Well, SourceCon has ended, and I have a serious hangover. Not from all the drinking of course since I don’t drink alcohol, but from all the knowledge! For those of you who were not there, I’m sorry to say this but you will be kicking yourself for the next year until SourceCon 2008 rolls around. If you didn’t go this year, make sure that you get your ticket EARLY and go next year. With all the information that was bestowed upon us over the course of two days, I would venture to guess that the knowledge would be worth at least $20,000 – easily. The amount of talent that was present was mind-blowing.
I will not go into a bulleted list of who spoke and how incredible their talks were, but I will mention three individuals who I feel have become fast friends of mine and who represent the future of Internet research – Suzy Tonini, Jeremy Langhans, and Mike Notaro – the three challenge winners. Mike won the Grand Master challenge and a great new laptop courtesy of Donato Diorio and Broadlook Technologies, so I’ll also take this opportunity to congratulate him.
I’m sure that all of us who were in attendance will be writing and talking about this event over the next several weeks. I would have to say that my biggest takeaway from the conference was the networking that was done. With the size of the group in attendance, I would say that I got to meet about 75% of them. My favorite moments were the intimate one-on-ones or small group conversations that were had, the ideas that were shared in those moments, and the new friendships that were formed. For a great number of us, this was the first time that we were actually able to connect live. We may have conversed over the phone or through emails for several years but never met in person.
I had the great pleasure of having a couple of meals with some people whose work I have followed for awhile, including the tremendous lady who brought us all together for the event, Leslie O’Connor. None of this would have happened had it not been for her, and for that I am truly grateful. Leslie’s not one for a lot of accolades, as she admitted, but I can’t help but give her some props at this time. She put on a fantastic event and I am certainly looking forward to next year’s event. I cannot stress enough that if you missed out this year, do whatever it takes to get there next year.
These last few weeks for me have brought about a lot of change. Not only do I think I got smarter last week, but I am also moving in some different directions career-wise. As you might have noticed, for the past three or so weeks my blog has been a little sparse in postings. There is good cause for this, and that reason came out publicly at SourceCon. This coming week, I will be starting a new position with Waggener Edstrom Worldwide as a Sourcing Strategist. W/E is a Pacific-Northwest based public relations agency, and I will be assisting the People Services team with research strategy and passive candidate generation. I am very excited about this new role as it is a relatively new position within the company, so I am going to be helping to define my own function. I will be joined by a phenomenal recruiter/sourcer named Kristin whom I referred to in an earlier post, and together we will be building this research/sourcing function.
While I am sad to leave the franchise owners I have been supporting at SearchPath for the past thirteen months, this was a very good move for me career-wise. I will be given the opportunity to do work internationally with our global offices in London, Paris, Munich, Brussels, Singapore, Beijing, and Hong Kong. I have already had the pleasure of meeting our staffing partners from a few of these locations and I am looking forward to collaborating with them to drive the research function.
It has been a whirlwind month for me! I have been home for about four total days in the month of September so far. I moved into a new place at the end of August and flew out to Portland for a global meeting not two days later, came home for a couple of days and took off for SourceCon, and I am leaving once again on Tuesday for Seattle and then Portland for a week and a half. My new place has not been unpacked, and I don’t even have my bedroom furniture yet so all of my clothes are lying around on the floor at the moment! However, with all of these positive events that have happened this month, I certainly cannot complain, and I am anxious to start implementing the things that I learned in Atlanta at my new position with Waggener!
To all the folks I had the pleasure of meeting in Atlanta, I am honored to have finally met you. I was flattered by everyone who came up to me and told me they were a fan of my blog. I will continue to do my best to bring good information and insight to our growing community. I certainly hope to see all of you again at the next SourceCon!
At this moment, I am in Seattle getting my account training for my new position at Waggener Edstrom Worldwide. While I was training today, I received an email from Rich McIver, a known SEO and social media advocate, letting me know that I was listed amongst the top 100 HR bloggers in a list that was published today on the Bootstrapper blog. What an honor! While I do not believe that the list includes ALL of the most excellent resources, looking at some of the other blogs listed I feel I am in some very good company. The caption beside my listing reads, “This fun to read blog is a great resource for connecting you with other HR sites and blogs across the Web.” Aw, thank you! I am glad my rants are viewed as “fun to read”!
Stay tuned, the whole story will be known next week!
