What's a great way to help your team feel more connected to their work?

Including them - and the customers they serve - as part of the story you tell as an organization.

With a rich history as a storyteller, including agency and in-house social media experience, Shannon Truax has taken a compelling approach to building social media strategy with her team at M&T Bank.

On this episode of Live With Lighthouse, Shannon joins host Joe Ray to explore how businesses can create a safe and fun environment where employees can contribute to telling the company's story, how they can utilize storytelling in the long-term to help drive sales, how to amplify a business's reach through employee advocacy, and much more.

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Shannon's career journey as a storyteller (1:17)

Developing social media strategy at M&T Bank (4:39)

Telling authentic stories as a brand (8:06)

Connecting to the customer experience (14:33)

How Shannon approaches employee advocacy (19:45)

Connecting social media advocacy to talent retention (26:37)

Where to start with employee advocacy (30:17)

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Connect with Joe Ray and Shannon Truax on LinkedIn.

Follow M&T Bank on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Follow Lighthouse Technology Services on LinkedIn and Instagram.

As a company leader, your personal brand - your reputation you build throughout your work and your interactions with others - becomes closely tied to the overall brand of your business.

The good news? By exhibiting positive leadership, and by celebrating and collaborating with others, you can drive great success for your business.

Lauren Molenda, co-owner of Riveter Design, joins host Joe Ray on this episode of Live With Lighthouse.

Lauren shares the story of how Riveter has grown and evolved through expanding the team and through new program creation, how she learned to embrace a servant leader approach, and a great story on how her personal brand and Riveter's employer brand contributed towards talent attraction for a recent opening on their team.

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Introducing Lauren (0:48)

The inspiring work of program development (2:04)

Collaboration over competition (5:09)

The origin of Riveter Design (8:45)

Servant leadership at Riveter (12:00)

How servant leadership shows up in Lauren's work (15:36)

Personal branding as a reflection of authentic leadership (19:12)

Hiring in alignment with core values (22:32)

How to find what personal branding means for you (33:09)

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Learn more about Riveter Design.

Follow Lauren Molenda and Joe Ray on LinkedIn.

Follow Lighthouse Technology Services on LinkedIn for more content from The Place for Talent and Technology.

Host Joe Ray kicks off a mini-season within Live With Lighthouse focused on innovating marketing strategies, featuring guest Sam Kuehnle, VP of Marketing at Loxo. They discuss the importance of positioning and leaning into your unique differentiators, especially in competitive spaces such as Loxo's space competing with other applicant tracking systems.

Sam shares his journey and success at Loxo. Sam and Joe discuss how to secure buy-in for a new marketing approach from leadership and team members, translating the value of a product like Loxo into content and communications, and building momentum as a brand before taking larger creative swings and making an impact with your audience.

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Episode intro (1:11)

Loxo's position as the Talent Intelligence Platform (3:30)

How to communicate a product's value proposition (7:11)

Clarifying and sharing unique differentiators (11:55)

Moving away from an ineffective marketing channel (17:20)

Marketing as a steward of the product's value (20:36)

Loxo's approach to a large-scale brand campaign (23:41)

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Learn more about Loxo.

Explore Loxo's brand campaign: Finding and contacting elusive talent.

Follow Sam and Joe on LinkedIn.

Follow Lighthouse Technology Services on LinkedIn for more content from The Place for Talent and Technology.

This week on Live With Lighthouse, Joe Ray welcomes Rachel Eastlack from TechBuffalo back to the show to learn about some new initiatives coming to Buffalo's tech community in 2024.

Rachel's work with community impact initiatives shows the importance of showcasing technology as a part of our daily and professional lives, while introducing Western New Yorkers to the possibilities for different career paths into the technology field.

They discuss some upcoming initiatives including Community Conversations, Power Up Buffalo, and most notably the Microsoft TechSpark fellowship.

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Introducing Rachel Eastlack from TechBuffalo (0:13)

TechBuffalo's upcoming initiatives for 2024 (3:05)

Microsoft TechSpark program (7:45)

The power of community in tech (13:18)

Building a better tech community (16:26)

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Learn more about TechBuffalo, the communities they serve, and their upcoming initiatives.

Hiring a contract employee for your team has some similarities to a direct, full-time hire, but also some distinct differences.

And in the case of contract hiring, you're often looking to find a skilled employee to help complete a specific project - which means timing and decisive action throughout the hiring process become even more important.

Brenda Czyz, Sr. Technology Talent Manager at Lighthouse Technology Services, joins host Joe Ray to discuss the process of hiring a contract employee, the situations in which contract hiring and direct-hire recruiting are more efficient than the other, and best practices for contract hiring managers for whom hiring is a secondary responsibility beyond their day-to-day work.

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Get to know Brenda (0:47)

Understanding contract staffing (2:40)

Contract staffing versus other talent acquisition options (6:07)

Integrating contract employees into your team (9:04)

Best practices from Brenda for contract hiring (10:33)

Importance of transparency in the hiring process (12:27)

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Read Hire Quality Talent Faster With An Effective Hiring Timeline

Do you have a mentor in your workplace who has supported you? How do you create those types of impactful relationships - and as an employer, how can you foster more of those relationships between your team members?

January is National Mentoring Month, and Claire Stroh knows a thing or two about mentorship and about standing up mentorship programs!

In this episode, Claire and host Joe Ray dive into different formal and informal versions of mentorship, "reverse mentorship" and the benefits of bringing an open mind to mentor-mentee relationships, and the tools necessary to bring a mentorship program into your business.

Live With Lighthouse returns with an inspiring chat for those who are starting the new year on the job search! Host Joe Ray welcomes Chad Witherell, Senior Talent Partner for 43North, for the first episode of 2024.

Chad speaks about the impact of the Forge Buffalo talent network, linking job seekers with incredible technology jobs in the Western New York ecosystem. Additionally, Chad and Joe explore the importance of maintaining a robust LinkedIn profile, attending in-person networking events, and fostering long-term relationships with recruiters.