Ghosts of Christmas past

Back in 2013, I had an idea to use my blog to encourage other people professionals in NZ and Australia to try blogging and share their thoughts.

So I decided to challenge 12 virgin bloggers whose opinions I very much respect and who’s views I thought were worth a wider audience to try writing a guest blog. Some of these people I had never actually met face to face at that stage but we had engaged on social media.

Most had never done anything like this before. Some were/are HR practitioners, some were in the recruitment field, some just managers or business owners.

Some great pieces of blogging came out of it and it proved to be very popular. Curating it was great fun and those approached embraced it wholeheartedly. One or two people let me down at the last minute of course, or agonised over it and then pulled out (always get more content than you need, right?) but it wasn’t a problem. I ran it for three years between 2013 and 2015. I have often thought it is something I would love to run again and next year maybe, just maybe, I might just do it.

I am sharing some of my favourite posts on Twitter this week and going back through them and re-reading them all has been a lovely experience.

If you have never come across them, or read some of them at the time and forgot about them, take some time out and have a look. Many make for interesting snapshots of what was going on at the time in our pre-Covid world, and some are just timeless.

In order of publishing, here are my top ten posts which are a mix of personal favourites and most read.

2013 – post 5 by Nikki Wilkie: When Shit Gets Serious

2013 – post 7 by Paul Jacobs: Gamifying HR

2013 – post 11 by Rebecca Clarke: Identity Crisis

2014 – post 1 by Hassanah Rudd: Lessons From My Mum

2014 – post 6 by Anonymous: How HR Professionals Can Help Save Our Planet

2014 – post 7 by Claire Huxley: Dear Santa, Please Can I Have A Better Life?

2014 – post 12 by Kirsti Grant: Let It Snow

2015 – post 1 by Meredith Blackler: The Gift of Giving

2015 – post 7 by Rebecca Wrightson: Celebrating Passion

2015 – post 12 by Jonathon Hagger: An Alternative Christmas Carol – The Ghost Of Your Career

If you want a starting summary, here are my end of series posts with links to all of the posts and my reflections from that year.