ERE Expo Fall 07 Recap - Day 2 & 3

Holy cow, what a week! This was my fourth ERE Expo and I don't think that any of them went by as fast as this one did. What makes this even so great? The speakers and the sessions offer a good variety of strategic and tactical content, and I typically get a few nuggets of new knowledge there. But more than that, this event brings together the best-in-the-business time and time again. I learn just as much if not more in my networking at the Expo, get to meet alot of interesting people in the process. I had been looking forward to this for over a year, and now it's come and gone .

When I left you last, the events of Thursday evening were about to begin. We started with a CareerXroads dinner at one of DC's best restaurants, Cashions Eat Place in the nearby Adams Morgan neighborhood. It was a great meal with great company and conversation. Gerry and I had to cut out early though to get back to the hotel for the Charity Poker Tourney. I was fortunate enough to be sponsored by Diversity.com to play at the 'high-rollers' table. I didn't do so great there, but won a couple hands and had alot of fun. Big time congratulations to Jason "The Dynasty" Davis who won his third straight ERE Charity Poker Tournament. Also a big congratulations to the ERE Foundation, that came out big raising over $9K in donations. Job Target and ZoomInfo also deserve recognition for their sponsoring this event. It was a great time for a great cause.

Got home late again, slept fast again, and got back to the Expo Friday morning just-in-time to hear Dan Pink's keynote, which was fascinating and entertaining at the same time (especially with his 'startling factoids'. Dan amazed us with alot of relevant information, including his view that offshoring is overhyped short-term, underhyped long-term, and that routine work is destined to go away in this country the same way that manufacturing has. Gerry led a panel of MBA students/graduates next where they gave us their insight as to what they appreciate and look for in the recruiting process. It really all boiled down to the need for a personal touch in the process.

After lunch, my former boss, Gary Cluff, showed off the recruiting branding video game that he helped develop at MITRE called Job of Honor. I saw a brief demo of this a few months back, but this was the first time I saw the complete version. What MITRE has developed is truly innovative and should go a long way to help educate potential candidates as to what MITRE is all about. The game is available live on MITRE's website (see link above), I strongly suggest that you check it out.

Any regrets from this year's conference? Well I would of liked a little more time to interact with some of the vendors. As the conference went by, everything felt a bit rushed. I was able to reconnect with alot of old friends though and made few new ones as well. The networking gets better everytime. I also would of liked to take more pictures, but just got caught up what I was doing too much and missed alot of opportunities. The pictures I did get though are linked below.

Another great ERE Expo is done, and time to look forward to the next recruiting conference, which actually comes up this week with a trip to the CareerXroads Colloquium in Jersey City. More to come later this week on that event. Until then, just catching my breath, and getting ready for more learning, networking and fun!

ERE Expo - Fall 07