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The Useless Idiocy Of HR Tech Trade Shows
My WordPress just did one of those deals where you write a semi-long post and it doesn’t save. That was frustrating, so instead of trying to reinvent the wheel on this post I just wrote, I will instead present this as a series of bullet points and headers:
- Who in the hell am I? I’ve probably been to two HR Tech conferences — the big one every fall in Las Vegas — and overall I’ve been to about 18 HR technology conferences held by different vendors, job boards, or whoever. I realize some people in that space go to 18 per month, so I’m on the low end, but I have some reps at these conferences and I probably write more about this stuff than most conference warriors do.
- OK, so do these conferences accomplish that much? No, not really. A big conference has lots of people. When you have lots of people at a conference, it becomes about connection, seeing old friends, schmoozing, networking, free happy hours, a couple of vendor demos, etc. It’s not really about “changing the future of work” anymore, even if we may claim it’s about that. The human brain (and soul) craves connection. It does not crave another “Look at how my AI-powered suite makes sourcing easier!” moment. I’m just being honest here.
- And then, here’s the elephant in the room: The real change would…
