We quietly ran a contest this week on sourcecon.com to gather a small group of individuals who will be competing against each other online for a complimentary event pass to SourceCon Fall 2010. By quietly, I mean we made no official announcements of running any contest – we just wanted to see who was paying attention to the little hints that we left here and there! If you weren’t aware of it, it’s because part of the contest was actually finding it.
Sneaky, huh!?

Well, eight bright sourcing professionals were able to decipher the clues to enter themselves into the contest. And since the first round of competition is over, we want to show you how we did it.

1. An article was run on Tuesday discussing the use of QR codes in sourcing and recruiting campaigns. In that post, there was an image of a QR code – shown here.
2. By scanning that code with a QR reader, the following text appeared: ‘Want to win a FREE pass to SourceCon Fall 2010 in Washington, D.C.? Go to http://www.sourcecon.com/2010dc/QR and enter the passcode: dmsb09ahtr06′
3. After going to the contest website and entering in the code, further instructions were detailed on how to enter, including emailing some information to a specified account, following @TheSourceNews on Twitter, and DMing that account with a unique passcode that was provided.
4. Over the course of the week, I dropped subtle hints about the contest via tweets, hints to “scan” the website, and even a note at the top of the email subscription page alerting readers that there was a contest going on.

The goal of this contest was to get your attention and challenge you to look for clues and use your sourcing brain to figure out how to enter.

Congratulations to our seven participants! The next round of competition will begin very soon – keep your eyes peeled.

Sidenote: today is the last day to take advantage of the $895 pricing for attending SourceCon Fall 2010! After today, the price goes up. If you want to get in on the savings, register today!