Catching Fireflies

Every year my family and I try and plan a vacation that will be an adventure of some sort.  This year we headed out on a cross-country trek from our home near Dallas, TX through Virginia, Washington DC, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and a few others.  And while I typically don't write while I'm on vacation, the kids said something that really stuck with me while we were staying at this interesting little 1926 caboose (yes, it was a real caboose - check the link) one night... while we were catching fireflies.

It was dusk... and my daughters ran to me asking what the heck was going on outside.  Outside the caboose the field was literally glowing with what had to be thousands upon thousands of fireflies.  You can imagine how excited my girls were when I explained how, when I was a child, I used to catch them in a jar.  You can now guess exactly what came next...  We spent hours catching dozens and dozens of them.

But it was something that my youngest said to me while we were running around the field that really struck me.  Of course, to be perfectly honest with you, I still had a few work related items swimming around in my head - not quite as buried as most people would want them when on vacation with their family... but hey, that's how I'm wired.  She simply said, "Trying to catch these little guys can be hard. If they just knew how nice we were they might just come to us!"

Wow - what a ride.  My first 30 days at PepsiCo have been the busiest and most travel-heavy 30 days I've experienced in a long time.  I've worked directly with a workforce more diverse in their ideas, backgrounds, and cultures than I've ever met collectively within any single organization.  I've pitched new ideas that, as I write this, are already in production.  I've bounced crazy thoughts to teams that have increased the crazy (and awesome) factor exponentially - and were as excited as I was to play with the possibilities.  And while I realize I'm still in the honeymoon phase of my new employment - all this has come at the low, low cost of looking like a gushing fanboy for a calendar month.

(This is where we collectively laugh, people.)

If you've been following me on Twitter you know that I launched my first 30 days at PepsiCo with the #Onboarding hashtag.  Dear friend, Jessica Lee, was intrigued enough to write a quick article on FoT that blew through what I was doing and offered up some great feedback.  The truth is, I've seen a few posts and comments around the #Onboarding approach that have sparked some new ideas around how 'new hires' may be able to help push the word out.  After all, I've certainly been sharing what's been going on with me while here.  But in the event you've missed it - here's a quick summary of what my first month has entailed...

Wow - where do I start?  For those of you that know me (or that follow my ramblings) you likely know that I've been with AT&T for going on 10 years.  In fact, I started as a contract recruiter with AT&T 10 years ago on June 1st.  It's been a challenging and equally rewarding ride over the last decade - and I've had the opportunity to do things on a much grander scale than I would have if I'd stayed an independent recruiter as opposed to jumping into the corporate world.

Over the last three years I've been a strategic thought leader within the staffing organization at AT&T - pushing the envelope (and leadership's patience a bit, I'm sure) around digital marketing and social recruiting.  I've been lucky enough to have been able to partner with some pretty smart HR, Recruiter and Marketing types at AT&T and together we reduced traditional marketing spend and increased the return on investment (time & money) with eye-popping speed and almost scary results.  We broke ground in our industry on projects such as Facebook candidate sourcing, Twitter recruitment, Social recruiting presence, Mobile Recruiting and of course, the first employer driven iPhone application - just to name a few.

But it's time I moved on.

It's always an honor to be recognized for the work we do - and I'd be lying if I told you that it's not kind of fun (and funny) when we see our names make a list of nearly any kind.  But it's humbling when we have the fortune to make a listing with peers and colleagues that we have a tremendous amount of respect for and that is based on the work and influence we own.  Well... it is for me, anyhow.

Recently HRExaminer released a listing of who they felt were the Top 25 Online Influencers in Talent Management.  And while I was intrigued that I'd made this list, I think I was more impressed with my friends and peers that I'd been grouped with.  You can check out the article on HRExaminer's website and cruise through the full listing at your leisure - I'll certainly spare you the "re-blogging" that would be a typical copy and paste.  What I won't spare you however, are some quick mentions of the people on the list that I've known and met over the years that are incredibly deserving of notice.

So here are just a few...