ResearchGoddess

A week has passed and I haven’t even uploaded all my photos from Minneapolis. Call me a slacker, but I’m still trying to absorb my experience at the Social Recruiting Summit that was held at Best Buy’s HQ. Being a presenter at an event always gives me a different perspective than if I just get to attend and learn. I get nervous before I present, which is silly because usually I am WAY over-prepared, and I settle right into a comfortable place within about 2 minutes. But it’s how I roll. This having been my very first Social Recruiting Summit, I had no prior experience with which to compare – and looking back now, I think this was probably the most emotion I’ve felt in a 24 hour period coming into a conference at which I was to present. A couple of reasons for this:

1. The last time I presented to a sizable crowd was at last June’s Fordyce Forum in Las Vegas. I presented on how to Incorporate Social Media Into Your Recruiting Plan in a 3-hour pre-conference workshop. I felt rusty.
2. I was presenting in front of several people whom I hold in high regard and who’ve never seen me present live before, including but not limited to Chris Hoyt, Jessica Lee, Eric Winegardner, Jennifer McClure, Jeremy Langhans, Marvin Smith, Anthony Knierim, and my colleagues from Waggener Edstrom. Some, like Jennifer McClure, I’ve known for years and consider to be close friends. The pressure was on!
3. My presentation topic was a potentially controversial one – How To Market Yourself With Social Media… Without Being Annoying!

I sat at the ‘blogging tables’ throughout the day, writing down my thoughts on the various presentations and stewing over my own. Being the wrap-up speaker comes with its own challenges – you’re the only thing standing between your audience and a frosty beverage, so whatever you have to say needs to be extra memorable. However, having a week now to digest and critique, I feel I did a good job with my presentation, and the feedback I’ve received from it has confirmed this feeling. For those who were unable to tune in, during my presentation we did about a 15 minute exercise on developing our own personal marketing plans. We used the POST method, derived from Groundswell, written by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li. Feedback from this activity has been wonderful – I have had several people proactively reach out to me to let me know that they were adding details to the framework they came up with in my presentation and are eager to really get more focused in their online efforts. Hearing this warms my heart, and I look forward to seeing how they develop.

Having Minneapolis host a national recruiting event was long overdue. Minneapolis has put itself on the map over the last several years with its many heavily attended locally-based recruiting events, including the Minnesota Recruiters events and the Minnesota Technical Recruiters Network. However, Minneapolis also has a rich social media community that I’ve grown to know and love, and I was pleased to have the opportunity to meet many people who I knew online through Twitter but had never met in person before. As a former Cincinnati gal myself, it pains me to say this (not really…) but if the 513 wants to host a Social Recruiting Summit in the future, they’ve got some big shoes to fill.

Highlights from the conference, from my experience, included:

• The pre-conference Tweetup, hosted and sponsored graciously by LinkUp. Lots of the local Minneapolis social media community members attended this in addition to all the recruiters who were in town for the event. It was a great ‘sandbox’ evening – everyone played quite nicely and great new friendships were begun.
• Best Buy – truly a wonderful company, not only for hosting the event (and I hear they also hosted at least 2 more events over the remainder of the week – wow!) but for giving us a glimpse into what they do with their social presence, not just from a recruiting standpoint but also from a marketing, financial, and customer service perspective. Those guys and gals are cutting edge.
• Josh Ingalls and Andy Drish of Principal Financial Group – a campus relations guy (Josh) and a marketing guy (Andy). AWESOME… I believe our jobs are more marketing-based than many really understand, and it was great to hear an actual marketing person speaking at a recruiting event. And the part of me that has been doing work with campus relations jumped for joy at Josh. Thanks, guys!
• My roommate (for the 3rd time now I think!), Jennifer McClure – many of you know the saga of my 2600 mile move from Cincinnati to Washington state last summer, and Jennifer accompanied me on most of this journey. Any chance I can get to spend with her is special, since we no longer live near each other (we seriously used to live down the road from one another!)
• Meeting some Minneapolis friends – something I honestly didn’t think I would ever get to do. Just through 6 degrees of separation, I think outside of my Cincinnati and Washington state connections, I have more connections with people in Minneapolis than anywhere else. Specifically, Keith Privette, Steve Lewis, Kate-Madonna Hindes, Erica Mayer, Nicole Bodem, and Lisa Grimm, it was nice to meet you in person along with everyone else!

Things I’d like to see at the next Social Recruiting Summit (which incidentally is being held 80 miles from my current residence, in Seattle WA!):

• More metrics – now, for those who know me, you know that it hurts for me to say I want to see MORE numbers (I loathe metrics) but these are needed in order to make a business case for the continued use of social media for our recruitment efforts.
• More small business examples - Paul DeBettignies gave us a glimpse into what he does as a one-man shop when it comes to social media presence. I think we need more examples of this, as employment trends will continue to move more and more toward companies hiring for contract as opposed to FTE. We need to know more about the how-to from an individual contributor standpoint.
• More marketing and more PR – once again, I think there is more marketing and PR in our current job duties than we’d like to admit. I would like to see pure marketing and/or PR professionals do presentations at these events. These are the people whose bread and butter is based on the things that we really are just skimming the surface of.

BIG thanks:

• ERE – David Manaster and his team always put on a good event. I appreciate being given the opportunity to present here and I am looking forward to being able to help out with the next one – just let me know what I can do!
• Best Buy – gracious hosts and wonderful examples of how to really do things right and be thought leaders. Thank you for giving to all of us in so many ways!
• Kris Dunn – for being a fun and engaging emcee – I’ve been a fan of Fistful Of Talent  and HR Capitalist for awhile, and it was great to finally have the chance to meet and chat with you!
• Paul DeBettignies – you are the poster child for going above and beyond the call of duty. You lobbied hard to bring ERE to your city and brought all of your worlds together for one big awesome party. Thanks for being a gracious host. I hope you’ll come to Seattle and allow us out here to return the favor to you!

I’ll post the link to the video from my presentation as soon as (or IF) it can be recovered (technical difficulties). In the meantime, here’s the Prezi version of it. As well, here’s a neat transcript of the #socialrecruiting hashtag from the day of the Summit as well as the day before and the day after, created at www.wthashtag.com. I look forward to seeing many of you again in Seattle!

These spotlights are opportunities for you to get to know some individuals who were recommended to me for the article I wrote for Mashable, 4 Essential Traits for Social Media Success in Your Career. The purpose of my project, detailed here, is to profile some social media professionals to keep an eye on in the coming year.

Spotlight: Ruth Sylte
Title: Social Media Director
Employer: GoAbroad
Who paid it forward: Bryan Person

What Bryan had to say about Ruth: “Ruth and I first crossed paths about 10 years ago, when I was in my first job out of college at a study abroad office in Central New York. Ruth ran workshops at the conferences I attended about using the web and technology in the field of international education, and as I look back, I recognize the personal impact she had on me to follow down the path of online communications. Ruth is absolutely a pioneer in the profession; I admire her vision and her passion.

“Ruth has dipped in and out of international education over the past several years, but we managed to reconnect through Twitter nearly two years ago…she certainly understands how online communications can be used to drive business and bring people together (particularly in a cross-cultural context)…I’d love to see her get some more recognition!”

Ruth lives in a college town along Minnesota’s Cannon River, south of Minneapolis and Saint Paul and northwest of Rochester. She earned a BA from St. Olaf College in Political Science and Religion. She was studying political philosophy and church history. She says that Political Science is the study of how people relate to each other in a community, which she attributes partially to her love of working with social media today. Her work has been in higher education, specifically with international education exchange, or study abroad programs. She cites Joseph Campbell’s idea that you should follow your bliss, and how this will lead you to opportunities that will take advantage of your skills and abilities. Having studied what she loved in college, this is how she views her work today.

Ruth has actually been involved with social technology for quite a few years, and she runs a consultancy called Manitou Heights through which she works with international educational groups and small businesses. Her work with GoAbroad.com as their Social Media Director is focused on positioning and integrating the resources they’ve already set up as the largest directory of abroad experiences, and she is working with them toward taking this into social media. Ruth is also currently in an MA program for Strategic Communications Management through Concordia University in St Paul.

Why Ruth feels social media has a place in higher education: International education could really benefit from using social media, but it has been very slow in adopting and adapting to it. In the educational field, she says “We’re always a couple of years behind business. It always takes longer for things to trickle down into education.” Most of her colleagues are not even on LinkedIn, and most of them are scared of Facebook; they see it as a ‘plaything’ for the young. Her advice to these colleagues is that the students are already there, and  if you are not there, you will lose them. She would like to see international education become more involved in social media, and she hopes to be one of those people who are instrumental in getting it there.

Some of Ruth’s thoughts on the progression of social media and technology tools: To Ruth, social media is the next step on a long road from how people have always been communicating with each other. You could argue that email was a beginning form of social media. These days, she uses her iPhone as an example:  ”This is our modern-day equivalent of the cuneiform tablet.” She says that social media is the next step in our path of different communication methods. Those who say that it’s just a fad don’t really get it, yet those who say that it’s the panacea of everything don’t really understand either. These things are all tools – and we forget this quite often. They are things we use to communicate with each other. People and industries alike are developing preferences, so no matter the tool you use, it still needs to be able to interface with other tools in order to be effective.

Connect with Ruth on:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Blog

photo credit: © Tania Larson Legvold, 2009. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I’ve been in Minneapolis since Friday hanging out with friends Paul DeBettignies and Kasey Skala, and meeting new friends like Erica Mayer, Lisa Grimm, and Bridgett Jewell. Why am I here? ERE is holding the Social Recruiting Summit here today – a gathering of recruitment professionals interested in learning about social technologies and how they can play a part in the future of our functions. People are coming from all over the US (and someone even flew from Australia from what I heard!) to get their learning on. And yours truly is the wrap-up speaker for this event! Yep – I have the honor of being the only thing standing between the attendees and happy hour at the end of the day I’ll be talking about how to market yourself through social media without being annoying.

I plan to have some fun with this topic – after all, each and every one of us had to crawl before we walked around these here parts, and we’ve all made pain in the you-know-whats out of ourselves at some point in our quest to establish our online identities. I’m looking forward to having a great group discussion with the attendees – and as an added bonus, I understand that the session will be live-streamed! So please feel free to tune in to the live broadcast at ERE.net. My session will begin at 4:30pm Central Time. I am using the hashtag #rgMN on Twitter throughout my presentation as well if you want to follow some of the online discussion (also follow #socialrecruiting for the rest of the conference).

PS – this will be my first time doing a livestreamed event! Please send me happy thoughts Look forward to meeting many of you in person and hope to see some lively interaction from those of you who will be following along online!

Last month, I was interviewed  for an article series on some of the rising stars in the local PacNW area by freelance journalist Linda Partlow. Today, I picked up a copy of Northwest Business Monthly Magazine, a publication covering Northwest Washington business and distributed in Whatcom, Skagit, Island and San Juan counties, and there was my article!

This is quite an honor – a 2-page article in a printed publication written about what I’ve been doing lately. My accountant, Stephanie Artino of Metcalf Hodges, recommended me for this mainly because of my ‘Pay It Forward’ work, and I was really pleased that Linda made special mention of a couple of charitable organizations we chatted about that are very close to my heart – The Andréa Rizzo Foundation and Mercy Ministries. She also mentioned the upcoming Social Recruiting Summit that I’ll be speaking at – next Monday. I’m seriously humbled to receive this recognition!

Does anyone else find it ironic that, in our quest to develop social apps and communication tools that are more interactive, we’ve actually become LESS interactive?

How often do you see groups of people standing around with each other, but with their heads buried in their cell phones?

When I was at BlogWell, I posed this question: “I wonder how many ppl who are actually HERE will wait till AFTER the event to connect?” Thankfully I did meet a small handful of people and we went to dinner after the conference and had a 2 hour in-person meal. Our phones remained stowed away throughout dinner and we had some great conversation.

I challenge you to leave your phone in your pocket the next time you’re at a networking event. After all, you’re there to network with the others in attendance right? Get to know them while they’re actually in front of you instead of obsessing with what MIGHT be going on behind that little screen.