I’ve always been a start-up, smaller company kind of gal.  I think the largest organization I’ve ever worked for had about 160 employees – and that was big.  Many more have been along the lines of the 25-75 range.  It suits me.  In small companies and start ups there is no time for  bureaucracy.  Something needs to be done – everybody pitches in and gets it done – not matter your title or official job description.

And that may explain why I like unconferences.  There is less (or no) structure and everyone feels comfortable contributing to the conversation.  At least if it’s done well.

And last week I attended one that was done well – TRU Boston – put on by Bill Boorman at the great Bullhorn Reach offices.  At times it felt more like a meeting of the knights of the roundtable than a conference.  I think Arie Ball of Sodexo summed it up best when she said that you don’t come out of an event like this with a big idea but you get lots of smaller ones that you can implement as soon as you return to your office.  And I agree.

What I really liked:

• It was not a kumbaya event.  There were divergent opinions and you got to air them out.
• People listened to each other and thought about what was said and then participated.  Truly!  That just doesn’t happen often enough anymore
• I’ve always felt marketing & recruiting shared many of the same skill set.  Confirmed by many at this conference for me.  But none more than Johnny Campbell and his brilliant take on how to use a webinar to get candidate leads…not sales leads.
• Every vendor there had recruiting issues and every recruiter there had vendor issues…we helped each other out with both – albeit warily. Which is why the session who came first customer or candidate was spot on.  The answer in my opinion – who cares?  We’re all customers and we’re all candidates and both need to be respected and paid attention to if you’d like your business to thrive.

What I took away:

• There are those who believe as passionately as I that marketing branding & employer branding can work together and share leads and resources and should do so more often
• That there is a science to going viral…and I’m still not sure anyone has it all figured out, but got some good pointers
• That workplace flexibility seems to be a no brainer for start ups, burdensome  for large companies and that employment laws that vary from state to state here are a difficult concept for international peeps to grasp.
• That Facebook communities should absolutely have a recruiting tab to convert those who already love your brand into workers who can help improve your brand and product.
• That there is no substitute for old fashioned skills like research, good communication, and the courage to pick up the phone and talk to someone (or maybe even “stalk” them through foursquare to show up at their local Starbucks to talk face to face)
• That apparently way more people are much more open on social media than I am…and I probably won’t be recruited as easily as they will be…and I am very much okay with that.
• That some people are actually measuring social…and it happens to be in HR at UPS.  Nicely done Mike Vangel!
• That working in an office might be fun again…I’d actually been heading in this direction for a bit, but some conversations I had at TRUBoston made me believe it may be time to head back into highly-evolved cubeland.

What  I didn’t quite buy into:

• That an unconference means disorganization.  It wasn’t my conference and I am in marketing.  But I would have had more information out earlier and promoted more about the conference, who was attending, and maybe built a community aspect for it.  I heard about how to build Facebook communities to recruit for the HardRock Cafe…I think a FB community could have been similarly used  to inform about this and all the TRU Events.
• That Facebook is a great recruiting tool for all.  We learned about 3 companies using it…all hiring hourly workers.  I’m not saying it can’t be used for higher-end, I just am not seeing the same kinds of success stories there as with hourly workers.
• That LinkedIn recommendations are all that.  Hearing some recruiters in the room say that they checked LinkedIn first and if the candidate didn’t have any recommendations they treat them as lesser of a candidate.  My take – friends ask friends to put recommendations on LinkedIn knowing they will be friendly and happy ones.
• That a passive candidate is better than an active one…c’mon, enough now on this one.  Finding the right person for the job is all that counts.  Who cares what they did yesterday…instead recruiters should care about what they’ve done long term and if they are a good fit for the company.

I don’t get out much with my current work/life fit but I’m glad this conference came to me…and I’m glad I was able to juggle my way into attending.

Yep I got that email yesterday.  You know the one, the one from Netflix.  In it I was told the service I now get for $9.99 a month will go up to more than $16 per month starting on Sept. 1st.  Was I furious like others are?  No.  Am I going to write them a note to complain? No.  I am simply going to take my business elsewhere.  I knew it was underpriced…but hey I rode that wave.  They allowed me to.  They told me I could have lots of content for not a lot of money.  And I partook.  They didn’t lie exactly.  They simply decided it was better to increase their customer base first, before actually charging what it costs for their service.  You know the old bait ‘n switch.

And it worked, right?  After all with the cheap price for both streaming & DVD they increased their customers from 6 million in 2007 to 23 million now.  And after yesterday’s announcement the stock price went up .53 per share.  So maybe they were right.

We’ll see.

I’m interested to see if the ire that the email has generated – 5000 comments on yesterday’s Netflix blog – will actually lead to a loss of customers.  So many of us just don’t walk the talk and the internet makes it easy to talk without anyone even knowing who you are.

But I think the long-term damage may be more substantial.  And not just for their customer base.  But also their employer brand.  I don’t know about you, but I feel:

1) Lied to – I think they knew all along they couldn’t sustain the price, but figured we’d get hooked and then where would we go as customers.

2) Brushed off – the email simply said we’re changing our pricing model.  It didn’t say why.  I happen to know their content costs are rising as it’s been in the news but wouldn’t explaining a little of the business reason why and giving me more than a couple of paragraphs made me feel a bit more valued?  I think so.

3) Not sure I can trust them in the future.  If I agree to this, what next?

4) Honestly I think the value of what I got for the streaming portion of Netflix was worth about what I was paying for it.  Not a penny more.  It’s not like they’ve got the hottest new releases.  Much of what they have is on Hulu for free (for now)

Now how does this relate to work/life and HR?  How do you think Netflix employees and potential employees are feeling about the company they work for right about now?  They probably are feeling some of the same concerns as I am as a customer.  And that’s the rub with employer branding.  Everyone is a potential customer and everyone is a potential employee.  What  happens to one affects the other.