that I am changed, from the person and the professional that I was, because of this social thing that I do. It has given me a confidence that I didn’t know I had. It has given me a community. A voice.

Above all, with social HR, I’m part of something. Something kind of amazing.

So why don’t you come and join us? I promise you won’t regret it.

A few photos from my social HR year: