Thursday, September 29, 2005

targeting diversity

I have been really lucky in the past few weeks to be working with Starbucks on diversity sourcing- my customer there, Craig, is doing some very good work there.

Check out http://www.diversityconnections.com where you will find a link to join Starbuck's diversity talent network. This has only been live a short time and is creating a massive talent network of diverse professionals AND prospects for specific opportunities.

Jobster Search Unveiled in Boston today

The launch of Jobster Search is happening today, which brings back similar feelings I had when we launched Jobster. http://yarddart.blogspot.com/2005/03/scene-to-remember.html.

This is another step toward driving some big change (good change) in the industry. Imagine a path of pre-qualification and verification of skills when jobseekers find your jobs on the Internet. Once pre-qualified, they become a future source for hiring and referring other great people. Using Jobster's relationship management capabilities, companies are building pipelines RIGHT NOW.

I explain Jobster Search as the employee referral program in reverse. Instead of a recruiting team initiating the process with employees, jobseekers can now initiate the process through people they know at the company. In the end, the employee continues to be a critical piece of this... they have to decide whether to vouch for the jobseeker. If they decide to, then the job seeker is forward directly to the hiring team.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

our professional service is live!

Kudos to our dev, test and product teams, who valiantly stayed up most of Friday night and Saturday morning to release our September bits. Now professionals who have contacts in companies can leverage their contacts to get in touch with & referred directly to hiring teams in those companies- really really powerful stuff.

CHECK IT OUT!! http://www.jobster.com

Friday, September 23, 2005

Torrefazione no longer

I was really sad to find out thatTorrefazione, the Italian coffee shop that quickly gained my patronage when Jobster moved to downtown Seattle, is closing its doors today permanently.

Starbucks bought the 17 cafe chain back in 2003, and it looked like the brand was going to remain untouched for a while. The reason cited by corporate was that the chain "...failed to meet corporate goals."

My daily treat will be missed.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

two things

Other than the fact that my mind is consumed with a hugely important release in our company's history next week, I CANNOT shake two things out of my brain...

1) Podcasting is going somewhere fast. I have SO many questions, ideas, and concepts that apply to this new and phenomenally efficient form of distributing content to personal devices on a massive scale. I am watching closely... would love to have a hobby site that helped others learn how to take advantage of this new medium... but that is a project for another day.

2) Microsoft and recent news about them losing the war on talent. That combined with what I consider to be the most viable threat (and widely loved) Google; who is on a rampage, delivering very compelling and useful products in a very rapid & iterative model. The big question in my mind is will Google take their desktop beginnings and introduce an open source OS or Office competitor? Do they have secret teams already working on early versions of these? I know MS is watching them like a hawk competitively...

should be a historic battle with good results for consumers.

btw: I started using audio blogging on jack and carson's site. I also researched and bought some podcasting production gear to start goofing around.

Thursday, September 08, 2005

jack and carson

This week I decided to start breaking up the content of my blog into some distinct spaces. I think yarddart is ALL OVER THE PLACE in terms of content, so I plan to tighten it up and talk more about Jobster and industry related things.

My favorite thing to blog about right now is my son, Jackson, and about our baby boy on the way. Carson is due to join our family in the next few weeks!! Exciting, scarey and emotional... but I am ready.


A blog about two boys starts this week.