When it comes to cranking out an event full of talented speakers from North America but that delivers an overarching message crafted perfectly to a local audience, Jim Schnyder, Craig Fisher and Marianthe Verver get it done. At least that was my impression of the recent TalentNet Live event that was held last week at PepsiCo‘s own FritoLay headquarters in Plano, TX. This trio of event planners pulled off an event where a negative comment couldn’t be heard (except by Cheezman when taking fun shots at his counterparts… but that doesn’t count, does it?)
It was my honor to have been asked to kick off the event that seemed to host just over 200 people that came to listen, and talk, about social media, mobile marketing, video blogging and of course, Twitter. My kickoff was light hearted and an effort to ask participants to do more than just sit and listen. I asked them to get engaged with the experts presenting and to do so without fear. After all, isn’t it about time that we start moving those great event conversations that happen in hallways and restaurants back into the sessions where we’re all gathered together? It’s my opinion that some of the participants took that challenge and ran with it while others still weren’t sure what they’d gotten themselves into.
By the end of the day however, everyone was talking about what they’d learned and how impressed they were with the event.
Of course with well known contributors from our industry like Jenny DeVaughn, Michael Long, Geoff Webb, Stephanie Lloyd, Sarah White and a myriad of others along side Craig, Jim and Marianthe – the “disaster risk factor” involved with encouraging participants to be disruptive was minimal. These people know their stuff and are genuinely excited to share with others that are eager to listen and engage. In fact, in each of the sessions I had the pleasure of witnessing I found that the best content was delivered when the attendees were permitted to politely take the presentation slightly off course.
What may not have been ideal to some when registering was the lack of Internet connection that would be provided on the premise. Hey, I’ll certainly tell you that I was concerned – after all, who goes to a conference and doesn’t have Internet access nowadays? Well – these folks did. And in several conversations held afterwards at the Monster.com Tweetup, we all seemed to agree that there was a more genuine focus on engaging with each other and discovering more nuggets of wisdom than might have been found if otherwise trying to constantly stream one-liner updates to the twittersphere or continually check Facebook for updates. I certainly left this event wondering if “no Internet” might be the new key to a more engaging event of this scale.
A few other items that get a head nod… Diversity of both content and delivery styles was noticeable. There was purposefully a solid mix of content for both corporate recruiting as well as agency recruiting types. So regardless of your recruiting background or direction there was most certainly something for everyone. And while initially I was concerned with the raw and almost amateur vibe that the event had (and thankfully maintained throughout the day) it was realized only moments after Jim and Craig took the stage in the morning that it was a purposeful effort to allow everyone to feel comfortable and view the speakers as peers rather than as unapproachable “experts.”
My advice?
Don’t miss the chance to attend the next TalentNet Live event. I suspect these guys will only continue to get better as they continue to grow. If you’re not familiar with the TalentNet Live folks, check out their monthly chats via Twitter or just grab any of the speakers linked within this article for their take on the event and the TalentNet Live organization.
Well done, #TNL team.
