ItsDevelopmental - content + technology + people

When connections become relationships

I got to interview some interesting people at last week's recruiting unconference Tru London 3 - you can hear them all in this post.

One comment stuck out for me which I think goes to the heart of how social media connections can turn in to face to face meetings and the start of relationships.

China Gorman, former chief operating officer at the Society for Human Resource Management (the US equivalent of the CIPD) put it succinctly in this interview (listen from 2.45).  

The connections you make on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin are connections. I do not think they are relationships until you meet face to face . . . been fun meeting those connections face to face - people I can now say I have a relationship with. I can manage those relationships in a different way.

From the posts I have read from the event it seems that China's sentiment is a shared one - connections online quickly turn into face to face meetings from which stronger relationships emerge.

 

 

Argos and Blogger in top 20 UK websites

Today web monitoring company Nielsen has published its list of the top 50 UK online brands. I can't find the source on the Nielsen site so am taking the finding from a report in The Telegraph.

Top 10 looks like this:

1. Google
2. MSN/Windows Live/Bing
3. Facebook
4. Yahoo!
5. BBC
6. Microsoft
7. Amazon
8. YouTube
9. eBay
10. Wikipedia

No surprises here. But the data compares 2011 with 2004 and this shows three things.

• Search is still king
• Social networks/user generated content sites are in the ascendancy
• Offline brands are making their prescence felt online

To highlight these last two points it is worth noting that Argos is the UK's 13th most popular brand online and Blogger (the blogging platform) is 16th.

#Trulondon 3 audioboos with @billboorman @radicalrecruit @chinagorman @lruettimann

Here are my four Audioboos from TruLondon 3 - thanks to Bill Boorman, China Gorman, Geoff Webb (aka Radical Recruit) and Laurie Ruettimann. Enjoy.

HR, teams and the social media opportunity at #trulondon 3

Really interesting commentary from Jon Ingham on why HR needs to focus on teams rather than individuals.

 

Tru London 3 - aggregated blog posts so far . . .

UPDATE: I'll add more posts as they get published.

Beth Mayes reviews her first Tru experience - Guest post: Oxfam @#trulondon by @KBMayes

Wannabe recruiter Ruxandra Fratescu starts blogging with her view of the Tru London experience - My #trulondon experience

The HR Rockstar asks why we go to conferences - #trulondon and Women of HR

Wise Man Say looks at why Gen Y hates personal branding - 5 reasons why gen Y hates personal branding (And what we're going to do about it)

Boolean Blackbelt's review of the event - #TRU London 3 Recruiting Unconference Review

BillBoorman updates us on the #trugrad project - #TruGrad Guest Post: Ruxandra Fratescu: Why I want to be a recruiter #trulondon

Tru London Radical Rant - what a great video

Etienne Besson (aka HappyEmployee) provides his review in Tru London 3 - a quick recap and here's Etienne's pre-event post too . . . Tru London 3 - Why I'll be there

Louise Triance provides her networking summary from Tru London - Tru London and networking summary

This one slipped through the net - how did I manage that? - John Sumser's excellent round up of Tru London

The Direct Recruiters Blog provides - Musings on #Tru London 2011 - Recruitment and Referrals

I wrote another post about #trulondon. This one is on the comments site built for the event - How a conference backchannel can add real value

Damon Klotz, aka the HRockstar, travelled to Europe for a month and spent three days at #trulondon. Here is his review - #Trulondon - the HRockstar in London part 1

#Tru organiser Bill Boorman has written this great review (and given me some props) - #Tru London thinking: how to break stuff - conference edition

Molly Flatt at 1000heads provides this post on The future of work

Andy Headworth on using Wordle as a recruitment tool - Great tip to recruit the candidate you really want using Wordle

Laurie Reuttimann provides her soundtrack to Tru London 3 

Geoff Webb's great video of Tru London 3

Jobsites post on talent communities - The top 5 thngs you need to know about talent communities

My post on Amazon Jobs a jobs board for the future

The evolution of #trulondon by the Red Recruiter - TruEvolution in London

Bill Boorman on key findings from job board data - #trulondon thinking - location, location, location; job board futures

Nigel Seed starts his blog (was it inspired buy the event?) with a #trulondon review - #trulondon - post event blog

Jorgen Sundberg writes his thoughts on his personal track - Personal branding at #trulondon

Fishdogs, aka Craig Fisher, reviews his scary good moments - My top 10 #Tru London 2011scary good moments

Charlie Duff at HRZone looks at employability in Employability skills - graduates and beyond

James Mayes looks at the influence of live tweeting an event in Influence vs impressions, Tweetreach and conferences

James also looks at a new Twitter app Twileshare: New Twitter app Twileshare. So many uses!

The Future Series: Born of #Tru - Felix Wetzel looks into the future

Mervyn Dinnen on talent communities in his post Recruiting like Radiohead

HR Connexxions provides Five take-aways from Tru London 3

Peter Gold urges you to Adopt a student and help them find a job

The host with ther most, Bill Boorman, looks at #trugrads in My #trulondon thinking and the #trugrad program

Rhiannon Hughes looks at the graduate track - The world of graduate recruitment - please mind the gap

Stephen O'Donnell on why TruLondon worked so well - #TruLondon Imagineering

Geoff Webb, aka Radicalrecruit, gives his assessment (which may cause some eyebrow raising) - A radical in London - notes from Tru London 3

China Gorman's review of and learning points from Tru London - The King of all social recruiting

James Mayes provides his review in a word cloud

The Sourceress has penned her highlights -  #TruLondon 3 - Never Be Untru

Mark Wiiliams, aka Mr Linkedin, gives his review of Trulondon #3 - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly! (My thoughts on TruLondon 3)

Recruiter interviews Rob Van Elberg in its story on candidate relocation.
 

Only two days after the event and there are already more than 20  posts to read - and every single one of them is worth taking the time. Apologies if I missed anyone - the Tru bloggerrati are just getting going. I know Bill is curating them all over on the Tru London 3 Facebook page, so make sure you add yours there.

In the meantime, this is what I have managed to pull together so far . . .

Jamie Leonard reviews his first time at Tru London

Meghan Biro looks at the emerging trends around social media and recruiting in Recruiting: Power of people connectivity

Lisa-Mari Jones aka ITstrategylisa uses a word cloud to reflect on her Tru London 3 experience

Peter Hros, aka HRbeginner, sums up why you will be back in 10 reasons you will never miss the #trulondon unconference again

Does authenticity make your butt look big? asks Heather Bussing over on HR Examiner

Anonymous UK HR director and blogger The HRD on his session with Larie Ruettimann on HR being (or not needing to be) strategic

You can here Laurie’s thoughts on that session in this audio interview.

Co-founder of ConnectingHR Jon Ingham wrote 5 posts in quick time. And they are:

Tru London - be social to compete
Tru London - why I told Kevin Wheeler he was talking rubbish
Tru London - How HR and recruiting can be strategic
Tru London - Why does 95% of what we do on HR focus on individuals (when what’s most important is teams)?
Tru London masterclass: social HR

Nice round-up of key learning points from the Wisemansay blog - Social media and recruitment - 10 lessons from Tru London 3

Laurie Ruettimann in reflective mood with Off the grid Fridays - nostalgia and #trulondon

The social agency Tru London 3 Live blog from Social Talent

Pros and cons of RPO - Tru London Live blog from social talent blog

Andy Headworth’s Social Recruiting Corner takes a look at Tru London

And again from Andy, a great post from a great track on how famous film quotes can highlight some social media myths

My two days at Tru London from Mark Lennard

First impressions from a newbie track leader, Andy Hyatt, head of digital at Bernard Hodes Group - An introduction to the world of unconferences, starting with trulondon

Reflections on Alex Charles’s masterclass from Bill Boorman

 

 

 

Social media in the enterprise - yes, it does work

What you can do with social media

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Describe what you do . . . in one line

I am going to overhaul the look of this blog and as a starting point I have just had a long chat with a family friend who is also an illustrator. We got talking about a new logo for this blog plus a video idea I have which will cover the types of skills I have and can offer (if freelance is what I end up doing).

I shared my frustration at how difficult I think it is to describe what you do in one line (for professional purposes, that is). This wasn't a problem when I was employed because I had a job title. Now I am out there in the big, wide world and every web service I use needs a punchy biog.

And that is the problem - coming up with a few words that capture who I am and what I offer and without using jargon and sounding naff. I thought it would be easy having been a journalist but for some reason it is harder than I thought.

So far I have . .  . Content and digital engagement specialist (plus trainer) looking for new opportunities on Twitter and Linkedin.

This can be improved. My illustrator friend said I should ask people I know to describe me. Maybe I'll do that (feel free to do so in the cmments). He then made reference to this clip in Grosse Point Blank in which John Cussack prepares for his high school reunion . . . glad to see I'm not alone, then ;-)  

10 social media job descriptions in a wordle

One of my job search RSS feeds is for social media jobs. Today I thought I would take 10 advertised jobs and create a Wordle of the job descriptions to see if there is anything surprsing.

Wordles work by making words bigger based on their frequency. So, the more a word has been mentioned in the 10 job descriptions I have picked the bigger it appears.

I don't think there is anything surprising. Most employers are looking for skills and experience in the following areas: social media, content, creativity, engagement.

One thing is for sure: these are marketing roles. That makes it more challenging for the likes of me to land such a role. Couple of things occured to me:

1. I can understand that businesses put social media into the marketing function but what of other areas of the business that use social media? Anyone who creates content on a regular basis will use social media too. Optimising the rest of the business could be very powerful for businesses
2. Other functions in the business such as internal communications, HR and learning and development are starting to use social media tools so I would have expected to see some roles advertised that reflect this. That is not the case - not so far anyway.
3. The job descriptions make little play of internal engagement with social media ie these are outward facing roles. Surely this is a missed opportunity as other teams within businesses will be using social media tools internally and externally. Will social media become siloed in marketing?

The job descriptions used:

1. Social media creative lead
2. Social media community executive
3. Social media analyst
4. Head of acquisition marketing/social media marketing
5. Social media account director
6. Social media content producer
7. Social media director
8. Social media manager
9. Social media consultant
10. Digital social media analyst
    

 

Why not adopt the unconference model within your business?

This week I'm going to the TruLondon recruiting unconference. I went last year (that's one of my pictures from last year's event) and really enjoyed it - see my post on XpertHR.

This year I am going back in a freelance capacity to help out Lesanto and the blog squad ie I will be producing content from the event. I'll also be listening in to the different tracks and look forward to meeting some interesting people in the recruitment, HR and social media world.

To find out more on this week's event, look at:

The TruLondon schedule

What is an unconference?

And follow the week's activities on Twitter on the #trulondon hashtag

No doubt the event will be a great success which is why I think organisations should consider adopting this type of format for knowledge sharing and helping build connections internally. Why do I think this?

Top 10 mobile internet trends

Top 10 Mobile Internet Trends (Feb 2011)

View more presentations from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.