This week, The Starr Conspiracy attended the inaugural InfluenceHR. TSC was the underwriter of the new show put on by George LaRocque and TSC founder Bret Starr delivered a keynote on The Honeycomb — a new, expansive model for B2B marketing.

The conference was a truly unique experience — opening an honest dialogue among senior marketers at HR technology and services companies about what really works and what really doesn’t when marketing to the HR buyer.

You can read the official wrap-up and join in on the conversation here.

Events Wrap-up

It was an event-filled week here at The Starr Conspiracy with InfluenceHR and ERE’s Recruiting Innovation Summit. Oh, and there was also Dumpster Day. Wait for it.

Here’s what we covered this week:

• The Starr Conspiracy Changes the Destiny of B2B Marketing
• A Sneak Peek At What’s Next At ERE’s Recruiting Innovation Summit
• Photos and Tweets From InfluenceHR and #RIS13
• HCM and Marketing Conferences You Shouldn’t Miss Out On
• Oh, and there was Dumpster Day — we’re preparing for our big move and we found some … interesting things … while we were de-cluttering

Follow The Starr Conspiracy on Twitter and have a great weekend! 

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As you have seen this week, event season is upon us. Starting now, people will be hitting up hotels and booths all over as we head to HR Tech in the fall.

So you don’t miss out on all the happenings, here’s a list of the events in HCM and marketing that you shouldn’t miss out on:

ASTD International Conference & Exposition — Taking place May 19-22 right here in Dallas, ASTD’s conference is bringing more than 380 exhibitors and more than 8,000 attendees for four days focusing on the design and delivery, management, and strategy of learning and development.

Social Media Strategies Summit — Taking place June 12-13, the SMSSummit will be bringing top marketers from brands such as SAP, Citi, American Airlines, Sony, Hubspot, and IBM to NYC. Attendees will also have an opportunity to sit in on a dedicated B2B marketing track. Additional Summits will be taking place in Dallas, Aug. 27-28; Boston, Sept. 17-19; and London, Oct. 23-24.

SHRM Annual Conference & Exposition — With a focus on bolder, stronger, and better, SHRM’s conference will be lighting up Chicago June 16-19. Keynotes from speakers such as Hillary Clinton, Fareed Zakaria, Blake Mycoskie, Daniel Pink, and Mark Kelly with Gabby Giffords will get attendees thinking about how to impact their own world, even if in a small way. 

Content Marketing World — The largest content marketing event on the planet, Content Marketing World will bring big brands together in Cleveland Sept. 9-11. Produced by the Content Marketing Institute, attendees will leave with actionable content marketing plans and insights from brands like Capital One, HP, Salesforce, and Rackspace.

HR Technology Conference & Exposition — HR Tech is going back to Vegas! Everyone in HR should head to Las Vegas Oct. 7-9 to check out the sponsors and speakers who are showcasing what’s new and innovative in HR Tech. Don’t forget, we usually know where all the parties are (including our own), so stay tuned.

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• The Starr Conspiracy Changes the Destiny of B2B Marketing

The Starr Conspiracy has been out and about in San Francisco this week, thanks to InfluenceHR and ERE’s Recruiting Innovation Summit. Our agents didn’t just make appearances — they were also headliners.

Bret Starr unveiled the Honeycomb, an expansive B2B marketing model, during his keynote at InfluenceHR. Lance Haun participated on the panel “Your Brand Message Sucks: How to Pitch Your ‘Amazing’ Product to Journalists.” Lance then went to the Recruiting Innovation Summit, where he helped put together a set of 18 20-minute Innovation Sessions. The unique format of these sessions requires speakers to get down to business in a short amount of time.

If you couldn’t attend either event, the Twitter feeds have been quite entertaining. #InfluenceHR has had everything from persona development to obsessions being discussed. And people have been using #RIS13 to share top recruiting ideas — everything from crowdsourcing strategy to understanding where your best candidates are.

Check out some tweets from the events:

We’re going to see #hr become a business-integrated function, rather than a talent management function via @josh_bersin #influencehr

— Stacey McBride (@Stacey_McBride) May 13, 2013

If you’re reading this, you’re getting a targeted impression. #hashtagsrock #InfluenceHR

— Talent Generation (@talemetry) May 13, 2013

Are you leveraging persona and archetype targeting in your selling? @susanlamotte thinks you should. #influencehr

— Mark Stelzner (@stelzner) May 13, 2013

Tell people the truth. The ‘brand’ is what results when the truth is filtered through the customer’s perspectives. @bretstarr #InfluenceHR

— Steve Boese (@SteveBoese) May 13, 2013

Let your freak flag fly! We are obsessed with culture. We want to attract our archetype! #InfluenceHR @starrconspiracy

— The Good Jobs (@thegoodjobs) May 13, 2013

@sonar6 The secret to succeeding in the marketplace is keeping things really simple #influencehr

— Mary Ellen Slayter (@MESlayter) May 13, 2013

“It’s common knowledge that the best candidate is already in your applicant tracking system.” #RIS13

— ToddRaphael (@ToddRaphael) May 14, 2013

There’s no such thing as a good candidate with a bad resume. They either have the experience & skills or they don’t. #RIS13

— Matt Charney (@mattcharney) May 14, 2013

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• A Sneak Peek at What’s Next at ERE’s Recruiting Innovation Summit

Before I joined The Starr Conspiracy, I worked at ERE Media, where one of my jobs was organizing the Recruiting Innovation Summit. I was honored when ERE asked me to be the chairperson for the event, which starts this morning and goes through the end of the day tomorrow.

I’m biased, but what ERE has put together at the Recruiting Innovation Summit is pretty special. There will be two keynotes and three panel sessions that will explore the future of recruiting. Those are going to be great.

But what I’m really interested in are what I call “innovation sessions,” because they’re unlike any other conference sessions you’ve seen in HR. RIS will have 18 of these 20-minute sessions, which will cover several aspects of recruiting. Four practitioners, six recruiting suppliers, and eight startups will all talk about things that, in many cases, are too new to be proven. Some of these ideas will first see the light of day at the conference.

The process for getting 18 really great presentations is an overwhelming one. I ended up talking with or seeing materials from well over 100 companies doing some really exciting things in recruiting. The question people always ask after I talk about the summit is: What is bubbling up from talent acquisition? While I can’t give away all of the fun things we’ll see, I will share what I found really interesting:

1. Predicting recruiting demand — Companies are getting more insight into what their staffing demands will be months from today. They’re combining business forecasting with employment market data in really fascinating ways.
2. Improving assessments — The pre-hire assessment business lived off pen-and-paper assessments for so long that when things moved to the digital age, they just put pen-and-paper ideas on the Web. That’s changing thanks to some innovative thinkers.
3. Re-engineering recruiting — There are some companies that want to rethink how businesses are doing recruiting. I’m a skeptic on big, transformational changes, but these are really interesting ideas that I’m looking forward to hearing more about.

You can follow all the action using the Twitter hashtag #RIS13.

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Today is the day! After months of telling you about the secrets that will be unveiled at InfluenceHR, the marketing conference’s debut is finally here.

Our agency couldn’t let an opportunity to throw out conference norms pass us by, and we have a team of agents in San Francisco today to prove it. On top of that, founder, president, and partner Bret Starr is presenting the keynote session, “Inside the Honeycomb: An Expansive Model for B2B Marketing,” which will dive into what could be the perfect model for B2B marketing.

After more than a decade of research and field-testing, Bret is ready to publicly unveil the Honeycomb model. It’s a new, expansive philosophy of marketing that eschews the obsolete dogmas of post-bubble B2B marketing strategies.

In his presentation, Bret will introduce the concept of “Drive” as the single unifying element of all business and marketing strategies. He’ll demonstrate how Drive must be the starting point for all message, brand, and promotion strategies. Finally, Bret will make the case that all prospect, customer, and employee communication initiatives draw their power from a company’s Drive.

The days of the monolithic brand strategy are over, as are the days of demand-generation-dominated promotion strategies.

Speakers and participants will be tweeting throughout the day, so if you want to get a peek at some of the secrets being unveiled, follow the conversation on Twitter at #InfluenceHR.

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We’re getting ready for InfluenceHR — but we still had time to participate in #NextChat and give you an exclusive sneak peek into the new TSC.

Inside The Starr Conspiracy

The Starr Conspiracy is a-changin’ — we’re about to get some new digs in Fort Worth and we have some exciting news coming with the move. We’ve been sneak peeking all week, but you’ll have to stay tuned for the good stuff.

If you want to catch up on the reveals of the week, the gang’s all here:

• Things Are About To Get All Different Around Here

• Sneak Peek: TSC HQ Progress Update

• A New Look For A New Brand

• The First Tee: TSC Agents Golf For A Good Cause

#NextChat

This week I was lucky enough to co-host #NextChat with Matt Charney. #NextChat is a Twitter chat held by SHRM’s We Know Next — this week’s topic was Gen Y’s effect on the workplace. If you haven’t participated in a #NextChat, check out the recap to get a feel for how it goes.

InfluenceHR

InfluenceHR is coming up on Monday and we’re getting ready for what we know will be a great event. Event host George LaRocque has been releasing some updates about the show on his blog and you can read more about the show here.

Have a great weekend and keep up with the reveals of the new TSC by following us on Twitter.

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Most people golf for leisure, but some TSC agents like to take their game to a higher level for a greater cause. On April 26, TSC founder Bret Starr and agent Stu Arledge participated in The First Tee of Fort Worth’s 2013 Golf Marathon — the nonprofit organization’s biggest fundraiser of the year. The annual Golf Marathon is a 12-hour event where golfers play as many holes as possible to raise money for The First Tee of Fort Worth’s programming for the year.

The First Tee of Fort Worth is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to impact the lives of young people by providing learning facilities and access to programs that build character, and to instill life-enhancing values and promote wellness through the game of golf. The Starr Conspiracy previously participated in The First Tee’s chili cook-off fundraiser earlier this year.

This year’s Golf Marathon set a record — passing the $100,000 mark for the first time.

Thirty-one players participated this year, playing over 3,000 holes — some participants played as many as 150 holes in 12 hours. Former Fort Worth mayor Mike Moncrief even came out to play a few holes.

Stu played 122 holes during the event, and he and Bret had a blast golfing for 12 hours in the beautiful spring weather for a great cause.

Photo source.

You probably already know there are a lot of changes going on at The Starr Conspiracy — like our upcoming move to our new headquarters. But that’s not all that’s changing. Another change involved the executive team getting the opportunity to work with legendary LA photographers Brakha x2. Here’s a shot of Bret Starr getting his close-up.

Things are going to start looking a little different around here, and we wanted a unique way to reveal “just enough” information about the leaders of our agency. So we called up Brakha x2 to photograph the executive team. This is all we can show you right now, but stay tuned for a behind-the-scenes video of the photo shoot and a look at our new brand later this month.

And after that, be sure to stick around for the big reveal of these stunning new photos and the launch of the new TSC website at the end of the month.

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When we bought our new headquarters building last year, it needed a little work. The nightclub that previously inhabited the space closed suddenly and they basically left everything behind, including their questionable sense of taste. The walls were purple, red, gold, and mustard yellow. There were two plywood bars and some pretty hideous carpet. We had our work cut out for us.

We started renovations on the space in mid-February. Fort Construction demolished the old interior and began rebuilding it from scratch. Like a phoenix, the building would be born anew from the previous tenant’s rubble. The Fort Worth architecture firm Bennett Benner Pettit has designed our new space, and it’s going to be killer.

Things have been moving quickly these last few months. Take a look at the progress we’ve made on the lobby.

And that’s just the lobby. What’s going on beyond that doorway? You’ll have to stick around to find out.

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TSC HQ is not like most offices. We don’t have cubicles or individual offices. We have a cocktail cart and beer in the fridge. Our current office is in a former candy factory on Magnolia Ave., nestled among a cavalcade of restaurants, coffee shops, and a neighborhood of historic bungalows.

But soon, all of that is going to change.

Except the part about the beer in the fridge.

In a month, we’ll be moving to our new building. The new TSC HQ will be on a new street, with new neighbors, in completely renovated, custom-designed office that will be unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. This will be a workspace that was designed especially for us, and we’re pretty sure you’re going to be amazed. There won’t be any beige walls or soul-suckingly dull conference rooms here — just killer workspaces and, of course, a bar.

Later this week, we’ll have a sneak peek of the progress at our new HQ so far. Bit by bit over the last three months, we’ve transformed this building from a former sketchy night club into a swanky marketing firm. And later this month, we’ll have even more building updates. Soon we’ll be packing our bags (somebody’s gotta move all this stuff — and where’s that foosball table going to go, anyway?) and starting a new chapter in TSC history.

Things are going to be changing around here fast, and we couldn’t be more excited. Keep checking back this week and throughout the month for exclusive peeks at our new digs.

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