What travel means to me…

My love affair with travel began pretty early on. As a five year old traveling between my mother (who married an Air Force captain) and my dad (who stayed in sunny California, where I was born), I navigated airports and traveled treacherous Canadian roads to get to the nearest airport that offered non-stop flights to Sacramento. I saw it all as an adventure, for the most part, and reveled in the one on one attention that comes from a 6 hour road trip with one’s parent.

I was little. And annoying. And I got to travel by myself. Which meant I got Necco wafers, pressed the “call” button whenever I had to go to the restroom and was often moved to empty rows when I wanted a place to stretch out and sleep. Stewardesses (which is what they were CALLED then) were sweet to me and pilots let me hang out up front and I got the sic little golden wings that they handed out like candy back in the day.

There was for sure a downside. I had to learn on my own how to unplug my ears, watch my mom cry as she watched me walk down the jetway, carry all my own little bags, deal with smoky planes (yes I am THAT old) and then watch my dad cry as he watched me leave when it was time to head home.

But travel never lost its luster for me. Even when it was a tiny little trip to a mundane (to some) location like Grand Forks, ND; Branson, Missouri; or Laguna Beach, CA, I’ve always been eager to see what new landscapes, promises and challenges lived just around the corner from me. I savored each travel story and told it to my sisters waiting back home, showing off my mixed tapes from the ultra-cool California.

In every place I lived or traveled, I had friends and/or family who knew and loved me (or at least I believed they did). I’ve slept on couches, pull-out beds, dirt floors, lofts and one time in an effort to calm a very upset Albanian baby, in a crib. I’ve eaten just about everything you can imagine and yes, I drank the water in Mexico but managed to get food poisoning in New York.

“I made it through the Louvre in an hour at a dead run.” Grace Adler, Will and Grace

I love art. I pored over my mother’s books on Michelangelo’s Pieta from Rome. I sleep with a Moses Soyer book next to my bed and I’ve shamelessly ripped prints from a Matisse book just so I could hang them in my bathroom. But take me to a museum and I will lose it. Just as light cannot exist without the darkness, I have trouble seeing art juxtaposed with….other art. So I take it where I can get it, find beauty where others might overlook it, in the gentle curve of a salesgirl’s charming overbite as she bilks me out of my Euros for a cheap scarf. In the forked tail of a swallow (which did you know makes the male swallow MUCH more attractive than his counterpart, the deeper the fork….well you get my drift) as he flies by my hotel window.

Languages entrance me, particularly the romance ones. I took latin in high school and spanish in college but the best I can must now is figuring out the roots of words to help my kids with their homework and also asking “Where are my pants?” in Spanish. I wish I had a better ear for languages but I don’t. My husband however, is a language genius and for a brief shining moment, we were planning on living in Germany.

I can hear the snide remarks now. So, you love art but don’t want to look at it. You adore languages but can’t speak any fluently? Oh sure Maren, you’re a world traveler for SURE.

Well, I can’t help my nature. See for me traveling has always been more about the experience than the um, knowledge. Actually, you might even sum up my whole life that way.

For instance, I’ll never forget running through Paris underground with a Spaniard, a Frenchman and Kim Mance, who knew a little French (we’ve already discussed my particular linguistic talents) and having an international game of telephone that was, in a word hilarious. Incidentally, we talked a Hotel DeVille official into letting us use the ice skating rink after it was closed. I may not know much French but getting on your knees in front of an amused Parisian policeman transcends mere words.

To be continued…

In your words…#TBEX ’10

When over 300 Travel Bloggers, Writers and PR Pros left the Cantor Film Center in NYC on June 27, there were many feelings. Speechless was not one of them. Here, in your own words, some nuggets of wisdom from this year, suggestions for next year, travel tips and marketing takeaways…THIS was TBEX ’10:

Mariellen Ward discusses heroes and Meeting the Mahatma in New York City.

Trish Miller discusses the “Best of” and “Funniest Moments” in her TBEX ’10 Recap

The Art of Backpacking gives us the Top 10 Things TBEX-ers love besides TBEX Part 1 AND Part 2

Margo Millure of the Travel Belles tells us why large purses are all the rage at TBEX

The Mother of All Trips explains how TBEX can inspire Future Nomads

The EuroCheapo PhotoEssay provides snaps from the party

The Vacation Gals give their takeaways on the weekend conference.

Travelojos provides us with not one but two great “Things I learned from TBEX” posts

Matador weighs in on the popular Community Keynote

Speaking of the Community Keynote, Pam Mandel of Nerd’s Eye View provides links for that very thing!

First and foremost, travel bloggers like to party. Check out this post by Scene by Laurie

No wifi and lack of clarity but definitely a friendly bunch. Read BearShapedSphere’s post here.

Chris Around the World explains how we’re “busting up paradigms”

A livestream of the Sunday Sessions

And then there’s the Twitter Buzz

Did I miss yours? Send it to me at Maren@GoGalavanting.com OR add it to the comments of this post!

Anything Less Than I Love You is Lying….

24 little hours.

Or in my case, 17 little hours.

What I’ve experienced in the last week can only be described as a whirlwind. I began working full time for Galavanting Productions on June 15th and every day since then has been total, beautiful chaos. Let me explain.

Courtney McGann, the communcations coordinator for Galavanting and my beautiful sister, began arranging all the last minute details for TBEX ’10 in New York City, printing name badges, tickets, arranging parties, talking with sponsors and generally tying up loose ends for a conference that was sold out at 300+ and had 200+ on the waitlist (if you didn’t make it in to the conference, please know it was only because the FIRE MARSHALL absolutely said no).

On Wednesday, I flew to NYC. Perhaps plodded would be a better word. My journey started with a three hour delay in my own city (Omaha), which caused me to miss my connection in Chicago, and so I was rebooked on a 7pm flight. 7pm, coincidentally was right about the time a tornado threatened the very aptly name “Windy City” and thus my 5 hour layover in CHI became a 10 hour layover. Finally, tired, hungry and a little tipsy from the pity drink I bought myself, I arrived in NYC at midnight, 17 hours after I left my house.

Not to be deterred, I collapsed at the home of my caretaking daddy, Rick Knight, who fed me and drove me into the city, where I armed myself with new energy, met up with Kim and Courtney and again, was ready to take the city by storm. After thoroughly trashing the EuroCheapo offices with swag bags, a killer team of swag bag fillers and more than one bottle of wine, we headed off to the NYC Tourism party for NYCgo at a swanky rooftop bar atop the Gaansevoort Hotel. We met up with Nomadic Matt, Jen Miner, the NYC Tourism people (good people those), and our fearless leader Kim Mance.

Together we traversed over to a very hip bar, whose name escapes me to meet up with the crew. So… keep in mind these aren’t the PRE parties, these are the PRE- PRE parties, as this is Thursday night. The after party went to a great Irish pub called O’ Reilly’s where I proceeded to eat, drink, and get food poisoning.

Fast forward to Friday at 4pm, when I finally emerged from bed, 6 pounds lighter and grateful for my LIFE and vowing never to eat unmanned chicken wings again (in hindsight, probably something I should have committed to before my 30th birthday but I digress).

STILL NOT DETERRED.

I loaded up the swag bags, again with the help (actually they did most of the work) of Shanna Quinn, Courtney McGann, Rick Knight and the EuroCheapo gang. We loaded up the vans and when we’d transported about half, I took my leave to head over to the Vail Resorts sponsored speaker’s dinner. While the piles of spicy meat and free alcohol were certainly tempting, I filled my very empty belly with cheese grits, mashed potatoes, rice pilaf and a HUGE chocolate milkshake (this is the marenated version of the BRAT diet, because the BRAT diet tastes gross), as well as copious amounts of iced tea (for hydration OBVS). Thus armed, we headed over to the Omni and Weber and Shandwick Speakeasy party. Where I not only viewed the gorgeous new rooms Omni renovated, but I partook in a stomach settling gingerale, which was only slightly spiked (what? I got food poisoning, I’m not DEAD). Oh and I managed to climb on the back of Homeaway’s Truckster in 3 inch heels and NOT fall off.

Of course, where did we all head after hours? You guessed it. Another “you-can’t-swing-a-dead-cat-without-hitting-an-Irish-pub-in New-York-City” Irish pub. It was fun, but packed and we spilled out into the street. Kim and I took our leave at the extremely reasonable hour of midnight, as we had a very important conference starting the very next morning.

Enter TBEX or Travel Blog Exchange 2010, the conference that for one shining moment was trending on NYC Twitter, that spawned tens of blog posts, brought hundreds of bloggers together and stopped (pedestrian) traffic with a taco truck.

Things I learned from TBEX:

1) Travel bloggers are a notoriously friendly and helpful bunch.

2) Don’t become a travel blogger to get free stuff. This makes you a tool.

3) Story telling is good. Truth telling is better.

4) Porn is now an acceptable word to use at a professional conference.

5) People like winning free trips.

6) You can turn two luggage tags into a beer cozy.

7) If you are a blogger and not disclosing a biz relationship or endorsement, the FTC may not come after you but TBEX-ers will.

Do NOT wear flip flops in New York.

9) Nametags can be turned into a drinking game

10) Both video and podcasting take special skills but not out of reach.

11) In a successful PR/Blogger relationship, both sides take accountability and understand it is a business arrangement. It’s based on trust and common sense.

12) You can never have too many parties.

Speaking of parties, Saturday night had a lot of them, starting with a TripAdvisor happy hour that was marred only by USA’s loss in the World Cup. Vuvuzuelas were put to good use as TripAdvisor announced their two iPad winners (lucky people they were). I ate much bruschetta and had several “Marenators” (for the uninitiated, this is vodka, with club soda and three limes) before trotting off to a cute place called Chat n Chew to have meatloaf, mashed potatoes and the best sauteed broccoli OF my life.

Post meatloaf, I headed over (rather quickly, because rain and curly headed girls DON’T mix) to the after party, sponsored by BootsNAll and EuroCheapo. And what a party it was! Held at Professor Thom’s, there was a plethora of drink tickets, loads of comfy couches, pretty servicable tunes and barely enough room to walk. An outfit change and some gold eyeshadow in the bathroom, I was ready to take on the final party of the conference. I will say there was talk of a mechanical bull but I dutifully trekked home on the subway with Courtney to um….SLEEP.

Day 2? We did away with the registration (perhaps gave up is a more accurate term) and handed out swag bags like there was no tomorrow. The gentle rythmic reading by Pam Mandel and Mike Barish during the Community Keynote was something I felt privileged to sit in on. Beautiful stories all of them, save the Nebraska comments

Then it was time! We announced TBEX ’11 and gave everyone the location which a few people (you know who you are) attempted to weasel out of me ahead of time. It didn’t work. MOSTLY, I am a bastion of silence, as you can tell from this nearly 1200 word essay (so far). Vancouver! A big thanks to lovely ladies up north who represented Tourism BC, Vancouver and Canada.

After that, of course, the taco truck, courtesy of Diamond PR. And a HUGE amount of clean-up, hauling and packing up.

From there it was all breathless wardrobe changes and subway trains to meet up with Spud Hilton and Don George at a lovely little Japanese restaurant in the Meatpacking district. We reviewed the (ahem) pictures from the night before (and deleted a few) over sparkling sake and wasabi dumplings. Newbie traveler and Galavanting Gal Courtney shared her first night in Chicago stories while Spud Hilton regaled us with tales of a 22-day cruise. Four hours later and a great deal calmer, we said our goodbyes to TBEX ’10 and New York City.

Roundup of TBEX ’10 Posts.

Time for a cool change

By now, many of you might have heard that I’m no longer with RecruitingBlogs.com and have found a new professional home at Galavanting Productions. Those of you who follow me closely will know that CEO Kim Mance and I are longtime friends and fierce collaborators and have been for at least 7 years now.

Galavanting Productions owns several properties including TravelBlogExchange.com, GoGalavanting.com and Galavanting.tv. I’ll be overseeing all marketing strategy for everyone of these projects, including the TBEX conferences (here’s the next one TBEX ’10) and our newest project TBEX Connect. I’ll also begin reviewing hotels for GoGalavanting.com, an online travel magazine for women as well as continuing to co-host Galavanting.tv with Kim and Courtney.

It’s a really exciting time and as someone who has been with the company from nearly the beginning, I can’t wait to see what will happen. I’m honestly wondering what will happen when Kim and I work together full time. It could get scary (good scary that is).

Speaking of scary, all this great stuff comes with a flip side, as things in life often do. To fully pursue the opportunities open to me, I have to say some goodbyes. In order to receive something your hand must be open, not a closed fist, still holding tightly to something that is no longer yours.

I have to leave an industry that has been my home for the last three years. I have to say goodbye to friends and colleagues who have been my “family on the road” and to professionals that opened their arms to a complete newcomer. I have to leave a job I know I am good at and a company I know I made better with my presence. I have to leave co-workers with whom I have inside jokes and a seamless integration of personalities. I need to remove myself from the daily conversations about recruiting and HR because my new role is in a different industry. I’ll have to say goodbye to a schedule I was used to and tasks I had gotten comfortable doing. I’d built my social hierarchy within a certain world and now I have to do it all over again.

I’m scared. And I feel alone.

Not because I’m not joining the coolest team ever or because the travel industry hasn’t welcomed me with open arms. But because I am actually quite a timid person and my mom told me 30 was going to be my toughest year and doggone it, I SO didn’t want her to be right. I’ve spent quite a few days thinking about all I’ll be missing. How RecruitFest! will be without me, about my friends heading to SHRM, about plans for RecruitingBlogs that I won’t be around to see come to fruition. And let’s be honest, that just blows.

So…I’m still scared and then I remembered (please indulge me):

I left home and moved out on my own at 16.

I dropped out of high school and went on to graduate college with honors.

I ate the worm.

I got pregnant with my son at 19 and found myself abandoned. I went on to marry a wonderful man who adopted our son.

I climbed a wall of ice even though I was scared to death.

I put an 8 ft long python around my neck to conquer my fear of snakes.

I put my head through a windshield and never lost consciousness.

I traveled across the Adriatic Sea through Rome with a double lung infection, pneumonia and pleurisy.

I took care of abandoned Roma babies and listened to children cry and confess things that should never happen to children.

I delivered three children with no pain medication.

I watched a business my family put its heart, soul and savings into fail, miserably.

I auditioned for American Idol (oh YES, I did)

I walked headfirst into an industry I knew nothing about and learned what I could and served where I could and for three years was proud to call that industry my professional home. I can do it again.

What, exactly, do I have to be scared of? Right.

So I’ll say bye to the people I have to and keep those friendships I cherish and conquer this next big thing:

Love,

Maren

PS- I promise not every post will be this self-involved or maudlin. Stay tuned…if you want.

HR Evolution Roundup: Why it matters if you WEREN’T there

There are lots of reasons to write a post conference post.

1) relive the glory moments

2) get in on the hashtag action

3) post awesome pictures of yourself

4) maintain connections posted

OR

5) because you were inspired

Obviously number 5 is the best reason and that’s likely why you’re seeing so much come out of the day long event that was HR Evolution. It wasn’t the largest conference I attended this year or even this month. It didn’t have the most sponsors nor did the leaders employ an incredible new and groundbreaking strategy. What HR Evolution did right was execute properly. A cohesive team worked together to create a day that touched on unique content that I haven’t heard before. Track leaders acknowledged next steps when an hour wasn’t long enough to solve a problem. Organizers were inclusive in their speaker choices and created time for issues that are not yet done being discussed. Like Laurie, I attend a lot of conferences. Like Laurie, I was very impressed with this one. By now, many people know the names of the players involved in making HR Evolution happen: Trish McFarlane, Steve Boese, Mark Stelzner, Crystal Peterson, Joan Ginsberg and Ben Eubanks (if I am missing anyone, ping me in the comments, it was NOT intentional). What most don’t know is how difficult it is to put a conference or unconference together. It takes even more work to pull it off with as much class as this team did.

Not only was the content top notch and delivered by some great track leaders, but the ability to reach out and touch someone (yeah, I’m going there) is evidenced by the dramatically different responses and blog posts seen (and this is just day ONE!). Quick roundup of the posts that have gotten my attention:

The HR Evolution has NOT ended

Creating Digital Attendees

Influence from inside the maze

Credibility, Influence and Trust

It’s more than academic

and TONS more including a LinkedIn list and Twitter List

Send your posts to Ben to be included in the roundup

My takeaways:

I know this is getting kind of long and I certainly wasn’t able to attend all the sessions. But here are some that made an overall impression on me:

Accountability of job seekers is the only way that we will be able to assist in a broad change in HR. Whether it was the motivational talk by Paul and Jason or the Generational Session with Sarah, Benjamin and Joan, or the benefits session with Mark and Will, I was struck by the impression that HR seems to feel the need to be accountable for absolutely everything. I disagree with this and I’m willing to be proven wrong but shouldn’t young jobseekers try to find their own mentors, can’t employees start being responsible for their families’ health, isn’t it possible that candidates can take a long deep look inside themselves and understand what their motivations are for getting the job done? Sure HR can and should support these inititatives, but in a world where consultants grow as if engineered in bunny fertility labs, perhaps it’s time for a shift. They may say I’m a dreamer…

Corporations need to stop being fraidy cats. Someone posed the question that several facebook pages of a large company that rhymes with Shnikey had been taken over by protesters and this was a possibly valid reason for other large companies to restrict their social media efforts. Maybe so, but I’d reached my limit. How is your twitterstream getting hijacked any different from a protest in front of your flagship store? How is a controlled, edited blog with moderated comments different from a company newsletter? If your company does BAD things, expect that angry consumers will find you wherever you are. Granted social media makes it a little simpler for us lazy folks who’d rather sign a twitter petition than hang out in front of a store drinking bad coffee with no cream but a little flattening of the playing field can’t hurt. I tweeted something to this effect: “Don’t come at me with problems. Take the information you get and use it in another area of business.” So what if it’s not great PR? You can take the feedback and design a better service tree or create a new usability test. If you want people not to hate on you in social media, DON’T DO BAD THINGS.

The Echo Chamber is not the worst place to be. The term “Echo Chamber” was used so many times, I thought there was a physical echo in the space. And at first, I found myself nodding my head. Yes, we’ve heard this all before. Yes, we’re discussing the same things. Sure, I see 100 posts a month about HR’s seat at the table, social recruiting and influence. But maybe YOU don’t. We all read each other’s blogs and there is a select contingent that hit all the major conferences so it’s easy to think that we’ve saturated the market. We haven’t. As Paul Herbert pointed out, there were 80 more people at this year’s HREvolution than last year’s, that’s 80 new minds that hadn’t heard this info before or maybe it’s a whole new world to them.

Okay there’s more, but I get wordy when passionate and no one needs to see that. Kudos again to the HRevolution team. We can all learn a lot from them.

Broad-Seeding, Dilution and the business I am in

I am not in the recruiting or HR business. This might surprise you but it’s true. I am in the business of marketing to niche professionals. And while I’ve learned quite a lot along the way, one would never compare me to a Trish McFarlane, Laurie Ruettimann, Eric Winegardner or Kris Dunn. I am a marketing professional. Whether I am appealing to recruiters, investment professionals, or Albanian missionary supporters, the process remains remarkably similar. It’s the approach that changes with the industry.

That being said, I care about the recruiting and HR industries because I believe what they do is really important. My career has always been important to me, even when I worked side jobs as a stay at home mom, there was always an element of figuring out how this small opportunity could turn into a big career move. Recruiting and HR Professionals assist those who already have that bent built into the fabric of their personalities and steer or convince those who have the talent but maybe due to internal makeup or life circumstances, aren’t so driven. It’s important work.

I’ve been in the industry maybe three years so feel free to take what I say with a grain of salt here. When I began seeing the plethora of webinars, conferences, unconferences, communities, websites, blogs, etc, I really started to get worried that the waters were getting muddied. After all, even the recruiters were complaining of conference burnout (a term I have yet to understand, apparently it happens to some people). I thought, this is DILUTING the market! There will for sure be a backlash and the good will go down with the bad. I watched with trepidation as more and more companies threw their hats into the ring, some with lofty internal motivations, some who seemed interested in making a quick buck, some that appeared out of nowhere. And I worried.

Then I went to RecruitCamp. RecruitCamp is an unconference franchise organized by industry veteran Rob Humphrey, now with LinkedIn. Humphrey heard about what Jason had started with RecruitFest! in Toronto and wanted to help. He ran a super successful event in November and even though RecruitingBlogs couldn’t attend, he sought us out this year for another event that took place last week. I personally partnered with Rob to promote the event, helped with speaker lineups and attended. I couldn’t have been more proud. It changed my mind and turned my worries into something entirely different. Encouragement. Here’s why:

1) I knew four people. Now I go to a lot of conferences and unconferences and manage communities totaling 160,000 recruiters and HR Pros. I know some people. But this was a sold out event, in a regional target market, where I knew almost NO ONE! I spend so much time trying to make sure that I touch the “movers and shakers” in our space that I forgot about all the lurkers and people we have yet to make an impact on. Trust me, there are a lot of them. Shame on me.

2) We’re doing it! Every day I see a lot of posts about Social Recruiting. I get exhausted by the concept to be perfectly honest. But guess what? There’s still a LOT to suss out here. Social recruiting is changing every day because the tools are changing every day. Marketing mistake NUMERO UNO: Don’t assume that your needs and the needs of your target market are exactly the same. At RecruitCamp, I saw Deloitte NZ get a SOCRA award for a campaign that was truly groundbreaking. Richard Long flew halfway around the world to be there and was excited his campaign had attracted OUR attention. How humbling. People all over the world are taking the precepts we teach and dive into day in and day out (not just on recruitingblogs but as a larger recruiting and HR community) and making them work in their companies. That’s exciting and gives me new inspiration. Revolutions don’t happen overnight.

3) Buzz means little. It does and as a marketing pro, I imagine a lot of people will scream “sacrilege” and run from the building. I don’t care. While I love the “high” I get interacting with my online friends, fans, followers, community members and whatnot–buzz created means little. It doesn’t make your conference more educational, it can’t magically make your product better, it doesn’t create instant customer service or increase revenue unless you have the processes in place to BACK IT UP. This is important! People talking about you, your company or your event is priceless but it’s not the only metric by which to determine its (or your) worth.

4) There’s enough room for all of us. Before, during and after RecruitCamp, I talked with so many smart professionals who are doing their own thing. Sometimes that means creating a community, other times it means trying their hand at a tweetup or building a new product that makes sense for the way they recruit. Where I used to see it as dilution, now I see it as broad-seeding. Broadseeding is basically the practice of spreading seed in a broad motion across an expanse of ground so that every possible area gets its opportunity to grow. Some seeds will get choked off by weeds, others will get pecked away by birds, still more will fall on ground that’s rocky and resistant to change. But some will fall on ground that’s ready and will be nurtured as it grows and thrives. (sound familiar anyone?)

I like to say that I am frequently accused of idealism. But truthfully, the accusations come from inside my head. I believe that the information upheaval our industry (and let’s not be superior LOTS of other industries too) is going through is going to be a good thing. I am committed to providing fertile ground where I can and to partnering with those who want to spread the seed.

That’s what she said.

My first car was a ’56 Chevy and other things you don’t know about me…

It totally wasn’t. I can’t imagine how many of my bar stories start with “I used to have this awesome red Dodge Colt.” Actually none do, because that’s pretty embarrassing to admit 1) because they don’t even make the Colt/Talon anymore and 2) because I really truly thought it was an awesome car and now…I don’t. But despite the fact that the car wasn’t even good enough to keep producing and it was a domestic, I did love it.

Why?

Culture: Better than beige. I chose it because it was better than the alternative, which was…a beige 4-door Ford Taurus (automatic). Now, if you’ve met me, you will know that there are three things wrong with that statement:

1) beige

2) automatic

3) four door

(I have three wiry little boys now so I tool around in a pretty rad green Odyssey but then I didn’t then). Beige is a fine color for a lot of people but I knew then (AND NOW) that it’s not the color for me. I don’t have any walls that are beige, cars that are beige, clothes that are beige…well you get it. My Dodge Colt, while old, was red, well faded red, but I wanted a car I could identify with. The vehicle I chose conveyed something about me, something I could identify with.

Expression: It had a killer horn. But even those three “dealbreakers” weren’t enough to dissuade me from the staid Taurus. Everyone kept telling me it was more reliable, better for insurance, I didn’t know how to drive a stick and blah blah blah. So test drove it despite my misgivings. Now, being an awesome driver like myself makes it pretty hard to get on the road without noticing the horrible driving of others. My test drive was no exception. Some lady pulls out in front of me, no blinker, no warning, so I hit the horn…HARD. And what comes out? This tiny little “meep meep” sound that a roadrunner could have done better justice. Now that might not have made any difference to other people. Most people in Omaha don’t even use their horn (and should). But for me, I decided that I needed a vehicle that could convey the person I was and communicate what I was feeling (something more noble than road rage but less than altruistic driving instruction). This was necessary both for safety and communication.

Growth Opportunities: A challenge, right off the lot. This didn’t stop the naysayers from telling me it was INSANE to drive a car off the lot, that I technically couldn’t drive. But I did. And I stalled, before I even left the lot. And again at the light. And later going to work several times. And again driving home from work.

When I thought about stalling at a light at the tender age of 18 (so I was a late driving bloomer, sue me) I was filled with fear. What if people honked at me (literary irony there)? What if I couldn’t get it started again? How could I learn this new skill with everyone watching and waiting for me to trip up?

I just…did. Sometimes you take on a big project that you’re not sure you can really do. Sometimes you don’t even have the necessary skill sets to implement them properly. But if you let that stop you, you’ll never get past the beige Ford Taurus careers. The best things are not automatic.

Appropriate Expectations: It was the right choice for right then. As I stated, now I have a big old minivan. But then, I didn’t need that and frankly couldn’t have handled it. Gas would have been expensive, a van is too big for me and the occasional guest, etc. In a state with a lot of snow, I see lots of teen girls riding around with 4 wheel drive and while a lot of them are safe, sometimes this “more than you can feasibly handle” is disastrous. By keeping my expectations real, both with what I could handle and afford, I made a good choice for my place in life. (Don’t confuse this with the above, having more than you can handle is different than learning or conquering something new.)

There are many times I’ve been approached with offers or gone on interviews where I knew I could learn that new skill BUT I wouldn’t have the ability to express myself or where the job would have been a cakewalk but I wouldn’t have learned a thing or where I’m offered something that’s too big for me to handle right then. By carefully weighing Culture, Expression, Growth Opportunities and Expectations you can pick a career choice that fits just right.

Sorry I totally lied in the title. No one knows what a Dodge Colt is…so here.

Conference Groupies, High Heels, and Digging Deeper

When I attended my first ERE Expo two years ago in San Diego, I got completely hooked. Fortunately, before the conference and my quick plunge into it, I had some semblance of who the players were, what I wanted to learn about and why one would attend something like this. My whole life, I’d heard “grown ups” complain about “conferences” and how much they stunk and wasted time, the only obvious saving grace was their semi-exotic locales.

Imagine my surprise when I loved every single second of my experience at ERE Expo, then Kennedy (now Onrec), followed by RecruitFest and a slew of other conferences, networking events, and unconferences (from local to international). I fell hard. I was a conference junkie. I listened, took notes, livetweeted the heck out of tracks (blew up some phones in the process) formed my opinions based on what I heard and then trashed them or blogged about them as I tested their veracity in the real world. From newbie recruiter, to enthusiatic community member to consultant to proud CMO of RecruitingBlogs.com, I experienced a variety of conferences/events in a variety of ways from lots of different viewpoints. It’s been, shall we say, eye-opening.

So…what have I learned?

1) There is such a thing as a conference groupie. I should know, I am one. If this obsession is not managed properly, the actual business that gets done at these events can become minimal. Get out of your comfort zone. The new person you spend 15 minutes talking to, instead of hanging out with your usual crew planning margaritas can be your next big lead.

2) You can engage in the coverage of a track and not attend and get some useful nuggets. However, this usually makes you a reporter and not technically part of the conversation. Attending the tracks, even carefully selected tracks (again, choose speakers based on topic rather than how comfortable you are with them personally) elevates the conference experience above the “vendor” relationship. It also gives much food for thought (or as thought is now commonly termed, blog posts post-event and allows you to hear about upcoming trends and products you may not have been aware of.

3) Troll it. You heard me. If there’s a vendor hall, walk it and talk to every single person who will talk to you. Be honest about your goals. Are you looking for a new product? Do you want to hear from a vendor about services? Or are you just looking to get your own message out. The conference and event scene is rife with a new third audience (it used to be vendors and attendees). Now, with the advent of social media and in true recruiting fashion, we’ve created middle-men, communities and blog superstars who are looking for content, advertising or just more exposure.

4) Pay attention. I recently asked Kevin Wheeler about what surprised him about the IAEWS conference (typically held immediately before ERE Expo). While there was much the same in what he said about the conversations, there were new products, many of which I had never heard of, that he was impressed with. Digging deeper, I found out why these new products surprised him (giving me insight into social trends from someone who’s been watching them a long time). I never would have heard any of this had I not asked. By paying attention to both 1) what I’d heard before and 2) what was new, I am able to to hone in on what might be new and exciting for my community but also what continues to provide debate and fodder for the industry pundits.

5) Don’t wear heels. Man I wish I could take my own advice, but I never do. File under working on it.

6) Never leave a conversation without asking “How can I help you?” or “How can we work together?”. If there is nothing to collaborate on, so be it. But if there is, no matter how miniscule, you will have missed an opportunity to expand your community. As recruiting and HR communities continue to grow, it is less about being exclusive (pay to join, join to post, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours) and more about being inclusive. Support niche envirnoments, whereever they grow. Contribute to events, even when they don’t benefit you directly and direct people to your content whenever possible (or make it accesible where they already are).

That’s not all but it’s enough for today. Oh PS If there is free food, EAT IT, because hevean only knows when you can get your whole group to agree on a place to eat before you become insane with hunger. Fortunately, I brought a granola bar in my bag. (MOM points!)

Technology Increases Responsibility

So I’m fresh back from TRULondon, an unconference put on by Bill Boorman and Geoff Webb. I could talk about all the incredible people that I met (and I will in another post, knock on wood) but for now I’d like to address some thoughts that occurred to me during one or two of the sessions.

I attended one session led by Keith Robinson, Felix Wetzel, Alan Whitford and Simon Lewis that was about Job Boards in 2020. There was a lot of intelligent conversation, but as usual my mind got hung up on one point that Jessica Miller Merrell made. In response to the success of one community/job board (Lewis’ OnlyMarketingJobs.com) she pointed out that of course marketers were more apt to join a community, but how would a niche job board for say…data processors, go about getting their jobs to their candidates? It seems like a simple answer, right? Set it up so your jobs go out to facebook, twitter, typical board, etc. But her point seemed to get lost in the fray and I don’t want it to.

We have all this technology that makes setting up a simple job board a literal snap. You can set up several in a day. For a long time, whoever had the most jobs, got the most candidates and hence the most ads, leaving the board owners profitable enough to start the cycle all over again (there were references to Monster’s incredible call center, where thousands of job orders are processed for minimal fees.) We’ve got aggregators, semantic search, resume databases and more, all made easier by technology. You can set a job board up from your basement it seems. But with all this technology and simplicity, we’ve never once changed the distribution pattern of job orders to suit the nature (additional point here: we use personality type to do interviewing, performance reviews and training but not job search) of the niche. (This may not have been Merrell’s point but it is mine.)

I tried to explain that and was met with countless examples of how well yes we have. We’ve come out with multiple industry formats to suit the different verticals (true, but the delivery system remains the same). The job boards and publications have used publishing patterns (e.g. certain jobs expected at certain times and dates) to affect and control job seeker behavior. We’ve created multiple formats for every imaginable job posting out there. But where are the niche boards that take advantage of delivery systems based on how certain personality types (based on their chosen occupation and how they function therein) prefer to get information? I don’t see them. Probably I don’t see them because the idea of customizing delivery based on a small cluster of preferences isn’t tremendously profitable. Better to throw all the spaghetti at the wall and make sure some sticks.

BUT, this is where recruiters can add some serious value and instead of butting head with job boards and endlessly lamenting how they don’t work. YOU know how your industry players want their information delivered. YOU know how you can make an offer appealing to a salesperson vs. a programmer. And what’s more, now you have the technology to do it, easily and quickly and for far less than a long distance call used to cost. This doesn’t mean creating community after community, or mass emailing job postings, or endlessly tweeting about open positions but a true strategic look about what delivery mechanisms work the best based on candidate history, industry knowledge (theirs not yours) and established and emerging job patterns.

Some people who are doing this:

Marie Journey (used simple video for name generation in a highly specific search)

Peggy McKee (uses video to deliver hard hitting job search advice as a way of building a medical sales talent pool)

Simon Lewis (created a community for ONLY marketing jobs, creating a space where marketers will communicate–what they do best– and congregate)

Craig Fisher (creates multiple facebook and linkedin groups for common IT positions, where he entertains and sources simultaneously)

Some other stuff I want to talk about: mobile job search and candidate attraction, global employer branding (is there such a thing, can there be?), RecruitingBlogs meetups with some of the best bloggers in the UK and what we’re planning.

Pirate Hats, Legos and Skateboards

We had children galore at the Hogan house over the holidays. Between December 20 and well, yesterday, it was all underpants, toilet paper fiascos, massive quantities of spaghetti and Wii fights. But usually, I just have the three boys. One night when it was just my boys in the house, I tiptoed out of the bedroom after prayers, stories and songs and trip over these three things in the hallway: a pirate hat, a lego starship something or other and a skateboard.

I started thinking about my kids and how their lives are pretty un-complicated. And I started wondering about how I could make mine less complicated. Here’s what I came up with:

Pirate Hats- The pirate hat speaks to me of imagination, make believe and role playing. I think sometimes in marketing, we get so caught up in our product or service, we forget to see it from the outside. And sometimes in our daily roles, we forget that everyone in the organization should be in product development, customer service and strategic thinking. Spend some time each day each week thinking about what could be or how you wish it could be. I’m a big idealism fanatic. If you can think it…well…you know.

Legos- Build it. Legos are building blocks that are really hecka cool. If you have enough of them and the right pieces, you can make anything. (Believe me, my boys have enough of them). To be able to realize the dream in the first step, you have to have the right building materials. Whether those are legos, employees, processes or whatever, it needs to be the right tool for the job. (Actually now that I think about it, I could do an entire series on the application of Legos as it relates to the workforce, but that’s for another time).

Skateboard- The skateboard didn’t take me places but that’s what it was designed to do. With a little (human) effort, skateboards can get you a lot of places. At least it can if you came of age in Santa Cruz in the 90s, which I did. Seriously though, we’ve talked enough about how to and what for and proving the theories, let’s go places people! You’ll become stagnant if you sit around having the same discussions year after year.

So a simple, not too far reaching blog post for the beginning of 2010. As my friend Joe says “be good to each other”.