Thank you very much for your participation and support of Red Shoe Project!  I consider it a privilege to have you as a part of this growing cause!  It’s been an exciting adventure thus far!

As the months roll by, more and more opportunities are coming up for Red Shoe Project.  As we pass our 900th member on Facebook, I thought it would be important to share some of those happenings with you.

• BarCamp Recruit – The first BarCamp Recruit was held last month in Newport Beach, CA.  Almost all of the attendees were wearing red shoes… it was a blast.  More photos and a video of the event are coming soon.
• Skilled Recruiters Network Chicago – This month, I will be speaking at SRNC about Red Shoe Project and what the cause intends to do.  This will, once again, be a great chance to engage additional voices and hopefully propel the project forward.
• In The News – A variety of traditional and new media sources are beginning to spread the word about Red Shoe Project.  I have added a Newsroom page on the website to catalog updates.

As you can imagine, spreading the word, editing photos, speaking, traveling and making videos requires both time and effort.  From an evaluation of this commitment, we have decided to organize RSP further by implementing a few plans over the next couple of months.

• 501c3 Status – We will be registering RSP as a 501c3 over the next couple of months.  Once established, all donations to RSP will come with the added tax benefits for our contributors and for the charity.
• Assistance – Once we have the paperwork in line, we are going to be preparing a five-year plan for RSP to include our process for selecting the charities we support, potential hiring plans and annual goals.  That vision will be shared with our members as they are defined.
• Social Hours – RSP Social Hours will become a priority over the next few months.  Having a method for organizing and holding an RSP Social Hour in various cities will become a way for our members to connect and share their mutual passion for giving back and propelling social change.  Not to mention that we will all be wearing red shoes!

As you can see, there are lots of priorities right now for the future of RSP.  With your help, I’m confident that we can build a solid group of passionate individuals who believe in the concept of “access.”  I refer to it as “access” because I firmly believe that people, at their core, want to get involved.  For financial or other reasons, it sometimes becomes difficult.

Membership to Red Shoe Project will continue to be based on the simple act of submitting a photograph of yourself, your friends, your family or others in red shoes.  The financial impact that we make on other charities will only happen when our members or outside contributors find it within their means to assist.  Those financial means, however, should never serve as a barrier to involvement.

So, here are a few ways that you can help now:

1. Send in your picture.
2. Invite your friends via email, Facebook, Twitter or any other avenue available to you.
3. Voice your desire to organize an event if you so choose… they are a lot of fun!
4. Stay tuned for updates on the RSP Facebook group page and on the website.
5. Let us know if you identify a shoe sponsor for the project.  We would like to have one shoe sponsor that can provide a line of red shoes for our members to pick from.  Ideally, a small portion of the proceeds would come back to RSP in order to help execute on the long-term vision of propelling worthy causes forward.

We started in April of this year and RSP is about to pass the 1,000 member mark.  It’s an exciting time to get involved and I want you to know that I sincerely appreciate your help!

Are we having fun yet?

This past week, I had the great privilege of visiting with a large group of recruiters in Southern California for the inaugural BarCamp Recruit event in Newport Beach, CA.

Gretchen Benes and Chrisa Mott conceived of the event after attending something similar for the Real Estate industry.  In summary, it was an unconference for recruiters that had a pretty intense focus on the use of social media.  Topics ranged from SEO to Twitter Best-Practices.  For the participants, it was a jam-packed day of valuable information!

Gretchen and Chrisa threw an excellent event!  Keep your eyes open for a BarCamp Recruit close to you… it’s coming!

The more I travel the country and meet recruiters, the more I enjoy teaching about how social media is becoming a force in the area of recruitment and HR.  Perhaps it’s because the more time that passes, the more the topic becomes relevant.  iStrategyLabs just reported last week that Facebook is trending to pass Google in unique visits per month by September… do you know what this means for the recruitment industry?  Are you planning to embrace this change?

During the training at BarCamp Recruit, I said to the group that any recruiter who does not familiarize themselves with social media over the course of the next two years will be a dinosaur.  I meant it.  In fact, in retrospect, I should have said “over the course of the next year” – it would have made more sense.

No one can deny that this little phenomenon that we refer to as social media is growing.  I just wonder if people realize how fast it’s growing.  And, it’s not just about Facebook.  Think about how many people are adopting Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogging… just to name a few routes for social interaction online.  Are you improving your recruiting game as it applies to these tools?  How?

So, what does this all mean and how can a recruiter start to make sense of this online frenzy?

Here are a few suggestions…

Getting Started In Social Media

1. Decide on an available user ID – This should help… http://www.usernamecheck.com
2. Register your accounts (at least Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Flickr)
3. Put together a short and interesting bio that you can use across multiple sites… be consistent.
4. Go have 50 pictures taken of yourself and pick one that you like… make sure your face is central.
5. Edit your pictures in http://picnik.com – Great for cropping pictures to the necessary size for social media.
6. Start being curious… poke around, read what people say and how they interact online.
7. Read a few blogs that have to do with social media from general and recruiting specific perspectives… here are some:

• Chris Brogan – Lots of valuable information on approach, strategy and processes
• Mashable – Lots of nitty-gritty on the tools (good for if you’d like to be “in the know”)
• Boolean Black Belt – Constant exploration of sourcing topics… very valuable information
• (Feel free to drop your suggestions in the comments… there are many great sources, but I’m blanking at the moment.)

Social media should not consume your life.  Perhaps it’s our natural curiosity – we love knowing what’s going on.  When we get that first sweet taste of being informed all the time… it can be a bit intoxicating.  You’ll ultimately do whatever you’d like… just remember that it’s important to balance the online with the off.  Spend time away from the computer and develop a fresh perspective.  It will make you that much more interesting when you return to exchange thoughts with your online friends.

Do Something About Social Media

No one is expecting that you are going to wake up tomorrow and be a super-savvy social media user.  However, you are going to be expected, over the next year (or more), to have a grasp on this topic.  If you are banking on it being a fad… wake up!  It may change and evolve, but it’s not going away.  Getting familiar with how things work will only benefit you and your career.

What did I leave out?  What would you suggest for an HR pro or Recruiter who is just starting out?