Amybeth Hale – Research Goddess

February 14th. It’s just another day on the calendar to me, but there are certain folks (ahem, Hallmark) who feel like we need to have a(nother) holiday to show those who are important to us just how much we care. It just so happens to be my best friend’s birthday as well, and she is turning 30 this year, so I’ll be hanging out with her at a Pat Buzzard concert in Columbus tonight. Many of your poor suckers are going to be strapped with buying up boxes of chocolate, expensive jewelry, bouquets of roses, and spending absurd amounts of money on fancy dinners, entertainment, and God only know what else. Good luck to ya!

However, not to be completely excluded from the fun and merriment, I’ve decided to make a February 14th dedication post to some of the folks who’ve shown me some love along my career path. Some folks you may know, others you may not, but these are some of the people to whom I owe lots-a-love!

1. Christy Sibert: Christy is my sister-in-law, and she’s the catalyst for my career in internet research. She called me up when I was living in Tampa, 1 1/2 years after graduating from U of FL still waiting tables, and asked me if I’d be interested in doing something called “internet research” for the recruiting company she was with at the time.
2. Bruce Sibert and Jeff Joiner: Bruce (my brother) gets love because he’s family – naturally – but also because he opened the door for me to a group of wonderfully intelligent people who’ve helped educate me on good business sense and thought process. One of these people is Jeff Joiner, and I owe all of my quotable quotes to him. Whenever you hear some profound thought come out of my mouth, chances are I heard it first from Jeff. He has been a financial advisor as well as a great help for me in getting over my fear of public speaking.
3. Jon and Melissa Bartos: The Bartos’ own Jonathan Scott International, the place where I cut my teeth on internet research. I owe them love for taking a chance and moving me up from Florida to Cincinnati to work for them.
4. Heidi Bolinger: Heidi is the first internet researcher I met in my new job, and she helped explain to me exactly what an internet researcher does. She also worked with me to help bring an internet researcher networking group back to life and get us some training through our franchise system. I owe her love for being a friend all these years and being my first connection to the world of internet research.
5. Tom and Amy Johnston: Tom and Amy own SearchPath International, the second place I worked doing internet research. I owe them love for giving me my first opportunity to work remotely, and for opening their home to me when I would go to Cleveland for office visits.
6. Joel Cheesman: he grows tired of this, but I owe MUCH love to Joel for inspiring me to blog. He took time out of his busy schedule during one of my trips to Cleveland to meet with me and show me the ropes. Much of the rest of my career is owed to him and I am forever grateful.
7. Jim Stroud: Jim gets a lot of love coming from me because he took me under his wing as a young researcher and showed me the benefits of networking within our industry. He mentored me early on in my career and introduced me to many other fantastic folks in the recruiting world, such as Shally Steckerl, Donato DiOrio, Rob McIntosh, Dave Manaster, Suzy Tonini (my camping buddy), and many others, all of whom get a love shout-out as well. Even though Jim has leaned more toward social media these days, we have remained fast friends and I always appreciate his wisdom and guidance.
8. Leslie O’Connor: Leslie is the mastermind behind SourceCon, and successful in her own right with her business, SearchWizards. Leslie gave me my first opportunity at conference presentation at the first SourceCon. She’s also given me the opportunity to edit an industry newsletter-turned-blog, The Source. Leslie gets love for living by Florence Luscomb’s saying, “There is no end to what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.”
9. Daniele Joudene and Nikole Hunt: Daniele and Nikole are colleagues of mine at Waggener Edstrom, my current place of employment. They both get tons of love because they took a chance on hiring me for the role of sourcing strategist, even though I didn’t exactly fit the description of what they were looking for.I feel like I’ve found a home at Waggener and am grateful to have been given the opportunity.
10. David Almacy, Rob Curran, and Mark Martin: David, Rob, and Mark are also Waggener Edstrom colleagues. Mark is my official Waggener mentor, and I met David for the first time when he gave a presentation to the Cincinnati PRSA. Rob interviewed me when I was looking to work at Waggener. They each get love because they have both helped me become interested and involved in other parts of the company outside of Staffing. They’ve encouraged me to pursue building internal relationships with coworkers in different locations and have made working at Waggener extra rewarding for me.
11. Daniel Johnson, Jr.: DJJ gets the final love shout-out because he introduced me to Twitter. ‘Nuff said

Please let someone who helped you in your career know you appreciate them today!

I really love attending meetups, tweetups, SMBs, and other various networking events. I work from home and it gets lonely sometimes, so I take advantage of as many of these as I possibly can. When I attend these events, I typically have a few people in mind that I’d like to meet, and in particular I like to introduce myself to the speakers. As I am the only person representing Waggener Edstrom at these events in the Midwest, I need to make sure that I represent the company well and make the connections necessary to do my job properly.

Oftentimes at these events that were designed for networking, there are people huddled together talking to the same folks they were talking to at the last 3 events. We’re all guilty of doing this from time to time – networking in a brand new environment can be scary. However, to me, that seems to negate the purpose of networking, which is to introduce new people and new ideas. Wiktionary defines networking as “the act of meeting new people in a business or social context.” However, a lot of folks don’t use these events for that.

Imagine this: you’re a brand new person to a networking event. You walk in and see small groups of people standing around talking to each other. You’re a little nervous, as this is your first time with this particular group of people, but you start to mingle. Most of what you get are quick glances, but no one really welcomes you to the event. After about 30 minutes of awkwardly standing to the outside of circles of people who already seem comfortable with each other, and grabbing a glass of water or a cheese cracker, you decide to leave, having concluded that you failed in your attempt to meet new people, and thinking perhaps this isn’t the right organization for you.

How many people have been here? This was a scenario that actually happened to me awhile ago. Let’s face it; for most of us networking is a bit intimidating. You’re putting yourself out there meeting new people, not knowing if you’ll have anything in common or how the conversation will flow. So here, I present a few ideas on how to make your networking experience a better, more productive one. These ideas can apply to both the brand new person, or the seasoned networker.

• Know what your purpose is for attending the event. Networking events come in all shapes and sizes. Some are more professional in nature; others are more ‘happy hour’-like. Before you attend an event, decide why you are going. Is it to learn a new skill? Is it to meet a prominent person in your industry? Or is it simply to mingle with others who share a similar interest?
• Prepare ahead of time. If your goal is to meet a specific person at an event, prepare ahead of time and let them know that you are looking forward to meeting them. Eventbrite.com is a fantastic tool for organizing events, and quite often there is a visible guest list for events where you can see who else will be attending. Before you go to your event, take a look at who else will be there. If you see someone whom you’ve wanted to meet, be proactive and reach out to them. Let them know that you are interested in speaking with them about <insert topic here> and that you hope to grab a few minutes with them at the event.
• For seasoned networkers, mingle. When you only talk to the same people at every event you attend, you’re not really ‘networking’ – you’re hanging out with your friends. That can be accomplished with organizing happy hours after the events. If you are a regular networker, try to make yourself available to people you’ve never met before. If you notice a new person who looks a little lost, go introduce yourself to them, learn a little about them, and then dig around in your brain to see who you know at the event who would be a good connection for them. The same applies if you’ve brought a guest with you. You’d be surprised how much people appreciate this kind of ‘professional matchmaking’. Plus, you’ll meet new people and you just never know what can happen from making a new acquaintance!
• Always – ALWAYS – attempt to introduce yourself to the speaker. It amazes me sometimes how few people will approach a speaker after an event to introduce themselves. Sometimes, it may seem like the presenter is larger than life and you may convince yourself that you have nothing important to say to them. But as someone who’s given presentations before, I can tell you that the role of speaker can be a lonely one. You’re up there all by yourself, wondering if what you’re saying is of any value to the people attending, and you want some sort of validation that you spent your time productively when you are finished presenting. I am more nervous when I don’t have crowd interaction. Most people who’ve done presentations would agree that it’s calming when people come up both before and after their presentations to introduce themselves. So you see – the new folks at a networking event are not the only ones who could be a little nervous

A few additional quick pointers for making your networking experience a productive and happy one:

• For presentations, pick a seat where you can see the speaker clearly. Sitting in a seat where you have to strain to see what’s going on can be distracting.
• Don’t get bummed if you don’t get to talk to everyone there that you wanted to – it’s hard sometimes to get to everyone you want to at large events (see above for preparing ahead of time)
• In that same breath, don’t take it personally if someone you wanted to meet isn’t able to talk to you. You can always contact them after the event and make arrangements to have a phone call or meet up another time. They may have had a specific objective or a time constraint that had to be adhered to.
• Thank the event sponsors – they’re the reason for the event taking place to begin with!

After having shared all of these things, let me admit that I’ve made all these mistakes which is why I feel comfortable bringing them up at this point. I’ve certainly been guilty of huddling. I’ve sat with my back to the speaker at many events and gotten nothing out of the message presented. I’ve gotten upset because someone I wanted to talk to didn’t have an opportunity to speak with me. I’ve given those sideways glances to new people and not acknowledged them when they join groups who are already talking. Face it – ALL of us have done at least one or two of these things, because we were all new to networking at some point. And I’m sure we will continue to make mistakes. However, it’s good to know these productive networking tips to try and make each event as beneficial as possible. Hope this helps, and Happy Networking!

Our SMB’s (Social Media Breakfasts) in Cincinnati have just kept getting better and better. This month, our scheduled guest was Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, the internet radio company that has been destroying (in a good way) terrestrial radio, and is starting to take its toll on XM radio as well. Pandora allows you to basically customize your musical experience using their Musical Genome Project. Tim talked with us this morning about his background, why he started Pandora, and gave us a glimpse of the company’s business model and what they’ve accomplished since their official launch back in 2005. There were approximately 100 people in attendance, and we broadcasted the discussion live via Ustream.tv.

Tim is a musician himself and he employs 30 musicians who listen to music and analyze each song, breaking it down into the basic ‘building blocks’ that make up Pandora’s musical genome. Those of us in attendance got to see these basic elements in a PPT presentation, but Tim made our camera guy turn his camera away so that those viewing through Ustream would not be able to see this fantastic breakdown of musical elements. This information is used to categorize and score each song so that when we give songs a thumbs up or a thumbs down, Pandora essentially learns our true musical taste and tailors the playlist to suit what we like. The way this system works is really fascinating and it was great to have him break it down for us.

It’s hard to remember that Pandora has only been around for about 3 years, as it has already begun to shake up terrestrial radio. I don’t know if you can see on this picture, but Pandora AQH (average quarter hour) listening stats are higher than radio in most of the areas where data was collected. Tim’s goal is to have a sort of Pandora “musical digital cloud” that will follow you from mobile device to automobile to home theater to PC. He jokingly said that in the future, all cars will have a “thumbs up and thumbs down” on the steering wheel  

I was particularly interested in the digital presence that exists to spread the word about Pandora. Tim stated that they have an average of 45,000 new listeners register every day, and this has been accomplished through zero advertising. New listeners are brought in through WOM, viral, SEM, and what Tim calls “Town Hall meetings” – gatherings in random cities where he talks about Pandora. Interestingly, he said the first town hall meeting he held was attended by 2 people – in Manhattan. He said the last time he visited Manhattan, there were about 300 people in attendance, with another 200 waiting outside to get in. The average listener, Tim said, refers about 8 new people, and they have a Twitter handle at @pandora_radio which is run by a community manager who is highly interactive with its followers. In addition, Pandora has created a cool iPhone app and has designs in place for a Blackberry app as well as an Android app for the G1. This company is highly interactive, and high-touch with their audience.

From a business standpoint, Pandora is still operating on VC funding so they haven’t become profitable yet, but their profitability model is pretty neat. They use visual ads that can be targeted to specific audiences, much like Facebook ads, based on the very detailed information that is known about each user. As these ads are visual, they don’t interfere with the auditory user experience. He said it’s kind of like reading the back of the box while you’re having a bowl of cereal. Tim expects Pandora to be profitable in the very near future, and is committed to employing other musicians to help them earn a living while they pursue their musical dreams (a very nice gesture, if you ask me!) They are also fiercely dedicated to helping out independent musicians and building what Tim calls the “musician middle class”. He announced to the audience that if anyone had a CD they’d like to have put on Pandora that he’d be happy to receive it.

As an added bonus, Bryan Person made a surprise appearance this morning, and was sitting at the table with me! Bryan Person is from Austin, and he is the guy who actually started Social Media Breakfasts, the first one having been held in Boston back in the fall of 2007. SMB’s are now being officially held in 15 cities in the US and internationally. I had heard that he might be here, and it was a treat to sit with him. I had a nice opportunity to chat him up after Tim’s presentation and find out a little about what he does with SMBs.

I’m interested to see who we’ll have in March! I think it might be hard to top this month’s, but our organizer, Kevin Dugan of Bad Pitch Blog fame, always does a fantastic job of getting great speakers for us.