Networking With 1,500 of Your Closest Friends

One of the real challenges in attending a large gathering like the annual NACE conference is getting together with the people that you really want to see and meeting some new people who you really need to meet. So how do you do it?

I don't pretend to have all of the answers. I don't even pretend to have most of them. But I am happy to pass along a few suggestions that have worked well for me over the years:

1. It is too late for the 2008 conference but try to be one of the speakers. It is VERY easy to meet people if you are a speaker because they come up to you before and especially after your presentation to introduce themselves and pick your brain. Give away a lot of nickels in life. They tend to come back as dollars.
2. Regardless of whether your regional ACE chapter is organizing the conference, volunteer. I volunteered for about half a day a few years ago in Milwaukee and helped check attendees in as they arrived. Yup, I was one of the folks handing over the bag full of presentation materials, water bottles, and other assorted goodies. I probably helped 200 people check-in that day. That's 200 people with whom I had an opportunity to say hello and open the door to speaking with later in the conference.
3. When you have breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc., deliberately sit at tables where you don't know most of the people. It is okay to know one or two but don't just speak with them. Speak with the others at the table. You all have things in common: the conference and even the hotel banquet hall chicken in front of you. Complain about your flight, laugh about the meal, share advice about presentations you attended or plan to attend, whatever. But have fun and enjoy yourself.
4. Arrive at sessions at least five minutes early and sit beside people you don't know. Introduce yourself and ask about their work lives first and perhaps their personal lives (married? kids?) later.
5. Business cards. You can never bring enough or hand out enough. Never, ever leave home without 'em.

Keynote Update!

Dan Pink is launching a new book today called The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, written in manga (a Japanese comic book style - which I only know about because a friend of my teenage son is a BIG fan of it!). The site includes a video ' movie trailer' which is very interesting. I have NOT read the book but it will be carried in the NACE bookstore!

Talk about an interesting marketing campaign designed to capture the intended readers. Perhaps we can all learn a bit from looking at this program!

Hello, my name is...

Hey there!

My name’s Meg Busse and I coordinate Idealist.org’s Nonprofit Career Transitions Initiative. The focus of my work is to find ways to connect people to and educate folks about the exciting, diverse range of career opportunities in the nonprofit sector.

My main project over this past year has been the creation of The Idealist Guide to Nonprofit Careers, a comprehensive guide to finding a job in the nonprofit sector. This free (!) book is available online in downloadable pdfs; check it out at www.idealist.org/careerguide. We’ve just finished the second edition: one version is specifically for first-time job seekers and the other has information tailored to sector switchers and mid-career transitioners.

Along with co-authoring these books, I present workshops around the country at conferences like NACE, NSEE, and ASPA, as well as at Idealist’s Nonprofit Career Fairs.

In fact, I spent this past week in Minneapolis and DC, and am heading to Indianapolis on Tuesday for three of our Nonprofit Career Fairs. It’s been thrilling to talk to so many people at our fairs who are looking for a “career with meaning” or some way to connect their paycheck and their passion. The best news is that there are so many ways for people to do this!

There are also plenty of other things I’m passionate about. I’ve lived in Portland, OR and Seattle, WA for the past five years and love the Pacific Northwest for a whole host of reasons, including great food, amazing music and hiking, and the fact that I could snowboard, swim, windsurf, walk on the beach, and take a vineyard tour all within the same day (if I had enough energy!). I love Portland, but I did grow up in New Jersey and am a Jersey girl through and through and always love to connect with fellow New Jerseyians.

I’m so excited to be back in New Orleans this May—it’ll be my second NACE national conference (I had the opportunity to present a workshop at last year’s conference in New York) and this year I’m excited to be exhibiting and roaming around trying to meet as many folks as possible! Do stop by and see me at booth 505 in the exhibit hall and share the nonprofit, west coast, or Jersey love!

The Big Easy is alive and thriving!

First of all, by the way of introduction, I'm Pam Webster, Corporate Recruiting Manager with Enterprise Rent-A-Car. I work at our corporate office in St. Louis where I've been in my current role for the past three years. Prior to moving to St. Louis, I spent 20 years with our Southern California operations where I began my career with Enterprise in our Management Training Program. I worked my way into management before moving into HR and Recruiting and have been involved in college recruiting for the past 19 years. I've been actively involved in WACE, then MPACE where I served on the board. I've been a member of NACE for many of those years and have served on the NACE Future Directions Task Force, and this year had the pleasure and honor of serving as a co-chair for the 2008 Conference Programming Committee.

I am now a NACE blogger, and am also a first time blogger............Steven, you may need to teach me a thing or two.

I'm actually in New Orleans as I write this blog, attending the American Marketing Association's 50th Annual Collegiate Conferece. I've spent the past two days getting to know some amazing students that are here for training and development in the chosen major of business and marketing, even with the tempt of Bourban Street just a few blocks away. I've been back to New Orleans several times a year since Katrina, and the city is getting back to the great city that New Orleans is. You will experience, great food, great music, great history and great hospitality! And guaranteed, you'll gain a few pounds while you're here. While you are here, make sure you head down to the Cafe Du Monde, an original french market since 1862, and taste the beignets, the state donut of Louisiana........and at a price you can't beat--three for $1.82.

If you've never been to New Orleans, you may have a difficult time understanding the city. It looks like no other place in the United States---it seems almost European.The first puzzling impression usually comes from the appearance of the French Quarter near many of the city's hotels. It is more than just a few blocks of townhouses and cottages standing side-by-side, up against the sidewalk. The size of the district startles even those well traveled in the rest of the nation. You'll experience a melange of people moving at all hours of the day and night in the very center of the city. You will quickly learn that bars have no closing hour (and I know how NACE folks love to party), that the food is spicy, and that the music is pulsating almost everywhere.

What's exciting to me about NACE 2008 in New Orleans, is an opportunity to work with the Area Habitat for Humanity, helping families realize their dream of affordable housing. More than 100 families have benefited since the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. We've also got some great programming planned and of course the best networking where friends and colleagues can come together to catch up and share idea and have the opportunity to meet new friends along the way.

So, if you haven't made plans to attend the conference yet, we hope it will fit into your busy schedules and you can join us in New Orleans!

How to be a part of the Recovery!

Thanks to all our bloggers for jumping in!

And just a reminder, after reading Steves post of 4/4, that NACE has TWO work days scheduled with Habitat for Humanity. You can read all about the project here.

Dont think you can swing a hammer or hang drywall? ME neither....but I can wield a mean paintbrush if I need to.:)) Regardless, we can all do something. Even if it just means carrying water for another person, I can contribute.

I personally will be working on Saturday and promise we will all have a great time! Why not join the fun and help out!

Returning to New Orleans

One of the reasons that I'm excited about the NACE conference this year is that it is located in New Orleans. For those of us who had the good fortune of visiting New Orleans prior to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, we know what an incredible city it was. There are so few cities in the world which are electric and New Orleans was definitely one of those. In the U.S., I would put New York, San Francisco, and Chicago into that same bucket.

I joined the board of the non-profit organization, Nechama: Jewish Response to Disaster, about four years ago. I flew down to Mississippi five days after Katrina to see what help we could be in helping people clean out their homes and small businesses. You couldn't get near New Orleans as it was still under water and the gulf coast from western Alabama all the way through Mississippi and Louisiana was absolutely devastated. There was too much damage and too little water, fuel, electricity, and security for us to attempt to help out in those areas. But I found that there was plenty of work and logistical support a little further north near Hattiesburg, Mississippi so we started there and as life started to return to normal or at least somewhat normal further south we moved down there. Nechama has gutted out dozens of homes in New Orleans since then and we're quite proud of the work that we've done there.

Today, New Orleans is again a vibrant city, especially in the tourist areas. But I urge all attendees of the conference to venture outside of the tourist areas. Go to some of the devastated areas and see first hand how terrible the flooding was and how much work remains to be done. This is a city that needs and deserves the help of all of us. Bringing NACE to New Orleans will help tremendously. Consider donating a day or even part of a day to the ongoing clean-up efforts. Consider contacting your federal political representatives to get the money flowing properly. But above all, come to NACE, enjoy New Orleans, and be part of the process in getting this proud and wonderful city back to 100 percent.

Becky Vianden Introduction

Hello everyone!

I am excited to be a NACE Blogger! This is my first experience at blogging, and I'm sure it will be fun. Hopefully it will be fun (and of course educational) for those of you reading as well. :)


Currently, I am at the University of Arkansas Career Development Center, serving as Associate Director for Program Development. I'm fairly new in this position - just started in December 2007. My previous experience in Career Services has been as Associate Director of Informatics Career Services at Indiana University as well as some time with eCampusRecruiter as a Software Consultant.


There are several reasons why I was interested in becoming a blogger for the NACE conference, but one of the reasons stems from our attempt at using a blog here at the UA Career Development Center. This semester, we started a blog for our Sophomores, called the "Sophomore Scoop" to provide a place for sophomores to "discuss" career development "stuff" for students at that level (choice of major, internships, campus involvement, etc). We have a real Sophomore student as the blogger, presenting topics for discussion based on her experiences. We envisioned a blog where most of the student learning was coming from the comments that various students would make to the blog - kind of like discussion among the blogger and all those making comments to the blog. Being a blogger for NACE will, I hope, be a learning experience for me not only about NACE related information, but also about the process of blogging. I hope to learn some tips that we can apply to our own CDC blog about how to get those blog "conversations" going. (Any advice welcome!)


This will be my third national NACE Conference. One of my favorite aspects of attending the NACE conference is having the chance to learn about new ideas that are out there. If you're like me, I always feel renewed and refreshed after attending a conference because I see so many great ideas out there that are being done in other centers that I'm inspired to try some of those ideas as well. For example, in our center, we'd like to start a blog in the Fall where we follow a few seniors as they make their way through the job search. And wouldn't you know it, there is a session to be presented at the conference that details this very topic. I'm excited to see how this campus went about doing this, what their outcomes were, and if they'd do anything differently.


And of course, there's nothing better than meeting up with old friends and making new ones at the conference. See you in New Orleans!