I’m writing this today from yet another HR/talent management conference (SHRM 2014 in Orlando), and I’ve gone to so many over the years that they are all a blur in my mind,.
As I have noted before. when you attend lots of conferences you also end up listening to a lot of speakers, and that means you get a pretty good feel for what makes a top-notch conference presentation.
What stays with me long after a conference is over is that I only tend to remember both the very good and the not-so-good speakers because their performance makes them stick out.
A good speaker trade-off
For instance, Robin Roberts on Sunday here at SHRM Orlando was pretty good, and so were Malcolm Gladwell and Condoleezza Rice. But Sir Richard Branson? Well, let’s just say he’s a lot better businessman than he is conference speaker.
So, I have sat through a LOT of conferences with a great many speakers — and that’s one of the reasons why I’m such a big fan of the Ignite HR format that is featured at the HR Reinvention conference that was held in Omaha last month.
HR Reinvention features the Ignite HR format, where speakers only get five (5) minutes, 20 slides and exactly 15 seconds per slide for their presentation. The result is either a great session that flies by where you’re left wanting a lot more, or, a presentation that flies by and quickly is erased from your memory.
As an aficionado of conference speakers, that’s a trade-off I’m more than happy to make.
The format is the thing
Yesterday, we kicked off a series of Ignite HR videos from the recent Omaha conference (you can see the first one, How Do You Know It’s “Change?“ here) and although they aren’t the same as experiencing the Ignite HR format in person, they should give you a good sense of how the format works.
Today’s video is from Jamie Notter, a consultant and author of Culture That Works. His Ignite HR presentation has an intriguing title — Dear HR: The Machine Is Strong Within You. Take a look and let me know what you think