Time off, Time out, Time with, Time on, Time to, Timely…

So I’m just back from a long weekend spending time relaxing, celebrating my partners’ birthday and doing things generally not related to work, internet or my business.  WOW!  What a fantastic experience being absent from the I-phone and laptop was!

I find myself refreshed, recharged and raring to go, renewed and rejuvenated from months of square eyed squinting at the computer screen!  I’m determined to spend more time on having time out and away from the distractions of everyday work accoutrements.  ”Yada Yada”, some might say, “I’ve heard it all before and it’s all well and good when you’re running a business!”

But it’s something to think about.  We live in a Supra-World of eternal internet paraphernalia and discourse.  One in which it’s possible to do business with people we’ve never met or ever will, where we can have a meaningful dialogue with a total stranger in another language and in real time, creating infinite possibilities from our imaginations.  Amazing stuff.

But what does the future hold if we don’t balance our time on the important things and the things that are happening to us right now?  Do we really need to know everything right this minute?  To be permanently available and accessible?

A friend said something very powerful the other day – “you don’t hear many people on their deathbed wishing they’d spent more time in the office”  How very true!

So my learning from this weekend is to achieve that thing we call balance.   I will switch the work phone off after I finish work.  I won’t consult my work email after 8.00 at night.  I will treat the social media sites with the same respect I treat my online bank.  And I will review my diary to include “Me” days which may or may not involve no work at all!

The Recruitment Unconference, London, Feb 18th – 19th

An event not to be missed

Are you interested in finding out more from industry experts on what all the fuss is about with Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and other such Social Media?  Then you’ll be glad to learn about that the widely acclaimed Recruitment Unconference will be returning to London again on February 18th – 19th 2010.

But what exactly is an “Unconference“?

Well as I learnt last month, an Unconference is an event themed around a topical subject, but which has no real fixed structure.  There are two main rules:

1) No power point (GASP)

2) No presentations (SIGH!!)

In other words, it’s a day of asking questions and facilitating debate.  It relies on the contribution of all involved, so attendees get to discuss what they want to discuss and is not restricted by any fixed agenda.

How does it work?

The event itself is divided into various sessions during which a series of “tracks” run on a theme, with track leaders hosting the discussion, debate and learning. The discussion takes a life of it’s own with atendees bringing their own views, questions and opinions as well as debate. This takes many directions and concludes with real learning and opinion forming.

The track leaders themselves (and I’m thrilled to have been asked to lead three Tracks) are carefuly chosen from their areas of experience and knowledge and the value they can bring to the “track” covering both a UK and global perspective.  Attendees are actively encouraged to disagree, argue, debate and question, all that’s asked is that there is mutual respect and collaboration.

What happens?

Day 1 is a technology focused day looking to the next 5 years and Day 2 will cover all things people related to people, recruiting, talent and a whole host of conversation topics. No doubt the days will cross over. Day 1, we will be producing a white paper on future technology.

There’s loads of stuff online about the event – check out Bill Boorman’s (the inspiration for this event) Recruiting Unblog. the ning.com group here, the RCEuro page, the Facebook page or key #trulondon on Twitter. These places can give you a real feel for what to expect.

What’s On?

So far the following tracks have been confirmed:

• Social Media Circus: Matt Alder, Paul Harrison, Jim Stroud
• Employer branding v Employee branding: Nick Price, Sarah White, Michelle Fischer, Jon Ingham
• The Future for Recruiters: Mervyn Dinnen, Bill Boorman, Matt Horley
• Job Board 2020: Keith Robinson, Alan Whitford, Simon Mason.
• Endangered Species: Peter Gold, John Ingham, Steve Boese
• Battle of the Bloggers: Laurie Reittmann, Andy Headworth, Peter Gold, Trish Mcfarlane
• Technology Shopping List: Steve Boese, Sarah White, Shane McClusker
• Sourceology – The Dark Arts: Jim Stroud, Geoff Webb, Katherine Robinson
• UK Sourcery – A New Way of Working: Katherine Robinson, Jim Stroud, Geoff Webb
• Recruiter Big Brother: Nick Price, Lisa Scales , Rob Wescott, Mike Taylor
• The Talent Wars: Trish Mcfarlane, Michelle Fischer, Peter Gold, Jon Ingham
• The Talent Puddle: Alan Whitford, Shane McClusker
• Global Live Lab – A social media experiment: Paul Harrison
• Culture Clash: Jon Ingham, Laurie Ruettimann, Geoff Webb, Alan Whitford
• Gen Why & How: Lucian Tarnowski,Sarah White
• Phoenix Recruiting: Bill Boorman, Andy Headworth, Alan Whitford
• Leadership Questions:  Peter Gold, Steve Boese, Lucian Tarnowski
• H.R. Revolution: Trish Mcfarlane,Laurie Ruettimann, Steve Boese
• Who Cares what the Candidates Think?: Keith Robinson, Mervin Dinnen,Michelle Fischer, Simon Mason
• New tools, Old Rules?: Bill Boorman, Matt Alder, Paul Harrison, Jim Stroud,
• H.R. Gen Z: Laurie Ruettimann, Trish Mcfarlane, Jon Ingham
• Social Human Convergence: Bill Boorman, Nick Price, Matt Horley, Andy Headworth
• Future Strategy: All the track leaders

It promises to make for interesting debate!

Tickets are available online from the TRU Conference website.

Social Media & Recruitment Research – Preliminary Findings

Preliminary results from the ongoing survey being conducted by myself and Linda Parkinson-Hardman of Grow a Better Business are showing a number of interesting statistics.  Of course, we can’t say that these will be findings when the survey completes in a couple of weeks time, but they are worthy of note at this stage we feel.

• 40% of the respondents have said that they recruited for less than five vacancies in the last 12 months
• None of the respondents had advertised on the radio in the last 12 months
• The vast majority spend less than £500 on a recruitment campaign
• Although over 72% of respondents said thay have used social media in business already this hasn’t been replicated in recruitment
• The main reasons for using social media, where it has been used in recruitment are for cost and just to experiment
• The main reason giving for not using social media in recruitment was lack of knowledge
• And perhaps most surprising of all, respondents indicated that they DO NOT have policies for social media in place

Whilst these results don’t mean anything in themselves, they do give an indicator of where the drivers are, what the current trends are and where the opportunities for improvement lie.

If you have not yet completed the social media and recruitment survey then we would be very grateful for your input.

Creative Leadership – Herding Sheep the extreme way

I was on a leadership coaching course this week and saw this amazing video c/o You Tube.  It goes to show what having a vision, creativity and effort can create…Oh and a little bit of technology…Reminds me a bit of social media.

Hire and Be Hired using Twitter – Listen Here

I was lucky enough to be asked to speak on todays Twitter Away UK Show hosted by Bill Boorman.

On the show, Bill Fischer (no relation) from Twitter Job Search talked about how in the past 6 months over 11,000 unique entities posted at least one job on Twitter. And in the past 30 days alone, there have been over 400,000 unique jobs posted. Amazing statistics considering we are in a job-poor environment.

This all evidences that the way businesses recruit, and indeed the way people look for jobs, is changing. Be sure you’re an early adopter and don’t miss out.  Listen to the experts at  Twitter Away now and pick up top tips on simple ways you can use Twitter to be hired or hire.

“Say it Forward” – a return to saying Thank You

The other day I attended an amazing event called the Recruitment Unconference. It was an an awesome day where lots of people shared their thoughts and energy on an interesting and evolving hot-topic (read more here). The event itself was organised by an inspiring man, Bill Boorman and being so taken and enthused by what he’d achieved and the event itself, I did what I always do when someone impresses me, I took some time to write a recommendation on Linked in and thanked him.

“Thankyou for the surprise recommendation on Linkedin. Much appreciated” was Bill’s response… And it’s this reaction to being thanked and recommended that got me thinking more about this idea of “saying it forward”.

Being thanked or recongised when you’re not expected, when someone goes out of their way to say thank you without being prompted, and in a way that is meaningful to you, is really rather nice.  It makes you feel good.  It makes you glad you made the effort in the first place, that it’s been appreciated, and it encourages you to do more of the same.  That said, being thanked and recognised is by no means the norm these days.  In our time-poor society people take other people for granted and old-fashioned values of graciousness and goodwill are put to one side in favour of curiosity and improvement.

But with such positive responses why do so few of us take time to recognise and thank others when you can?  It doesn’t need to take much and particularly in these days of Social Media – An E-card, an email, a Tweet, your favourite music via Itunes, a Facebook status update…  Really there are about a gazillion things you could do, with very little effort to make a difference to another human being.

Remember the film “Pay it Forward” where a little boy called Trevor McKinney, has a great idea that you should do at least 3 good deeds for other people? Well here’s my invitation to you.  What if, in the next week or so, you go out of your way to say thank you at least three times in a way that’s meaningful and different to what you do normally.   See what happens.   How many smiles can you inspire?  How many lives can you lighten in some way?  Post back your feedback here and let’s see what happens.

Thanks for reading this :0)

Michelle

My Top Three Take-Aways from #trulondon – The Recruitment Unconference

I was fortunate enough to be one of the 120 or so delegates at the UK’s first ever Recruitment Unconference yesterday hosted by Bill Boorman at Barclays Tower, London.

WOW, was it a conference unlike any!  With an eclectic mix of Social Media Experts, HR gurus, Recruitment Consultants and IT Whizzes in the amazing Green-Pod room, the unstructured format of the “conference-that-isn’t” led to many hearty debates on the various threaded topics which included:

• Sourceology with Geoff Webb (@radicalrecruit) and Katharine Robinson (@TheSourceress)
• Social Media Circus with Matt Alder (@mattalder) and Paul Harrison (@CarveConsulting)
• Blogging for Business with Andy Headworth (@andyheadworth)

There were many more and you can find out more about the event here and hear the broadcast here but I thought I’d share with you my top three takeaways (and you can rest assured there were many more!) that I took away from the day:

1. Social Media & Recruitment = Value for Money

Thank you Jacqui Hill for sharing that one of your clients in the Public sector has reduced their cost per applicant from £400 to £15 by the use of Social Media in resourcing and also to another Global Business for the stat that they’ve saved £150K by social media strategies alone.  Statistics like these really can’t be ignored and it’s no surprise therefore that Recruitment Consultants, Ad Agencies and Job Boards are wondering what their role will be as Social Media and Web 2.0 evolves.

2. Social Media & Recruitment = A tool for LISTENING as well as communicating

Thank you too to William Fischer of TwitterJobs (and this month’s Esquire Magazine) for outlining how the business  breaks down and measures their Social Media Strategy into 9 scales including things such as PR, SEP, research and product development.  How often do you use Social Media that way?  If it’s a communication tool, then surely you should also be listening and engaging?  And for the uninitiated (like me) it was a revelation to hear about “Active Listening Tools” that can do that stuff for you!  Amazing!

3. Social Media & Recruitment – Engagement

Just by writing on your blog, Facebook profile or Tweeting doesn’t actually make you someone people automatically want to listen to – you need to truly engage to get the most out of the experience and show you’re human with real points of view and real ideas and perceptions.  Permanently retweeting what others say, blogging sporadically and confusing your messages will all result in one thing – NOTHING.   You need to engage with others.

For more information about the Recruitment Unconference then check out the various tweets and blog posts which can be found at #trulondon. I can’t wait for the follow up!!!

Michelle Fischer
Creative Leadership

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Social Media & Recruitment Questionnaire

It’s no surprise that the way we communicate with people is changing.  Some call it the Communication Revolution and it’s characterised largely by the use of Web 2.0 technology and websites such as Linked In and Facebook, otherwise known as Social Media.

With this in mind, Linda Parkinson-Hardman of Grow a Better Business, and I, Michelle Fischer of Creative Leadership, invite you to complete the attached questionnaire about your use of Social Media when Recruiting.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=9m00FDmhA781rOYugN7hnw_3d_3d

We have set a closing date for completion of this of Friday 18th December 2009.

The results of this research will be used to produce a White Paper that explores the key trends and themes around this topical subject and we’d be thrilled to share this with you.  Please indicate your interest in this at the end of the questionnaire.

Needless to say, the more participants involved the better and we invite you also to forward this link to people you think would benefit from taking part and the research findings themselves.  We are pleased to offer a prize of a bottle of Frances’ finest champagne to one of the lucky participants who will be chosen at random at the conclusion of this research.

We’d like to thank you in advance for sparing the time to contribute to this research project.

Best wishes

Michelle Fischer
Creative Leadership

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Social Media and our Changing World

Ok so we know that Social Media’s here, but the statistics and evidence this presentation on You Tube evidences really might surprise you.  It certainly goes a long way to demonstrating why we all need to get with the Social Media revolution.

November Newsletter

It’s that time again. Read all about Recession-busting tips for Recruitment success here:

November Newsletter

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Best wishes

Michelle Fischer
Director
Creative-Leadership.co.uk