So it’s that time of year again when an old number is retired to be replaced by the incoming season….and what a year 2011 was.  It’s a tradition on my blogs that I count down the top 12 songs of 2011 but based on what events/happenings and things transpired in the various months of 2011….so let’s kick it off:

January 2011

Well the highlight of January was that Vee and I officially had our first Christmas holiday together in a house that we got together in the Beaches.  It was a great month of getting things geared up for the upcoming year of events. I always think of this song:

February 2011

February is traditionally the month in which TRU London happens.  This year I made the trip over to London UK for the third instalment of the UnConference that has swept the globe….now it’s been often said that we UnConference organizers have a friendly competition but really I think we do pretty well in supporting each others efforts in the space…..I think John Sumser said it best when he predicted that 2012 will be the year of the UnConference.  Whenever I think of my trips to England I always here this song in my head:

March 2011

In March of 2011 we held our first Radical Planet UnConference in Montreal Quebec.  Both Daniel J Smith and myself made our way on what turned out to be one of the final blizzards of 2011 to Montreal via the train.  I made a few phone calls and well Daniel pretty much just played with his phone.  We had good conversations and although our mostly French audience was not really open to the idea of Social Recruiting I think we made some good connections, got some people thinking and of course expanded the Radical Nation….ah Quebec.

April 2011

In April of 2011 I did my first ever paid Keynote address on the power of Social Recruiting at CASPR which stands for the Canadian Association of Staff Physician Recruiters.  It was a both eye opening and interesting session both for me and the participants.  But more importantly Vee and I got on a plane with a few good friends to head to Costa Rica and attend the wedding of Sam and Iain Sandell.  Costa Rica is a beautiful if not extremely warm country but with friendly and smiling people and the wedding was just beautiful…and although I know that Sam and Iain are more country folks, when I think of their wedding this song comes to mind….

May 2011

May saw the return to one of my favorite HR events —- the HR Demo Show, this time once again in Vegas, in fact this would end up being one of four times that I would return to Sin City for an HR event — how weird is that.  I guess Vegas was just one of the happening places for 2011…

June 2011

June saw us head out to BC for our Second Radical Planet event held at UBC.  I always love to visit Vancouver and being able to meet with so many peers and growing the Radical Nation was a huge opportunity for us.  We enjoyed BC so much we will be returning there in March of 2012 to hold our first open BlueBelt in Internet Recruitment course on the Left Coast.  Also Vee and I headed down to San Francisco so that I could hold some meetings with sponsors and then headed over to Vegas for my first SHRM National event.  Wow Vegas was steaming hot and with over 14,000 HR practitioners in attendance at times SHRM National was overwhelming.  Still…looking forward to working more with SHRM in 2012.

July 2011

In July I headed down for a short Porter flight to Boston to attend Bill’s TRUBoston at the HQ of Bullhorn.  It was a small/casual meeting of some of the finest minds in Recruiting/Social/HR and I really enjoyed the conversation.  Due to some scheduling difficulties I also got to spend a day on the town with Jonathan Campbell, Bill Boorman and Kevin Wheeler…wow, talk about spending a day with some big brains….and to top it all of we got to hang out at Harvard (seems fitting).  I also got to hang out with good friends Leanne Chase and Steve Levy (thanks for the hospitality).  And to top it all off I met the gang from Bullhorn who would turn out to be awesome clients in 2011. 

August 2011

August (early) saw a trip to Chicago to attend ILSHRM.  I had been asked by my good friend and Radical Nation member John Jorgenson to be part of the blog squad.  So we spent most of our time making some awesome videos with my friend Curtis Midkiff (SHRM) and my buddies over at JSTN.  I have to say I love the Chicago recruiting and HR scene, they are a lively and engaged bunch.  At the Tweetup both Curtis and I showed off some of our fine DJ skillz…yeah it was the wrong crowd, wrong time….

September 2011

September was busy because we had the Radical Planet UnConference in my home town of Toronto and it was a huge success by all counts.  It was just really nice to have so many friends and thought leaders from around the world come to see our beautiful city and to hang out with so many bright people.  Radical Planet will return to Toronto in June of this year and we’re planning an even larger international contingent including folks from the US, UK, Netherlands, France and Canada…should be a blast.  As well I headed back to Vegas for HR Tech, and by this point I was feeling a bit sick of Vegas to be honest.

OctoberNovember 2011

The October/November highlight for me must have been the trip to Amsterdam for the inaugural HR Tech Europe show.  First of all Amsterdam is just an awesome city, it has great museums, great people (I love the Dutch)…and it was an opportunity to hang out with some of my favorite folks on the HR conference circuit…..and you can’t beat that.

December 2011…..

Well here we are at the end of the year…hopefully you have enjoyed this musical journey through the year.  2012 is shaping up to be an even crazier year for us here at Radical Events with Radical Planet and SourceCamp going to the US, Canada and Europe.  So to wrap up here’s the Radical Nation theme song for 2012….