The Method of Madness

On Tuesday, May 26th, I had the pleasure of attending SocialMediaPlus. A quick shout-out of thanks (again!) to Maren and the RecruitingBlogs team for such an awesome opportunity!

The conference really began for me on Monday. Arriving in Philadelphia, I had a few hours before I was set to go to the tweet-up that was sponsored by Chevy. I made the delightful acquaintance of the Reading Terminal Market – a place of so many culinary delights it was like entering an amusement park built for food. After a delicious turkey reuben at Herschel’s East Side Deli, I retired to my room for some mindless television. 6:30 rolled around, and I lazily walked my way to the pub where the tweet-up was being held. It was a small crowd to start, but attendees meandered in as the 7 o’clock hour passed. After indulging in what was truly horrendous eats, I had the pleasure of meeting up with I met up with Katherine Holmes – my fellow RecruitingBlogs winner – Jennifer Lewis and Cheryl from SafeNet. After some wonderful conversation, I ended the evening with Katherine at this quaint Italian bistro called Le Baia. Homemade gnocchi and pomodoro sauce makes for a happy Jonathan!

So, the day of the conference. After a 6:30 AM wake-up call, I checked out of my hotel and went to the Convention Center. After registration, I found myself a table and enjoyed a morning bagel. Then the morning sessions began. I found most of them to be quite informative. I sat in on the HR and General tracks, and it was great to listen to the success stories of Monster and UniSys in using social media for recruitment efforts and customer engagement. Valeria Maltoni’s session gave some great, data-driven ideas on how to use social media – it’s all about the conversation.

Then lunch. Another disappointing offering from Aramark: dried out bread (masked as “brioche”), thinly packed with whatever belonged in the middle, along with sides that made you wonder what perverted mother wanted to serve this to her child. Fortunately, Reading Terminal Market saved me once again. This time I had a sandwich from Dinic’s, which offers a variety of Italian-style pork and meat sandwiches. Can we say delicious? I had a sandwich that consisted of roast pork, broccoli rabe, and sharp provolone on a soft sub roll. It was like eating a $25 pork dinner on a $8.75 sandwich.

The afternoon sessions were equally as good as the mornings. Shel Holtz’s presentation on the future of social media was engaging, entertaining, and informative – it looks like there’s a lot of potential in the future. Listening in to Molly Di Bianca’s presentation on the legalities of social media was also informative. It was really interesting to hear about social media from the legal perspective (hint: it’s all about covering your ass!). The day ended with an HR panel with several notable HR names. We mostly discussed social media and how it can be used to build talent pools – or talent communities – and the value of maintaining such a community. I left the panel feeling the overall value of these communities is that you can keep people engaged with your organization and build your credibility.

All of that said, there are a couple things I’d have liked to have seen. First, there weren’t many social and networking opportunities. I think more sessions with a roundtable approach would have been much better. Also, Monster and Unisys both had separate sessions where they discussed their social media program success; I would have loved for a discussion panel session when it would simply been a discussion of social media best practices. Also, I think a networking hour – or some social “hub”, like a charge station for laptops and smart phones – during the conference would have been a good idea. Lastly, I came away feeling that the conference was very Social Media 101 – I’d like to see some kind of “Advanced” track for more seasoned social media users.

And please pick places and vendors who know how to cook.

It was a great experience, seeing so many people I’ve only ever met online and learning so much. I had a great time and I would definitely attend again next year!