Three days after HRevolution and I’m still on an adrenaline high.  I’ve recovered from the feeling of sheer exhaustion from the planning perspective and have spent the last few days reading the praises, and the criticisms, of the event.  The beautiful thing is that because of social media and blogging, the organizers receive our feedback during and immediately following the event. I’m already making note so that we can apply what we’ve learned as continuous improvement.

It’s a good feeling that after only a few days, there have been well over 20 posts written, multiple photo streams, a tear-jerker video by Paul Hebert,  and a radio show (DriveThru HR) to begin analyzing what was learned.  Posts have been serious and funny, thoughtful and philosophical.  We even have a HRevolution speaker playlist and how cool is that?  I can’t think of a time I’ve been to a traditional conference where anyone was so moved they created a playlist.  So, I’ve read and absorbed, often teary eyed, because whether positive or negative, we’ve touched a chord in people.  For that, I’m grateful.

My HRevolution feedback contribution will be different. I want to share what it was like being on the planning side.

My fellow organizers, Ben Eubanks, Steve Boese, and Crystal Peterson, began talking about this event in October 2010.  By November, we decided on the city to host HRevolution 2011 and put our tickets up for sale.  December and January brought outreach to former sponsors to gauge interest and by then, a few new sponsors emerged.  I’m thankful we have Monster, Ceridian, Aquire, SHRM, Pinstripe, and PeopleMatter as our supporters.  With backing like that, it enables us as planners to rest assured we will be able to provide the atmosphere needed for participants to have the industry discussions we want them to.

Four months in advance is really when our planning kicks into gear.  While I take the role of working through sponsorships, Steve was busy with session ideas.  He took the blog posts that followed last year’s event, our surveys, what was being said on our blogs at the time, and Twitter comments to begin to craft a list of what people wanted to talk about.  He then compared that to the 51 (yes, fifty-one) submissions he received with requests to speak.  It’s a hard job because sometimes we know we have great speakers who have a topic that just doesn’t match what we’re being asked to provide.  Ultimately, he created a list that to the best of our ability, addressed what our potential attendees asked for.  That is VERY unconference like in approach.

Crystal is the master at making sure we have the facilities and equipment we need for a successful event.  She works tirelessly, day after day, to create that.  I am more impressed with her skills each year.  And Ben, he keeps our website, LinkedIn, FaceBook, and Twitter going with great information.  Ben’s role is a little different because it really kicks into gear about a month before the event and stays busy until at least a month after the event.  So today, while Steve, Crystal and I are just tying up our loose ends and planning the next one, Ben is still working on this event.

My goal this year was to arrive, participate, and have fun.

I say that because in prior years, I’ve been running around like crazy, worried about every little detail.  I realized that once it’s planned, I need to sit back and just participate.  No more running around worrying about the agenda or badges.  Those things are not important to our participants.  What IS important is that we are there to network and connect with people.

I enjoyed an engaging dinner and night out on Thursday with about fifteen people who arrived early.  Special shout-out and thanks to Robin Schooling for flying in early to help and support me.  She was amazing!  Debbie Brown also stepped up and grabbed all the items we needed locally.  Thanks Debbie!  Friday morning kicked off with a breakfast with Mike Grindell and the Atlanta SHRM board members.  Although Mike was unable to come, you all should know that he, along with Tim Gardner and Mike Haberman, were so helpful early on in providing information and ideas for venues.  Without people like that on the ground, planning would not go as smoothly as it did for us.  Friday afternoon brought the opportunity to connect with Nate DaPore and the PeopleMatter crew at their product launch luncheon.  They invited all the HRevolution attendees who had arrived and it was a great time.

I spent the rest of Friday in the hotel lobby visiting, at Marlow’s for an impromptu tweetup, and at the HRevolution tweetup that night.  We still had not visited, hugged, kissed, chatted, nor debated enough, so we ended the night on the rooftop bar sitting around the fire.  So, no running around for me.  Just talking.  Hugs. Sincere gratitude that I have each of these people in my life, making me a better professional and a better person.

The event itself was a success for me.  I measure that by seeing the attendees engaged, smiling, and talking.  I also view myself as a participant so here is a brief look at what I personally thought worked and what I could do without or change at the next HRevolution:

Rocked It

• Venue, cost, and food
• Diverse line of of speaker that included several CEOs, a CHRO, business owners, HR practitioners, and consultants
• Lots of networking opportunities
• Pinstripe’s “Meet MeMe” trading cards were the bomb!
• All the attendees who also volunteered to help with preparation and set up
• Liz Gottung- Holy cow! Great HR for sure
• Sponsors who participate fully in the event
• The most engaged audience you’ll find at an event
• Bacon cupcakes! Nomnomnom
• Bacon basket give away from Lyn Hoyt
• Monster giving away an iPad 2, Kindles and other items
• SHRM raffling off several passes to the annual conference.  Now that is commitment!

Even Better If

• We stopped trying to figure out if it’s a conference or un-conference.  Honestly, it’s neither.  It’s HRevolution. An event, a community, a reunion of sorts.  Call it what you like but I’m done wasting my breath on this point.
• Participants need to talk.  Most do and some still don’t.  Perfection to me is the day we get every single participant comfortable enough to share their thoughts.  It’s OUR event, not the planners’ event.  So, for next time I hope everyone is ready to roll up their sleeves and duke it out….or hug…or both.
• Wishing the gospel choir next door hadn’t interrupted Josh Letourneau and Eric Winegardner’s sessions near the end
• We need a better way to gather info on what people would like to see in a session.
• The planners, all of us, need to continue to “let it be” and enjoy when we’re there.
• We can incorporate more west-coast attendees in the future
• We need a band….anyone know Hall & Oates?

So that’s my take.  Thank you to everyone who finds value in the event.  Many lessons I learned there will come into play in future posts.

Viva la Revolution!  We’ll see you in Vegas on 10/2/11 in conjunction with the HR Technology Conference!

HRevolution is wrapped.  Ceased, closed, concluded, done with, ended, sewn up, in the can, Elvis has left the building.

And, it was better than I could have dreamed!

The good news is that although the event itself is over, that means we’ll be treated to several weeks of participants sharing their thoughts about what went well, what didn’t work so well, and general ideas that begin bubbling about the discussions.  There will be thousands of pictures shared as attendees and planners begin to sift through our smartphones and cameras.

That said, two sites to watch for more information over the coming weeks is the HRevolution site (http://thehrevolution.org) and the Monster Thinking Blog (http://monsterthinking.com).  Thanks to Monster.com, one of our generous sponsors, they will be sharing content and video.

Watch for photos to be shared on the HRevolution Facebook page, the Monster Flickr page, Dave Ryan’s Picasa, and on the HRevolution site.  We’ll also have some amazing pictures and video from the amazingly talented Maren Hogan.

For now, this planner is going to enjoy catching up on the #HRevolution tag on Twitter.  Thanks to my fellow planners, our sponsors, EACH and EVERY attendee, and all of our outstanding presenters who gave their time and shared their knowledge.

You all amaze me!!!

Job boards are not dead.

How do I know?  Because Monster.com helped my husband find a job in 2010.  I have used Monster.com myself in the past both as a candidate and as a customer.  And, I am thankful to have Monster.com as a HReovlution sponsor for the third year!  So, instead of sharing about some of the services that Monster offers, I thought I’d ask my husband to share his personal story of how Monster.com helped our family.  I hope that if you are a candidate looking for work or if you are an organization needing to fill positions, you will continue to turn to Monster as your primary source.

My Monster Experience

by Dan McFarlane

Frightened.  Angered.  In a state of shock.  These were some of my reactions and feelings I had when I was unexpectedly unemployed in February of 2010.  With the economy in the dumps and unemployment at an all time high, I had severe doubts about quickly regaining employment.  I had all of the usual worries, how am I going to pay the bills, keep a roof over my family’s head and keep them fed.  I had a severance package, but the severance had an end date.  Basically,  I felt like crap with no relief in sight.

My first few days were spent getting my resume in order and reaching out to my network.  Having been employed at the same place for over 14 years made it difficult to gain references.  Once I finished my resume and compiling reference,s I started the job search.  The difficulties were not in finding positions posted, but competing with the overwhelming applicants that applied for each job.  I was attacking this search with every new method available to me.  I was using LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter.  I also searched company web sites and several job boards.

In the end it all boiled down to the one job board that gave me the most up-to-date postings and best job leads, Monster.com. Out of the 94 positions I applied for, at least one third came from Monster.  I created my profile on Monster and posted my resume.  This led to me receiving emails with all new job posting that met my qualifications.  This was a big advantage as I did not overlook any opportunities and, with my resume on file, it made posting for each position a ten minute processes.  The only new item I needed each time was my cover letter.  This service led to what I refer to as my dream job.

I was told once the job boards like Monster were outdated and surpassed by the social networking sites.  What do I say to people who feel like that?  You need to realize the vast majority of companies do not use social networking sites for recruiting a majority of their positions.  They use recruiters, job boards, web sites as well as social sites.  A job seeker needs to utilize all the tools available to them to find the right employment opportunities.

For more on the possibilities of the evolving world of work, visit Monster’s Thought Leadership Blog,www.monsterthinking.com.  For more Monster Thinking, follow @monster_works and @monsterww on Twitter and like us on Facebook!

Last Friday I had the opportunity to speak at the Talent Net Live conference in Plano, TX.  It is a social recruiting conference primarily attended by recruiters from Texas, but in it’s second year, it is garnering attention nationwide.  Mark Sullivan describes it best HERE.

It was a good gig because I got to speak about social media and blogging, two things I am passionate about.  But, it  was even better because I didn’t just fly in, do my thing, and fly out. I stayed.  I sat through some sessions and spent time after the conference with other speakers and some attendees at the MonsterSocial Tweetup hosted by Monster.  Do you ever come across those “speaker types” who just breeze around and are too self-important to actually slow down and learn something?  I hate that.  They miss out on so much of the opportunity that is in front of them.

Had I done that, I would have missed a great session ‘Cool Tools Panel’  led by Craig Fisher and Jim Schnyder.  In the session we covered many cool tools for business pros today.  Here are some of my favorites:

BlastFollow-  This is one I’ve been using for awhile but was new to many at TNL.  I recommend this tool because it allows you to enter a hash tag and it will then follow anyone who has tweeted using that tag in the last five days.  This is especially helpful if you’re at a conference because you can follow everyone who is tweeting about the event without having to follow them individually.  HUGE time saver.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking-  This is speech recognition software designed for Windows by Nuance Communications. I’ve used similar technology on my phone but what a cool tool for day-to-day work.  This tool listens to your voice and converts it to text on your computer.  Especially handy for any type of dictation, it can also be used when interviewing candidates.  Jim demonstrated that if you interview someone on the phone and repeat back what they said (in summary), the tool will capture the information in text for you.  There are a few glitches, like the phone apps have, where once in awhile it gets a word wrong.  However, I think the overall capability is worth having a couple words incorrect.

ManageFlitter-  This site helps you unfolllow people who are not following you, those who are no longer active on Twitter, and those who rarely tweet.  It also shows who you follow that tweet at least five times a day.  It gives you the capability to easily choose who to continue following.

Brupt.com- This is a search engine that uses filetype parameters to find documents on topics you are looking for on the web. It’s a great way to filter the information you need.

So there are some new tools to check out today. What tools have you heard of lately that you like?  Share them in the comments.

*Special thanks to Craig Fisher for inviting me to participate in Talent Net Live this year.  It was an amazing opportunity and experience.

This past Thursday on the HR Happy Hour radio show, Steve Boese shared the exciting news that Monster is the premier sponsor of the HRevolution tweetup.  I can’t tell you how thrilled I am, not just because of what Monster represents as a company, but because of the way that Monster supports the HR and recruiting community.  As sponsors of the first HRevolution, we learned firsthand that Monster is far more than just a job board.

I’d like to share some information that all HR and recruiting pros should check out.  The Monster Resource Center.

Here are some highlights:

• Recruiting and Hiring Advice-  They provide articles on how to be a better interviewer, how to recruit using social media, and how to make your company stand out to potential candidates.
• Workforce Management- Need to find information on diversity, employee relations, management skills, global management, or employee benefits?  This is your source of great information.
• Market Intelligence-  Here’s where you can research labor stats, occupational reports, market reports, and more.
• Monster Training- YES, you read that right.  Monster offers webinars to help you do your job better.  Check out the training schedule to learn more.
• HR Events- Intelligence  webinars to help you.
• Economic Stimulus-  News and information on the economic stimulus including state specific information.

In addition to that, this is COOL news because that means you all get to hang out with Eric Winegardner (@ewmonster) and Matt Charney (@Monster_Works).  Anyone who knows Eric already understands that he will BRING the fun with him.  And, I am excited to finally get to meet Matt in person.

So, a HUGE thanks to the team at Monster.  We love you and will see you on May 7th.  If you haven’t purchased your HRevolution ticket, do it today.  There are only a few left and it will be sold out until next year!