Although a former Brassringite myself, this was the first user conference I was actually invited to attend and I was very impressed. First of all about 200 clients were present and unlike many conferences, this one had an agenda largely showcasing their clients´ best practices. There is no doubt in my mind that clients learn best from each other. Their ability to network and learn and share mistrials is so valuable that this alone should justify any client attending these conferences. Lou Adler (www.adlerconcepts)  was one of the keynote sessions and his message continues to be so meaningful. Why do we still hire the wrong people? Why do skills and interviews really matter? One of the best speakers I found at the Conference was Keith Halpern.

Although I first met him as CEO of ThinkShed, a cultural fit assessment which was then acquired by BrassRing, he has recently left BrassRing to head up a niche consulting firm in Atlanta that will do execution and strategy consulting. Keith´s talk about the essentials of building and keeping a strong culture to create sustainable business growth was very well received. Keith is an excellent speaker (helps that he has the English Accent, a great sense of humor and is almost as cute as Marcus Buckingham). He taught us to always wash our hands (even when no one is looking). The message is that sometimes we are asking the wrong question in a wrong way to get the answers we want. Yet the hidden and real truth needs to be discovered. He cited a survey where 100 people were called and asked how often they washed their hands after using the washroom. The survey response was that 97% did wash their hands. Then they watched a restroom that was full of people ... the results dropped significantly. And finally, they videoed a restroom where there were no people in it and the results dropped as low as 64%. So if you conducted the survey by phone, you would not be seeing a problem and could be using the wrong measurement, i.e., you would not be doing anything to get people to wash their hands.

At user conferences you also learn a lot of other things that you cannot learn anywhere else. For example: Did you know Ed Davies (VP of ConAgra) is an awesome singer? Did you also know that the BrassRing secret agent technology, aka Precision Sourcing, can help you find that proverbial needle in a haystack and is available now to select clients, but will be widely available as a general release in their upcoming version? SO cool and great work from Mark Dane and his team. Did you know that Deb Besemer is writing a new book that is sure to be a best-seller? Ask her about the validity of her research and how the "research is coming". Deb has done such an amazing job at turning the culture and momentum around at BrassRing. From a mere three years ago, with a disastrous release and closing business units, they are now one of the very few vendors that are truly committed to be a best-of-breed vendor in the talent acquisition space only. You could feel the Love at their user conference and more and more, clients talking about how significant their partnership and relationship with BrassRing is to their firm´s success.

Deb, maybe we should relook at that career fair business now that the economy is red hot again! You never know ...