ResearchGoddess

I am so pleased to have another article published on Mashable!

12 iPhone Apps for Surviving Conference Season

Next week, I’ll be in San Diego to attend both SourceCon and ERE Spring Expo, and I wanted to share some of the apps that I’ll be using while attending both. Please take a look at the article, and if you have any suggestions for other good conference apps, leave them in a comment either on the Mashable article or right below!

This past Saturday, I spent the day in Columbus OH attending PodCamp Ohio. For those who don’t know, PodCamp is a concept that was originally started by Christopher Penn and Chris Brogan (who incidentally graced us with his presence via Skype during one of the sessions!). Basically, a podcamp is a FREE BarCamp-style community UnConference for podcasters and listeners, bloggers and readers, and anyone interested in New Media.

There were approximately 200 attendees to PodCamp Ohio this year which was awesome! We kicked things off around 9am and went until 5:30pm. Presenters signed up ahead of time to conduct sessions ranging in topic from podcasting equipment selection, to keyword research and SEO, to corporate twittering, to finding a job using social media. There were six session timeslots and so many great topics to choose from that attempting to re-cap even from the ones I got to attend wouldn’t do them justice.

The best part is that all of the presenters did so voluntarily – this allows for people to develop their public speaking and presentation skills in a casual environment. There were seasoned presenters as well as first-timers, and much respect from me to those who signed up to present – you all rock!

I was pleased to finally meet Luke Armour, Digital Strategist with Fleishman Hillard. Luke and I have been Twitter buddies for a bit and it was nice to finally put a face to the name. I was able to have the company of Lisa Desatnik and Steve Gerl on the ride up and back, as well. I had some great conversations with Dustin Pyles, Gabe from Digital Disciples, and presenters Alison Bolen from SAS,  Michael Loban who did a phenomenal presentation on finding a job using social media, and Michael McDermott, who I was privileged to catch on camera (see below).

Serious ups to the sponsors who made it possible for our podcamp to happen at no charge to the participants!

• The OSU Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing
• blubrry.com podcasting community
• Doctor Anonymous podcast
• Circle of Seven Productions (book trailers & marketing)
• AssistCoach
• blip.tv
• TechSmith (screen capture & recording software)
• Spaceblue (new media and web design)
• ávitae energy water
• Blue Microphones
• StickerGiant
• Coefficient Media
• EasyPHPwebsites.com
• The iPhone App Show
• Allen Mireles Marketing PR
• Jamie Grove

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZD6CLcY3f0]

Well, after some tumultuous travel to get home (you’ll have to ask me about my experience traveling on United Airlines!!) I’ve finally had the opportunity to collect my thoughts and throw together a few clips from my pre-conference workshop on Incorporating Social Media Into Your Recruiting Plan (link to the slides), presented at the Fordyce Forum in Las Vegas.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t68N_RTPpLE]

I enjoyed the content and the networking from the conference. My favorite presenters were Barb Bruno and Jordan Rayboy. I enjoyed Jordan because of his genuine-ness and complete transparency. Jordan and his wife, Jeska, work 100% remotely from their RV. They travel all across the continent and have the luxury of being able to choose their neighbors every day. However, they don’t allow this freedom to distract them from their work. Rather, the two feed off of each other – the travel inspires their work, and work in turn allows for the freedom of travel. Jordan and Jeska are incredibly disciplined with their business; they believe in the concepts of lifestyle recruiting and working to live. I recommend you check out Jordan’s presentation on the post-event page (coming soon!).

Barb Bruno’s session was the last one I was able to attend before having to dash off to the airport, and what a way to wrap up! Her discussion revolved around making slight changes that will produce dramatic results. Barb threw out nugget after nugget of wisdom. Some of my favorites include:

• We are creatures of habit and so often our lives control us vs. us controlling our lives.
• Identify at least one new source for candidates every month.
• You gain control by giving up control. Delegate things that are not the best use of your time. (I personally love this)

The networking was pretty good too. I had the opportunity to meet some really nice people:

• Kristen Durkin of IIPE, a fellow Twitter fan
• Elaine Rigoli, Fordyce Letter editor and totally awesome!
• Marc Francone of ORI Global (who told me I should be a consultant, after attending my workshop )
• Takara Bullock of Optia Partners – she and her husband Gerald traveled all the way from Tokyo for this!
• Lori Fenstermaker, founder of  AutoSearch, a sourcing tool that I’ll be testing out here shortly
• Josh Stomel, co-founder of ResumeBucket, also a tool I’ll be testing out shortly!
• Finally got to meet Mike Gionta too, and found a lot of common ground between us

Many others, too many to name and I don’t want to start hurting feelings I encourage you to check out the other presentations on the Fordyce Forum post-event site and see some of the great things we got to learn over the course of 60 hours. And if you attended, please take the time to fill out the feedback survey. That’s what allows those of us who presented to refine our skills and make adjustments so that we can bring you the best content possible.

This week I am attending SourceCon ’08 in Atlanta. If you have any interest in research and sourcing from a recruitment capacity, this is the place to be! I’ll be tweeting throughout the event so if you want an SC play-by-play, feel free to follow me on Twitter or check out the hashtag #sourcecon. If you’re attending, please come and say hi to me!

I recently spoke on using research effectively at the Fordyce Forum in Las Vegas. As anyone who has ever gotten up in front of a group of people to speak would agree to, I hoped that I conveyed the information in a usable manner and that my audience would find some value in my topic. Last week, I received the following recommendation from Glynda Finister, who sat in on my presentation:

“I heard Amybeth speak at the Fordyce Forum in Las Vegas in 2008 and she provided me with excellent tips for finding a good researcher and as a result, I now have two really great researchers. I could not have known what to look for with out her advice. After the seminar, she spent a great deal of time with Attendees with various questions on how to find a researcher. Thank you Amybeth!”

If that isn’t a validation that the presentation did some good, then I don’t know what is! Receiving a note like this is the best thing that could have happened, and I am so pleased that Glynda was able to hire not just one, but two researchers using some of the information she’d heard.  THANK YOU for letting me know!

The  Fordyce Letter Network recently posted a short video highlight from my presentation. Here is a link to it, or you can view it below:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdAk4_f0SRE]

Over 60% of those who suffer from HIV/AIDS worldwide live in the sub-Saharan region. Learn about the aid trip I am going on this November to Mamelodi, South Africa, and how you can help!