Middle managers matter: remarks at TAB event

1 in 5 professionals in the United States now manages people — major growth since 2000, as our economy has shifted. Lots of them are there for the wrong reasons. The good ones do magic. I said something like this on behalf of Technical.ly next to honeygrow founder/CEO Justin Rosenberg and ORS Partners ops Leslie Hafter at this energizing breakfast conversation put on by Matthew Saline and Mike Krupit for the TAB CEO community. Thanks for the opportunity!

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Featured speaker @ Sloss Tech in Birmingham, Alabama

I traveled to Birmingham, Alabama to be part of the revival of SlossTech, where I joined a panel discussing how different entrepreneurship ecosystems vary by geography.

Among my favorite pushes: Everyone has projections about why their city is special but spreadsheets are full of hopes and lies.

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Stop Lying About Your Employer Brand: Disrupt HR NYC

An employer brand should help professionals decide if your workplace is a good fit. Focus on quality, not quantity. Yet many hiring. managers purely focus on maximizing the number of applicants. It’s backward.

That was the focus of a DisruptHR presentation I gave at the NYC edition of the popular event series on May 19. I last spoke at the Philadelphia edition in 2017. Watch below.

Some friendly advice on moderating panel discussions

The panel discussion format at events is so ubiquitous it’s come to feel boring. That’s a mistake. The format can be effective. It’s just routinely done badly.

At its core, a panel is just meant to be a conversation. Nobody hates conversations that are lively, honest and informative. The problem, then, is in execution not format. One of the key features is the moderator.

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