Saturday was great fun as the kids and us joined Andy and Nolan White over at Swain for some skiing. It was our first time in 2008, so we worked a few kinks out to be sure. Tricia blogged our ski trip so I’ll just touch on my personal highlights.

Mason Made Huge Strides
We’ve got Mason signed up for ski lessons at Powder Mills Park in February. So, I really didn’t want that to be the first time on skis this year. Mason started out very hesitant, expecially when it came to learning the magic carpet. Apparently this was the first time Swain has had one operating, so even the staff was unfamiliar with how to tell kids to ride it. The best tip ended up being to have the kids put their hands on their knees.

Although I’ve skiied since Mason’s age, teaching someone to ski is a whole different enchilada. The magic ticket ended up being Nolan. He is 5 years old, and Andy has taken him out a few more times than Mason has been out. So, when Mason saw that Nolan can ski by himself, and wanted to ride the big lift, Mason’s competitive fire was lit. I got to share Mason’s very first chairlift ride, and it was great to see the wonder in his eyes when we floated up into the air above the ski hill. To get down the hill I either had him ski between my legs, or the better approach, ski beside me using my ski poles as a support bar.

While he won’t ski the big hill by himself yet, Mason was begging to come back for more by the end of the day. You just can’t ask for a better outcome!

Taking 2 Boys on the Lift is a 2 Person Job
Anna, our litle dare devil wanted to go onto the big hill. Andy wanted to impart some skiing wisdom on her because kids never want to learn from their dads. So her first chair ride was with Andy. I thought it would be a great idea to take the two boys up on the lift to join them. Let’s just say lifting two boys onto the seat and getting myself on was not a great idea. It was one of those moments where you realize it was a bad idea, but there was nothing to do but follow through. Luckily the lift operator slowed it down so that I could lift on Nolan, then make a quick pivot to lift on Mason. This whole time I’m flashing back to my favorite guilt trip I lay on my dad for dropping me off the lift when I was a kid. Well, I think now I might just go a little easier on that joshing.

Hmmm…Something is Missing Here…
Tricia also wanted to join us at the top of the big hill. So, after watching the hilarity of me and the 2 boys, she ended up 3 chairs behind. When she got off the lift she couldn’t stop talking about how freaked out she was being up so high in the open air. Because she’s a beginner I thought for sure she was talking about the relative freedom when you put up the safety bar near the last pole. I thought nothing of it. When we were on the way home, we started recapping our day. She kept talking about how unfomfortable she was being out in the open. Then the revelation…She said, “They should really have saftey bars on those things”. I said “They DO have safety bars, didn’t you put it down after you got on?” That’s when the lightbulb went on for both of us:)

I think we’ll all be doing a lot more skiing together this winter. I’ve uploaded some pictures of the ski trip.

I recently came across the Wired & Hired blog when looking for staffing firm blog best practices. I found one of the posts was particularly well done, and have been tracking the site ever since. Apparently others in the blogosphere think similarly, as the site won best job hunting blog of 2007 on Recruitingblogs.com. So in homage to the victory, and to help all of us staffing firm marketers with our own blog strategy I scored an email interview with Ryan Watkins, TalentZoo’s Web Editor. I wanted to know the secrets to success and Ryan was happy to oblige. Here’s what I learned.

Tell me about your blog strategy, when, how, and why did it come about at TalentZoo?
Talent Zoo has several blogging sites, each of which serves a different industry and reader. The overall goal is to spread our name throughout the blogosphere to drive readers, job seekers and industry professionals to TalentZoo.com.

The blogs were created long before I came into the picture. Our company saw the importance of interactive marketing, and there is nothing more interactive than blogging. Creating a relevant dialogue with our readers was, and continues to be, the basis for the blog sites. Our authors have valuable information that we feel will help our readers in their careers, job searches or even personal lives.

Your title is Web Editor. What does that mean, and where does your role fit into the organizational hierarchy?
I belong to the Development Department here at the Zoo. It is my responsibility to ensure that all of the written content on any page on any site we produce is correctly presented. There is a lot of content on our sites, but I’m a wordsmith – I enjoy editing, proofing, and writing as much as I enjoy any off-the-job activity.

Wired & Hired is recruiters speaking directly to the Creative job seeker masses. How did you find the right recruiters for the job?
Our Wired & Hired writers come directly from Talent Zoo. I have to admit that I don’t have anything to do with the hiring process, but our HR department does an excellent job of brining in smart, driven recruiters.

Most of the writers on our recruiting sites are Senior Level. They have the experience and the smarts to present their knowledge in a meaningful way. They’ve been around the block a few times and will gladly share their opinions to anyone who will take the time to listen. The advice they give the readership also makes their jobs easier, so who can blame them for that?

Do you give your bloggers any oversight or content ideas? Do you dictate any tone guidelines or stylistic hints?
I rarely give any input on the content. As I said, our recruiters know their game – they know what fits and what doesn’t. My job is to make sure their content is proofed, properly worded and relevant. The tone and style remains their responsibility. I have never had an issue of having to pull or send back a submitted article. These guys make my job much easier than it could be.

What has been the biggest challenge of the project? What advice would you give to other staffing firms that are trying to enter the blogging arena?
If you’re interested in blogging, it’s an inexpensive marketing resource. The only advice I can give anyone would be to choose quality writers and posts. You may not always know who that will be in your company, but it’s worth finding out.

Presentation can go a long way, as well. There are hundreds of templates and dozens of excellent reference books on blogs and blogging tools. The more seriously you take blogging, the better your results will be.

We work in a high turnover industry. What is your approach as your recruiters who blog come into and exit from the TalentZoo organization?
Like I mentioned earlier, most of our bloggers are Senior Level. They’ve been with Talent Zoo for a while and have created a niche for themselves here. Recruiting does have extremely high turnover, but a lot of industries do, as well. We’ve yet to lose any of our bloggers since I was brought on. In fact, we’ve actually added a few!

What is the approach you are using to measure the ROI?
We keep track of how many users find our homepage from our affiliate sites. When a marketing or ad professional finds the perfect job after reading through one of our sites, we certainly consider that a major success. Of course we monitor traffic, incoming links and comments on all of our blogs, but the primary goal is to drive job seekers to Talent Zoo’s homepage and ultimately to our job board.

That’s not to say we sacrifice any aspect of the blogs’ traditional purposes. It takes excellent, relevant content to keep the readership returning. Without solid contributions from all of our writers, we would cease to expand our readership. We have the most knowledgeable contributors in the industry and their insights are readily available to the world. That sort of information is valuable to anyone who reads our content, and that in itself is strong ROI.

What are your immediate goals in the coming months, do you see your approach changing?
Our immediate goal is the continued expansion of our readership. We’re going to continue to provide the best content possible. We’ve found a stride in recent months with our sites and will continue to ride the wave.

We’re going pink to support Aunt Wendy’s battle against breast cancer. Tricia and I ordered up some Promise Rings to keep our minds and prayers focused on her everyday. She has swiftly gone into treatment mode, and needs the power of well-wishes more than ever. We’ve got a lot of pink wristbands as well in case anyone needs one. “Wonder Twins activate, in the form of a healing miracle.”

Beginning in the third week of January, Tricia and I will be continuing the couples small group that we started in late 2007. The Beginning Life Together series was our first experience facilitating a small group. 3 couples got to know each other, examine where we are at with our faith and ultimately grow in our spiritual lives.

What is a Small Group?
Simple. Couples who meet regularly to discover more about themselves, build deeper friendships, and most of all relax and have a good time together.

Do I need to be Christian, go to your church, or even attend church regularly?
Nope. Everyone’s Walk is totally different. You don’t need to believe, or belong to Browncroft Community Christian Church either. Just come because you want to fill that spiritual void in your life.

Is this a Bible study? What will we be doing?
At the completion of our last session we examined new studies to guide us in the new year. The “chosen one” for this session is the Serving Like Christ Together series. There is more info about the content of the study, including a video preview on the website lifetogether.com. There is a study guide that each couple will purchase for $13 which will help lead our exploration. There won’t be any homework. You’ll come watch the DVD, chat, snack, and go home. In my mind, this really isn’t “Bible Study”. That’s way too hard-core for me

When will this be?
This go ’round we are thinking every other Wednesday evening from 6:30-8:30. The first meeting will be January 23rd. At that time if we want to move times and dates around to accomodate schedules, we’re definitely open. The study would last for 6 sessions (12 weeks) ending sometime end of March.

We will also be welcoming at least one new couple into the group for this session. It is awesome to be able to conenct with more and more people!

What about childcare?
The Small Group should be uninterrupted by kids (including ours). So, we will try the following:

1. Group members with kids could bring them to our house. They can play together in the basement with Mason and Anna. If the kids can’t stay down there quietly, one of the parents would skip the Small Group on a rotation every week to watch the children.
2. All parents pitch in on a sitter

There’s other ideas, but we can work together to figure it out.

We’re really looking forward to continuing a group that everyone points to as a great part of their life.

Saturday, I got Mason and Anna out of the house to blow the stink off and give Tricia a breather. There was barely enough snow on the ground, but even an icy hillside will do the trick when you are desperate. We had a great time doing sled trains. My self-capture skills could improve a bit, but I really needed a 3rd arm or something to get us in better view. Here’s the highlights:

That must have been an aberration, as today it was 60 degrees in Rochester. All the snow is gone. It feels like Springtime. I hope this doesn’t mean snow on my birthday.

Monster, and its new global agency BBDO Worldwide have created a much ballyhooed new ad campaign, “Your Calling is Calling”. I haven’t yet seen all of the TV spots, but from what’s been posted on YouTube (not by BBDO or Monster, mind you) the campaign is nothing short of brilliant.

My question is. WHAT were they thinking with their treatment of their global website homepages? The company line…

Monster visitors will experience a fully refined site offering greater usability and reflecting the tone of the “Your Calling Is Calling” campaign. The updated “My Monster” homepage provides instant access to personalized information, such as job search history, for easier job search management. Also, Monster’s award-winning content is integrated throughout the experience, delivering relevant insight and advice as seekers navigate through the site. Currently available in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany and the Netherlands, the new look will be rolled-out to other countries in the coming months.

In addition, Monster has deployed a new search engine across all of its sites around the world after seeing the number of job applies increase significantly following the technology’s implementation in the U.S. last year. The engine allows job seekers to more effectively refine, modify and augment their searches and helps them more easily manage the overall application process.

The execution is scary…literally. Have you ever gone on a journey up a rasta-businessman’s nose? Now you can. On Monster’s new homepage, you too can waste your precious time by selecting one of 3 misfit workers (rasta-businessman, Ivy League frat-boy chef, or cheerleader turned auto mechanic) and see how to reach your “true calling”.

As a paying client of Monster I’ve got more than a few thoughts on why what is there today is so wrong.

1. Questionable Candidate Targeting. I get it. You can do anything, find a job to match your personality, stretch beyond your boundaries blahbeddy-blah. Here’s some positions we look for all the time: Experienced Accountants, IT Business Analysts and Developers, Contract Attorneys, Marketing and Sales Professionals. These are the professionals that run Corporate America. While being a chef or an auto-mechanic are admirable professions that they might be “Called” to after retiring from knowledge work in the cube farm, these images certainly don’t attract placeable candidates.
2. Branding Instead of Utility. Apparently using your homepage as a gigantic billboard is the in thing to do these days to pitch products. Take a look at Adobe, Volkswagen, and Xerox to see what I mean. That same approach is awful when it comes to a job board, which is a productivity application at its core. Save the branding for TV, splash pages, YouTube, whatever. Your precious homepage real estate should be dedicated to the one thing; getting paying customers’ jobs in front of the right audience as quickly as possible.
3. Keeping the Personalization Buried. Why is it, that when I log into LinkedIn everyday, it gives me all sorts of information customized to me, right from the homepage? What about Monster’s direct competitors Yahoo!HotJobs and CareerBuilder? Same thing. So, has Monster differentiated itself in a positive way by consuming the homepage with brandware and burying it’s personalized My Monster on a secondary page? Maybe, they did this so they can continue to put interstitials in front of my face before I can even get to the part of the site that is useful to me.

   
   An interstitial that stops me from getting to “My Monster” Homepage

   After I’m logged into My Monster account and return to the homepage, It’s like the site doesn’t even know me. Instead I can suffer through the same ad all over again.
   

4. Lack of Social Web Imagination. The TV ad is a smart, and unique take on the rate race that I’m sure the masses can identify with. Does it seem like the homepage campaign and the TV ad are even from the same company? Shouldn’t the online have been an extension of the TV? Couldn’t the campaign have become a game complete with battle arena and weaponry to fend off the impending week? Or Facebook prizes you can send to your friends to help eclipse the work week? The payoff for sitting through the brand ad sequence is a link to “Find Your Calling” which dumps you right back to the Job Search tool. **Thud**
5. Global. Really? I very much admire the fact that Monster was able to unify their homepages globally. I’m shocked that they used the same exact campaign images and verbiage only translated. These are pretty far from the European aesthetic.

The new Monster TV campaign has the potential to really attract some high quality candidates that recruiters so desperately look for. The problem is when the candidates reach the website, they may run for cover. It is a bit frustrating that Monster goes to such great pains to listen to customer feedback yet customers have to wait until the site has been changed for the wrong to provide our candid observations on marketing campaigns. For a company that started on the web, they have a ways to go with their interactive marketing. Think I’m wrong? I’m all ears…

UPDATE 1/8/2008, 10am
I can tell the healthcare contingent has influence. This image has been thrown into the mix. That seems like a more appropriate image that addresses one of Monster’s largest customer segments.

Healthcare image used in ad rotation on Monster.com

UPDATE 1/8/2008, 3pm
Ivy League chef is gone. And YouTube does have the other commercial from the campaign – ‘Slots’.

2 little tweets from Shannon Seery Gude the other day gave me a shot of adrenaline that is starting to help me understand why, against my better judgment, I’m spending SO much time figuring out how to use social web technology.

@ KrisRzepkowski how do we not know one another? You’re an Interactive Marketing Director focused on Recruitment – your blog design is great

One of the nicest ways I seen to integrate content from several blogs – http://www.krisrzepkowski.com – lifeblog / workblog

I just…just…loved to get my very first blog compliment from the professional world. Sure, my mom likes to catch up on the family happenings, and I’ve gotten a bit of commentary from others who I’ve written about. This was the first, unsolicited cheer I’ve gotten after I started trying to figure out blogging in earnest in February 2007.

I learned a ton from those 2 little tweets.

1. Flattery (link love) is an incredible networking tool. I think that Shannon makes a point of genuinely looking at tons of web content everyday, and leaving a trail of compliments wherever she goes. What a terrific way of immediately building interest in her activities.

2. Twitter is a great place to spread good will. I’m a complete Twitter noob. I have no idea why I even tried it, as it really seemed like another time suck. I’m slowly starting to get it though. The community there is much more immediate than anything else I’ve experienced – even Facebook. Just following any mentors, or industry pros who are twittering is another way to become infinitely smarter almost by osmosis.

3. Blogging will help you grow professionally. I was once a skeptic, but now I’m convinced. The value of blogging about your professional life is like laying your career on the table for curious onlookers to help you along the way. How rewarding!

I’m going to try and find ways to spread some Random Tweets of Kindness in my web life. It is amazing the effect you can have on people with less than 140 characters.

This year I disconnected from the grid for a week just to enjoy life. Of course what happened was that holiday consumerism crept in to fill the void where so many hours are usually spent on work matters. I’m not complaining, all of it was a terrific distraction for my numbed mind. I just think it is funny how quickly the days pass when plugging in to non-work life.

Top uses of spare time over the Holiday Break…

1. Logging into Webkinz

We are late adopters when it comes to Webkinz. So, Santa brought 3 of them to our family. Unfortunately, Santa brought them into millions of other households on Christmas. From Christmas Day through today the Webkinz experience has consisted of a lot of the above. Shame on Webkinz for not building out enough servers to meet holiday demand. Couldn’t they have ordered a Blackbox or something?

2. Playing Webkinz Games for the Kids
Guess what? That KinzCash doesn’t come easy. The games in Webkinz world are pretty tough; especially for 4 and 5 year olds. Whatever happened to good old stupid Beanie Babies?

3. Obtaining WiiShoulder
I’m not sure that Nintendo knew it would have a Baby Boomer hit when they released the Wii. Well, believe it. My Mom gave my Dad a Wii, and my father in-law gave my mother in-law one. Not one to shy from competition, I spent much of my time trying to approach the greatness of parents who taunt me with scores like this…

Ellen Agosti’s top score at Wii Bowling

4. Demonstrating ineptitude at Guitar Hero III
I don’t need no stinking Wii. I got Guitar Hero III for my PS2. While I put in some pretty good licks on my Guitar Hero, I spent a bit of time drooling at YouTube videos of people knocking it out on expert. My favorite so far from Guitar Hero II…

5. Finding things to Pour BaconSalt On
Eggs…Check. Pizza…Check. Canker sore?…hmmm. Yes, Santa brought me all 3 delicious flavors of BaconSalt. I very much wanted to support my former colleague’s bacontrepreneurship. Indeed, everything tastes better with Bacon. Yeah, it’s fine on food, but I’m not sure whether its medicinal qualities have been fully exploited. I usually zap a pesky canker sore with salt. Next time it’s going to be a Hickory Flavored Bacon Assault.

6. Lego Attack
I’m going to adjourn meetings of LBA (Lego Builders Anonymous). Supposedly Mason is into Legos, which he is. The more Tricia and I got into it though, the more we became Lego Maniacs. By the end of the holiday week we had assembled the following sets that Mason got for Christmas.

• Fireboat
• Rescue Helicopter
• Garbage Truck
• Mini Monkey
• The Final Joust
• Fire Pick-up Truck
• The mother of all builds: Vladek’s Dark Fortress

New Year’s Eve this year was tons of fun. We had our new friends Christine and Andy White (via Mason’s kindergarten buddy, Nolan), and our old(er) friends David and Kelly Janicek over for New Years Eve. There was plenty of Guitar Hero III to play, and the wives had good fun just chit chatting. All of it was augmented by some top shelf libation and great food. The time really went by quick. We only made it to the last 4 seconds of the Dick Clark countdown, and then it was back to the fun until 4am. It’s back to work today for some rest after our great holidays **yawn**.