10/22 TLA Morning Meeting

TLA October 22nd Meeting Announcement

Technology Leaders Association (TLA) was established to help senior level IT executives develop and manage their careers. As part of this effort, we hold monthly meetings to network, share ideas, and learn from featured guest speakers in the strategy, information technology, and career management fields.

Using Social Networking When in Transition
Social media and social networking has become almost commonplace for many facets of life as we are all are familiar with LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. These days, these sites and the use of blogs have supplemented or even replaced many of the older methods of networking. They can also help form the basis on your personal branding and help provide a foundation for your personal marketing plan when approaching the career marketplace. Kate Koziol and Bryan Alaspa of K Squared Communications, will discuss how those in the midst of a career transition, can use social media to network, stay in touch, and help find that next stage of work.

Date: Friday, October 22nd
Where: Acxiom, located at 3333 Finley Road in Downers Grove (8 story building)
Cost: No charge

Special thanks to TLA member and Acxiom employee John Costanza for hosting us this month.

As a special facilities note, all TLA members must be escorted throughout the Acxiom facility. Please do not leave the conference room without an escort.

For reservations, (1) Please sign up online on the TLA website (www.techleaders.net) under ‘Events’ – or, if you don’t have access to the website, (2) Please reply to Patrick.Moroney@gmail.com with your name and telephone number.

For location information: Contact Jim Anfield at jdanfield@illinoisalumni.org.

Reservations must be made before noon on Thursday, October 21st with the first 80 reservations accepted. No walk-ins please.

If you have reserved and are unable to attend, please send a note to Pat Moroney.

Directions
Acxiom is located near the intersection of I-355 and I-88 in Downers Grove. Get off the Butterfield Road exit of I-355 and go east to Finley Road. Go south on Finley Road for about a half-mile and Acxiom is located on the east side of Finley. Go to the main entrance of the eight-story building for check-in. Do not go to the other four-story Acxiom building. Parking is available just west of the eight-story building in the parking lot.

Agenda
7:00am – 7:15am Check-in and coffee
7:15am – 8:30am Structured networking – two table rounds
8:30am – 8:40am Announcements
8:40am – 9:30am Kate Koziol and Bryan Alaspa
9:30am Adjourn

Structured Networking
Structured networking is a technique used at most major executive transition groups. It is meant to be a powerful method of generating ideas that might help each of our searches. During this process, we will quickly brainstorm potential job lead ideas, gain networking contacts at desired companies, and generate advice from the members by sharing our backgrounds as well as our career objectives. It is designed to generate ideas, but given the time constraints, not get into immediate detailed discussions. You should plan on following up with anybody who may have had an interesting idea or a good contact.
Please bring business cards, handbills (career overview) or resumes (plain paper is fine) to pass around if you have them. Figure on about 20 copies of the resumes/handbills and 50 business cards.
We will run our networking, dividing the room into small tables of a maximum of 8 people and doing 2 table rotations before our speaker begins. At each rotation, you will have 90 seconds for your pitch and about 90 seconds for Q&A. Spend no more than 1/3 summarizing your past (this is not the time to rehash your resume), then spend about 1/3 on what you are looking for and 1/3 on what we can do to help (such as target contacts) or ask for advice on an issue.

Speaker Bio
Kate Koziol, president of Chicago-headquartered K Squared Communications, brings 20 years of experience to her work with social networking, marketing and public relations clients. Named Women Business Owner Star by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council in recognition of entrepreneurial leadership and professional excellence, Ms. Koziol brings her senior executive experience to a wide range of organizations, from entrepreneurial startups to Fortune 500 companies.

Ms. Koziol developed an inside and in-depth understanding of business communications working for industry leaders such as United Airlines and Westvaco. Ms. Koziol also worked for business-to-business e-marketing pioneers such as Apollo Travel Services and Galileo International. Ms. Koziol has held a variety of management positions including market management, corporate communications, sales and training development.

Ms. Koziol is a featured presenter at business conferences nationwide on a wide range of marketing, public relations and business communications topics such as: “The Latest in Social Networking for Business,” “The Brand of You,” “Using Public Relations to Build Your Profits,” “Million Dollar Marketing Ideas That Won’t Cost a Million,” “Beyond Branding,” “Super-sizing your Sales,” “Facebook Your Way to More Sales,” and “Maximizing Your Tradeshow Investment.” She has conducted keynote presentations and workshops at conferences and educational institutions such as:
• The American Society of Travel Agents’ World Congress
• New England Business Travel Association
• The Entrepreneurial Woman’s Conference
• Ensemble Travel International Conference
• The Travel Institute’s National Forum
• Concordia University
• Columbia University
• Women’s Business Development Center

A veteran of the New York theater and film industry, Ms. Koziol is a summa cum laude graduate of City Universities of New York’s Baccalaureate Program, a customized degree program which she developed and was awarded the first B.S. in Acting and Directing. Ms. Koziol has acted and directed at theaters across the country.

Bryan W. Alaspa is a client services manager and social media lead at K Squared Communications and a freelance writer who has been writing professionally full-time since 2006. He writes for Examiner.com, and Associated Content. He is also the author of six works of fiction: The Ballad of the Blue Denim Gang, The Vanished Child, Dust, Rig, Gone, Sin-Eater: Book One and After the Snowfall and several works of non-fiction including: Ghosts of St. Louis: the Lemp Mansion and Other Eerie Tales, Chicago Crime Stories: Rich Gone Wrong, Chicago Disasters, Forgotten Tales of Illinois and Silas Jayne: Chicago’s Suburban Gangster.