At the end of each conference, I always look back and ask Was this a successful event? I defined my success criteria by the following:
- Learning at least 1 new thing I did not know before
- Discovering a vendor with a product I did not know before existed
- Meeting at least 5 people I did not know before
- Having at least 1 person come up to me and congratulate me on a good conference
- Experiencing the IHRIM community
What new thing I learned? There are 2 things I learned, First an alternate term for ESS, "Direct Access". Jason Averbook coined this in his presentation and I really feel it better expresses what we are trying to do with the whole self service thing, so I am revising all of my internal project doc and communication to reflect this. Second, all of the information about the Gen Y'ers. This was fascinating to me especially as we plan our College Hire Strategy. I am now going to take back to the team some changes I think we should make.
What new vendor did I discover? While there were a number of vendors that were new to conference this year. Trovix, PeopleNetz and Pinstripe were 3 vendors that I talked to that intrigued me. The Trovix search capabilities in their ATS was impressive. PeopleNetz is brand new to the market place with a different perspective on workforce management. Pinstripe caught my eye with their booth being a Chicago background and I did not know they had hosting as well as consulting services.
Who did I meet that I did not know before? Todd Balzar; David Brody; Jeanne Kalinowski; Dave Burkitt; Celina Carmel Villavieja; Carlos Diaz Perez and Karen Nadeau. I look forward to adding you to my network and hope that I can be of help to you in the future.
Did anyone congratulate me on a good conference? YES. I cannot count the number of people that took the time out to thank IHRIM on a good conference. One attendee in particular came from the Philippines to attend. She was so excited about IHRIM and what it had to offer that she wanted to gather her colleagues in the Philippines and introduce them to us as well.
Experiencing the IHRIM community. YES. With over 700 attendees, I enjoyed many special moments. I want to send by thanks to:
- Karen Beaman for her enthusiasm and leadership in the iStreams.
- Karen Erickson, Ed Colby, Alexia Martin and Carlos Diaz Perez for their contributions to Link Magazine and allowing me to sit in on their planning session.
- Paul Belliveau for his ideas on how to harness and share the knowledge that IHRIM and it's members have.
- Rob Cox and John Hinojos for their continued commitment to the organization by coordinating the session moderators. This is one of those behind the scene jobs that are vital to the success of the event.
- The Affinity Group Leaders whom I have come to know over the years and value their friendship and perspectives and for spending their Saturday in a leadership session.
- The IHRIM Board for taking their weekend before conference started to meet and doing a great job of connecting with Attendees and Vendors in an effort to improve our Association.
- Lynne Hunter-Johnson, Dick Loerke, Steve Secora, Sherry Green, Steve Freehling and the Midwest Affinity Group board for their generosity and enthusiasm in bringing cowboy hats and bandannas to share with all attendees.
- Nevin Maffett for his insights and challenging us to think "out of the box"
- Jay Markunas and Joe Schmitt for well.... just being themselves!
- To all of you who hit the dance floor particularly Mike Gerthe for getting the dancing started on Tuesday evening, Penny Chase for her outstanding performance at tambourine; Myron Oaks and Sharon Reisenbachler for sitting in with the band for a song; Freddye Silverman for teaching the lead singer the correct moves for the line dance and Dave Binda for his awesome execution of the two-step.
Based on my criteria, Yes, Conference was a success for me.
Was it successful for you? Please let me know if you had a successful conference and what you defined success as.
Thank You for reading.
2 comments:
Jacquelyn,
First off, on behalf of the Midwest Chapter: You're welcome. It was our pleasure to add to the ambience of the festivities. We all had a wonderful time.
Secondly: Great Conference! Congratulations on putting together such a successful conference.
I'll keep this post short as it's Friday afternoon and I'm about to get outta here because it's a beautiful. I just wanted to let you know that there's somebody reading your blog and that I find it interesting. Keep up the great work!
Getting mentioned in the Chairman's blog is certainly one of my personal highlights for 2007!
Thanks Jacqueline, and all of the IHRIM Board, staff and volunteers for giving so much time and energy to not only the conference, but to the countless other ways that are much less noticeable, but still very much important to the health and vitality of the organization.
Outstanding job, once again!
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