Here are the materials:

- John Sumser’s Introduction and Presentation (Spiky and Flat)
- Jeff Kaye’s Presentation: Next Level Strategy for a Next Level Workplace
- Hank Stringer’s materials from Excellence in Search Relationships
- Dennis Smith’s delightful package Social Recruiting

Agenda:

Location:
University of Dallas College of Business
Graduate School of Management, Professional Development Center, Frisco Campus
7460 Warren Parkway
Frisco, TX 75034

Register Here

Maps

The medium is important too.  Reading leads us to hear the sender’s voice in ways that a telephone call makes impossible. The nuance of a word and the inflection of a voice cannot convey the same messages communicated by facial expressions and body language.   

I guess one-on-one communication is just more engaging, at least for those who opt-in to relationship building. Clearly, there are times when we choose to opt-out at which point one-on-one communication becomes strained and unproductive.

Just as the medium has pros and cons for our level of engagement, the setting affects the quality and value of our one-on-one communication too. Likewise, whispering sweet nothings into the ear of your lover assumes a level of intimacy and trust that might be the exception rather than the rule in business. But that shouldn’t stop us from wanting comparable levels of easiness and mutual gratification at work, at least I don’t think so.

Lubricating the mechanisms that make all this work is brain chemistry. After all, how we feel [read: how we react to brain chemistry] affects how we perceive what’s going on and how we’ll respond, engage or disengage.  If the relevance, directness, medium, opt-iningness, and the time and place affect the quality of our one-on-one communication, I think it’s fair to say brain chemistry is often overlooked as a driver of all that on many levels.

We could apply this notion to recruiting where the whole business of finding, attracting, hiring, developing and retaining talent which assumes good one-on-one communication, synthesized of course, as leading to the ultimate prize: engaged and  passionate users.”

For workforce planning, complimenting big picture demographics with psychographic data would give an employer a huge advantage, don’t you think?  Knowing where people are and how populations are distributed is only part of the equation. Learning why candidates and employees do the things they do is central to understanding how to manage that one-on-one tête-à-tête, predict their behaviors even.   Hey, we could even make it a 12-step program!

The conversations we have with our workforce would be improved if we could draw together these loose threads that often trip us up. Bringing together an understanding of who really makes up the desired audience, where they hang out and what they are feeling, thinking or are inclined toward with the relevance, directness, the best choice of media, easy opt-iningness, good timing an engaging “one-on-one communication,” well that couldn’t hurt, could it?

Ah, brain chemistry.

Unfortunately, many people in our industry cannot imagine how they could accomplish these types of thing – and more besides — without changing their brain chemistry first.  Doubt, fear, disintrested and other negative thoughts are as forceful in debilitating us personally as rising costs, dwindling budgets, “talent shortages,” distracted leadership, and so on can stop even the biggest corporations in their tracks.

An experiment for you: You can change your brain chemistry immediately with seven deep breaths exhaled ever so slowly — if you really want to, of course. It has to start with you.  Go on, change your brain chemistry, give it a try. If that fails, try a ridiculously strong cup of coffee.

For stressed out organizations it starts with you too. Taking seven deep breaths in the company of your peers while learning new things, making new connections and getting reconnected to the possibility of doing amazing things — enjoying one-on-one communications before, during and after — that’s what the Roadshow is for!

See you there…for coffee.

So it was with Rose Mirielle Exumé and her sister Alta Grace Garcon who one Monday afternoon left their home in Deerfield Beach, Florida to travel the 15 miles or so to Broward General.

What is normally a routine journey on I-95 was for this family anything but and Olivier Jean Paul Exumé was born in the fast lane in the back seat of his auntie’s SUV.

For the drivers on the road that day who would have imagined the drama in that car pulling over for no apparent reason? For sure, they were as oblivious to the clamor that accompanied baby Olivier’s birth just as the heaving mother and her panic-stricken sister were oblivious to the travelers speeding by.

Like the information superhighways where data streams in self-contained packets so too do people transport themselves along I-95 absorbed in the bubble of their own journey and experience. Data conveying information about national security and seismic activity share the same beam of light as updates about Uncle Vinnie’s hemorrhoids. No doubt gangsters running drugs and soccer Moms dropping off children were among those whistling by the lurching SUV.

Olivier’s passage was featured on the evening news. The miracle of life was not in of itself important but the circumstances of its coming to be the “human interest” headline.  This is the kind of warm and fuzzy stuff that keeps viewers glued to the box while the commercials run, good for ratings, good for business.

Where the news was most welcomed was in the neighborhood where Rose and her sister lived. Carried by word-of-mouth, the news soon travelled beyond the metropolis and the farthest reaches of I-95 to places where the network is defined by the community of familial ties, shared experiences, language and culture.

Suddenly, Rose was getting messages from “friends” who she never knew she had. It included people she had never heard of but who felt a connection nonetheless. It transpired that through this one and that one they shared mutual friends. People who she had left behind in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince suddenly popped up living around the corner and up the road. Just as new friendships were being made old ones were being reestablished.

The network was working. It began to take on a tangible form in the gift of diapers, car seats, bibs and bibles. An everyday event, remarkable only for the time and place of it, was the catalyst for a form of “social networking” that transcended self-interest and who-knows-who. Rose and others were personally enriched by the experience.

I-95 is a road that is seemingly always under construction. Today the work is less about the route and more about the ride. Likewise, today the Internet and its proliferation of tools, applications and content is less about the network and more about relevancy for its users.

In both instances, physical and virtual connections are easier and faster to make and navigate. But the things that define and connect communities in the real world and online are changing in ways that make “bringing physical community to online networks” a harder thing to do than at first we might think.

For those of us whose imagination is sparked by the possibility and promise of the Recruiting Roadshow there is much to reflect on in Rose’s story. For example:

When our careering down the road precludes us from being first hand witnesses to the daily miracles of life or when the human experience is trivailized to serve commercial interests; or when we fail to learn the trusted vernacular that makes word-of-mouth credible; or we fail to respond in ways that strengthen our ties to “place,” how will we ever enjoy the gifts of relative strangers who would rather you call them “friend?”

“Bringing physical community to online networks,” imagine that.

Posted by: Amitai Givertz

The event was made possible by the investment of several sponsors:

• Arbita, the Minneapolis based Internet Recruiting Powerhouse, is a staunch supporter who underwrites the Roadshows with cash, development and logistics support. There would be no Roadshow without them.
• The event was held on the wonderful campus of Main Sequence Technologies who produce the amazing PCRecruiter. They are sponsoring the next several Roadshows as well.
• Zoom Info is our partner in marketing as well as a committed sponsor of the Roadshows. Their tool gives Recruiters access to millions of passive candidates.
• Recruitingblogs.com is the official online community of the Recruiting Roadshow. Jason Davis’ sprawling community is a place for Recruiters to help each other.

Please take a moment to visit them and thank them for supporting these fre events.

 Content at the Cleveland Roadshow consisted of five modules. These links will take you to a pdf copy of the presentation materials,:

• The Introductions and Networking Exercise John Sumser Introduced the day. Marty Snyder welcomed the audience, delivering an eloquent presntation on the importance of community in Recruiting. Sumser ran a networking exercise that encouraged all the participants to interact with each other.
• Joel Cheesman opened the morning of presentations with marketing in a web 2.0 world. As you’d expect, Joel’s self-deprecating style was the gateway to a broad introduction to web 2.0 tools. The audience was delighted and energized as the consequence of Joel’s talk.
• Arbita’s CEO, Don Ramer, offered a talk on Internet Recruiting: Past, Present and Future. A mesmerizing speaker, Ramer worked the audience through  the implications of a proactive future where collaboration and interdependence define Recruiting.
• Trends in Background Checking was the subject of Jason Morris’ presentation. The world is changing and, according to JAson, background checking is ever more important.
• After Lunch, John Sumser closed the day with Multigenerational Recruiting, a discussion of demographic dynamics that are driving cultural change.

I’ll tell you more about Cleveland in the coming days.

Besides, it fits in nicely with one of the tips I always tell my students: always expand your knowledge and networks well beyond any confined industry ecosystem. Spend too much time within any ecosystem and specialists risk becoming endangered species. Online or off, there is no difference. 

In a move that simultaneously validates his encouragement of ongoing professional education and the development of professional online community, Jason Davis will provide financial support, at the sponsorship level for the Recruiting Roadshow. As a part of the arrangement, participants in Roadshow events will be given opportunities to join the community at RecruitingBlogs.com  

RecruitingBlogs.com is now the official online community of the Recruiting Roadshow™. With nearly 1,000 members, RecruitingBlogs.com is the fastest growing online network for recruiters around the planet. The network is built on the Ning platform and includes a variety of methods for interaction and collaboration between Recruiters.

Jason Davis, who founded RecruitingBlogs.com, is a serial entrepreneur and long time Recruiter. Currently, Jason wears several hats. He keeps his fingers in the Recruiting game making a placement here and there. He specializes in the acquisition and sale of Recruiting-related domain names. He is the charismatic heart of the RecruitingBlogs.com community. He is worrking long and hard on behalf of The Fordyce Letter (www.fordyceletter.com) as well.

The man is everywhere.

Wherever Jason lands, things start happening. At his best organizing a party, he has single-handedly built the Recruiting Industry’s very own Charity Poker tour. One thing is for sure. Things are going to get really interesting now that Jason is involved. Thank you, Jason. Your support and generosity will provide a profound foundation for the Recruiting Roadshow™.

John Sumser. – © 2008 Two Color Hat, Inc. Santa Rosa, CA

Special Thanks to Matt Martone, the team at Yahoo and Ami Givertz

If you’ve been following the story of the Recruiting Roadshow™ from the beginning, you’ll recall that Ramer and Arbita have been buying lunch all the way along. As our first sponsor, they’ve been in on the planning and execution of the Roadshow since before there was a Roadshow. Don has always been there with a word of encouragement or just the right bit of financial support.

Now, however, that commitment is becoming major league.

We’ve organized the Roadshow so that it’s sort of like Public Broadcasting. Free to the audience and supported by Underwriters, Sponsors and Friends. Each of those groupings involves specific resource commitments. (Let me know, by the way, if you’re interested in becoming a supporter.)

Ramer has agreed to be an underwriter for all of the events in 2008. The deal includes an array of other bits of logistics and technical support. Don and his team give us the foundation necessary to really grow the Recruiting Roadshow™ in 2008.

Thank you.

John Sumser. – © 2008 Two Color Hat, Inc. Santa Rosa, CA

A network involves people who you can call to get things arranged. A network is a potentially collaborative web of connections and recommendations. A network is made of people with whom you have connection.

Facebook manages to give the feeling of intimacy and respect in a way that I have not seen in other online communities or social software toolsets. Somehow, the protocols of offline friendship are maintained and the feeling of closeness is fungible.

(I should note that my children are a little less than perfectly happy about my entre. I understand this to be a reflection of the dynamic I am trying to describe. Facebook manages to create a sense of home-iness. It cements networks with a feeling of immediacy.)

There are several interesting applications available to prospective employees. Steven Rothberg’s CollegeRecruiter.com has a number of applications including a search interface and a flow of the latest internships.

Ageneral search on the word “jobs” produces an enormous windfall of opportunity.

I am planning to get to know the Jobster application over the weekend.I

John Sumser. – © 2008 Two Color Hat, Inc. Santa Rosa, CA