TRU Conferences

This guest post is by Miri Zena McDonald, an organization development and communications strategist on a quest to help companies thrive by engaging employees, improving culture, and promoting wellness. She tweets at @miri_orgchange. Traditional conferences have gotten the reputation for being dry, death-by-Powerpoint experiences that often don’t fit in today’s training budgets. However, the tide is beginning [...]

I hate Madison, Wisconsin! From Drop Box Photo source: Dream Machine Much like the 1994 Cameron/Schwarznegger tour de force, nothing about TRU USA was what it initially appeared to be. I was prepared to dislike the location of the event.  When I first heard that this event was going to be held in Madison, Wisconsin,  I wondered [...]

More “un”… more “fun”? For having never been to an “un-conference” before it was quite a unique experience, and certainly one I’d advise everyone attend at least once in their career. For me, the laid back atmosphere, lack of structure, and overall flow was really very nice and extremely refreshing. There was/is one problem however [...]

Sarah White and I led a track at #truUSA on Generation Y.  In the unconference format, we talked about Generation Y and the similarities and/or differences between them and other generations.  Things were going just splendid.  The debate was hitting different parts of the room, from all levels of professional expertise.  Time was winding down, [...]

Is it TRU that I’m a geek for spending 3 days with a hotel full of sourcers? Maybe, but you’re the loser for not attending (accept those so graciously stuck on the ground in the UK) and missing out on  seriously great content. This was another corporate conference with 300 booths and paid keynotes. This [...]

The smartest people in our industry were there! Where else could you see the three incredibly sexy, smart and savvy “BALD” men posing for a photo? Steve Levy, Rich DeMatteo, and Geoff Webb literally put there heads together, and I almost fell off my chair.  At one point I thought Steve was going to turn to Rich [...]

“Hello, this is Jerry…” Yes, Rayanne is way hotter in person… Andy Gregory far taller, theGlamour Queen far glitzier, Ryan Leary more of a guru, and it is far easier to make Chris Havrilla snort. Marie Journey is far sassier and Maha Akiki’s husband could easily earn more money as a recruiter than whatever he’s doing now (just a hunch). To add [...]

I lit my cigarette and took a hit. The morning was cooler than I thought even though the sun shone big and bold in the sky. I shivered. Dang it, I thought. Forgot my jacket again. I looked up and there she was — a vision of beauty and light in a white jump suit, lit up [...]

Thanks to all of you that commented and voted on my blog posting about the TRU USA unconference. I actually won the ipad! I still can’t believe it. Thanks again to Pinstripe for donating the ipads for the contest. For those of you coming in late on this, read my previous posting about the contest. When Geoff Webb (one [...]