I’ve been a speaker and attendee at more conferences than I can count.  One thing I’ve learned is that in order to get the most value out of your time and money is to set yourself up for success with a little pre-conference planning.

Here are 10 ways you can boost your conference experience as well as improve your networking:

1.  Study the Agenda.

When I began going to conferences, I rarely looked at all the session options.  Now, I study the agenda and have a loose plan that contains:

• Sessions that will help me immediately at work
• Sessions that challenge how I think
• At least one that is unrelated to my current role
• Time built in so that I can add a few “on the fly” when I’m there

Having room for spontaneity may lead to one of the best sessions you never would have planned on attending.

2. Connect with people on LinkedIn or follow new people on Twitter.

Start by looking up the speakers of the sessions you plan to attend.  If they are on LinkedIn, send a brief but personal message stating that you’re looking forward to their upcoming session.  Next, go on Twitter and search the conference name or, if you know it, the hashtag (i.e. #SHRM12, #ILSHRM, #HRevolution).  You will be able to follow people who are talking about the conference online before the event.  Reach out to a few of them and chat about what they are looking forward to at the conference, what sessions they are attending, etc.

3. Read blogs.

If there is a vendor hosted blog, blogs written by speakers, or other industry blogs covering the event, be sure to read them in the weeks immediately before the event.  It’s a good way to find tips that will help you have a better conference experience.

4. Meet the Speakers/ Session Leaders.

Plan to stay a few moments after the session to speak to the session leader.  Most work very hard to prepare and love to hear your feedback.  It’s also a good time to meet if you’ve previously connected on LinkedIn or Twitter. If they are not using social media, don’t forget to ask for their business card.  The biggest mistake I see professionals make today is not bringing any cards with them to conferences.  It’s still a leading way to connect after an event.

5. Arrange to meet at least 3 people in person that you connected with via LinkedIn or Twitter.

There have been many times I’ve been to an event where I did not know anyone.  It would have been easy to attend a few sessions and go back to my room, but I would never have some of the great business connections I do now if I had done that.  Even if you are shy, force yourself to be a little bit outgoing.  Using LinkedIn or Twitter to learn about someone first makes it much easier to meet them in person.  Take advantage of that.  By having a handful of people you know at least a little, your networking results should multiply as they are able to introduce you to their contacts.

6. Attend at least one session you think you may never use at work.

I used to focus only on sessions that I saw as beneficial to what I was trying to do at work.  Once I began branching out, I actually found that many of the issues and situations I learned about came in handy years later.  People tend to gravitate to what we already know so by taking this approach you are forcing yourself to open up to a different topic or way of approaching work situations.

7. Participate in arranged ice breakers or meet ups.

Anyone who has gone to a conference knows there are always the ice breakers or events that lean on the corny side.  Plaster a smile on your face and jump in with a good attitude.  I’ve found that by doing that and making sure I’m not just hanging around the people I already know, I’ve been able to meet some outstanding professionals I would have never been exposed to.

8. Take notes.

Whether you take notes in a journal or using your netbook, iPad or smartphone, find a way to document those ideas you may need to tuck away for future use.  I can’t tell you how many times I attend conferences and see professionals just sitting and listening or checking their email.  If you are going to take your valuable time and spend the funds to attend, make sure you at least have several takeaways.

9. Think of at least a handful of “to do’s” inspired by the event, then DO them and document the results.

I’ll raise my hand as “guilty” of coming back to work after an event and not doing anything productive that I learned at the event.  What a waste!  For the last three years, I write down ideas as I fly home and then over the next few months, I attempt to incorporate them into my daily job.  Sometimes something clicks and I have great results and sometimes it’s something that doesn’t stick.  Either way, I’m approaching my work with a creative and innovative spirit and using knowledge gained at the conference.

10: Have fun!  Get out an experience life in the town you’re visiting.

Grab some of your new found friends or some you’ve had for years and hit a restaurant that only locals typically haunt.  Take tons of pictures then share them on Flickr or FaceBook so you can keep the conversation going when you’re back home.  By interacting with business professionals in the more formal daytime setting and also getting to know them better in casual settings too, you’ll strengthen the networking results by forming a closer bond than if you were to just attend sessions and head back to your room to “work” each night.

Remember, there are many reasons professionals attend conferences.  The reason with the most benefit is networking.  By trying new ways to boost your networking skills and opportunities you will come home knowing you had a successful event!

If you’ll be at the upcoming SHRM Annual Conference in Atlanta, the IL SHRM Conference or HRevolution/ The HR Technology Conference in the fall, you can connect with me on Twitter (@TrishMcFarlane), through my blog or via email atTrishaM89@gmail.com.

I hope to meet you there!

My plan is to give a brief description today, then provide more detailed posts about the steps to actually accomplish each one.

10 Easy Ways to Build Social Media into Your HR Practice:

• Tweet your jobs-  It’s becoming common for companies today to have a company Twitter account.  Make sure that at a minimum, your recruiters are sharing their job openings on Twitter.  They should also tweet reasons candidates would want to work at your company, share awards or recognition the company has received and in general, any positive messages about the organization.
• Engage with candidates on Twitter and Linkedin-  The key to closing a candidate on a specific position is the ability of the recruiter and interviewers in connecting and engaging with the candidate.  Connect proactively with the candidate on sites like Twitter and LinkedIn.
• Find HR resources on Twitter, then connect-  Twitter has a “Lists” feature where you can search for specific types of people who use the medium.  Search for other HR professionals or recruiters then start following.  Even if they are not following you yet, “tweet” at them and introduce yourself. It’s a great way to build your network and add valuable HR resources to your practice.
• Strengthen your employer brand with FourSquare- Make sure that your organization, or each of the locations, is listed on FourSquare.  Encourage employees to “check in” each day and once they do, encourage them to leave “Tips” on why it’s great to work there.  This is a great way to strengthen your brand and you can easily reward employees who are most active.
• Reach out to passive candidates via FourSquare-  One tactic I’ve heard about may be a bit controversial but in times where there is a talent shortage in certain skill sets, you may need to try innovative ways to connect.  Post open jobs in locations near your target candidate market.
• Use a blog to communicate HR news- Not everyone or every company should have a blog.  However, if you have at least one person (exec or HR team member) who is committed to writing, a blog is a great way to share HR news.  The key is also having someone who can respond to comments and questions that come in from employees.
• Create podcasts for employees- Do leaders have regular meetings about the health of the organization?  Do you have HR activities like annual benefit enrollment, merit increases, performance reviews and such?  If so, you can use podcasting as a way to save key information in a format that is easy for employees to listen to anywhere and with minimal time needed.
• Post YouTube video showing what it is like to work at your company-  Another way to strengthen your brand is to ask employees to record videos of what they like about working at your company.  These videos can be posted on your intranet, on the company site or via sharing sites like YouTube.  It’s a great way to engage both current and potential employees.
• Reward employees who share positive company messages using social platforms- Instead of being the company that monitors social platforms to catch employees posting things that are considered wrong, catch them posting messages that are positive about the company.  Set up an incentive program to encourage positive participation on social media.
• Create a LinkedIn Alumni group-  LinkedIn is the one platform employees and employers tend to agree is the most business focused.  Since membership is on the rise, take advantage and set up organization groups to drive interaction.  Specifically, don’t forget about your employees who are leaving the company.  Ask each one to join an alumni group and use it as a way to remain connected, share company news, and provide information on the industry.

There you have it- ten quick things you can do to amp up your HR team’s involvement in social media.  Stay tuned over the next two weeks for more detailed “how to” posts on each of the items.  

What have you done to get your HR team involved in social?  Share in the comments.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of listening to a keynote that stood out from the rest.  I attended the TALX Client Forum in St. Louis.  The event was kicked off by TALX President Dann Adams.  Dann was at ease in front of the large crowd.  He opened with humor and proceeded to describe why the theme Explore & Discover is relevant to some of the exciting changes going on at TALX.  As part of Equifax, TALX is using transparency around access to credit combined with their wealth of data around unemployment claims, I-9′s and employment verification to change the way HR professionals use analytics.

TALX launched Elements, workforce information solutions that allow HR professionals and executives to see data in a way that lets them drill down to where the problems lie.  It includes visual representation of the data which is helpful because people learn 17 times faster from interpreting pictures rather than just raw data.  Dann’s conversational style captured the room as he was able to easily describe how this journey has been one of exploring new strategic approaches and allowed them to discover new ways to work with clients to communicate people-related data.

With that, Dann transitioned to Susan Ershler, a twenty year veteran of sales in the telecommunications industry with ten of those years spent directing teams in Fortune 500 sales situations, Sue has her “business chops”.  She is also an accomplished mountain climber and was part of the first couple to climb all seven summits in the world.

Sue captivated the audience with her passion about climbing and she easily transitioned stories of her experiences to relevant examples of how those same lessons learned apply directly to our roles in the business world.  The connections she made around leading and guiding others, being a strong leader and mentor in times of trouble, and how to handle the feeling of failure when you or your team fall short of a goal even though you may have surpassed all prior performance were impactful.  I could relate to many of her stories and found myself inspired to either keep pushing myself.

My biggest take away was around visioning.  Sue explained how she found success in business, in climbing, and in her relationship with her husband by envisioning herself as a success.  She saw herself breaking all company sales records, she saw herself at the top of the summit and she saw herself having a happy, fulfilled marriage even though she and her husband experienced obstacles as many couples do.

Key messages from Sue:

• Surround yourself with people who won’t let you quit
• Push through the pain, pain is temporary
• Teams outperform individuals every time
• Project your future and focus on the vision- vision drives activity

I hope that future keynotes I hear are as relevant and inspirational.  Thank you to Dann Adams and the entire team at TALX for giving me clarity on how to motivate my team and remain focused on my vision in my organization.

The Conference Board

I am participating and speaking at the Social Media for HR seminar at The Conference Board in New York this week.  As always, The Conference Board brings together high-level executives to share insight into how major organizations are tackling human resource and leadership issues.  This particular seminar is solely focused on social platforms and implications and is interesting for anyone who needs to learn more about implementation and strategy for your organization.

One session that stands out for me was led by Karl Sanchak, the Director of Innovation, Corporate Engineering and Technology for Lockheed Martin.  Mr Sanchak addressed the strategic use of social media in the organization.  Lockheed Martin is clearly aware that people’s actions in the online world most closely reflect how they really think.  They use the idea that Information = Intelligence in their creation of a strategy that incorporates and measures social platform use.

 What are some key components to build into a social strategy?

• Look first at social platforms that your employees are already using.
• Measure the patterns of use and frequency in order to know when the best times to post information or invite collaboration are based on the users.
• Build in subject matter experts and data experts who can work collaboratively to bring the social strategy to fruition.
• Plan how the social tools will be used.  For example, social can be quite effective for R&D and new business initiatives.
• Innovate the future! Don’t wait for your competition to pass you by.  Create your focused strategy now.

As you can see, quite a bit of great insight and I only scratched the surface of what the session covered.  Be sure to check The Conference Board website for upcoming events.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with leaders from Pinstripe Talent about something they are passionate about…. a talent mindset.  

As a Human Resource leader, one of the key roles I occupy is that of helping shape and set the way the organization approaches talent. It’s our company talent mindset.  The same goes for me personally as well as all the other leaders in the organization.  Since “talent” is not a commodity, recruiting and retaining talented, skilled employees is everyone’s job. In order to be successful, you have to have a talent mindset so that you understand what motivates people to stay and what makes them feel valued.

Pinstripe is sharing their ideas about talent and having a talent mindset.  I was fortunate to hear a presentation by Angela Hills, Executive Vice President from Pinstripe at Talent Net Live.  Angela then sat down to answer some of my questions about a talent mindset and I’ll be sharing those here with you in a two-part series.

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What is one thing an individual can do to help a fellow leader identify his/her talent mindset?

Well, one thing? Ask the question. Tell people what your Talent Mindset is and ask others to share theirs. Ask your CEO or leadership how they approach talent. Ask them what they are most proud of when it comes to attracting and retaining top talent. Ask them what motivates them and why they stay? Ask them what their top talent priorities are. Their answers will clue you in to which Talent
Mindset drives them, but it will also get Talent on their radar by talking about it. You’ll get them thinking and you might even influence them to focus on it more, just by getting them to talk about it!

What are a few of the benefits of knowing your talent mindset and potentially the talent mindset of your team or colleagues?

More than anything, I think it helps you to focus on what you do best.   Knowing your core approach to talent can help you realize why you’re so good at certain things and what others value most about it. It affirms the way you typically approach things. It can also highlight areas you may want to focus on (i.e. maybe you review the summary of another Talent Mindset and really wish you were more like that….), but more than anything, it will help you do more of what you do best.

Knowing the Talent Mindset of your entire team can be very useful. Staffing a project with a variety of Talent Mindsets ensures that you’re looking at an issue from multiple angles. It can also spur conversation and as noted above, I’m a firm believer that the more we talk about something, the more it is on our minds, and then the more it shapes our behavior. Talking more about talent should lead to colleagues focusing more on talent and that is good for business!

*Stay tuned for more discussion about Talent Mindset.   Thank you to Angela Hills, Pinstripe Talent and Talent Net Live for starting the discussion. In the meantime, do you have discussions with your leaders or team about their approach to talent?  Share with me in the comments.