Young Professionals Conference: work hard, play hard

Still nursing cups of coffee, 100 millennials tapped their smartphone screens. They were using social media for fun, but also for business. It was appropriate for the conference theme this year: "Work hard, play hard." For many young professionals, social media already a part of daily life.

"It's different just because it's second nature," mBank mortgage officer and former 40 Below board member Ross Anthony said. "We've all learned and become accustomed to doing it. In business these days, you have to be online. Social media is so important. If you're not doing it, you're absent."

40 Below Marquette County provides young professionals opportunities to network. It held one of its largest events, the fifth annual Upper Peninsula Young Professionals Conference, on September 1.

Conference speaker Amanda McConnon gave a session called "Personality tests and how to work well with anybody." She said relationships are especially important when millennials join older generations in the workplace.

"Different personality types and different generations have different things that they default to and ways that they operate or do things, and it's really important to understand each other going into a meeting or work relationship in order to work best for the company," she said.

The conference offered its own hands-on training in social media. Attendees were encouraged to tweet about their sessions using the conference hashtag, #UPYPC, and handle, @40belowmqt.

"It helps us generate promotional stuff and it helps them get practice with social media, so when they go back to their business, they can say, 'I learned this new way to use social media. I learned how to use a hashtag,'" 40 Below president Victoria Leonhardt said.