Talentism

The Unconference is On Baby!

The Talent Unconference is on and it is looking better and better.  Gerry Crispin, Dave Lefkow, John Sumser, Collin Kingsbury, Double Dubs, Jason Davis (and he’s bringing his poker table!), Shally Steckerl,  Hans Gieskes, Gautam Godhwani - they'll all be there.  We're very excited about the brain trust we’re gathering and are honoured by the immense interest in our first ever Unconference!

It’s time to seriously start thinking about Taluncon, and get the plane tickets booked, so here are all the details you’ll need to get yourself sorted out.

Taluncon starts on Thursday January 25th at 9 am PST and will be at Electronic Arts’ Global Headquarters, Redwood Shores, California.  The best place to fly into is San Francisco (SFO) International Airport.  We’ll have a conference rate at the Sofitel Redwood Shores by the first week of January, but you can book your flights now. 

We have 4 planned "tracks" for Taluncon:  Workforce Planning (lead by Susan Burns and Dave Lefkow), Technology (lead by Sean Rehder), Sourcing (lead by Kristi Cavanaugh and Shally Stecker) and Talent Vision (lead by Cindy Nicola).  Our goal for the tracks is to have a cross disciplinary group of individuals who are passionate about talent and who want to both learn, create and contribute.  That’s right – each and everyone one of us will be expected to contribute to the discussion. This is not a conference of presentations, it’s a conference of ideas, problem solving and innovation.

There will be more information in early January about tracks and sessions and even more people who are coming, but in the meantime, if you’re interested in running a track that we haven’t listed, please send your idea / problem that you envision solving / innovation you would like to create and who you’d invite to the track to jjhunter at ea.com and talentings at gmail.com.   

Finally, if you’re planning on attending, please confirm as there is a limited number of seats available (just send an email to the two addresses above).  Watch this space for more details first thing in the New Year, and start saving your chips – Jason Davis will be continuing his successful charity poker tourney on the evening of January 25th as a great way to continue the fun.

Happy holidays everyone!

Jeff and Nancy

The View from Minute 16

What to post? My 15 minutes ticked off the clock a long time ago. It seems that I should have something insightful to add about what makes a great blog and why you should vote for one person versus another. But I don't. Thanks to the Jason's and the growing multitude that add their passionate voices to the blogging milleu, recruiting blogging has progressed past the cult of personality into the land of serious business. I find myself at a loss for words.

Well, maybe not. This post was going to end there, but then I thought I would throw in a word or two for some of the great work that people are doing around the blogosphere.

Other than his mention of this blog, I agree with Bob Wilson's post this past Wednesday. I'm a fan of early American politics, where no matter how bad you want it, you let your proxies do the work for you. I really enjoy Bob's blog, and think he is definitely worthy of consideration for your vote.

And then there is Mr. Davis' list. It is rather uncanny, but his list and mine are exactly the same... with one exception. I think that once you own the company you should abstain from the vote, so although I would stand by my beleif that Jason Goldberg is the best CEO blogger out there (see below), exploring the very edges of how to use blogging as a way to build credibility, authenticity and market traction for your company, I did not vote for him. Instead I voted for Julian and Shannon Seery Gude's blog Exceler8ion. I love their voice and perspective. I look forward to reading more from them next year.

I would have thrown in a vote for my favorite sourcer Shally, who consistently produces some of the best content on how to source at the leading edge, but then I got a spam mail from him asking for my vote, so, alas, it was not to be. But that doesn't mean that Shally isn't worthy of your consideration. And if you care about how to be a better sourcer, you should definitely check out his blog.

And I also would have thrown in a vote for Colin Kingsbury, because he is quite possibly the smartest guy in the recruiting blogosphere and I love what he writes. His blog is always worth the read, but if I had thrown in a vote for a tech blog it still would have gone to Dubs (see below) because the guy just turns out consistently great stuff, day-after-day, year-after-year. And I owe Dubs because he flew up to Vancouver on his own dime to be a part of an EA technology meeting we had and added some great wisdom and insight. Colin has said that he is coming to the Unconference, so next year hopefully I will owe him!

My favorite new voice of the year is Ami. He is on Bob's and Jason's list, and I couldn't agree with them more. Whereas Mr. Goldberg has explored the edges of what blogging means to business, Ami has explored the far more difficult territory of what blogging means to Self. Ami is presently struggling with whether he can reconcile his id's need to connect with a broader audience with his superego's need to make a living. Let's all support Ami and show him that this is an "and" situation, not an "or." It would be a shame to lose his voice in our growing community.

And what as to the rest of this fabulous group that I get the honor to periodically chat with? I think the post I put up almost a year ago pretty well encapsulates my feelings. Amazing that the same exact group that I listed a year ago is still defining the leading edge of this grand adventure. Congratulations to all of you, and a hearty holiday "Thanks!" for making my life a better experience.

(Note: I updated the links and some of the content below to be more relevant.)

Vote for Heather and Joel and Dubs!

Congrats to Joel, Jason and Jason (and CH for batting clean-up) on the wonderful idea for the best of the blogs.

I don’t know about the categorization. Here are my thoughts:

Best Corporate Blog: Heather’s blog is making Microsoft hip again (yes, Heather, there was a time when Microsoft wasn’t hip). She is creating a community around a common interest (which is not Microsoft) and then periodically letting people in to take a look at life inside. She builds credibility through her transparency and authenticity. In short, Heather’s blog is the best brand building exercise on the web for a big company that I have ever seen.

Best Blog Blog: Joel Cheesman’s content is well written, relevant and imminently readable. Hs provides value and builds his brand all at the same time. I think Joel’s blog typifies what is possible for small and large businesses everywhere.

Best HR Tech Blog – While I love Jason’s Corsello’s blog, Dub Dubs’ willingness to engage me on the RPO topic means I owe him. His content is insightful and keeps its eyes on the user and overall purpose of HR technology.

And, even though they can’t be nominated:

In Nomine Patris Award – Goes to John Sumser. He set the stage on which we are all playing. Thanks John.

Best CEO Blog – Jason Goldberg at Jobster. It is amazing what he gets up there given his schedule and responsibilities. Thanks Jason.

Smartest Recruiting Strategist – Dave Lefkow. Is there anybody who doesn’t love and respect this guy? The fact that he is smart and knowledgable doesn’t hurt.

Most Likely to Be Dragged to Jail while Shouting – Canadian Headhunter (can’t help but love him)

Most Likely to be Canadian Prime Minister – CH (right after they legalize more pot than an ounce)

Most Likely to be CH’s Campaign Manager – It's still JD

And speaking of Jason Davis – Major kudos to him for everything he has done for the community. I don’t know how many arrows he had to take in the back to make it this far, but the rest of us following behind him sure appreciate the trail. From all of us – thank you!

Dashnote Launches: Common Cold Cured

... well, maybe not the common cold. But this is cool all the same.

You may remember me mentioning Dashnote a few times (here and here). Some of you were even included in the beta program (thanks for your feedback). Well Dashnote is ready for prime time and people are starting to use it in many interesting ways. For instance:

Sean Rehder is using Dashnote for distributed web-based support. He distributes a bookmarklet to users of his client’s Salesforce solutions and they use Dashnote to give him feedback on his apps, as well as request support for bugs and enhancement requests.

I have started using Dashnote for group Knowledge Management. I have set up different topics around areas I write about or am interested in, and then distribute the URL for the bookmarklet to people whom I want to include in my “Knowledge Group.” They find cool stuff for me to read on the web and provide their comments (Dashnote calls them “annotations”) through Dashnote.

Here is one that I think will really take off: recruiters have started using Dashnote to streamline their online sourcing. They set up an account, get the bookmarklet, and as they find resumes on the web they can quickly provide their comments about the resume, as well as store all the resumes they find in one convenient place. Some recruiters are even using the Dashnote “Snapper” functionality to clip resumes and forward them to hiring managers with their comments.

It’s all very exciting. I remember sitting down with Dashnote founder Ranjit Padmanabhan back in January envisioning a way to capture and annotate web content (we coined the term "3d Web" to describe it), and now it is a reality (due to the incredible efforts of Ranjit and David  and Dawn).

If you think of other cool ways to use Dashnote, or are using Dashnote for your business, let us know! You can comment on this post, send email to jjhunter at gmail dot com or, even better, drop a comment off at the Dashnote Blog.