Happy First Birthday, TLNT!!

For me, today is Day 1 of Year 2.

It may just be another early summer day for most of you, but to those of us at TLNT, it’s pretty special because it is our one-year anniversary.

A year ago, I was sitting here wondering how I would find enough content to interest people and make them want to keep coming back here. Yes, I had done a pretty good job of that in my previous stint as Editor of Workforce Management and workforce.com, but that was an established publication, not a brand new website trying to find its place among all the other blogs and web publications writing about talent management and HR.

One thing kept me going this past  year, and I heard it first a few months after we launched from Sue Marks, the CEO of RPO firm Pinstripe. She told me she liked TLNT because it had such an interesting mix of content and voices. It was very different from all the other things out there, she said, and when I heard that from her, as I have this past year from so many of you, I knew we were on the right track.

Telling words from a year ago

Here’s some of what I said when we launched the website a year ago. Although we actually did a soft opening of TLNT during the second week of June, I officially greeted readers here on June 15, 2010 by saying:

If you are reading this, you clearly are someone I want to get to know better.

Yes, you have found out about TLNT.com, the new website devoted to talent management, HR, and everything having to do with the smart management of your most important resource – your people. It’s brought to you by ERE Media, the same people who bring you ERE.net, the ERE Spring and Fall Expos, the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership, and the Fordyce Letter…

A lot of you have asked me what TLNT stands for. It’s short for talent, sort of like the way you might see it spelled on a custom license plate. And, it speaks to the fact that we will be writing and reflecting about all things concerning talent and talent management here at TLNT.com.”

I wish I had been a little more eloquent in that first post, but I have gotten to know many of you this past year and I’m happy that I have and that you are loyal and frequent TLNT readers.

I’m also pleased that TLNT is fulfilling the vision that David Manaster, the CEO of ERE Media, had for TLNT: to provide timely news, trends and insights to HR pros and talent management professionals that fell in between what the other HR magazines and blogs were doing.

Coming in 2012: the TLNT Transform conference

And, we’re going to extend his vision next year with our first TLNT Transform conference in Austin, Texas from Feb. 27-29, 2012. I hope you will attend (we’ll have more details very soon), because our goal with the conference is to provide an inspiring and forward-thinking vision of HR and talent management that no one else is really talking about.

Too much of HR seems to be short-term, transactional, and compliance focused. Our goal with TLNT Transform is to branch out past that into the areas where HR can really influence business results and organizational strategy, and not just maintain the status quo.

TLNT wants to be the institution giving you that vision of HR. We’ve done it this year on the TLNT website, and we’re going to take it to yet another level next February in Austin at TLNT Transform.

So after what seems like an incredibly long year, 965 blog posts, and hundreds of thousands of visits from readers all around the world, I feel a little more comfortable that we’re on the right path here at TLNT. But I want to hear more from you, so please feel free to reach out to me with an e-mail at the address listed below.

Whether you have a suggestion for future coverage, a comment about a story, or a question about TLNT Transform, I hope you’ll take the time to drop me a note.

I am, by nature, an optimist. I always think that the best is yet to come. I think that is true for all we’re doing at TLNT. I’m happy you are here with us for the ride, and that you’ll consider joining in person next February in Austin at TLNT Transform. I know you’ll be glad you did.

PS — Are you going to be at SHRM Las Vegas? If you are, I hope you’ll join me and other TLNT readers at the first ever TLNT Tweetup on Sunday night, June 26. We’ll be at the Lavo nightclub in the Palazzo Hotel & Casino on the Strip from 7:30 – 9:30 pm Sunday evening. It’s all free and will be a great night of food, drink & networking — not to mention, sipping on some special TLNTinis! Thanks to our sponsors CareerBuilder, I Love Rewards & Starr Tincup, the TLNTup is sure to be a very cool evening and one of the highlights of SHRM Las Vegas. If you want to attend, please sign up here. We’ll see you in Vegas!