Last week over 200 young West Virginians and I attended the Generation WV conference in Charleston, WV. The mission of GenWV is to cultivate young leaders (21-45) across the state of West Virginia.
Having missed the first two editions, I was excited to attend the sessions, meet new people, and meet a few people I had followed on Twitter, including the keynote speaker, Dan Schawbel.
The conference started off quickly with Dan’s keynote presentation. Dan began his career similar to most in a typical office job. He wasn’t satisfied in that role, and new he could do more for himself through a variety of “new” channels such as social media, and blogs.
What began as an out of office hobby, quickly turned into a new career in the field of personal branding. Here are a few of his points (you can find all of them by searching Twitter under the hashtag #gwv)
- 25% of jobs will be outsourced in the next 20 years. You need to be so much more than you are today
- soft skills are the differentiators – technical skills get you in the door – it’s everything else that makes a success
- the Internet has forced everyone to be a marketer. The economy forced us to be experts
- become known at your company for 1 thing. Be that go to person – irreplaceable
- get specific in your brand. Suze Orman may dominate personal finance, but you can be the personal finance expert in your town
- register “yourname.com”. Out of over 200 in attendance, only 5 of us had
While there were many more great ideas, these were the highlights. I’m looking forward to reading Dan’s book “Me 2.0″ that each participant receive.
I also attended a session later in the day on the five practices of exemplary leadership with Bob Welty from Fifth Third bank. His talk was driven largely by the book Leadership Challenge. This was an excellent presentation, and by far the most immediately useful information of the day. Here are the five main points:
- Model the way. It is very difficult to ask someone to do something you can’t or haven’t done yourself
- Inspire a shared vision. Communicate WHY going from A to B is good for the company AND those you’re leading
- Challenge the process, but don’t be the person that comes to meetings with the next smarter idea. (Don’t be a “yes-man” either)
- Enable others to act by fostering collaboration. Fight the urge to take over X (the sales call, the project etc)
- Encourge the Heart by recognizing contributions & celebrating achievement.
Unfortunatly, this book wasn’t part of registration, so I may need to see if it can be ordered on iBooks, or the Kindle.
I’m glad I attended this years event, and was pleased to see several other local attendees from OV Connect (the local offshoot of GWV). It isn’t often that more than 200 young professionals can gather to learn and share ideas with each other and I’m glad I was able to take advantage of the event.
