The morning after the night before! Following the festivities of Thursday evening, #PlaceNet13 rounded off with a few weary eyes and dare I say it, a sore head or two. That said, the AGM was well attended and all of the night owls who could be found drinking in the hotel lobby in the wee small hours made it on time.
Libby Beck received flowers as a small token of appreciation for her work as a PlaceNet trustee. With her standing down from the role the conference elected Mike Grey as the replacement, while Graham Kaye-Taylor was co-opted onto the executive committee. (Writing about me in the third person is a bit weird, but for the sake of reporting I thought a distinction should be made between me and 'The Placement Officer')
Emily Timson had the uneviable task of delivering a presentation on a Friday morning but gave a very interesting talk about her professional journey within placements, highlighting challenges experienced at different universities.
A discussion took place to decide upon areas of interest for PlaceNet to focus on in the coming year. Thanks were given to Jan and Virginia for their work in arranging the Social and booking the restaurant. Matthias Feist summarised his thoughts on the last three days before drawing the conference to a close.
Afterwards the Trustees met briefly to reflect on the week and get the ball rolling for #PlaceNet14.
On a personal level I found this conference to be extremely rewarding. Any fears I may have had about presenting my work in social media proved unfounded, as it was both well received and started a dialogue between me and other delegates who want to find out more about bringing technology into their provision. I even received an offer to go and talk to students at another university about using Twitter and LinkedIn as part of their placement search and for engaging with employers.
I had a lot of very positive feedback about the blog and there seemed a genuine interest in #PlacementChat from people who had not previously encountered it before. Receiving peer approval for my extra-curricular activities re-affirmed my passion for doing this and I may have convinced some guest bloggers to come forward and get involved.
My professional network expanded and there will be a fair amount of LinkedIn connecting going on over the next few days. The PlaceNet LinkedIn group is already a great resource for sharing good practice and if you are not already a member get yourself signed up and join the conversation.
I'd like to extend my thanks to the PlaceNet trustees for inviting me to the conference and giving me a platform share my passion for engaging through social media. I'm very much looking forward to working with you in the coming months.
#PlaceNet13 has been and gone. Roll on #PlaceNet14.
