This week, some of us with Career Edge Organization’s marketing team registered for the “unGeeked Elite” conference in Toronto – a three day social media, branding and marketing retreat. Their website explains it best:
unGeeked Elite Retreat is your three day retreat where you will experience “some of the formality of a conference,” and a lot of the informality of retreat. The 3-days are designed to foster not only an “intimate learning experience,” but also deeper networking and bonding with attendees like yourself who want to connect beyond the Tweet-up or cocktail party business card gala.
So you may be wondering – why is a not-for-profit organization whose mandate is around employment and diversity participate in a social media conference?
As we all know, behind the scenes of any good organization there is a marketing team looking for innovative ways to better serve and engage their stakeholders. We may be a small team, but we are one of the most forward-thinking private organizations in Canada’s not-for-profit sector. We pride ourselves on being “nimble” which has allowed us to change and shift with the times, better responding to market demands and stakeholder needs.
In 2009, before the launch of this blog, we participated in Social Tech Training held by Web of Change and Career Edge host employers, MaRS. This social media boot-camp for not-for-profits gave us a strong foundation of expertise that helped kick start exciting initiatives like this blog, our LinkedIn and Facebook groups and our Twitter account, as well us our online/offline professional network for Alumni.
But now we’re ready (and hungry) for more.
As the Canadian economy emerges, victoriously, from an economic slump, it is more critical than ever for private organizations like us (who don’t receive government funding) to step up our game and offer more. We hope to use the knowledge gained at this conference to improve all aspects of what we do whether it by our website, our relationship management processes and the way we communicate with employers, partners, job-seekers (aka registrants), interns and alumni.
The first unGeeked Elite was held in Milwaukee. Now it’s making the rounds to San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Orlando and Chicago. Toronto will be kicking things off on October 28th. We hope to see you all there!