Amybeth Hale - Research Goddess

I’ve seen a lot of folks in our community who use Eventbrite to host trainings and organize networking events. But did you realize that you can use Eventbrite to help in your research efforts as well? Read on to find out how…

Eventbrite is a provider of online event management and ticketing services. If your event is free, there is no charge and if you sell tickets, they collect a small fee per ticket.  When people register for an event, it generates an attendee list for you. This list can often be viewed via a specific Eventbrite website. So, for example, let’s say we created an Eventbrite registration site for ‘Recruiting Conference’; our attendee list might show up on recruitingconference.eventbrite.com.

Why do you need to know this? For a very simple search technique! Using an easy site: search for Eventbrite, you can locate people from specific companies or with specific titles that you might be looking for. Here is an example:

site:eventbrite.com “public relations” “attendee lists”

This search yields me countless numbers of events, both past and future, with attendees from the public relations field. At the very least, I am provided with a name and a company, and as a good researcher, I can take that name and find a profile or contact information. Often, a city/state, website, blog, and sometimes an email address are provided. Any researcher worth his/her salt can take only a name and find the contact information for that person. Here’s a sample from the page of one of the events in my results:

Here’s another example: let’s say you want to find someone from a specific company – we’ll use Creative Director from Avenue A | Razorfish as the example:

site:eventbrite.com razorfish “creative director” “attendee list” – result page

Not only did we find a creative director from Avenue A | Razorfish, but we also know her location. In addition, there are some other folks on the list that would be worth taking a look at as well: an Associate Creative Director from Digitas, an Interactive Marketing Manager from Comcast-Spectacor, a Media Director from Backe Communications, as well as the VP, Media for Avenue A | Razorfish.

Another way to source using Eventbrite, especially if you are sourcing locally, is to search for a specific city name to find good networking events. This is a great way to learn what events are in your city, and also to find people who will be there who could be potential candidates or clients:

site:eventbrite.com Philadelphia “attendee list” - result page

This event hasn’t happened yet, and you can also subscribe to the attendee list so you’ll be notified when new people register for the event – cool!

 Learn about the aid trip I am going on this November to Mamelodi, South Africa. I need to raise $3000 by the end of October - any help you can provide is greatly appreciated!

I stumbled upon this site tonight and just had to share! This website is called StartUpers, and as per its own title, it is a jobsite for innovative startups. You can either look for or post up jobs, or you can view resumes.

This is purely a board for start-up companies and people who want to work with them. Almost all the job opportunities are in California, with just a few exceptions. If you look at the job page, at the bottom there’s a link for “crusty postings” - i.e. ones that date back before March 2008. LOL There’s also a page for VCs for companies needing funding. Checking out the resume section, there are people listed in all areas, from marketing to programming to C-level execs who’ve had experience with launching start-up companies. There’s even a page dedicated to recruiters! Check this resource out, and of course, follow them on Twitter!

Hi all, the next post on ERE Inside Recruiting is ready! Check out Emerging Web 2.0 Technology in Recruiting on ERE.

In catching up on my PR blog reading this morning, I saw a post that Steve Rubel did earlier on an awesome multi-tasking environment set up by Jonathan Fields. Since I’m currently in the process of shedding a few extra pounds myself, this caught my eye! A treadmill desk….brilliant! I especially like his idea of a treadmill blogger walkathon to raise money for a cause. Either way - this seems perfect for those of us who desperately want to put in some gym-time but have difficulty getting away from work! I’d like to see this set-up on a stationary bike as well.

*special thanks for Daniel Johnson Jr. for forcing me to start using Twitter 

Alright, I resisted this new phenomenon for a long time because I figured it was just something that teenagers used to tell each other about their latest high school drama, but recently I’ve discovered what a neat tool Twitter is for doing my job! 

For anyone not familiar with it, let me give you a brief idea of what Twitter is:
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?  Bloggers can use it as a mini-blogging tool. Developers can use the API to make Twitter tools of their own.

Sounds simple enough. Basically, it’s a way to update people on the mundane activities of your daily life. OR….a way to share useful information with your followers, or track the latest goings-on in your industry based on what others “tweet”. So, this is a way for you to stay on the bleeding edge of your interest areas – be those people, events, products/services, etc. 

So how does this become a tool in a researcher’s belt? Well, like any useful tool, it’s important to read the user’s manual first and figure out how to operate! And of course, practice makes perfect. And of course, there are the accessory tools. Twitter provides a link to the Twitter Fan Wiki, a site that houses all the neat little accessory tools that can be used with Twitter. These include search engines, desktop applications, downloads for PDAs, hacks, and all other kinds of cool things. 

For my purposes, I decided to go with TerraMinds, after a fantastic recommendation from a local buddy and podcaster, Daniel Johnson Jr. This search engine allows you to search for specific words or phrases based on the latest “tweets”, or within user accounts. Not only that, you can subscribe to an RSS feed that will instantly update you on “tweets” containing those keywords – even if you’re not following that person! Here are a couple of examples:

1. public relations: I typed these words into the search and came up with a ton of people talking about PR. That’s good, but perhaps I want to narrow down a little to specific conversations…
2. Waggener Edstrom: using these words, I can track who is talking about my company, and by subscribing to the RSS feed, I can get these updates instantly
3. Competitor companies: by typing in the names of your competitor companies, you can track who is talking about them, who is working there, promotions, new hires, new business won, the possibilities are endless!

Here’s a screenshot from an example I did using Weber Shandwick, another PR agency:

Notice warrenss talks about two friends who were recently hired by PR agencies, one of whom tweeted right below him. At that point, all you need to do is start following these individuals and keep tabs on what they say! Or, you can subscribe to the RSS of your search and get instant updates in your RSS reader. 

Another example is searching the user accounts for competitor companies: 

From here, a good researcher can view the user profile and figure out locations and contact information, or just simply start following the activity of these individuals.  

Another good use of Twitter comes after you’ve developed a little bit of a following. You can tweet new job opportunities out to your network. Here’s a screenshot of some examples: 

All I typed up here was “job opening” developer. Granted, there’s not a lot here, but you can see what search terms might bring up more results, and I can certainly see this being used a lot in the future for viral marketing of job opportunities. Contractors can also use this to notify their networks that their contract is about up and that they are open to new opportunities. The possibilities are endless! 

I obviously have a long way to go before I become an expert user at Twitter, but so far I’m liking what I see. And on that note, I’d be pleased to have you follow me, and I’ll gladly return the favor. Happy Tweeting! 

PS: here are a couple other folks in the recruiting world who have written about their “twitdictions” J
Katie Tierney
Gautam Ghosh

Yesterday, a new site was brought to my attention: NotchUp. Apparently, it has piqued the interest of several people - both pretty good as in the eyes of Matt Martone of Yahoo! and Eric Schonfeld of TechCrunch and not so good from the perspective of the Big Cheez as well as Susan Burns of Talent Synchronicity.
Here are my personal thoughts at this time (subject to change of course!):

I think this could be both good and bad. I received an invite directly from NotchUp to register subsequently followed by invites from about 5 of my colleagues. I haven’t signed up yet because 1) the prospect of registering for yet another network doesn’t thrill me right now, 2) I’m not sure how I feel about the concept in the first place, and 3) apparently the site is down at the moment

First of all, the concept of paying people to interview for companies seems a little weird. You’re of course going to get those people who have no intentions of changing jobs but want to make some extra money anyhow and that’s going to waste precious time for the folks interviewing that person.

Secondly, I don’t know what kinds of companies would actually pay candidates to interview with them. It seems a bit contradictory to the whole purpose of the interview process - we want you here b/c you WANT to be here, not b/c we paid you to sit with our hiring managers for an hour (who would probably resent it if they knew what was going on!).

On the good side (and folks who work at search firms probably won’t see this as good), it might help to cut down on the cost of corporate use of search firms by reaching the candidates directly like that. I know that the purpose of my existence at Waggener is to help cut back on that cost.

For those who are excited about the concept, more power to you! I think this is simply a case of reviewing the facts presented and coming to your own conclusions, not of ‘getting it’ or ‘not getting it’. Two people can be informed with the same data and come to different conclusions about something. At this point in time, I think I’m going to sit this one out until further development. I’d like to see what companies (besides the ones listed) are going to use it as a ‘passive candidate source’. I see this becoming like QuietAgent is/was - a good idea on paper, but probably not going to get very far.

Check this list out - 90+ IM tools, ranging from the most popular to international to multi-network to web-based. I’ll bet there’s some way of doing some sourcing with many of those web-based platforms, and I know there are ways to track down contact info using Skype! If you need to select an instant messenger, look no further!

New social network, targeting the telecommunications industry - Mvolve. Before you roll your eyes and say “not another social network!”, check this one out. There is a huge company directory available, complete with contact information. In addition to that, you don’t have to be someone’s “friend” or “direct connection” in order to view their email and phone number. There is also an area where job seekers can identify themselves and share what type of work they desire. Lots of international contacts as well.

It’s worth taking a look at - only a matter of time before someone notices that contact information is readily available and wants to start charging for access (like Doostang recently did)!

This isn’t really a “tool” per se, however I think it certainly should be categorized under ‘cool’!

Those who know me know that my only complaint about working remotely is that it gets lonely from time to time. Sure, I get my best work done when I’m not disturbed but there are some rare moments when I crave some human interaction!

I subscribe to an RSS feed for Trendhunter.com, and recently I was reviewing some interesting new technology when I came across this video for Jelly. Apparently, this is just what I’ve been looking for!

So, what is Jelly?
Jelly is casual coworking. We invite people to work from our home for the day. We provide chairs and sofas, wireless internet, and interesting people to talk to, collaborate with, and bounce ideas off of. You bring a laptop (or whatever you need to get work done) and a friendly disposition.
Jelly started in NYC in February of 2006 when roommates Amit and Luke realized that they loved working from home, but they missed the creative brainstorming, sharing, and camaraderie of a traditional office. So they started inviting friends to come work from their home one day a week. They soon found that working in close proximity to new and interesting people every couple weeks resulted in new ideas and interesting conversations.

I’ve always been a firm believer in the idea that you can learn something new from every person you encounter in life. This is a cool idea in my book.

So….I decided to bring Jelly! to Cincinnati! If you live in the Greater Cincinnati area, please visit the NEW Jelly! in Cincinnati page for information on the FIRST meeting, to be held on Thursday, November 15th. Or, you can click here to sign up directly.

Here’s a list of some of the locations that already have Jelly! groups started. Check it out! You never know who you might meet. You may learn something new, try something different, or perhaps you might even find a new job opportunity!

New York City (Manhattan & Brooklyn – the ORIGINAL Jelly!)
Atlanta, GA *new!*
Austin, TX *new!*
JellyInPerth - Freelancer Friday *new!*
Chicago
Cincinnati, OH *new!*
Delhi, India
Denver, CO
Philadelphia, PA
Portland, OR *new!*
Portsmouth, NH *new!*
San Francisco, CA *new!*
Singapore, Southeast Asia
Sydney, Australia *new!*
Tel Aviv, Israel *new!*
Tampa Bay, FL (Tampa/Clearwater/St. Petersburg)
Washington, D.C.

Apparently, this company has been around for a bit, but tonight was the first time I’d heard about them, thanks to a quick blurb on Josh Greene’s blog. According to the company website:
“TouchGraph was founded in 2001 with the creation of the original visual browser for Google. Since then, millions of people have used TouchGraph’s tools to discover the relationships contained in Google, Amazon, Wikis, and other popular information sources. Our commercial applications include solutions for companies in management consulting, social networking, and mass media.”

So basically, you can type in a keyword and see the interrelations between websites based on these webs of connected color clusters. The clusters are apparently formed based on conceptually related websites, thus being assigned the same color. TouchGraph has pre-designed searches for Google, Amazon to check out similar books, purchase patterns and recommendations, as well as Facebook which lets you explore your networks by graphing photos from anyone’s album or view the connections between members of a group

My interest, of course, is in checking out related sites using a search engine. Since I’m new in the PR industry, I decided to put in the phrase “public relations”. Here’s my result:
It’s kind of hard to read, but basically these are all killer resources for the public relations industry, including the site I have shown on the screen, O’Dwyer’s Public Relations News, a resource that was recommended to me when I presented a question about PR resources to my LinkedIn group last week. My conclusion from this particular use of the product is that it would be a good tool for visually seeing the connection between different blogs, news sites, and other resources for a particular industry.

Just for curiosity’s sake, I tried putting in a simple Boolean query for an online resume:
inurl:resume “public relations” “account manager” –jobs –careers –apply –submit

OH MY GOODNESS……check this out:
Again, the screen is hard to read, but that cluster is an online resume, surrounded with linked pages including where to find the individual’s LinkedIn profile, ZoomInfo page, associations they are a part of, blogs they either write or are linked to, etc. Oh and by the way, those other clusters are also resumes! WOW! So by checking out each cluster, you can “get to know” the individual behind the resume in more depth with very little effort in addition to checking out what people with their skills are linking to and what groups they belong to.

Awesome tool for research! Kudos to the founder, Alex Shapiro.