Connecting HR is pleased to announce the fourth UK Unconference for HR professionals on Wednesday the  16th May 2012. 

Theme

The core theme for this unconference is: The Power of a Socially Engaged Organisation

• How can organisations embrace social media/strategies internally to increase engagement?
• What are the positive benefits and opportunities of embracing social and community strategies in organisations?
• What tools are there to help increase collaboration and conversation in organisations?
• Can a more social business create commercial value and increase engagement?
• What alternatives are there to the traditional employee survey?

These are outline themes, as the agenda will be driven by you, the attendee, on the day.  We will start the day with 45 minutes of fixed, 5 minute presentations from a number of individuals to kick start the thinking.  We are adding to the list but current confirmed conversation leaders lined up are:

Kasia Mazurkiewicz - Director Talent & Development, IP & Science, Thomson Reuters

Here how Thomson Reuters are embedding conversation into the organisation through community and social engagement and sharing some of the insights and benefits for a global organisation.

Doug Shaw - Founder - What Goes Around Ltd

Doug is one of a number of people who’s been with us since the early days (even though we wouldn’t let him in at first!). His story of how Connectinghr has influenced him from that day to this will inspire and amuse you. Doug will also reprise his first ever Connectinghr song, for the second and last time.

Miranda Ash - Global Director, Membership + Community, WorldBlu

WorldBlu are champions of democracy and freedom in the workplace - yes thats right, we did say freedom! Hear how a strategy of "allowing people to self-govern and determine their own destiny" is the key behind organisations like Zappos and Rypple

Michael Silverman - Director, Silverman Research

Working with the University of California, Michael is developing award winning alternative approaches to the traditional Employee Survey, creating a richer, more conversational based approach. Check out the “social Media Garden” experiment that Michael is running with Unilever. 

Neil Usher - General Manager, Group Property, Rio Tinto

A future thinker on the future of the workplace and a part time (excellent) poet, Neil challenges the very essence of our approach to organisation and workplace design. Neil will be inspire you to think about culture, collaboration and the future of work. He might even mention Tummeling!

Jamie Priestly - Commander in Chief, Jamie Priestly & Co

A former Mad Men, thinker and visiting lecturer on change at Birkbeck, Jamie is taking HR metrics and our urge to process and measure everything and giving it a well earned slap. Come along and listen to Jamie talk relate organisations as "contaminated laboratories", Christian evangelists and enlightenment to HR.

Phil Clothier - CEO, Barrett Values Centre

When Richar Barrett, founder of the Barret Values Centre appeared on national Icelandic TV, he was asked how he would sum up Iceland if it were a company. With a Barret value score of over 50, he would expect it to go out of business within 12 months. Two weeks later Iceland went into financial meltdown. Come and hear the extraordinary story.

Gareth Jones - Inmate, BrubakerHR

Arguing the case for "opening up the watercooler conversation" inside organisations Gareth will challenge the stupidity of being social outside the organisation (with customers) but ignoring the potential of being social inside (with employees) in this increasingly social and realtime world.

Flora Marriott - L&D Manager, Interchange and Consort Hotels

A seasoned L&D professional, Flora dipped her toe into all things social media a few years ago and hasn't looked back since. Formerly with Yell Group, Flora will share how integral social media has been to both her own development and that of her fellow employees in the organisations she has worked with.

You! – Yes that’s right, if you are passionate about this subject, want to challenge the thinking of the others or simply want to lead a conversation then get in touch – the floor is yours and  you will be very welcome! Contact us through eventbrite.

To contribute to the agenda or if you want to get more involved you can also sign up to our online community and share your ideas - click here to sign up to www.connectinghr.org.

Nearer the time of the event we will be sharing the comments and contributions for session topics on the community site.

Who should attend?

• HR, Internal Comms and other inhouse professionals - who are looking for an informal, value adding forum to discuss and learn about social engagement strategies in organisations.

• Journalists/Academics and representatives of professional bodies - share your research or analysis of how organisations are embracing social in their engagement strategies.

• Independent consultants and suppliers to the HR profession - share your experiences of organisations who are benefiting from social engagement strategies in the workplace.

What is an Unconference?

This event will be very different to any standard conference you have been to before.  If you are not sure what an unconference is, start here, browse a little and you will soon get the picture. No event management companies, no big budgets, no hard selling from sponsors and no fixed agenda. Just value added conversation amongst HR professionals on the subjects that matter to them. 

There are a number of key differences between a standard conference and an unconference including:

• The agenda is driven by the attendees, not the event organisers.  This means that the event is highly interactive and participative and whilst there will be industry experts and thought leaders in attendance, they are not driving the agenda, or, as is typical with a normal conference, delivering long, one way presentations. 

• The event is collaborative. Attendees will get involved not only in discussions on the day, but also in the organisation of the event should they wish.  If you have a specific issue you would like to address in this forum, then simply get involved and suggest it!

The format of the event is very different too.  The day will be broken up into a number of free flowing discussion groups based around subjects as suggested by the attendees in the lead up to the unconference.  Unlike a normal conference, these groups will be small and you are free to move between them at any time.  If the conversation is not value added for you, simply get up and move onto the next!

Further information

You can follow the Connecting HR conversation on Twitter by using the hashtag #ConnectingHR.

To find out more information please also join our online community www.connectinghr.org where you will find likeminded HR professionals, some background information on what we are trying to do and some of our other initiatives.