Where do i “live” again?

What are we called then?

This blog is written for H.R. Carnival. Those of you who are not familiar with the carnival, it’s a great concept started by @Beneubanks. The idea is that every few weeks there is a new host who reviews H.R. related blogs on mass and provides a great learning library. I hosted quite a few months back with my first ever hosted blog attempt. (It shows.) And it was recently hosted by @JonIngham from the U.K. Aside from that i’m not sure when it has last been posted this side of the pond. In the interest of giving more exposure to U.K. bloggers why not volunteer? you will find some great material in the process.

This eddition is being hosted by @MikeVanDervort who is attempting to review 100 blogs and is making a donation to nominated charities in return for submissions. The charity I support is Round Table Children’s Wish. A great charity that provides wishes for terminally ill children. Thanks’ Mike for a great idea. The question in hand:

Where do I live again?

 I’m a little bit confused because my community keeps changing. Not the physical one I live in, but the places I hang out on line, the people I talk to and the networks I take an active part in. The Recruiting Unconference London reflected this new community. 1/3rd of the attendees were Recruiters, 1/3rd Corporate Recruiters and H.R and the final 1/3rd consisted of technology vendors, consultants and job boards. This kind of split would be a fair reflection of my on-line networks, and I’m sure many are thinking the same. (Or am i the only odd one that doesn’t quite fit?).

Historically, these networks (other than where there is a commercial interest) would have rather have crossed the road rather than be seen on the same street. The positive impacts of social media and personal branding has been a complete breakdown of these barriers and borders between disciplines. I’m sure this is because you get to know the person first before you find out too closely what they do. As someone who has traditionally been very much a third-party recruiter, I have probably communicated with more H.R. professionals over the last 6 months than I have in the preceding 26 years on anything other than a sales basis.

This convergence of expertise, knowledge and individual focus can only be a good thing. It has certainly changed my outlook and thinking in some areas considerably, and I hope I have made my own contributions to the neighboring professional networks. I’m really looking forward to openly sharing in the future, much as we did at the unconference , without fear or suspicion between disciplines. We might have different objectives but we face many of the same issues and challenges and collectively we can find the best way to move recruiting forward for the benefit of all.

We are all now one community combined (tagged Social Human Convergence at #trulondon).

The challenge for me is to find new ways to collaborate and put this combined expertise to good use. I’m sure between us we can prove to be quite a force to human related problems, particularly when you consider that the opinions are global.

Have a look at who is posting in the carnival. Not traditional H.R.

Keep being ambassadors.

Bill

My learning from #trulondon

All I can say is “Wow”. Thank you for supporting me in the start of the #trulondon enterprise. Before giving my thoughts and recap on the event it’s important to give a big shout out to the track leaders who worked so hard to make the event work. I think you all did a fantastic job in keeping your tracks and events alive. It is much easier to stand in front of a powerpoint presentation and preach, there’s also a lot more hiding places. Judging by the number of learning points taken away you did a great job of inspiring others to share and experiment. Well done!
My highlight was when a group of track leaders set up the secret track. Totally impromptu and exactly what an unconference is about. No agenda and open discussion. More of this next time please!
Thanks also to @RadicalRecruit, not only for jumping on a plane and sharing your sourcing secrets but also for inspiring me to do it in the first place following Recruitfest09 and to @JillElswick who also hopped over the pond to be the official twitter journalist. An event now goes well beyond those attending with so much interest globally in whats going on. The power of the hashtag brings the event live to so many, and the twitter journo is essential in this. The world is a much smaller and closer space.
I must also give thanks to Barclays Commercial for providing a perfect venue and to our sponsors H.B. Rida who made the event possible and even sent a few of their companies.
Enough thanks, I’m reading a bit like an oscar winning speech and on with my take-aways in no particular order:

1: Gen Y is a state of mind and not an age.

Been trying to define this one in to a box for a while. This was a real light bulb moment. I embrace new technology and communication tools. I’m constantly looking at change and new business models and practices in recruiting. Despite being an old bloke I actually think I’m Gen Y. (Although I don’t live with my mum anymore!)

2: My network has changed considerably.

Not so long ago I hung out almost exclusively with Recruiters and attended recruiting events, read recruiting journals and was interested in all things recruiting. Twitter has changed my network significantly and the attendee list at #trulondon reflected this. About 1/3′rd recruiters, 1/3′rd corporate recruiters & HR & 1/3rd vendors, job boards & digital media experts. That tends to reflect the mix that is in my network. This mix does not fit in to the traditional networks of HR or even Recruiters. Previously, the only times we are likely to have communicated is during the process of either selling to or buying from one another, and would have crossed the road to avoid being seen in the same place.
When it comes down to it we share the same issues and problems and we want the same outcomes, just for different reasons. I believe this new community is great for all of our self development and will lead to a combined market and more combined business offerings. The community needs different levels of communication and consideration of what expertise you can bring to other disciplines. A view from outside your direct community also helps us to understand how our potential customer base views us, and will only strengthen the business offering.

Following beer and chinese I conducted a late night/early morning track with @radicalrecruit & @1ntelligence and we have coined the term “Social Human  Convergence” to describe this new space. Look out for more on this.

3: Video is an underused medium to get your message out.

Very few of the attendees were using video to spread the word. It’s a more personal mediunm than the written word and has lots of potential for building personal brand. I’m still not convinced by Video C.V.’s as being effective (I much prefer audio), but a consistent video message really personalises what you are saying. On my part, I’m commiting to add a weekly video to my blog. 5 minutes of musings and chat. Be good to see more people doing this to get an even closer association with their followers because the message is viewed as so much more personal. Thanks to @Lisascales for this.

4: The UK has great blogs but not great bloggers.

A blog needs to be consistent and updated 2 – 3 times a week to have any real effect. The readers need to be able to pick up the theme in the opening lines. I’m thinking I need to work on this in order to properly promote my thinking, and in turn my content. Probably the number one skill a good blogger needs is the discipline to post when there are so many other distractions in social media. Britain lacks good bloggers that post often enough to build following. I’m a big fan of Sirona Says from @Andyheadworth and he is rightfully recieving critical acclaim. When I look at the blog 3 things stand out for me: Content, variety and consistent postings 3 – 4 times a week. I don’t see many other blogs, if any, matching this in our space. I see some great content from time to time but not enough on a regular enough basis to build following. If #trulondon can spawn even 3 more blogs to rival Andy then it will have been a great success. I’m thinking of running a blog carnival in December to get things started.

5: You need great service and products to match great social media.

The bigger your brand in social media the more open you are to critical comment when you don’t deliver. This is also why “listening” to what is being said by searching your name/brand in applications like tweetdeck or addict-o-matic is so useful. You can’t control what is being said but you can respond positively. Thanks to Paul @Carveconsulting & of course @Mattalder (The Addler) for this one.

6: Employer brand no longer exists.

I didn’t get in on the Recruiter cast debate on this but it did get me thinking. I’m looking forward to the debate when it goes out on Wednesday. Look out for it.

My thoughts on this after I had contemplated @Siteadvisors question is that he is probably right. Social media opens access to all that is being said about an employer directly or indirectly, but most of what is being said is being said by the employees directly. (There are Facebook groups dedicated to this.) In my opinion, social media makes personal branding much bigger than corporate branding unless you are a giant in the Pepsi or Coke mode. Most of us aren’t. It’s key that you are listening to what your employees are saying about you. You can influence this by reacting appropriately, changing things and getting the right things said about you by the personal brands within your organisation. Employee engagment is key in this and has more to say about how attractive you are to potential recruits than the glossy websites.

7: The recession has thrown up lots of new models for delivering recruiting.

The shake up from the recession has changed client needs in selecting suppliers. Top of the list is value and differentation. Among these are flat fee recruitment, charging for time and not result low cost job posting service with response handling, job boards that network and bring in the job seekers, referal networks with split fees paid for referrals and many more. This reinvention of the recruiting market is of real interest to me and is how I see recruiting evolving in order to withstand the challenge of corporate recruiting and social media. Is this a knee jerk reaction or more than that as the majority are still off social networks. I don’t have the answers yet but now I have the questions.

8: A Resourcer is not the UK version of a Sourcer.

In the U.K. a resourcer is largely responsible for finding candidates on c.v. databases and Linked in, a sourcer does much more than this. A sourcer identifies and profiles targets, builds organagrams and much more and has a whole bag of tricks to find them. This was largely new to everyone at #trulondon (with the exception of our own @thesourceress). I see this as being a discipline that should be better developed over here and have my thinking hat on over how this can be achieved with the help of @radicalrecruit.

9: Social Media is best served live.

#trulondon has further enhanced my belief that social media is best delivered in person. That means making sure you are creating networks that you talk to whether by phone, over a coffee or better still at events. Twitter and other channels brought together the attendees (and the track leaders for that matter) but the real networking took place in person. The big difference I see is that the getting to know you stage has already taken place which means you can get straight down to the talking. From a commercial point of view, I have already made a few deals as a result of the event that probably never happened without it. Make sure you are talking to and meeting your network as often as possible.

As a last thought, the Feburary event will have a wrap up tracks for the last hour to crystalise learning and help with putting actions in to practice. I will be sending out feedback forms this week but please keep sending your blogs, comments and pictures. You can always post here if you don’t have a home blog yet.

Date on Feburary event is out next week. hope you can make it.

Thanks for being ambassadors!

Bill

Don’t follow me on…

Twitter  is a great leveler and a real indication of where your brand stands. The reality is that some people like you and value your comments, some people don’t. The instant feedback element is part of what i like about the channel, as well as the opportunity to enter in to conversation and get feedback quickly. As twitter, and twitter use has evolved then the conversations and relationships on and off line have got closer and some real business relationships have been formed. When i spoke in Dallas at #Talentnetlive and at Recruitfest09 in Toronto, it was noticeably different that 80% of the delegates knew me or about me on some level without ever having met me. This is how social media has really changed the way we network.

Of recent, I’ve started following all the news from conferences worldwide. A recent blog by @HRMargo highlighted this, how twitter has enabled her to feel a part of many conferences that she would otherwise have been either excluded by budget/location or knowledge that it was taking place, the learning was exclusive to the lucky few who attended. I have recently organized #trulondon quite a low budget. The marketing has been almost exclusively via twitter, using the #trulondon hash tag and a wide number of blogs written about the event and we have managed to attract 12 top names in social recruiting as track leaders including Geoff Webb (@radicalrecruit) from Canada. This level of international marketing would have taken years and many thousands of pounds/dollars pre twitter. 

We all have our own views on how to build an effective following and maintain it. For me it is about conversation, contribution, helping where you can and sharing. For me, i make a regular habit of promoting my followers within my network and passing on links that i think might be interesting. I do this by retweeting links that interest me that i think could interest my network. I also retweet jobs in social recruiting that i see because i know that some of my followers are actively looking now and they may have missed it. My network is also international with about 70% of my followers being based out of the UK, and as a result i like to promote UK bloggers that I’m interested in and vice-a-versa. Through social media (and skype) the world is a shrinking place, and there is lots to be learnt from all cultures and recruiting markets. I see this as probably the biggest benefit of being involved in social networks, bigger than the business and brand opportunity is the self-development that comes from this instant library of bloggers and advisors in my twitter stream. If i like it, i want to share it.

There we come to the nature of twitter. Some people will simply not like your style, personality, volume or any number of other things. With a big following you can’t please everyone or you become pretty sterile, and how far away is changing your image from being unauthentic? The same people that talk brand image equally talk authenticity and originality. My advice is that consistency is the key, retaining a distinctive style. With nearly 3000 followers it seems to work o.k. for me. in the process i will lose some followers. without wishing to sound arrogant about it, i would invite anyone that does not like my style to unfollow, it’s really quite easy. That for me is one of the appeals of twitter, you choose who you want to follow and who you don’t, exercise that choice.

What prompted this blog was the comments from Peter Gold on a blog i wrote  quite a few months ago in another group.

Peters comments were:

 

“Maybe you were not on the list because you just RT everything anybody else says – where is the value to anyone in that? 100 tweets doesn’t make you good; 100 cold calls but not one new vacancy – what would be the point? You’ve some way to go Bill.”

 

Rather than be upset by this, it got me thinking about the comments, should i change how i tweet or continue as i do for the reasons outlined? i actually apreciate people being open and critical, even when they clearly have not read the full blog and subsequent comments.  My conclusion is what is outlined at the start of this entry. I may well have a long way to go, we all do and if my followers were decreasing i might be concerned but thats the beauty of twitter, if you don’t like what i do, don’t follow me or put me on your list. we all have that sanction and long may it continue.

 

To everyone in my network please retweet often. send anything you think might be interesting, i welcolme it and thank you for sharing. By sharing and engaging with your followers, and promoting others as well as yourself you build a trusted and valued network.

 

What are your thoughts on the best way to build a following and the value of a retweet? A great discussion for the social media circus track on Thursday. comment freely, i have broad shoulders.

 

 

 

More video and good luck Matt!

As you have probably noticed, we have been using video fairly extensively to promote The Recruiting Unconference London. #trulondon 6 was penned quickly as a tribute to the track leader responsible for putting together The Social Media Circus track for the 19th November. Matt announced this week that he is launching his new business Metashift. Matt is not only knowledgable, he is also a decent bloke and very willing to share, in the true spirit of social media.
Here is my tribute to Matt: The legend of The Addler!.

 

The Sourcers Challenge

In the lead up to The Recruiting Unconference London, master sourcerer Geoff Webb: A.K.A: @RadicalRecruit has set a challenge to test your sourcing skills. This is a great challenge that gives you the opportunity to test your skills at searching the internet in order to locate the track leaders of #trulondon.
Watch the video, enjoy the challenge.
Who will be first to rescue the track leaders and win the crown of champion sourcer?

Gen why?

Old time baby boomers like me sometimes have difficulty understanding the needs of the next generation. I seem to remember my elders saying roughly the same thing.
UK graduate unemployment is currently running at 44% which is alarmingly high. I’m sure this won’t always be the case over the coming months, and despite this figure, there is still a war for talent amongst the brands for the best graduates. This is where employer branding comes in. I translate this to making sure that you look like an o.k. place to work to the outside world, and that you have something funky about you that makes you attractive. That could be your development programme, your attitude towards flexible working, your product looking fairly sexy in the crowd, it could even be your attitude towards social media and how open you are towards its use. Increasingly green credentials and your ethical position on certain issues are involved in the decision of just who is the employer of choice to the Gen Y star. The reality is the in demand candidates in the Gen Y age bracket are choosing you, and not the other way around. They go for brands that they know and respect, who they have come across and have the right kind of footprint. All sounds a bit wooly? Ask yourself how you stack up against other employers on the following 7 indicators: (This is not a scientific pole, but the top 6 taken from a twitter snapshot and i got over 40 replies from tweeters under 27.)

1: A nice place to work
2: Innovative concepts
3: Status of role
4: Development programme
5: Ethical standards aligned with own beliefs
6: Freedom to work autonomously
7: Flexibility

Interesting stuff and very different from the list that would have been drawn up if we asked the same question 10 years ago.
The message you give out about your business via your social media, PR and how you sell yourself will be key in attracting the best talent.
Despite popular opinion, i don’t think Gen Y work any less, i just think they work differently. They don’t expect to have to be in the office for 12 hours a day, but they are happy to put the hours in by making use of modern technology, and think nothing of being on Facebook or twitter late in to the night. Make them proud to be associated with you and they will promote your brand, while promoting their own. Personal branding v corporate branding is another area you could be on a collision course. You have to accept that personal brands now grow bigger and better known than the corporate band. Issues over ownership of network and trust will cause issues so it is best to pre-empt them from the start with a clear strategy.
The Gen Y track at The Recruiting Unconference is being run by Lucian Tarnowski who at the age of 25 runs Brave New Talent, a business that brings the employers to the talent via social-media, rather than the other way around. If you want to know about how to attract, source or even manage Gen Y, what better way to find out than to talk and question someone from that generation. To add to the conversation in this key area we will also be hosting a one hour debate over lunch: “This house believes that work and recruiting will need to change to suit Gen Y,” with teams led by Lucian and Alan Whitford from R.C. Europe. This promises to be lively, amusing and above all else insightful in to how Gen Y think.
As a monday extra, heres #Trulondon5; Generation Y!  Enjoy!

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Welcome to the annual a**e kicking!

This is a quick blog on the hoof, because 140 characters on twitter was not enough to make my point. I was involved in a twitter track in the early hours of the morning with a good friend from America @KarlaPorter and a few others. The subject of our heated tweets, appraisals.
My view is that the appraisal system is an essential part of employee development. The problem, like most of the managments ill’s is not in the process but in the delivery. Sadly it’s often done badly and is massively demotivational when it should be the opposite.
In my old firm i had the task of overhauling the system for this reason. We refered to the appraisal as the annual a**e kicking because it was purely a collection of the various shoeings received throughout the year (and in this culture there were many) delivered by one giant boot over 2 hours or so, followed by 2 minutes of a well done and a degree of pay review/promotion. They were also delivered every February and i spent all of February completing the 100 or so appraisals i had to deliver. My feet were sore from all that kicking and the staff felt awful!
Then we turned the system on its head and got a great return from it.
The monthly performance review is the place to talk about performance, so we banned it from appraisal. The staff already knew how well or badly they were doing as we told them often.
The new process was the opportunity for the employee to appraise the company and us, as the management. This takes broad shoulders but if you listen you get to hear things you need to know, and many changes came about this way. There also needs to be no recriminations or defensive stances, or else the process fails.
The meeting focussed on the future. The apraisee set the agenda around where they wanted to go over the next 6 months (12 is too long) and laid out what they wanted from the company to make this happen, and what they were prepared to do themselves to make it happen.
We changed the schedule to avoid management “death by appraisal.” They happened every 6 months from the date of joining and they ALWAYS happened at the time and date scheduled.
The meeting was set to discuss and not to resolve. It was an opportunity to start the discussion, not to conclude it, and the meetings concluded with action points on both sides. We also banned all talk of pay because this clouds the conversation. Your unlikely to be critical of your boss, then ask them for a pay rise!
This process was hugely succesful and is one i have now implemented with many of the recruitment companies i work with. You can download the forms that go with the process from my website in the “free download” area.
In conclusion, appraisals are absolutely essential for employee engagement, but it is their meeting and not the managements. The process is sound, but the delivery often lets it down.
I hope we continue the debate at The Recruiting Unconference London on 19th November. It is just the kind of open debate from which true solutions evolve. Book your place and bring your views, we want to hear them.
Bill

R.I.P.Recruitment?

This week i’ve been on a talk show that is fast becoming a favourite. H.R.Happyhour which is organised by a host i admire, Steve Boese. The topic of conversation and debate, is HR Dead? I read a number of blogs this week commenting on the death of the job board. Despite the much reported demise they seem to be still around. The latest to join the nearly dead list are recruiters. It seems we are on our deathbed and close to demise. Seems we are due for the last rites any day now.

The point that strikes me is that the blogs, tweets, conversations and comments are mostly from the practitioners of those very professions. My feeling on this is cut the dramatics, put the onions away and stop crying. Recruiting, HR and Job Boards are alive and well. We need to constantly evolve how we work to adapt to the economy, technology, gen y, client and candidate perception among many other things, but change we will to grow in to something stronger.

The UK Recruitment market was worth £27billion last year, this year it will fall to a lowly £22billion! Thats the lowest its been for a whole 6 years! Not quite so dire!

My plea, stop talking down our industry. Get your heads together with other recruiting brains and look at how we can shape the changes needed to come out of the recession top of the pack. You can do that at The Recruiting Unconference London on November 19th.

This week i will be announcing the very exciting venue and thanking a MAJOR sponsor. The track leaders will now be joined by Paul Harrison of Carve Consulting who will be running a live lab to help solve your problems. It’s very exciting. The addition of Paul to the list gives us what i consider to be the best lineup ever assembled on matters of social recruiting in the U.K..

Our new sponsor also means i can offer a special ticket deal for this weekend only. Send me an email or a direct message on twitter, and i’ll give you a discount code that will enable you to buy 3 tickets for the price of 1.

See you there, alive and kicking,

Bill

Track 1, Round 1, Ding Ding!

This is the first of what i intend to be a daily post on the unblog, prompted by talk in the twitter stream. I hope these posts will begin conversations on line that will lead to conversation and some conclusion at The Recruiting Unconference London on November 19th. Todays topic was prompted by a retweet of a blog i found interesting from Alan Wainkrantz’s PR weblog entitled: Should PR Own Social Media?.

I retweet quite a lot. Anything i find interesting or topical, i share with my network. i get the occasional comment but this one really set the cat among the pigeons. Interestingly, the comments came throughout the day and from three countries. Exactly what twitter is for.

I’ve reproduced the stream because i think it is the beginning of @mattalder’s track “Social Media Circus.” if we can have this much debate from one tweet and with only 140 characters, what is going to be possible in person with free discussion and enthusiastic contributors with lots of opinions. If you want to comment, start the ball rolling here and bring your thoughts to London on November 19th.

@garelaos: Should PR own Social Media? What????? God no please!! No one owns social media, we ALL do. Aaaarrrggghhhhh!

@BillBoorman: This is the debate. If not PR then who? Social needs guidelines

@garelaos: I think an obsession with controlling it by people who mainly don’t get it is the biggest mistake

@gareleos: one of my biggest challenges in our co is too much fear/res over SM. Too many involved who don’t actually partake.

@BillBoorman: People need guidelines from the company over content, then need trust to get on.

@gareleos: Id rather ALL my consultants partook in SM and crossed a few boundaries than just the 2 that are! @MervynDinnen is my SM god!

@BillBoorman: I wrote a guest blog on this recently for @theredrecruiter. Here’s the link

@gareleos My consultants see SM as being owned by Marketing which is wrong! They need to be in it, to own it themselves.

@WendyJacob: I’m butting in, sorry! Don’t totally agree w either of u: if I tweet from a personal acct I do not expect to be told>

@WendyJacob: what I can/can’t say. HOWEVER, if I openly represent a company then I wld have no problem with rules/guidelines.

@BillBoorman: if your company is your bio on twitter or Li you are linked. You would advise a candidate to think about it.

@Dannuroo: worried abt what you say having an issue on personal brand or corporate one.?? make a twitter non de plume! nice and fun

@WendyJacob: t is a difficult issue. But whatever happened to free speech?! I cld advise a candidate to consider what they post if they’re

@WendyJacob: actively using twitter to job search, but it’s ultimately their choice. You are what you are. Chances are if you write totally

@WendyJacob: idiotic stuff on here then you’re probably a bit idiotic in real life too and would I really want to hire you…?! I just think

@WendyJacob: ppl should be themselves and use the same, common sense restraint we they use in every day life! )

@WendyJacob: But advising and ordering (bad word choice, sorry) are different things. I think that if you actively use SM for business then

@BillBoorman: Advice is guidelines in my book. Clear guidelines then trust. Avoids ambiguity.

@WendyJacob: you shld absolutely have guidelines. But each case is unique really & who are either of us to say what’s right or wrong?! ;o)

@garelaos: And there’s the problem, mainly caused by gen x decision makers trying to manage gen y type attitudes to comms

@garelaos: We don’t have pub and agreed rules and guidelines on what emp say on the phone do we? SM is no diff

@BillBoorman: We have guidelines for calls, SM is no different.

@garelaos: No guidelines for phone in any company I have ever worked for – just trust & comm sense. Those that abuse go anyway!

@BillBoorman: Don’t you think it might be a good idea to share what is acceptable and what isn’t?

@MervynDinnen: management need clear vision on SM for their business & then have to trust employees to be professional

@MervynDinnen: very soon ‘what is your soc med policy’ will be a vital question from interviewee to interviewer…

@WendyJacob: Whatever happened to good old fashioned common sense? When’d we start needing guidelines for everything?

@BillBoorman: Do you use a different avatar/name for your business tweets & your personal ones then?

@MervynDinnen: use this avatar for twitter, LI & blog…think consistency is key to building a brand and community..

@MervynDinnen: i’ll probably cover it on T Recs very soon…and will certainly be happy to talk about it at #trulondon !!

@BillBoorman: You need a clear strategy if you want to monetize SM, as well as guidelines. Without it, it’s chat

@MervynDinnen: hmm…IMHO i suspect that social media is more artform than science…

@BillBoorman: I know people who use one or the other and make money from social recruiting.

@MervynDinnen: IMHO social media happens, you can’t control it or strategize it…I appreciate tho that it is MHO & not all will agree…

@BillBoorman: You need a plan, target audience and message. That is strategy.

@MervynDinnen: IMHO there are also people scared of social media & how it can change our industry, hence desire for strategy, ROI etc

@BillBoorman: without measuring return and having targets how do you know if it’s working or worthwhile?

@Greg_Savage: Its a challenge, but you can exercise some strategy over content and message. Across an organisation I mean

@MervynDinnen: I would think that it would have to be very light touch..how do you do it??

@MervynDinnen: I love the way your website encourages contact with the recuiter..no jobs listed…I do believe it’s the way to go

@Greg_Savage: Loving the debate but 9 am Sydney time and first of about 1 million meetings starting! Gotta go. Cheers

@garelaos: Damn missed the best bit! Stepping into the unknown is scary but we need to, we need to innovate

@MervynDinnen: and its a level playing field..consultants, managers, directors all learning at same time..thats scary!!

@MervynDinnen: I believe that nature of true social media makes it unmeasurable…but its just my view & I look fwd to debating at #trulondon

Quite a few views and points coming out of the debate. Personally, i challenge peoples tweets if i disagree. it creates the best debate. It’s not disruptive or sugary, with everyone agreeing with each other. I encourage all to do the same. It’s from these conversations and debates that original thinking comes out.

Let the track begin!

 

What is all this “Un” stuff?

The Unblog – Norton Folgate

The unblog is the official blog of The Recruiting Unconference London  (if anything can be official about such an event!). This is the place for random thinking on recruiting and social recruiting, debate and discussion. In the spirit of the unconference, anyone can post here on any topic, start their own blog or leave comments. The comments are unmoderated, it is down to you to respect common decency just as it will be on the 19th November. All you need to do is register and start blogging. Word, video, podcast, whatever method you favour, post it here.
A what & a why you might be asking. What is an unconference & why Norton Folgate? (unless you are full of madness, you probably won’t know the answer to either.
An unconference is an unconventional event that has built momentum from the technology sector in the states. From barcamps to gatherings in parks, the unconference is seen as the best way to share and communicate and come up with real solutions without the clutter of structure or set agendas. Its also an ante-dote to attending a traditional conference, knowing half the speakers already and paying £3 – 400 to see one of them.

There are no rules or fixed structures, speakers or auditoriums, and definitely NO death by powerpoint. The event is broken in to tracks with trackleaders in most cases, who have some expertise in the discussion area. Their role is to encourage conversation, input where needed and support the exchange of ideas, communication, conversation, disagreement, debate and discussion. Anyone can join in and if you get bored, you just change the conversation or move to another track. I lead a track at Recruitfest09 in Toronto and this great event convinced me that we needed to do the same thing in London.
Norton Folgate is the name I’ve given the blog for  The Recruiting Unconference London or #trulondon if you live on twitter. I mention Madness, or the nutty boys for two reasons. Firstly they are by far the best band ever, and second, their recent (and excellent) album is titled “The liberty of Norton Folgate.” The release of the album drew my attention to the history of a part of London that was was named Norton Folgate, tucked between Whitechapel and the Bishopsgate. (The quest for the venue starts on the location of the Norton Folgate then head east from Mr.Truemans beer factory via the gas lights).

 The area was declared by statute a liberty i:e: A free land with no rules or order. Being a liberty, it attracted all of Londons society and became home to the artists, poets, performers, artistes, free thinkers, buskers, anarchists and the like. You might expect anarchy without order but the story , as the song goes saw a society spring up where people accepted each other, helped and shared views without the need for law and agenda, the people in effect policed and organised themselves.
The liberty of Norton Folgate may have been forgotten in time but for Madness, reviving it in song and retelling the story. By some strange chance, and in an event eerily unconnected with the band, property developers planned to pull down the alleys and buildings that form Norton Folgate and replace them with functional but faceless glass skyscrapers to match most of the surrounding areas. Norton Folgate seemed doomed forever when local protest met a brick wall of bureaucracy. By chance, a local historian opposed to the destruction of this piece of history found the Liberty and discovered that by error, the beaureaucrats had never actually revoked it. By evoking the Liberty, and declaring that the land did in fact belong to the people and not the planners, the demolition has been prevented at least for the time being. At the same time, Madness had read about Norton Folgate and had written a series of songs on London, culminating in a 10 minute classic celebrating the Liberty. The protesters, on hearing this, adopted the song as their anthem and the two movements combined. Madness, being a bit rebellious (but nice), in their day were honoured that their musical mischief making had coincided with such a rebellious event!
On my part, the spirit of Norton Folgate is exactly what the Recruiting Unconference London is all about. No set rules or structure, self policing, the tracks and controlling the content. We are expecting enjoyment, engagement, laughter, a little anger and plenty of learning. I view it that as The Bill Boorman Consultancy is the name above the door, it’s our job to facilitate the event, it’s the job of every attendee to organise it and make sure that the content is just right for them. You choose what you want to know, what you want to talk about, where you want to contribute and where you want to listen. Then just like in Norton Folgate, the evening will end in revelry.
The Recruiting Tweetup is a quarterly event organised by Jamie Leonard of The Ladders and Matt Alder of Penna Barkers, the social media ringmaster himself. The London RTU brings your networking offline and enables you to put faces to the tweets whilst enjoying the odd ale, liquor or similar exotic tipple. The London RTU is the place where the debate will no doubt continue long in to the night fuelled by intoxication. A great end to a great day!

The Recruiting Unconference London or #trulondon takes place on the 19th November.
You can book for The Recruiting Unconference London at http://recruitingunconference.eventbrite.com