jessica lee writes.

Quick Update. I'm Writing, Others are Writing About Me... It's All About Me.

it's been an interesting past few weeks. let me get you up to speed on where i've been, where i'm going and what i've been writing about:

• over on Fistful of Talent, a few posts have gone up in the past few weeks including one on how i just don't want the recession to end quite yet and another on how social media won't save your employment brand. we also have another episode of FOTv online and from a content perspective, i think it's one of our best to date. check it out... great way to get some HR updates without having to read, in case you're in a lazy mood.
  
• someone else is writing about me... and holy crap he thinks i'm influential. john sumser, a legend in the recruiting industry is tackling the topic of influence in the HR and recruiting world. check out the project here. john is featuring the top 100 influencers in the HR and recruiting space and amazingly, i'm #18 that he's chronicled. i'm totally flattered and humbled, especially as the youngest person on the list thus far.
• i've booked myself for a few more speaking engagements through the end of the year... TWTRCON, a roving conference devoted to everything and anything related to twitter and its business application... and i'm totally flattered to present given the other speakers. i'll also be at the 11th annual corporate university week talking about how to build credibility as an HR pro using social media in mid-november. in early december, you'll find me in chicago at the social media and HR summit being presented by ragan communications and will be focusing on social media for employment branding... and there's still more to come with other gigs including being in michigan at the end of september for another SHRM state level conference. 

and that's it. i'm at the HR Florida conference right now to speak on a panel tomorrow + blog live for Fistful of Talent... more to come from here later on. ciao folks.

This Year I Might Receive the Best Birthday Gift Ever.

it's almost my birthday. the big day is on friday, to be exact. and for the past handful of years, i've not loved celebrating. contrary to most everyone's commonly held belief about me, i don't like being the center of attention. and birthdays? well, usually that's prime time for yelling out, "hey, celebrate me!" that's a show i'm just not that into for it's perpetually a reminder of the very miserable birthday i trudged through right after my father passed away. you can rewind and read about that here...

august 7th is a weird day for me anyways... i get freaked out thinking about the other things that have happened on august 7th in my family... like it being the day my grandfather disappeared. that's another story for you to have a read on...

this year though, it's so very interesting and strange and exciting that the day, august 7th, has taken on a whole new meaning. i have someone to celebrate it with - and i mean literally celebrate with given our birthdays fall on the same day of the year. but we're not talking about just someone, or just anyone else having the same birthday... i mean, we're talking about the opportunity to spend the day and celebrate this usually odd, awkward, if not miserable day of the year with someone who makes me happier than anything else simply on a daily basis. someone who makes me feel like i'm complete. someone who makes me want to be a better person. someone who makes me feel honored, over and over again. i get to celebrate with him. and that's crazy to me because i already feel blessed every day specifically because of him... but on top of all of that, now i get this gift of being able to celebrate my birthday with completely new and different meaning through him. it no longer has to be a day or time period where i am constantly thinking about the past, and the loss of my father, and regrets i have surrounding that whole situation.

in some ways, i feel like this new way of celebrating my birthday - our birthdays - makes the past a bit more palatable. and for that, i'm so very, very thankful. it might just have to be one of the best gifts ever.

Following Up on Henry Gates and Why It Matters To You.

the other day, i threw a post onto Fistful of Talent on the arrest of Henry Gates Jr. it was a simple post merely bringing that situation to the attention of my fellow HR and recruiting pros who didn't have it on their radar, and reminding them of the little related lesson of why we don't consider arrest records when looking at one's criminal history for employment reasons. and the issue seemed like a no brainer to me... a relevant topic... but not everyone agreed. which i have to say, i'm just a little disappointed about. the comments that came through, and the emails i received, made me sigh. over, and over again.

i know that when talking about race, you always run the risk of offending. and i know that it's never an easy topic to tackle, which is why we don't talk about it enough... so let me tackle some of the issues that came up as a result of this post.

• how is this a relevant topic for Fistful of Talent? for those who don't see the obvious tie in... let me spell it out for you. clearly. if you do criminal history checks as a condition of employment, then you should know the distinction between evaluating arrest records versus convictions and the gates story illustrates nicely how arrests can happen - easily, mistakenly or for dumb reasons. the EEOC advises against considering arrest records as certain minority groups in the U.S. are disproportionately arrested - mainly blacks and hispanics. this is a fact. this is not anecdotal. this isn't pulling the race card. and why this is troubling? because even though certain minority groups are arrested more, the arrests don't always result in the same amount of convictions. so to make it very easy for you to understand, these minority groups aren't necessarily committing crimes more and therefore being arrested more. something else is going on and this is where racial profiling comes into play.
• why is this an incident of racial profiling? with the Gates situation specifically, the caller didn't say there was a "black man" specifically breaking in.  this is true. but did the caller have to bring up race for it to be profiling? or for this to be a racial issue? not really. she made the call and then the dispatcher asked questions about the suspects' race. the fact of the matter is that so much of our bias is hidden. it's subconscious. we don't always have to blatantly say or point to color. we make snap judgments and then i think, things like this incident happen. and then they escalate, and then they become ugly.
  
• as a white woman, if the same thing happened to me (said my commenter...)  i'd gladly take it in stride. people were just doing their jobs and trying to protect the community. i think that while we don't know for sure how much race was a factor in this incident, we can all pretty much agree that if it were a white man or white woman facing a white cop, the outcome would not be the same. this wouldn't be an issue. we know through history that black men and police have a different dynamic. period. it's a fact of life. and i think if you can't admit to that fact, then you are in denial about race in the US. we're too quick to jump to conclusions about other people's situations and not look at them from the lense of the person it's happened to... and if we were to do that, admit that we don't walk in the shoes of a black man, and admit that we don't walk around carrying all of the historical context of what it's like as a black man in america - which is a lot to carry around, then i think we'd all make fewer absolutes about this being blown out of proportion, or that this isn't a race issue and that it's just coincidence that gates is black and the police officer is white. when you step back, when you look at the bigger picture, when you add in the complexity of institutional racism and years and years of tense relations between black men and the police... then this isn't so clear cut.
  
• obama is president. isn't it time to stop pulling the race card? for this statement, i almost want to scream... but it's exactly what i feared when obama was elected. a black president doesn't equate to the race problem being sovled in the US. the best analogy i can make is... if a female president were elected, would that automatically signal gender equality in the US too? would the wage gap disappear? would women then be paid the same as men for comparable jobs? there's too much history, the issue is too complex. a black president, just like a female president, doesn't solve hundreds of years of issues that are now embedded and rooted deeply, and that are sometimes institutional.
  

you may not agree with me on any of this. that's fine. i just ask for you to partake in a dialog on it though and not be scared of that. before you engage though, just do some homework. inform yourself, then come back and have a chat. as a starting point for you... a good cross section of diverse thoughts on the gates matter here on the daily beast, stanley fish on this being deja vu for gates, some good commentary on racial progress in the US, and an interesting discussion on racial profiling and how there's more being done about it than we realize publicly...

we don't talk about race enough. sometimes we talk about diversity, but we don't always talk about race. and i think in our little blogosphere made up of HR and recruiting pros, we're too nervous. we aren't ballsy enough. we don't confront these issues head on. which has left me thinking... what's stopping us? and why aren't i doing a better job of addressing the lack of dialog?

Whatever It Takes To Keep This Alive...

i'm not a plant person. there are no living things in my apartment except me. and i've never been able to really keep living things alive which is why i prefer faux-foliage to the real thing, except now as i have this lovely orchid plant which greets me every morning when i wake up, and every day when i come home from work.

it's the same routine. i wake up and i examine it. i come home from work and i examine it. i check for dead leaves and wilting flowers. i inspect each bloom. i feel the soil for moisture levels. and as i do all of this, and as much as i love examining this lovely plant, i can't help but to become filled with a little bit of worry and concern about whether i can keep it alive. i'm always fretting over it because some things you want to really care for and keep alive - because of the meaning behind it. because you care enough to. because you want to keep alive the feeling you had when you first received it. every day since it arrived on my doorstep, this orchid plant, i worry though. can i keep it alive? am i going to be able to continue its life? and what's it going to say, what will it mean if it ever dies?

the thought dawned on me today though... you can probably make anything work, you can keep anything alive if you try hard enough. if you want it enough. and i can probably make things work with this plant. famous last words, maybe.

i had this disagreement years ago with an ex about ourselves though. should we have to make it work or should it just work naturally? i argued that if we wanted to make things work out between the two of us, we should work at it. we weren't a perfect couple, we had issues but we could make it work if we really tried and put the effort into it. he thought we shouldn't have to work at it. if we were meant to be, then it would work itself out. and for that matter, he thought it diminished the idea of "us" if we had to work on it because essentially i was saying that i could probably make anything work with anyone. he had a point. things didn't work themselves out between the two of us in the end as both of us gave up. and that happens. yet i still hold true to the belief that things can work, they will work, they will survive and last if you make it work. you just have to want it badly enough.

with plants. with relationships. with jobs. with friends. i've turned things around because i've wanted to. the big turnaround - i'm capable of that. and i've seen others pull it off too. just when you think it's about to go down the drain, viola! miracles can happen. if you want it badly enough. and yet i find myself in the midst of a situation right now where i don't have to try. it works. and it's the most effortless and natural thing. and yet i want to still make it work - desperately, i want to do anything and everything to make it work. whatever it takes. i'm wanting to give it my everything if i have to... because some things are worth it. meticulous inspection first thing in the morning, when i get home from work... i just want to keep this alive  and kicking and yet it doesn't seem to require a bit of effort out of me as much as i want to give it my all. it's funny how things work out...

Just Another Korean Man.

i'm not really old enough to know what a big deal it was when the Berlin Wall came down. sure, intellectually i get it... but the significance and the impact of the wall tumbling down to Germans on an emotional level, i'm not sure i get. the thought dawned on me last night though - what if North Korea and South Korea were to be reunited in my lifetime? news of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il having pancreatic cancer surfacing this week brought on this thought... and should this happen in my lifetime, the only analogy i could quickly pull was that maybe it might be like my own version of the Berlin Wall coming down. can you imagine? (pictured at right, pieces of the Wall at DC's Newseum, taken by moi.)

and yet i'm a little saddened by this whole ordeal  because in all honesty, imagining this man with cancer is kind of a heart breaking thought for me. call me crazy. call me unpatriotic. go for it. i mean, i get there's some crazy shit going on over there led by him. the missile testing. the website hackings. the detention of U.S. journalists. i don't like any of it. but i hear about reports of Kim Jong Il's failing health and i see pictures, and the truth is, i can't help but to think of my dad. Kim has lost crazy weight. he's looking gaunt. he appears frail. and that's what happens with pancreatic cancer. it's what also happens with stomach cancer, which my father had.

my father's stomach cancer was caught at a reasonable point in time, kind of. he thought it was his ulcers flaring up which he dealt with a majority of his adult life, but it turned out he had stomach cancer. the first round of fighting the cancer was surgery to remove about half of his stomach. and then there was chemotherapy. after both were said and done... he weighed about 115 pounds. and he was 5 feet 9 inches. 115 pounds - that's it. it's less than what i weigh today at 5 feet 2 inches. he had lost crazy weight. he was looking gaunt. and he appeared frail - to say the least. so it was surgery followed by chemo followed by remission for a year and a half and then it came back. the cancer. and then he was gone. it happened too quickly, and unexpectedly.

so the latest news and pictures of Kim Jong Il? all i can think about is how he really looks no different from my how my father did... crazy weight loss. gaunt. frail. take away the hair, the glasses, the outfit... he's just another Korean man going through cancer because really, North Koreans don't look any different from South Koreans. they don't look any different Korean Americans, like me. and rewind 65 years ago or so... we were a single country. a Korean was a Korean was a Korean. but today, on one side of the DMZ, at the 38th parallel, you have North Koreans. on the other side, you have South Koreans. not quite separated by a wall like in Germany... but close. a single country of people, separated because of war. and how strange is that? to look across some artificial separation of states and know that there are people who look exactly like you - some likely related to you - but living starkly different lives because of circumstance.

i have no idea what will happen in North Korea once Kim Jong Il passes away. i suspect we'll see the images of the people of the North in deep mourning which everyone worldwide will mock and look at with amazement... oh, those crazy North Koreans! look at them mourning a shitty leader who starved his own nation and was eccentric. the hair! his obsession with American cinema! he was batty as hell! go for it. i can't wait to hear the mockery. and everyone will speculate what the new leader of the throne will be like - a sense of hope, maybe, for a new leader and reunification. maybe i'll get to see that in my lifetime - that would be nice. i just hope though that folks look at Kim Jong Il with some sense of empathy though. because for me? he's just another Korean man with cancer, born into unusual circumstances and made a leader in strange situations. he could have led differently, i know. but my empathy lies where it does. i've somehow separated the man from his circumstances.

Is Maternity Leave is for Suckers?

if you were take a poll of female CEO's who have children and ask each of them how long their maternity leaves were for each of their children, what do you think the average maternity leave length would be? some possible answers... they didn't take maternity leaves. they took four weeks off. they took eight weeks off... those answers are probable. but i would fall out of my chair if any answered 8 months. or that any took more than a one year break. or that any took ten years off, to raise the kids and get them off to school. would you agree?

i was reading this article today from the Wall Street Journal quoting Jack Welch at the SHRM09 conference saying that, "there is no such thing as work-life balance." and you know what? i think i agree. being CEO of a large company - particularly a multinational, a Fortune 500... that doesn't happen easily. being CEO of your own company that maybe you founded? maybe a little easier... but success takes sacrifices - from men and women both. and so i can't help but to wonder... what's to come of me when i have children? how long can i realistically take maternity leave for? what difference would it make if i had help from family? am i going to have to hire help? do i want a nanny or au pair raising my progeny?

tell me you've found a way to balance kids and your career - and i'm going to probably say in response that you could be doing better if you didn't take those breaks to have kids and all the activities and events that have come along with it. (or at least i'll be thinking it in my head.) i'm just too cynical to believe otherwise... at least right now.  so i can't help but wonder... for the 15 women who are CEO's of FORTUNE 500 companies, or the 28 women who are CEO's of FORTUNE 1000, how many of them have kids? and how long were their maternity leaves? and if i were to look each of them in the eye and asked for their thoughts on this, would they sugar coat the reality of being a female CEO with kids? not that i'm thinking about children today, or tomorrow for me... some day... but it makes me think. what sacrifices will i be making?

Social Media for Personal Branding - The Outline...

just thinking things through in this post for next friday, my chat for internfest... i think i'm thrown off a little because i can't use a slide deck. not that i talk from slides or rely on them when i speak - it's just that i usually pull my thoughts together and come up with the flow of a talk by pulling together my deck first. so this time? i'm starting with just an outline of thoughts. here's the shell and then i'll add the meat in over the next week to flush out my thoughts:

• What’s my story? Recruiter for global PR firm… side interests in social media as an HR blogger.
• What does having a personal brand mean? Why is it important now in this climate in our industry?
  
• How do you define your personal brand, especially as a new professional?
• What are the most essential social media tools to use for personal branding?
• How does using social media for personal branding tie into your job search?
• True stories about candidates and social media - the good + the bad.
• Protecting your online brand.

back to me though - ha! i think i'm a little worried about not using a slide deck. i mean, i know i can hold my own but so much of what i usually focus on in any talk i give is developing a really, really good deck as a backdrop... but without one, it means they'll focus more on me. and i have to really know what i'm talking about! yikes! i'll be fine - i know i'll be fine... but i'll probably just obsess over this during the next week. thanks for bearing with me during that process, lol.

Yikes: Picture Me Talking About Social Media, No PPT Deck, 30 Minutes, 110 Interns... What Could Go Wrong?

next week, i'll be doing a session in NYC for about 110 interns in the PR field at an event called Internfest which is hosted by the Council of PR Firms. my topic? using social media to brand oneself.

i'm going to bet that on the minds of pretty much most, if not every one, of these 110 interns is finding a job once they are done with school. some of them might have already graduated and are just biding their time in internships. but i'm sure... every single one of them wants a job. but when the market is saturated with candidates upon candidates, i'm sure all of them are wondering what can they really do to set themselves apart?

for now, my best answer is social media. especially in the PR world, it has to be social media. if you can brand yourself, position yourself, advocate for yourself, then you are showing employers that you could do the same for their clients and their issues or products or services. it's as simple as that.

but can social media alone get anyone a job? not really. and i'll be plenty clear on that... you can craft this online persona that grabs at people, that makes them believe you've got something, maybe even make them believe that you're an expert, but it has to match your offline/real life persona. and if it doesn't, then you're kind of screwed.

not that i'm not an expert though... but i've certainly had a. lot. of. koolaid... making me a total believer in using social media to brand oneself. i've also done a good job of this myself - so i'm a living example... and i've figured out how to use social media for employment branding as well... but for this session next week, i guess i need to step back and look at what i've done for myself and my company, take those lessons and then figure out how to steer the conversation into a practical one in which i share with these 110 eager interns how they can do it themselves too.

the catch for this session? no PowerPoint deck! eek! given some constraints with the room set up and such, i am the show. yikes! and i've got 30 minutes to wow them... but i don't want to talk about me the whole time though and how i've done it - so what do you suggest i fold into this discussion? and for leave behinds, what should i provide? i'm certainly going to link them to folks like Dan Schawbel and his personal branding empire... but what else?

What Happens When You Talk to One Another...

it's kind of cool watching a junior person develop. in some instances, you help them and prevent disasters you once had to recover from, and in other cases, you see them learn some of the same lessons you learned along the way.

my bosses mantra? let people fail. how else are they supposed to learn? in our business, we're not saving lives. there's not a human cost - so we allow for failure to take place although it's hard, for me at least, to make decisions about situations where i should or shouldn't intervene. i'm learning to let go some though.

an interesting lesson i've seen unfold right before my eyes recently? dealing with managers or people generally who fish for information. you know those types - right? they call you with a question - you give them an answer. they don't like what you've shared so they call one of your colleagues asking a question, hoping for another answer. sometimes they call above you, sometimes they call around you - but they call around. they may be trying to build a case. they may be trying to build allies. they may be desperate and afraid to admit they made a mistake or have dug themselves into a whole. and so they look for information. and sometimes, they'll even take some of what you said, manipulate your words slightly, and try to work that into receiving a different answer from your colleague or manager.

"but jessica said..."

or they'll take pieces of what you said, pieces of what your colleage said, pieces of what your manager said - select pieces from each story they heard - and construct a tableau that fits nicely into their reality. it's so convenient to do that, you know?

i've been there before, trapped in that situation - but you can only let that happen once. so to avoid it? communicate. even if it means over communicating. i like brnging everyone together - one big happy family all in the same room. "i want to make sure we're all on the same page and that there's no confusion..." is how that conversation always starts out. it's uncomfortable. you can watch people's eyes shift so as to avoid piercing stares. but a funny thing happens when people talk to each other - without an agenda, without any manipulation, with complete trust and sincerity. you get on the same page - you uncover the manipulators and cheaters. you uncover those information fishers who are trying to work their way around you or twist your words into an outcome they want but maybe isn't right. and slowly, those information fishers start to feel caught, trapped and you begin to pick away at their game.

so talk. talk loudly, talk frequently, but talk. and you'll cover the truth.

Content + Quiet.

guess what?

i'm completely at ease. i'm content. i'm happy and my heart is full - really full. so it seems i have very little to say here. and until i need to use words to think through an issue... then this bloggy will be silent.

it's funny. when this all began, i didn't know where it would go. i jumped in blindly... against the advice of some friends. but i was stubborn, and wanted to just know what was there... and now here i am feeling things i never would have imagined. that sounds so dramatic, ha. but it's true! who would have thought.

so... let's take a break here. enjoy the silence while it lasts.

New Orleans... Here I Come!

next week, i'll be in New Orleans for the first half of the week. i'm looking forward to the trip as it will be my first time visiting the town... but honestly, it's a little confusing to be heading down there at all.

first, for my non-HR and recruiting friends... i'll be in NOLA to attend the annual Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) conference. SHRM is a professional association devoted to HR people like me and it has more than 250,000 members... but that number doesn't include me. i actually opted out a while ago and stopped being a card carrying member. more on that later. their annual conference though... it's pretty much the biggest gathering of HR people anywhere. previous years conferences have had anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 attendees - scary, i know. it's a lot of HR people in one place.

so the confusing part about being in NOLA for this conference? i've been somewhat vocal about not being a SHRM fan. there are posts i've written... oldies, but goodies on the matter here, here and here. and yet i'll be jaunting down to NOLA because why? they invited me to attend. how bizarre is that?

the scoop... on wednesday, i'll be serving on a panel discussion moderated by SHRM's COO... HR Bloggers:  Who are these people and why should I care? interesting, kind of. maybe. we'll see! i'll be chatting it up with the blogosphere's other finest HR bloggers - Kris Dunn, Lance Haun and Laurie Ruettimann - and we'll be talking about how we've each used the web to add value to our organizations and practices. and the end goal? teach people how social media can have a positive impact on your organization and how you can get started.

the session will be streamed live - you'll be able to watch from here and/or Fistful of Talent as we'll embed and live stream the video broadcast... and you can be the judge of how it goes. and yes, i've thought about whether doing this makes me a hypocrite. maybe. but i'm a capitalist and this is about getting maximum exposure. i'll use the time to connect with folks, network and try to soak in some learning... and i'll also use the time to try to influence and help make HR cool-ish. maybe. wish me luck... and if you're going to be there in NOLA, see ya then.

Yesterday on Fistful of Talent... Recruting is Like Dating.

recruiting is like dating. really. there's the whole process of finding a candidate/boyfriend - and the interwebs are changing that game significantly. and then there's the courtship process where hopefully, there will be some wooing. and then you've gotta hook 'em in - not an easy feat. then you add in maintaining the relationship once hired/married... now that's a whole different blog posting, or book. but for now, head over to Fistful of Talent to check out my post yesterday on how i made the realization that recruiting truly is dating after having a job offer declined the other week. DECLINED. yes! in this economy! i know. there's a pretty good discussion happening in the comments of that blog posting too. enjoy!

Miss Independent is Thinking About Kids.

it's ever so cliche that i'm inspired to write this post after watching a sappy chick flick - i know. but, after being at a loss for words of late, what follows is what's on my mind and in my heart.

the other night i saw Sam Mendes' Away We Go with some girlfriends. and there was this moment from the movie that stuck with me... probably because i watched the movie a few days before Father's Day and particularly because of me being introspective about him, i've been fixated on this thought inspired from the film - maybe (hopefully) my children will have some traits and characteristics passed down to them from my father, their grandfather. maybe i'll see him in them.

okay... so you may think it's a silly, or even a rather obvious realization. of course these kids will have something in them that's distinctively from their grandfather whom they'll never get to meet - but honestly? i'd never thought of that possibility because i've been iffy about the whole kids thing. they'd be mine... but i never thought about where they'd come from beyond that. indeed though, they will be his grandchildren... about one-fourth, a quarter him. and strangely, this possibility of seeing him in them makes me quite happy. excited, even. not that i'm itching to have kids tomorrow though.

i told one of my closest girlfriends that i was thinking about babies and she just about lost it. me? thinking about kids? i'm the last single girl of that particular girl group... the hold out, the last woman standing...  i'm the one who isn't sure if she has a clock that is even faintly ticking. had i lost my mind? she wanted to know if i had a fever or such especially because i've been the one who's said so often i'd rather not procreate for fear of being a shitty parent. the world doesn't need any more semi-present parents who aren't actively engaged in the rearing of their children. and then there's that whole thing about me just being too selfish and self absorbed to care for a little human...

yet this idea of creating a family of my own? i can't get it out of my head either. there have been a few moments - not a lot, but just a few moments here or there - where i have felt a wee bit sorry for myself. i don't have a lot of family to speak of. it's me and my siblings - that's pretty much it. and even them, they've gone off and gotten married, starting their own families. so i've taken to being "miss independent." i can do everything and anything on my own! i don't need a man, i don't need a family - i can conquer it all. and with that has been me being the gal who is running wild still and being a free bird... and lord knows how long i've thought (or how long all of you for that matter have thought) i'd be that girl. but lately, the want, or rather, the need for family has been an ever present thought. the loose semblances of family that i've strung together or created over the years - they've served me well... but i'm not quite sure if they are enough. and so maybe i don't want to be, and maybe it serves me so little to be, alone. so much for miss independent...

in some ways, this realization has come full circle professionally too. i'm not an island, and i do myself a disservice by going at everything on my own. i need a fuller picture, i need the wisdom of my elders and their experiences, i find more and more... which is a toughie for me. how do i let go when i know (or at least think) that i will do it right - the first time? why should i let go when i know i'll take care of it faster? my ego gets the better of me quite frequently. i mean, afterall, i'm the girl who says that her favorite book is Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. i've been all about the individualism versus the collectivism ever since reading the novel 12 years ago for the first time. but after four times of reading the Fountainhead cover to cover later, i'm finally learning that maybe i need (parts of, small parts of) the collective to really be my best.

there are things i still wish i knew more about when it comes to my dad... but i'm not sure i'll ever get the opportunity in this lifetime. i should come to terms with that at some point, i know. but knowing that perhaps i'll feel less disconnected by seeing bits and pieces of him in these future kids of mine? there's something really lovely about that. so for now, i'm going to wonder... what kind of things will i see in my kids that will reflect him? what traits of his will they get? what traits will i hope they don't get? what might i be surprised by when i see them running around and coming into their own that reminds me of him? and what will this family of mine, that i'm starting to feel like maybe i really do want, and need, look like? what kind of family will we be?

needing others, it's an idea i'm getting used to. it isn't easy to admit... but maybe needing others, needing someone isn't such a bad thing.

Maybe This Will Get Easier...

this week i'm writing a lot from and about my heart. forget social media, forget recruiting, forget HR junk. and right now, i'm wondering if it will ever get easier. will it?

there are two times during the year that i become particularly introspective, and quite honestly, a little bit sad about my father: my birthday, because he passed away right before it, and father's day, which of course is around the corner. and i want it to be easier - i'd like to not hurt or miss him or revisit my regrets as they relate to him. and yet i don't... because i don't want to become indifferent, or numb about the loss, or worse, forget that he's gone or forget who he was. maybe i'm a glutton for punishment. i dunno.

the whole losing your dad thing is a complicated situation, at least in my head and heart it seems to be. because all rolled up into him being gone are these wants and needs i have for my current and future family. does that make sense? like when i really think about the fact that he's gone, of course i have to ask myself... who do i have left? and then i look around at which point the reality of my family-life makes me just a little bit more sad. i mean, really, who do i have around? and why aren't the bonds stronger? and why are we so caught up in other shit that prevents us from being the kind of family i'd like us to be? and how do i get us there? or is it even possible? and has everyone except me moved on from this already?

some day, i'll write more about all of that... maybe. but for now, i'm just wondering what do i need to do to make this time of year easier. you would think that particularly when my heart feels so full and is exploding in great, lovely ways for other reasons, that being sad about him would be overpowered... but it seems that everything is magnified, and i simply feel everything more lately.

Is the Past Really the Past?

there are people who want to know everything about your past, and then there are others who feel the past is the past - and should firmly stay there. interestingly, somehow i've moved camps. 

i used to want to know everything about past girlfriends and how you broke up, including just how many girlfriends you've had, and the tally for being dumped versus doing the dumping... i'm an inquisitive kind of gal, indeed. yet of late, i'm finding that i ask very, very few questions about the past. are you single now? and have you been single long enough that i won't have to deal with any weird ex-girlfriend drama? and the answer to those two questions are all that really matter to me. your baggage, you can check at the door. i'd rather that you simply walk in with free hands and open arms. 

yet i know though that our pasts have brought us to where we are, here, today. it makes us who we are, and it influences much of how we operate in each others presence, now. it's just that the details, i don't know if i care so much about anymore. and what a weird discovery for me to have made about myself. like when confronted with your past, or my past? i might have obsessed over such a discovery previously, but now? the past, as ugly or strange as it might be, just reminds me that we recognized mistakes for being mistakes and therefore, left them behind allowing us to have free hands, and open arms for one another.

could i be maturing? perhaps. or maybe i'm just more confident in myself today and no longer feel the need to compare how i stack up to anyone's past-girlfriends. that could be part of it too. or maybe it's also because my own past suddenly looks a little nutty and i just don't care to share that much of it anymore. (so, if you don't share, surely i don't have to share!) not that i have much to hide... i fully acknowledge that i've made some questionable decisions. and yes, i'll tell you pretty much everything and anything at some point if you really want to know, because i am an oversharer of course. or maybe the biggest thing about not caring about the details of one's past is the realization that because we've both made our share fair of mistakes with others, they're out of our systems and really, that translates into neither of us having to make those mistakes with or on each other, now. and that idea, i love. the damage, so to speak, has already been done... on others, that is. 

in some ways, it calls for apologies to people in our pasts because we had to practice on them to get to where we're at today... personally, i'm sorry to those folks as they had to be my guinea pigs upon which i tested out how to be functional in a relationship. but for my present and future? it also calls for some thanks for all that you did in the past including making all those silly mistakes you had to make with others but can now safely leave behind. i don't need to know the details and you don't need to know mine... but i'm just grateful that we won't have to learn those lessons with each other and can offer one another a fresh, clean slate. the past is the past, indeed.

Social Media to Recruit, Social Media Policies... And I'm Taking the Day Off.

i was supposed to be at the Social Recruiting Summit over at the Google campus today... but i'm still in DC for a variety of reasons. so, you won't find me writing about using social media to recruit today - but i'm sure most of my friends in the HR and recruiting blogosphere are probably writing about that event. check out some of my pals who are speaking at the event including Laurie Ruiettimann, Josh Kahn, Chris Hoyt + Michael Marlatt and William Uranga.

as for me and what i'm up to today? i'm taking the day off and heading to the spa for a complete day of rejuvenation. how lucky am i?!  and as for you... you can head over to Fistful of Talent for a (rather boring but...) very important piece i've written about social media policies. everyone and their mama's seem to be trying to write, or re-write their social media policies of late... so you've got some tips from moi on the matter today. enjoy!

Come & Get It - Using Twitter to Hire Presentation.

yesterday afternoon, i had the honor of spending a little bit of time chatting about using twitter to hire at the Cool Twitter Conference. and i was in good company considering you had folks from the Washington Post and CNN Politics sharing how they use twitter... and also there was Mark Stelzner of Inflexion Advisors and Job Angels. what a good line up! i was flattered to be playing with the big boys.

the slides and (fuzzy) video from my session are below. i had 15 minutes to talk it up... and it was mostly to non-recruiting, non-HR folks i was addressing so you'll see that i didn't go super in-depth during the chat on sourcing... it was a pretty high level overview of how to use twitter to recruit. and the slide deck? well, i think i pulled together something kinda lovely. every slide had 140 characters or less of text, in the spirit of twitter. you'll get it as you click through. enjoy - and if you have any questions or need to borrow content, let me know.

(email subscribers or mobile web viewers, slides + video may not be visible! click through to ze bloggy to view them in their entirety.)

View more OpenOffice presentations from surbee.

cool twitter conference - jessica lee - using twitter to hire. from fistful of talent on Vimeo.

On Being Distracted by Shiny New Objects... Fistful of Talent Post.

before i forget...

the other day, i threw a post onto Fistful of Talent about new HR systems and tools, and the importance of not getting distracted by shiny objects. it was an important post for me to write as sometimes, i feel a little lost and inadequate when looking at all the existing HR and recruiting related systems or services out there. someone has something to offer me that promises to solve my problems. and same goes for theories and such in the HR realm. someone always has a new term to describe a process, problem, solution... i kinda just do my job with the tools available to me. i try my best with what we have and look to innovate where we can... but i'm not concerned with the latest and greatest shiny object out there. i just want to be effective, get the job done and have great relationships with my internal clients. and that's all that matters right? because maybe i don't need those shiny objects to get the job done. maybe they don't matter. it just depends on my goals and the organization's strategies.

and speaking of shiny objects and getting distracted... the post actually was born out of a conversation that took place in a meeting with some of my company's marketing team, some of our social media pros who provide our firm's clients with advice and social media strategies... and then me. we were talking about the company's social media presence and establishing a strategy for moving it forward. i've been chomping at the bit to get our Facebook page focused on careers up and running. i've launched our twitter feed. i'm experimenting in other places... and in this meeting, we just kept talking and talking about how we use social media, where we need to have a presence, other ways we can use social media. and at one point, we all just stopped and said for what? why are we doing this? what's the strategy?

i have a clear strategy in mind for how and why to use social media to recruit... but have we established the same for the company generally? we'll do a careers-focused Facebook page, i've set up a jobs-related twitter feed... but do we necessarily need to have a general company Facebook page or twitter feed? maybe not. it depends on the goals, what's trying to be achieved and the strategy.

don't get distracted by shiny objects. i tell all my friends to get onto twitter... but i'm actually not sure why. most of them haven't been distracted enough to jump in. and maybe that's a good thing. they should have a reason first. and that being said, i think i'll probably stop haranguing them about getting onto twitter.

as for you... if you're already on there, what's your strategy? what are you trying to achieve?

On Twitter for Employment Branding - Get Back to Basics.

so... back to this idea of using twitter to recruit and hire. there's that whole thing about finding candidates... but the other part of using twitter for recruiting, maybe even the bigger part of it, is focused on employment branding. but what does that really mean - employment branding? time to put our marketing hats on.
 
first, some employment branding definitions. if we look to the reverent Dr. John Sullivan, here's his take:

"Employment branding is unique in that it is the only long-term recruiting strategy. The viral-based perception management program designed to attract top-quality applicants is based on the premise that the organization is well-managed in the eyes of the target candidate population. It has many critical elements, only one of which pertains to getting the message out through awards programs, editorial content in target publications, presentations at conferences, and through viral marketing driven via the employee referral program. It is not the same as recruitment marketing, although recruitment marketing should be aligned with the employment branding effort."

that's a mouthful - much more than 140 characters, that's for sure. and for this twitter conference on thursday that i'm chatting at, it's likely going to be non-recruiting and non-HR folks that i'll be speaking to... so when i think about the notion of organizations using twitter for employment branding - whether a mom-and-pop shop or a fortune 500 - really what this boils down to at a basic level is simply projecting and marketing your organization as being a great place to work so that would-be candidates seek you out. simple enough.

first, the big disclaimer! you've gotta have the goods to sell when it comes to why your employer is a great place to work. maybe that goes without saying. but, if the culture is toxic and the environment is crap at your organization, then employment branding whether done old school or new school with web 2.0 methods like twitter will not save your recruiting life. you've gotta stop reading this and go back and fix the issues. maybe a little later you can then think about employment branding.

for more traditional employment branding, pre web 2.0, there are lists upon lists of great places to work - Fortune magazine has a list. local magazines have lists. coincidentally, my pal Kris Dunn's organization, DAXKO, where he's the VP of People, just received accolades from Fortune Magazine as being one of seven great small businesses to work for - another list from Fortune focused more on small companies though. that's a totally cool recognition for them to be able to sport. but... what if you can't make one of these lists? what if you don't have the marketing or PR folks to help get you on the list? or what if your employee program budgets are dwindling and you're more boot strap but you know you're still a great place to work?

talent management and recruiting thought leaders cite tactics like... workplace rankings and awards. world-class employee referral program. editorial placements. benchmark studies. having a WOW website. being written up in academic case studies. all really good stuff... but a lot of that can fall to the way-side as an HR or recruiting pro if you've got all that day-to-day stuff you've gotta execute. companies who do all of that stuff well likely have strong marketing and PR peeps behind the scenes to help. but herein lies why and how the web and social media is one of the great equalizers. david can now go up against goliath.

there are tons of resources out there on what it means to have an employment brand, who does it well... (for starters, go here and here and here.) read up, and just keep in mind that the basics of employment branding don't change with twitter. if you take all the components of what it takes to build and market an employment brand, all those things that make your organization a great place to work - those are all the different things you could conceivably tweet about. take Kris and DAXKO as an example - they could easily take much of what Fortune highlights as making them special and use that as fodder for their twitter feed. imagine tweets that highlight...

• no one has private offices
• a work/play lounge is offered, complete with a Nintendo Wii and a 52-inch plasma TV
• all new employees get 15 paid vacation days
• all staff receive free YMCA membership
• staff receive $1,500 annually each to spend on professional enrichment
• after every seven years of service, staff are entitled to a four-week sabbatical

all compelling stuff, right? and imagine pushing that out there via twitter for public consumption. (and yes, they are already on twitter. check them out here, @DAXKO.) keep in mind though, you've gotta have the goods to back up the kool-aid you're trying to offer - just like DAXKO does - when it comes to why your company is a great place to work.

so i guess in the end? it's somewhat back to basics on employment branding, folks... it's just that this time, twitter is just another tool for your arsenal for getting the word out. wow. i think i have my brain wrapped around half of my talk for thursday now!

A Love Affair with Words, Over?

i love my words. i'm obsessed with words. the written word, the spoken word... i'll mince them. i'll over analyze them. and i'm one wordy gal, myself. i know this. i love my words. like the first time someone used the word "tableau" in an email to me? i went completely weak in the knees. or the other day, to be told i've been handling a situation with aplomb? i loved it. i love my words.

but sometimes, maybe words don't matter.

i found myself in a situation recently where i was demanding that someone give me their word. i didn't know what to trust. there was a lot of noise, and i was confused. so in my state of confusion, i demanded to know this individual's intentions. it was a big question of why. essentially, it was a question of why should i trust? and i needed to know. it was almost as if i heard the right words as far as this individual's intentions, i could breathe easy which in some ways was foolish. he could have given me his word but then his actions could have ended up being just the opposite. right? the words really didn't matter when i wanted to know his intent but still, i felt like i had to hear it or read it. and honestly, i thought as long as i had his word, i would be okay.

i received his words, kind of. but it turns out, the words really don't matter because... actions speak louder. imagine that. i probably didn't even need his words then, and i don't even think i need his words now, or anymore. i see gestures and actions... and i just know what's there. the intent is clear. and without any words, surprisingly, i feel strangely content and confident about it all - completely scary if i stop and think about it... but i guess this is what trust is about.

Using Twitter to Hire + a Cool Twitter Conference.

okay... so coming up on thursday is the first ever "cool twitter conference." the conference title, well... it leaves me wanting more. (sorry kent and bob, who are organizing this effort.) but a conference focused on just twitter alone and how to make it work on a practical level? i love the concept and i like that the guys behind this venture are trying something new... and of course, how could i say no to speaking at this event especially given the line up of folks who will be speaking? folks from some of DC's best organizations... CNN Politics, the Washington Post, the Heritage Foundation among others plus little me all talking about leveraging twitter. neat.

my focus? using twitter to hire... which is really also how to tweet your way to a job. and i have 15 minutes to make my case. i have material i can pull up from past chats and re-purpose... and the topic is a no-brainer for me... but freaking me out slightly is the conversation header they've thrown over my session though - 10% unemployment: using twitter to lower the rate. wow. those are some lofty goals for me to try to speak to... but i'll give it a whirl.

essentially, twitter for hiring really boils down to two things:

1. find + source candidates, and
2. employment branding. 

the latter, chris ferdinandi of renegade HR have written about on behalf of zoominfo... and the former, i can pull content together for. as usual,  i'll post the deck up once it's finalized... and if i have video footage, i'll post that as well... but the thing i always come back to with new twitter users is helping them get over the mystery and intimidation of twitter. at this point... i've been at it for a year! wooo! and it's taken me a year to pull together 1700 followers. not bad in terms of my reach, and i could be doing better... but new tweeters should rest assure that influence in the twitterverse doesn't happen overnight.

i charted out my follower-growth over the past year, pictured right (track your own twitter growth using twitterholic or twittercounter)... and i'm thinking the major markers for someone looking to make a mark in the twitterverse are at when you hit 200, 500, then 1000 followers. each of those points in times seem to show significant growth for me so we'll take a moment to chat about that in my session... but of course, influence doesn't necessarily equate to having a lot of followers, which i think we'll also chat about. i've realized of late that i have more people lurking and checking in on my twitter feed who don't actually follow me...

so that's it for now. the next few days of my blog's content will likely be focused on this topic as i grind out some materials for that session... 15 minutes of talking and i'm betting i'll obsess hours over getting the slides and content juuuuuust right.

On Focus, Future Thoughts... And Trying to Take Things One Day at a Time.

let's say you're focused and have your eyes looking ahead towards a goal so to speak. yet you don't want to get ahead of yourself. and you know that you should just take things one day at a time. but still, you're focused. so how do you balance between those seemingly opposite attitudes?

truthfully, i'm at this point where i refuse to waste my time in fruitless or pointless relationships. not that i sit down on first dates and say i need to be married and have kids next week because the idea of both still kind of freak me out... but i won't be in it just for fun anymore. if it isn't "going anywhere" then i'd rather cut the cord and be on my own. i don't want to waste your time or mine by being in a relationship where it's just for fun and we take it a day at a time... and six years later we're looking at each other wondering why the heck we've been at it for so long. that's the game i played a long time ago...

it's so funny... because i hear it from my brother at least once a week - that i'm getting older and i need to settle down. and occasionally, he'll remind me that my eggs are going to expire soon. (how sweet of my bro, right?! haha.) and just yesterday, i was kind of floored to hear someone say that after age 30, i'm going to be considered damaged goods if i'm not settled at that point. damaged goods! me? and 30 sounds really, really close. why can't it be by choice and by design if i'm still single at 30? ha. but i won't settle just because i feel like a clock is ticking (although my clock's battery seems to be dead... i hear/feel no ticking or tocking...). so, i'm going to let things happen as they are supposed to happen, and i'm adamant that things should play out "organically." and therefore, taking things one day at a time indeed sounds right... but how do i take things one day at a time when i'm so utterly focused right now and have my eyes fixed clearly ahead on the future? it's kind of a confusing situation to be in... so again, how's a girl supposed to balance between the two?

i'm trying not to overthink this one or analyze it to death... i'm enjoying things day by day... but this situation i'm in? as much fun as it is, it isn't just for fun, i know. and i'm focused, i can see really clearly now, particularly because all the noise has been killed. but what's going on in my heart and head seem like conflicting attitudes and mentalities at play. focused, and yet taking it day by day. just something on my mind.

Want My Number? It's Yours.

i feel a bit knackered from a minor cold bug i've caught + being in NYC for the past few days. i'm back in DC though and fighting through this nastiness. while you're here to read about me though, why not hop over to Fistful of Talent? today, i'm putting myself out there. candidates hate the black holes they send their resumes off to... so what am i doing about it? i'm giving you my phone number. seriously. inspired by my friend The Recruiter Guy, i'm standing up for recruiters being accessible and letting you have my digits. 

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do: Ambient Awareness.

breaking up isn't the same anymore, is it? even just a few years ago, for me at least, breaking went something like this: "it's not you, it's me. here's the things you left at my apartment. see you around! oh, and it was nice while it lasted!" and then i would walk away from my ex. hands were washed clean, and it was done quickly. but today, we're so hyper-connected that it seems making a clean break isn't so easy anymore. we may have connections via Facebook, Twitter and instant message. add in text messaging, blogging for me... and that's a lot of different places to be connected to someone. so when you stop being in a relationship, and when you need to make a clean break, i'm learning that perhaps you not only have to cut people out of your heart, but you need to make some cuts digitally too. sad, but true. think "ambient awareness."

last year, the New York Times ran a piece in their Sunday magazine on this notion of ambient awareness in this new digital age. on a subject within the story becoming an avid Twitter user:

"But as the days went by, something changed. Haley discovered that he was beginning to sense the rhythms of his friends’ lives in a way he never had before. When one friend got sick with a virulent fever, he could tell by her Twitter updates when she was getting worse and the instant she finally turned the corner. He could see when friends were heading into hellish days at work or when they’d scored a big success. Even the daily catalog of sandwiches became oddly mesmerizing, a sort of metronomic click that he grew accustomed to seeing pop up in the middle of each day.

This is the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting. This was never before possible, because in the real world, no friend would bother to call you up and detail the sandwiches she was eating. The ambient information becomes like “a type of E.S.P.,” as Haley described it to me, an invisible dimension floating over everyday life."

when first starting a relationship, ambient awareness has been a bit of an advantage, for me at least. we can be surrounded by each other digitally - via Twitter, Facebook, instant message and what have you. we can get in touch with each other and be connected in half a dozen different ways. and it also allows for the learning curve of getting to know each other to be shortened a bit. we can follow each other on Twitter. you can read my blogs. we can go through each others Facebook archives and photos... we can learn snippets about each others past to piece together each others histories and then in real time, we can begin seeing each others current daily rhythm. (although... i recognize that there's a lot of self-editing taking place online... so you learn a version of me that i've chosen to present. there still might be some skeletons in the closet you have yet to learn...) and admittedly, i've also been strangely comforted because of ambient awareness. something as simple as a silly green dot makes me feel better. i log onto GoogleTalk, my instant messaging service of choice, and i see your little green dot that represents a status of being available... and i just feel like you're there for me. i might not have anything to say to you at all, but the green dot and the idea of you being available warms me.

but what then happens when you want to or need to cut someone out of your life? that ambient awareness grates on you. something as little as seeing your ex's now ugly and discomforting green dot on GoogleTalk becomes irritating. they are present - you see their green dot afterall... so why aren't they reaching out and talking to you? or maybe you see the now ex  update their Twitter status. they are indeed at their computer so why aren't they updating or pinging you? once comforted and excited by seeing and feeling someone everywhere, having that ambient awareness... you might just grow to hate it once the loving is gone. and to remedy the situation? you un-friend the ex on Facebook. you might block them on your IM/chat client. you stop following them on Twitter because sometimes, you just need to cut cords, literally... the blessing and curse of ambient awareness. we're in a new age, for sure. wouldn't you say? 

What's The Work Life Balance Like?

i have to admit that whenever candidates during interviews ask me what's the work/life balance like at my company, i'm a little biased. my mind immediately goes to... how much balance do they need? what kind of outside of work obligations do they have that could interfere with being present while at work? are they not willing to commit and give my company 120%?

the reality is that i've never worked less than or even a 40 hour work week. most weeks i'd say i'm a 45 to 50 hours per week kind of gal. i carry my blackberry with me at all times. i take my laptop home almost every night. and then there's all the blogging and extracurricular stuff i do which i'd have to guess take up 10 or so hours a week. i'm invested. and i spend a lot of time working and thinking about work... but this is my choice. no one makes me do this. my company doesn't put it on me. there isn't a culture to work ourselves to death with 70 or 80 hour work weeks. it's just that with any position i've held, i've always invested in the gig and company similarly - because i know i will reap the rewards from it.

so when a candidate asks me what the work/life balance is like... i can't quite figure out how to answer it especially when i know that i'm surrounded by mostly other folks who are just like me if not more driven. yet part of my job is to sell the gig and sell our company. so most times? i'm honest. i tell them that i love what i do, and i'm surrounded by people who love what they do... and that means they commit in whatever ways they want to commit which means for some, it could be a 60 hour or more work week - if that's what they choose. and sure, there are those who put in their 40 hours and then go home. it takes all kind to make the world go 'round, i suppose.  it's an honest answer - but is it appealing? am i doing a disservice and not selling enough? and how would you/do you answer that question?