Digital Recruiting

Mash-Up my Career

So, I read this article today about how you can use technology/sites to map your life history.

I like this idea - overlay your life on a map of places you have visited, schools you attended, where you have lived etc add relevant content, photo's, links to friends etc

Instead of carving your name on a tree (maybe with another name, date and a heart around it) you can create your life history in a dynamic, visual and interactive way - a 3G biography - a personal diary or history.

Surely this is the future of logging your career experience? - a digital, real-time, resume: charting your work history, where you have worked, who you have worked with and examples of campaigns, clients, innovations you have worked on etc? An interface that will bring this to life.

A digital Career portfolio.

Is this the service that job boards can offer to ensure they are still a valid and relevant avenue for future candidates and employers?

An evolution of sites such as LinkedIn?

Surely it is.

Twitter & LinkedIn Partnership Merges Professional with Personal

One of the best pastimes I've read on a CV from a prospective candidate was;

 'reading, socialising and...thinking.

In an evening/weekend they liked nothing better, than to sit down and have a good think.........this certainly put some thoughts into my head.

It would seem that the anouncement that you can share your Tweets on your LinkedIn profile will also provide employers with an insight into your personality, pastimes and what makes you tick. As Biz Stone, Co-founder of twitter states; people are finding:

'the personna they create for themselves on the web is part of their resume in many ways'.

 
This certainly goes some way to blurring the line between your professional social web presence - LinkedIn and your more personal presence - or 'brand' on the web, on a site such as Twitter.

The partnership is great for LinkedIn in terms of making it a more dynamic 'real' time stream of info and super for twitter and its expansion plans for 'putting a little twitter in everything'.

'Real time' insights are what its all about.

Will we get real-time insights on real thoughts and real personna's or up-to-the minute insights on a contrived personal/professional brand?

Perhaps it will be like Big Brother - where after a while, you just don't notice that the camera's are there anymore.....oops.

Its not Y!ou...it's..er....

What's a brand all about?

Well,...employer brands, they are a representation and reflection of an existing, living, breathing organisation and its' culture, no? its actual values, it's reality...it's aspirations to an extent.

I was in San Francisco on holiday recently and the Yahoo  -'It's 'Y!ou' campaign was literally everywhere you went. I thought it was maybe a west coast of America, Silicon Valley-type campaign, but sure enough, when I got back to London and climbed into my cab and had a look around - it was eveywhere to be seen too. I thought...big media budget....hmnn...wonder who has that account...:o)

Seemingly the media budget was in the region of a huge $100 million - certainly it got my attention (on two different continents) but what impact did it make? 

It was interesting to be shown this chart below when I got back to work:

It would appear that for all the investment in the campaign, it's just not having a postive impact on the brand, quite the opposite in fact.

I guess the issue with the message is, it's not telling me anything about Yahoo! and who and what it is - what it stands for. Yes, personalisation is the future, and I like that you tailor your product/company to me...but that's if its relevant to me as an individual person - telling everyone its all about them...well, it just doesn't resonate. Perhaps our tribal instinct gives us a desire to pin our badge to something we identify with - and this goes for both consumer and employer brands.

p.s. nice article and debate about campaign here.

Social Web v. Destination Sites

Hey there, I'm back after a bit of a break - on hols and busy busy at work.

Here's something I wanted to share which is really interesting - its a post noting how traffic to brands destination sites is declining compared to the rising traffic on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Its all about the content and where its being consumed i.e. in the social web and less so at a brands own website.

Is the writing on the wall for a company's website?

Maybe not just yet, but it does reinforce the fact that clients should be engaging with their target audience where they are consuming media - on the social web. A considered, well thought-out social media strategy, where a clients site is integrated is key.

The RECaid Treasure Hunt; Thursday, 12th November, 2009

Follow the trail of Farringdon's secrets and watering holes - two hours of light mental and physical exercise with socialising thrown in.
Compete for prizes against teams from recruitment comms agencies and media.Help raise money for this worthwhile cause, in support of industry colleagues who have fallen on hard times.Thursday, 12^th November, 2009 (from 18:30). £100 per team of 5 (including drinks, refreshments, and treasure).The RECaid Treasure Hunt has been devised by Ri5, and tested and declared fair and fun by experts.To enter please contact Karen Williams (Karen.williams@sabmedia.co.uk) with the name of your team.  Your £100 entry fee will be exchanged for further instructions and incentives.The RECaid Treasure Hunt

One day and two events you can’t afford to miss

This year has certainly been a memorable one and not often for the right reasons. However, despite times being so tough for our industry, it’s great to see that over the last few months so many people have come together via Twitter to network and collaborate on creating a more positive and innovative future. The point the social media naysayers always seem to miss is how much Twitter and other social media platforms actually enhance face to face interaction rather than stifling it. To prove this there are not one but two face to face events running in London on Thursday 19th November that I believe will prove invaluable to anyone interested in innovating their way out of the recession in 2010.

First up during the day we have what I’m pretty sure is the first Recruiting Unconference held in the UK. The legendary @BillBoorman is organising everything and it promises to be a unique and interesting day. I’m hosting / co-ordinating / facilitating / refereeing the “Social Media Circus” alongside keen social recruiter  Wendy Jacob and I’m looking forward to some lively discussion and debate. Bill has provided a comprehensive overview of the day here on the sign up page and I know you’ll be very impressed with the breadth and scope of the agenda

Directly after the Unconference Jamie Leonard and myself will be hosting the third Recruitment Tweetup (#RTU to give it’s Twitter hashtag name) which will be held in a bar at the Unconference venue. Registration for the Tweetup is separate to the Unconference and you don’t have to attend during the day to come in the evening. However as we think you’d be mad to miss the daytime shenanigans,  we’re offering a special discount code on Unconference tickets for anyone who registers for the Tweetup. Here’s what happened at the last Tweetup in July.

Sign up for the Tweetup here

Sign up for the Unconference here

Matt

If Architects Had to Work Like Web Designers

I came across (well - was pointed to it from twitter) this fantastic piece. I'm sorry to say it struck soooo many chords with me, but at the same time the satisfaction I got from reading someone else conveying a pain and frustration I've all too often felt compelled me to copy and paste it here for our 4 readers to enjoy too (hoping that at least one of them was involved in website project conception -> delivery).

You can read the original here on DigitalSurvivors.com

enjoy :)

If Architects Had to Work Like Web Designers 

Please design and build me a house. I am not quite sure of what I need, so you should use your discretion. My house should have somewhere between two and forty-five bedrooms. Just make sure the plans are such that the bedrooms can be easily added or deleted. When you bring the blueprints to me, I will make the final decision of what I want. Also, bring me the cost breakdown for each configuration so that I can arbitrarily pick one.

Keep in mind that the house I ultimately choose must cost less than the one I am currently living in. Make sure, however, that you correct all the deficiencies that exist in my current house (the floor of my kitchen vibrates when I walk across it, and the walls don't have nearly enough insulation in them).

As you design, also keep in mind that I want to keep yearly maintenance costs as low as possible. This should mean the incorporation of extra-cost features like aluminum, vinyl, or composite siding. (If you choose not to specify aluminum, be prepared to explain your decision in detail.)

Please take care that modern design practices and the latest materials are used in construction of the house, as I want it to be a showplace for the most up-to-date ideas and methods. Be alerted, however, that kitchen should be designed to accommodate, among other things, my 1952 Gibson refrigerator.

To insure that you are building the correct house for our entire family, make certain that you contact each of our children, and also our in-laws. My mother-in-law will have very strong feelings about how the house should be designed, since she visits us at least once a year.

Make sure that you weigh all of these options carefully and come to the right decision. I, however, retain the right to overrule any choices that you make.

Please don't bother me with small details right now. Your job is to develop the overall plans for the house: Get the big picture. At this time, for example, it is not appropriate to be choosing the color of the carpet. However, keep in mind that my wife likes blue.

Also, do not worry at this time about acquiring the resources to build the house itself. Your first priority is to develop detailed plans and specifications. Once I approve these plans, however, I would expect the house to be under roof within 48 hours.

While you are designing this house specifically for me, keep in mind that sooner or later I will have to sell it to someone else. It therefore should have appeal to a wide variety of potential buyers.

Please make sure before you finalize the plans that there is a consensus of the population in my area that they like the features this house has. I advise you to run up and look at my neighbor's house that he constructed last year. We like it a great deal. It has many features that we would also like in our new home, particularly the 75-foot swimming pool. With careful engineering, I believe that you can design this into our new house without impacting the final cost.

Please prepare a complete set of blueprints. It is not necessary at this time to do the real design, since they will be used only for construction bids. Be advised, however, that you will be held accountable for any increase of construction costs as a result of later design changes.

You must be thrilled to be working on as an interesting project as this! To be able to use the latest techniques and materials and to be given such freedom in your designs is something that can't happen very often.

Contact me as soon as possible with your complete ideas and plans.

PS: My wife has just told me that she disagrees with many of the instructions I've given you in this letter. As architect, it is your responsibility to resolve these differences. I have tried in the past and have been unable to accomplish this. If you can't handle this responsibility, I will have to find another architect.

PPS: Perhaps what I need is not a house at all, but a travel trailer. Please advise me as soon as possible if this is the case.

Did You Know 4.0 - "Shift Happens" updated for 2009

I blogged the original version of this video way back in 2007. Great to see it updated.....well worth watching

Investors in People

I saw a really interesting tweet today from one of my favourite blogs READWRITEWEB - a blog I really recommend for the latest news and developments in technology and communications.

Jobvite a new start-up venture has secured $8.25m in venture capitalist funding.

'The company pioneered social recruitment with the first on-demand application that enables the whole company to participate in hiring and allows recruiters to tap employees’ existing professional and social networks to increase referral hiring.'

“This recession is fundamentally changing recruitment, pushing companies to become more cost-effective, innovative and strategic. Companies are looking to the technology industry to make this possible,” said Dan Finnigan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Jobvite.

Technology, social media and a companies best ambassadors - employee's - sounds like a great combination.

Speaking of which, I've been pretty busy lately - working on the global social media strategies for one of our global clients and a new client who has hired us specifically to do their social media. We've been using our bespoke approach to social media devised by our MBA department - MediaCom Beyond Advertising- who specialise in all things content and beyond traditional paid for media.

Really exciting projects.

THEO PAPHITIS: Millionaire, Dragon, rubbish employer, hypocrite & Social Media dufus

Last week I read an article from the Daily Mail (a link I followed I don’t hesitate to add) from the inimitable Theo Paphitis entitled “Why ALL bosses should copy me and ban Facebook from the workplace”. I think it’s fair to say that it wound me up. REALLY wound me up. It's true that many articles I happen across from that "journalistic (and I use the expression in it’s loosest sense) stable" do, and that why I try to give it a wide berth – but this one got me fired. His key points were:

1. the internet is responsible for “an orgy of self-indulgence and exhibitionism”.
2. Ryman stopped all time-wasting by imposing a “non-draconian” ban on ALL websites that couldn’t be justified as useful for work.
3. The internet has undermined dialogue in so many ways.
4. Online socialising (unchecked) could cause the end of the world – or something like that.

And just in case you were unaware of what sparked this typically Daily Mail one eyed opinion venting by Mr Paphitis, it was the news that Portsmouth City Council had carte blanche banned facebook after discovering that their staff were “wasting” on average 400 hours on the site every month (PTod article here).

Now never ones to let the facts get in the way of a good sensationalist headline, or indeed the sum total of a Daily Mail story, you don’t have to look too hard in other press to see that this actually equates to just 5-6minutes a month PER staff member. But more on that later.

- The Internet is responsible for “an orgy of self-indulgence and exhibitionism”

This was one of the most reprehensible elements of the article for me – mainly because of its un-abashed hypocrisy from someone who profits from participating in a programme that is itself a platform that encourages this very "self-indulgence and exhibitionism".

The Internet elements collectively termed as social media simply provide a more accessible and inclusive window for and onto social interaction for those that are willing to do so electronically. Some people do, I’m sure, delude themselves that this channel for communication (or "egomaniacal drivel" as Mr Paphitis prefers to tar it all as) is the route to fame and success – but I’m sure most people using it (other than those already anointed “celebs” by whatever media powers that decide such things) actually see it for what it is: a way to stay in touch with a social &/or professional circle(s), potentially expanding your horizons and perspective along the way, sometimes to business or personal gain too, but most often it’s just about light hearted engagement.

And don’t even pretend to hide behind the “we’re a serious business programme giving people valuable business insight”. If that’s the case why is the programme the same week in week out, changing only the supporting cast of moron’s, the clinically deluded and the painfully naive, smattered, of course, with the odd sprinkling of genuine prospects? Because you profit directly from people’s hunger to get rich quicker and snatch their 15minutes of fame along the way.

- Ryman stopped all time-wasting by imposing a “non-draconian” ban on ALL websites that couldn’t be justified as useful for work.

So, if I understand this correctly, Theo felt that stopping EVERY website other than those that passed some “Paphitis management check list of suitability” was in some way “non-draconian” – as opposed to putting a block on a particular site/s which may have been discovered to be attracting too much of your employees attention. I clearly have no idea how you define “draconian” Theo – but might I suggest you check the dictionary, because I wouldn’t be surprised to find your staff referring to you as Theo “Draco” Paphitis.

And are you really that arrogant and / or ignorant to think that by putting a stop to what has appeared to you as a visible metric of “time wasting” you’ve done anything to address any time wasting propensity at all? I guess at least now your own staff are more likely to up the circulation of The Mail.

- The Internet has undermined dialogue in so many ways.

You state in your article that you are “never ceased to be amazed at the way people will email each other, even though their desks are only a few yards away” and that “Technological progress has brought linguistic regression”. I guess if you’re taking a very squinty eyed look at things over a short time lapse (very Daily Mail for sure) then it could seem like that, but what about appreciating the sheer volume and speed of interaction that modern communication technology enables and the fact that common human interaction protocols are also having to evolve as this advances?

Sending an email or text gives an instant, clear and auditable record of that engagement. Should it replace face-to-face dialogue (or even voice-to-voice)? It depends on the situation is the honest answer. And sure people get it wrong, but that’s who we are and what we learn from. So don’t give up on us just yet - when you started out I bet it was just phone and Royal Mail.

- Online socialising (unchecked) could cause the end of the world – or something like that.

“In the end, businesses and public services cannot survive if staff prefer to be socialising online rather than doing the job for which they are paid.” We’re talking 6 minutes per employee a month!!!! If you, Theo, or indeed anyone (even the most radical/crazed public sector union representative), can tell me convincingly whilst looking me straight in the eyes that the vast majority of council staff don’t lose more time on cigarette breaks, getting in late, sloping off early, having an extended lunch break, taking a personal call or 6, chatting over a photocopier or generally mopping up after other council incompetence in so many other ways – then you can have the deeds to my house!

Now I’m not going to go the other way and, for the sake of making a cheap point, pretend that every single Portsmouth Council employee has access to the Internet and a facebook account. But even if we assume just 10% of the workforce have that’s still not much over an hour a month – or 15-20 mins. a week.

Are some senior council officials and businessman / celebrity wanna-be’s trying a bit too hard to grab the headlines with misdirected draconian policies and commentary pieces?

What this really told me

So firstly I surmised that both Ryman’s and Portsmouth Council would be a pretty rubbish place to work. Why? Well not least because the middle management can’t tell who’s wasting time and who’s pulling their weight. If they could / did then they’d not judge performance on website logs, but rather by metrics that actually matter and then reward or sack appropriately.

When I was last an employee I probably strayed onto personal business or internet distractions a couple of times a day – but I also arrived early, didn’t smoke (no smoke breaks), generally ate lunch at my desk, generally stayed late, worked on the train on the way into and out-of the office and carried on working late into the night / early morning as the workload (quite often) required. Oh, and I also (I’d like to think) added a level of intellectual input and steering to the business over and above anything that could be judged purely on an hour by hour rate. What would a log looking at my social media access tell you of that?

If there are people taking the Michael within your business then shame on you and your inadequate management and personnel policies for not being able to highlight where that’s happening and take appropriate action against those individuals.

Through these actions you are quite simply, and very publicly, treating your employees like children – so expect them to behave even more as such. I have always worked damned hard, and been rewarded accordingly when appropriate, but if your management can’t sort the wheat from the chaff and you are happy bragging about this managerial inadequacy, then why would I want to work anywhere where I’ll clearly be carrying a load of slackers – because even without the internet then I’m afraid that “not pulling your weight” (might I be so bold as to suggest particularly in some corners of local government) has become a skill set in itself.

Secondly, by closing the door to accessing social media you’re demonstrating, in spades, your ignorance to the benefit social media can bring to your business. Even if we look at the tiny world in which I (and readers of this blog) operate – namely Recruitment / Employee Communications – it’s easy to conceive a bottom line benefit you’d miss out on. Let’s go back to my assertion that perhaps there are 450 staff spending 15-20 minutes a week on facebook (potentially within their own lunch time or before the 9am hooter starts or after the 5pm hometime bell!!) and let’s imagine that perhaps 10% of those people actually enjoyed their job (go on – go with me on this). Perhaps they mention how much they enjoy their job to their network (perhaps 100 strong each?) and then maybe a job arises: what-do-you-know – immediate audience of 4,500 who have already been positively engaged by your employer brand from afar.

So whilst I never had you down as a Mail reader Mr Paphitis – it seems to me that perhaps under your broadsheet-esque Dragons Den persona you’ve so lovingly nurtured, you’ve indeed found your true home writing the kind of brainless sensationalist knee-jerk integrity-less hyperbole-laden cr*p that the Daily Mail has become famous for trotting out to whip up middle Britain to sell more hatred based papers.

Only one question remains for me – anyone got any tips on how I can stop my Dad from reading The Mail?!

"The ultimate phone is here" - follow up thoughts

Dear me - where did that last month go?!

Anyway - it was my intention that after posting the original article to follow it up quite quickly with my thoughts on it as a marketing piece, then I looked around and it was Mid August. For anyone who can't be bothered to click through to that original post here's the video:

Matt commented: "I'm all for a bit of stealth marketing and this is certainly entertaining but I really don't think it pulls it off. A phone that has everything and Nova Scotia.....I can't really see any kind of link that would make the humour and the surprise reveal resonate in an effective way "

And I agree - it's indeed a clever and entertaining piece, and I agree that if you look deep there's no perceptible resonance between what's being sold and the execution. But my biggest frustration/disappointment with it as a marketing piece is more in the top level execution than the deeper resonance of message and brand, something more fundamental - and it's pretty much the same thing that was the biggest failing of the viral execution of what I still think is probably the best recruitment specific viral I've seen to date (seemingly a no show at any awards :(  - the BS Recruitment Solutions piece from Zurich.

Here again we see the execution getting lost up its own channel of creativity. I mean you REALLY have to want to find out what this is about to work out where you need to click through to find out where this has really come from. I suggest that, even more these days than ever before (due to the wealth and richness of distraction available online), people are lightening quick to move. Quirky's good. Entertaining's great. But once I get that this isn't a proper phone (or a real Recruitment Consultancy) and have got the general p**s taking concept that may indeed be amusing enough to forward on (or blog about), I'd argue that there's nothing here that's engaging enough to encourage me to seek out and dig further to find out what's really behind this all. I can observe and move on without ever "getting" the real message.

It's wonderful to have a budget to be creative - but at the end of the day it's about the conversion. So whilst it might "spoil the impact" or "ruin the flow" I'd argue strongly that you either need to make it all the more engaging (and I mean actual engagement - not just viewing and clicking engagement) or else have a clear button much earlier on in the viral experience that screams "Of course there's no such phone - but there is a better place - find out more - go on, you know you want to!!!"

If you use up the viewers attention span with your creativity, if you satiate their curiosity through your wit and delivery before it's clear who you are and/or what you're selling, then to hell with how many times people pass it on or how slick it looks - YOU FAIL!

Social network sites lose ‘cool’ image.

Here we go again. The FT delivered an article with the above headline this morning.  I know this, because I was just given a scanned copy by a colleague.

And once again, a big headline with pretty much a nothing story behind it.

Basically, it’s saying that the proportion of 15-24 years olds with a profile on Facebook fell for the first time last year from 55% to 50%, according to the communications regulator (no doubt a spotty teenager they thought they’d ask who was walking by the office). 

I think the key word in this statement is ‘proportion’, because actually, the site (or the medium itself, if we’re going to be fussy here) has become no less popular, but when you read on (in the same article), it continues by backing up the grand claim made in the headline by stating that ‘the number of 25-34 year olds claiming to have a social networking profile grew by 6%, and among 35-54 year olds, it grew by 8%’.  Clearly, that makes the world of Social Networking totally uncool.

So to me, logic dictates that, as more and more people discover the range of options available, finding one that delivers for them, and set up their profile, the ‘proportion’ of a sites overall 15—24 years old – the earlier adopters – will decrease.  Nothing more sinister.  It’s just common sense.

Oh, and then they go on to say – and I quote – ‘The findings are likely to attract the attention of media financiers, whose assumptions of media usage were shattered three weeks ago when the 15 year old Morgan Stanley intern Matthew Robson claimed that teenagers did not use the much hyped microblogging service Twitter’.

To all the ‘media financiers’ that are worrying, have no fear.  I have tried to help out here by undertaking my own research.  Don’t worry, I have applied the now tried and tested ‘research criteria’ that appears to be totally acceptable for the National Press to use as a solid basis for comment when discussing the emerging Social Networking arena – I have asked someone their opinion.

I decided not to waste my time with a ‘focus group’ or any form of ‘old fashioned’ qualitative or quantitative research, as it’s quite clear that the future success of any platform in this space can be determined by the opinion of one person, and so here goes with my findings.

What a crock of Sh1t.

To Maija Palmer, the ‘Technology Correspondent’ who wrote the piece, why don’t you stop wasting your time and (expensive) space writing such inconclusive rubbish, and instead carry out some meaningful research. Or just do something else.

Man, this sort of over-dramatic, underwhelming reporting gets on my thrippenies. 

Harumph.

P.S. To help further explain the validity of this research, I asked a rather 'un-cool' 37 year old chubby bloke I know for his input – me.  That should do it.

Sony Chooses to Capitialise not Censure

A lovely example of how copyright owners can interact with and benefit from unlicensed content users.

The future of copyright and content use was demonstrated by Sony when a Bride and Groom filmed themselves and their wedding party dancing up the aisle to the song 'Forever' by Chris Brown.

The clip uploaded on youtube has recieved nearly 13 million views and 65,000 comments.

Instead of blocking its use, Sony 'added a simple pop-up overlay that offers users a chance to purchase the song from iTunes or Amazon. According to YouTube, in the last week, the year-old song has risen to #4 on the iTunes charts and #3 on Amazon.'

A sign of things to come.

Thanks for coming to the Summer Recruitment Tweetup #RTU

A belated thank you  to everyone who came to the Summer Recruitment Tweetup a couple of weeks ago. Particular thanks must go to my co-organiser Jamie Leonard (now working at The Ladders) and our generous sponsors TwitterJobSearch and 1Job.co.uk

We’ll be looking to do another one in October or  November  so if anyone has any good ideas about formats or venues please get in touch.

For those of you who couldn’t make it on the night this is what you missed…..

RecAid tops £10,000

The wet weather did nothing to dampen the spirits at the Paramount Club last Friday night, when over two hundred people turned out to launch RecAid.  Steve Halford chaired a lively auction, with holidays, drink and a cricket bat signed by the England team among the items for sale: the bat is now very probably priceless.  Andrew Wilkinson, Mark Horley, and three Simons (Barrow, Bolton and Howard) also went under the hammer for varying sums; we will attempt to bring you news of how wise and valuable these investments turn out to be. Full Story on RI5

The RecAid total now stands at just over £10,000, of which £8,000 was raised at the Paramount.  It's a great start but there's a long way to go.  Already there are plenty of ideas for other events and many offers of help, as well as donations arriving at the RecAid website.

To donate online Just giving RECaid

Fancy getting your Chief Executive to do your ironing? Or have a Creative Director paint your house?

Now’s your chance. On Friday 17th – tomorrow night – some of the biggest names in the industry will auction off their services in aid of RecAid, the fund set up with advertising charity NABS to help those hardest hit by the downturn in the recruitment advertising industry. Simon Howard, Andrew Wilkinson, and Simon Bolton are amongst those taking part.

Other Auction prizes are:

Fully paid weekend in Classic British hotel worth £500
Cases of wine   worth £200
Premier League football tickets worth £1,000
Week golf holiday including £250 flight vouchers worth £ 1,500 
All inclusive Safari Holiday worth £3,000
Signed Chelsea football worth £400
And many more….. 

Plus lots of Raffle prizes too!

To bid, you have to be at the fundraising party to launch the fund, which will take place at the Paramount Club in Centre Point from 6.30pm to 1am.
 Tickets are a donation of £10 (feel free to give more if you’re feeling generous). As it’s a member’s club, you need to reserve your place to get in - go to www.recaid.co.uk and click on the link to make sure your name is on the door.

The ultimate phone is here - honest!

well - maybe not really, but this is a very involved, high production piece that is clearly aimed at going viral promoting the Pomegranate Phone "the one device that puts more things in the palm of your hand than you ever thought possible."

I don't want to spoil it for you so go have a look - I'll post an observation about it as a marketing piece later. Will you be chucking in your outdated smartphone to upgrade to a Pomegranate?

 

RECaid Help for the Recruitment Advertising Industry

RECaid
Help for the Recruitment Advertising Industry

RecAid was launched in July 2009 by a group of senior managers and leaders from across the UK’s recruitment advertising industry. 

Formed in response to the plight of former employees of Barkers, the world’s oldest advertising agency, which went into administration the same month, it is designed to help people from the recruitment advertising industry who find themselves in financial difficulty.

The immediate aim is to raise £100,000 to help those who were hit when Barkers went into administration. Although the company was bought out of administration, saving many jobs, up to 250 former employees of the company lost their livelihoods and the redundancy pay that they were promised, leaving many facing severe hardship.

The fund has been launched in partnership with NABS, the National Advertising Benevolence Society, which will oversee the management and use of the fund. However, the fund will be specifically for the recruitment advertising industry. See www.nabs.org.uk for more information on the work and remit of NABS.

PARTY AT THE PARAMOUNT ON 17th JULY

To raise money, we will be holding an event at one of London’s most exclusive clubs, The Paramount at the top of Centre Point, on Friday 17th July. 400 people will be able to attend at £10/head, all of which will go to the fund, plus the proceeds of raffles and competitions to raise money on the night. It will be a night everyone in the industry will want to attend, so book your place now.

http://www.recaid.co.uk/

The Ferrero Rocher Effect

So we may all remember the supreme  Ferrero Roche 'Ambassador's Party' TV ad - 'Delicieux'...'excellente.'...'Monsieur, with this Roche, you are really spoiling us!'.

Ah - Ambassadors - it's generally recognised that your employee's are/can be the best ambassadors of your employer brand.

A lot of my Aunts's and Uncle's worked in Marks & Spencer's when I was growing up - they were lifetime employee's and I remember they were the very best ambassador's a company could hope for- they weren't shy about telling you all about the benefits (and trials and tribulations, of course) of working for what was certainly a premium employer, back in the day in Belfast.

It's no coincidence that so many companies are using their staff in their TV advertising - Sainsbury's with their Mum returner to work character - brilliant dual branding ad for the employer and consumer brand. B&Q with all their regional staff talking about their products etc

I was watching TV with my friend Mary the other week and one such ad came on TV featuring staff and I said to her 'see all the companies, using their employee's in their ads these days'.

She replied 'Well you know why that is, don't you?, I replied, 'well, yes, its because your staff are the best ambassadors of your brand' (honestly, our conversations aren't usually this tedious..).

She said 'No, its because they can't afford to use real actors these days!'

So cynical...

Anyway to get to the point of my post - I saw yesterday that Primark staff were being investigated for calling customers less than complimetary names on Facebook (i.e. pikey's etc) and were being investigated.

This follows similar issues with Virgin Atlantic, Tesco and Waitrose staff and of course the infamous YouTube video of Domino's staff 'hanging out' in the kitchen..eurgh!.

What's was particularly interesting was Maria on the team mentioned yesterday that her mate has started a new job at a legal firm. One of the clauses on her contract was that they are not allowed to mention work, clients etc on social networking sites such as Facebook or they will face disciplinary action. I imagine this may well be standard across all companies now.

It seems that your employees as ambassadors can be a double edged sword. It's clear that employee's need clear directions on what is and isn't expected from them - i.e. don't slag off customers or clients. However, it's a fine line as you can't be too prescriptive on people's ability to talk about their working life.

In any social media strategy the option of using identified employee 'mavens' is attractive, even preferable, as, at the end of the day, in business and in life, people buy people.

Easy job searching through phones? The future's here people!

Just wanted to pop a quick post about a little pioneering that's been going on quietly in the job board sector. What with the massive leaps in interface technology on mobiles that have happened over the past couple of years, most notably of course the darling of the sexy smart phones, the iPhone, it was only a matter of time until job boards started trying to really push into that space to further their candidate reach and engagement too.

Now I'm sure there are plenty of iPhone job apps out there (if you've come across one then write up a little review below or send it to us and we'll post it in its own right) - but I felt one I came across did a particularly good job in terms of making the most of the technology. That was the one by 1job.co.uk

I've had a little play - and you know what - it really is as simple as it's shown to be in the youtube clip. And that really is the beauty of it. Not over complicated, not faffy - just simple & effective. Exactly how iPhone apps should be. If I was being REALLY pedantic I'd suggest the developers just relook at how the saved jobs screen editing works and make it more like you find elsewhere in standard apps on the iPhone - but that really is scraping the barrel as there's nothing particularly hard to follow in the way they've built it, it's just that it's not completely consistent and I don't really see why it can't be. 

I should also mention that I came across another by the site AllTheTopBananas.co.uk, but rightly or wrongly when an app asks me to input details like my email address before I get to play then I instantly loose interest - which doesn't make me a great investigative blogger I know, but it is a trait I'm sure I'm not alone in demonstrating, so makes me wonder whether the value gained through a forced registration is enough to compensate for however many other users do like I do and immediately say "thanks, but no thanks".

So well done 1job.co.uk - I really like that. And sorry ATTB, together with the oddest job board name in the UK I think you're missing a trick there.

CIPD Awards

We attended the CIPD awards on Tuesday night at the Honourable Artillery Company near Old street.

The sun was shining, the location lovely and MediaCom's work was recognised with three gongs. Two for our work for Shell with JWT (Digital and Innovation) and one for The Met Police with aia (Outdoor) - an integrated media campaign that involved a media recruitment first with a digital six sheet.

This outdoor recruitment first, was one, in a long line of innovative firsts, planned by Celine Marshall in our team here for the Met Police, and so, we were delighted that this was recognised with an award.

It's a fantastic example of how media choice can bring a great creative message to life and make it a real success.

The Met police campaign put me in mind of Dave Trott's recent posts on his blog at Brand Republic on Upstream Media thinking where he gives examples of how media choice and the actual context really makes the ad. He says;

'It wasn’t me that said it, but it’s true. If you’ve got a creative media department, the medium is the message.'

He goes on to say in his Context is Content post :

'Maybe advertising should stop putting all our attention into judging content in a vaccum. Maybe we should only ever judge content in context. Because the ad is the context.'

 

Although it was a successful night, the atmosphere was understandably a bit flat with the recent news of the Barkers/TCS purchase from administration by Penna.

 

This was the main topic of conversation and whilst some people had a view of what happened, I think most people were still trying to get their head around the whole thing and really felt for the people involved.

 

Whilst this type of situation has happened before, especially in times of a severe recession, what's different now is the existence of social media. People have an opportunity to discuss events in a open community forum like Ri5.co.uk - albeit in a predominantly anonymous capacity.

 

Hopefully this dialogue will be a positive thing and cathartic for all parties involved.

 

Biting the hand that feeds you

I was at one of my oldest friend's Charlotte's Solstice day party on Saturday.

It started at 3pm and ended at 3am and was hosted at the commune/shared-housing home that Charlotte lives in in Islington.

The day involved a fig tree ceremony where all party goers congregated in the garden, meditated and made a wish for the community and for themselves. Yup - was full-on, tree-hugger, liberal paradise.

The sun was still shining when a lady came up to myself and a friend and asked could she have a cigarette, we happily obliged and we got to talking. She was in her fifties, already a bit tipsy and was a journalist - an investigative journalist.

She was now teaching a journalism course in a London Uni and as she put it, was delighted to be giving something back to the younger generation after an illustrious career, working for all the broadsheets.

The talk turned to Twitter, upon where she declared herself a complete technophobe and wanted to know what all this twittering was about. Indeed she was very concerned about what jobs her students would have when they graduated, as all these bloggers, were thinking they could do the job of a proper journalist.....

It was music to my ears, I had in front of me a living and breathing Fleet street dinosaur, aghast at what the Internet was doing to newspapers.

She declared: 'Well, we'll always need newspapers, you know.'

I replied 'Why's that?'

She retorted 'er, well, em...well.....er..can I say that you have a very one track mind?

No, no,' I replied, 'I'm merely playing devil's advocate....'

'Well, people need papers, its important for the brand - you can't have a news brand like the Guardian if it doesn't appear in a paper. These bloggers like Guido Fawkes are biting the hand that feeds them. Take what the Telegraph has recently done with MP's expenses - a splendid job. Now, yes you could call it cheque book journalism, but that has required an army of full time journalist pouring over the fine detail of those expense claims.....how can a blogger like Guido Fawkes ever do that?'

The conversation went on, like this, to and for, was quite enjoyable, although I had to try and not upset her too much with my controversial views - it was a party after all.

I was particularly interested in the article in the Guardian (online) I saw on Monday about the Guardian launching a crowdsourcing project on the MP expenses data:

'The response has been enormous, the results intriguing and, thanks to the efforts of many thousands of Guardian readers, not one MP who has put in a dodgy expenses claim can think about relaxing just yet.

In a groundbreaking "crowd-sourcing" exercise, the Guardian appealed for help in sifting through the huge amount of data on MPs' expenses that was unleashed at the end of last week. Almost 20,000 people have taken part in gathering facts for the online project and about 160,000 pages have been examined.'

Just as well I wasn't aware of this on Saturday.....

Taking a little issue with LinkedIn believeing their own hype - Social Recruiting Summit

So for those of you who don't follow @mattalder on twitter (or work in whatever corners of Barkers Matt's cheery demeanor brightens each day, or belong to his close family and are in regular contact with him) you won't know that he's currently hobnobbing with some of the great and most connected of digital recruitment world at the Social Recruiting Summit  - being held at the uber webcool venue that is google HQ.

Anyway - as part of the stream of tweets coming out of google HQ (which, as I write this with the day only just starting, has me thinking that it won't be long before twitter falls over as a direct result of this event!) Matt sent this:

"accuracy of personal info when user has more than 10 connections better than a resume, people don't lie in public" RH #socialrecruiting

Now the RH he references is Reid Hoffman the founder of LinkedIn. And it got me thinking - yes they flippin well do! Certainly in my even limited experience it doesn't really prevent lying. But what worries me most is that encouraging naivety through misguided statements as above perhaps gives a greater false sense of validation to a person's profile and therefore any potential mistruths within.

I believe that as humans we're generally pretty polite to each other (in a "smile and say nothing" as opposed to "open and engaging" kind of way), particularly on a business level. So even if you click on a LinkedIn profile to read someone embellishing themselves to something unrecognisable from that which you know was the role they're describing, sometimes only discernible from the dates matching up with when you worked alongside them, would you really take steps to try and get that changed? And actually - for that matter - what steps can/would/could you take?

I recall instances where people have laughed our loud (yeh - really - not even 'LOL'd, but real laughter) having read what someone has said they've done or been responsible for on their Linkedin profile.

And then there's the validation of the profile "truth" - the recommendations from other people. It's just so, well, easy to ask a bunch of people to say nice things about you being pretty safe in the knowledge that they'll either ignore your request or be nice in the hope that you might reciprocate, perpetuating the flow of banality passing back and forth, with people so keen to scratch each others backs the true value of a reference is all but lost.

Now don't get me wrong - perhaps I'm just to polite (no - really!). I mean I took my profile off facebook because I just didn't like denying "being friends" to people I didn't know or even when I did wasn't particularly friendly with over 20years ago. Perhaps it's just me and I have social issues that transcend into social media. But I feel that Mr Hoffman has perhaps been supping a bit too much of his own Venture Capital PR laden spin-juice and is starting to believe his own hype.

I have no problem giving a reference about someone - did so quite recently as it goes - but that's when I'm asked in confidence to give my honest opinion. Integrity means different things to different people for sure, and there's nothing stopping me spouting banality in a private response to a reference check either - particularly if you wouldn't mind that person moving on from their current employ - but in social space I think the danger of that happening is even greater, so to start giving a greater level of credibility to what someone has made up about themselves being true just because "it's out there for all to see and no-one's contradicted it" I think is naive in the extreme.

LinkedIn is a great background check for starters, a living CV if you will - hell, we've even built integrating features for it into the ATS we've built (sorry for the shameless plug ;) - but to think that "people don't lie in public" is just plain delusional. Has Mr Hoffman never heard of Politicians?!!!! They're like us, just more so.

Workthing+ - what I saw

With the recent launch of Workthing+, the “is it right to charge candidates?” debate was certainly re-ignited (read some of it here on Recruiting Futurology). I wanted to step a little away from that particular cut and thrust and, having tried to give it a bit more time to look at all that’s on offer, give my take on the Workthing+ offer itself. It probably is worth stating for the record though that I have no problem with anyone charging for a service, whatever that may be - I actually kinda prefer that sort of transparency because it allows you to make an informed decision about the value for money you receive, and because you’re paying you are more bought into realising the full benefit of any facility – in short, putting more onus on you to make it work for you.

OK – to the site/facility. My first observation is that there’s a hell of a lot they’ve bundled in. Loads of good stuff. From psychometric tests to a job seekers wiki/forum, to CV builders and activity planning. It’s all pretty nicely set out too (although some of the interface/navigation needs to have some “rough edges” smoothed – that’ll come with feedback and bedding down though), and whilst it’s hard for me as a non-job seeker to give the time and dedication necessary to really use all the facility to test what works for me and what doesn’t, I take my hat off to the boys and girls at Trinity Mirror Digital Recruitment (TMDR) for what they’ve got in place for launch.

If I’m going to be picky I’d have to say that I’d like to have seen more rich media throughout (videos and the like) to really engage the user, elements that would help establish a richer brand personality. The functional rather than experiential approach, I might even go as far as to say “flatness”, is typified by the home page “animated” element that would have been infinitely better had it a voiceover audio streamed with it – but all of this is easy to enhance and I’m sure is on a to-do list somewhere at Workthing+ HQ.

But there was one resource that I felt they’ve missed a trick by not making a consistent element within their own site. They have the facility to have your CV reviewed (a crucial part of the full service offer), but accessing that bounces you to a 3rd party site which kinda breaks my "in-site experience". It got me starting to wonder whether a 3rd party was suddenly going to start pitching me about writing my CV from scratch having already handed over my sign up money. Don't get me wrong - it's far far better to have it than not to have it (however broken it makes my journey), but if Workthing+ is setting up as a one-stop-shop then I feel it needs to look like that in every sense.

But all that said – I applaud the team at TMDR for stepping beyond ‘same old same old’ within the job board market. They have created something that I found to be very comprehensive and certainly doesn’t do the Workthing brand anything but good IMHO.

And one thing I particularly like, in a sad “I’ve clearly been hanging around this industry for far too long” kinda way, is the fact that Workthing started off all those years ago as a site that was intended to be an online careers advisory service first and a job board second. Over the years that got diluted as whoever owned it went for the mainstream “job board business model” – how wonderfully retro for Workthing+ to have effectively come full circle with TMDR, all be it with a changed business model that better reflects how the Internet has evolved over that time. Some good ideas just need time and business belief to prove themselves, here's hoping Workthing+ is given that second time around.

The end of an era?

Publishers spend too little on content

Interesting analysis of the US newspaper industry's cost base by Moody's Investors Service (though most of the rest of the report is unsurprising).

Written by Moody's vice president and senior analyst John Puchalla, the report contends that publishers spend far too much on producing and delivering a printed paper rather than on creating its content and selling it.

Here are the figures behind what Puchalla calls a "structural disconnect": only 14% of cash operating costs, on average, are devoted to content creation, while about 70% of costs are spent on printing, distribution and corporate functions.

The remaining 16% of costs are related to advertising sales, a first-class example of devoting too few resources to the principal revenue driver.

Puchalla sees this as a legacy of the industry's vertical integration and the result, of course, is that the high fixed costs - combined with high debt among many newspaper companies - is squeezing cash flow as revenue declines.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2009/jun/05/us-press-publishing-newspapers

Did you know?

As Alex tells us all about the latest 'wave' of advertising below - I thought we could end the week with some stats from attending the recent EIAA conference (European Interactive Advertising Association).

- Total Internet spend in 1999 came to £40m, which was seen back then as massive growth. Ten years later, we're now at £3.3 billion!

- Ten years ago the three largest reaching sites in the UK were MSN, Yahoo and Freeserve! (remember Freeserve? and where is Google?)

- Today, 45% of our Internet time is spent on just 10 sites, meaning the thousands of remaining domains have to fight it out for our remianing online time.

 

Today our audience are'media multi-taskers' - consuming more than one media at a time - e.g. surfing online while watching TV etc etc

In terms of the incredible transformation of the communications landscape, I really liked Evan Williams sentiment, on his recent talk about Twitter and its unexpected uses on ted.com

'Follow the hunch but never assume where it will go......'

Potential tsunami or ripple? Google signal the WAVEing goodbye of Twitter

Global recession or not, the pace of internet technology development waits for no economic cycle it would seem. Recently google have announced their latest project – something that’s potentially so big they’ve broken with their usual “release it in beta & then keep working on it” approach and have started drawing attention to it months before it’ll be ready for public release. Google Wave promises to be a “new tool for communication and collaboration on the web, coming later this year”.

Twitter killer? Certainly looks like to me. It’s gonna dent the hell out of FaceBook & other such platforms too you’d have to bet.  So what is Wave – well in their own words:

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

Here's how it works: In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It's concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use "playback" to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.

And here’s the video of it being launched

you can find all of this and more (including signing up to be alerted when it is launched) at http://wave.google.com/

It is of course pretty scary if you let yourself think about how much more of the “conversation” & our data this will put within the google domain – and you have to wonder how anyone can now stop them becoming the MegaCorp of many sci-fi nightmares that humans eventually have to rise up and rally against – but right here right now I take my hat off to the visionary and mega clever people at google and pray that the ATS market is way too small, for a few years at least, for them to bother knocking out a killer beta app for that! *Gulp*

☺

What Women Want

Dell have launched Della - a website for women and how their computers can help enhance their lives by looking cute, fashionable and help them count calories.

Look above, at how the happy women, sit closely together with their pastel coloured laptops and share laughs, horopscopes and no doubt, are on Cosmo online, gleaning pearls of wisdom on how to make their relationship work.

Puts me in mind of one of my favourite Harry Enfield schetches - Women know your limits

So, how can I expect to benefit from a netbook as detailed on the Della site?

Well, once I get beyond how darn cute they are I can easily find recipe's, count calories, watch fitness videos and ensure I shop successfully at vintage clothing stores. Then there is the accessories section - where I can shop to my hearts content.

Oh dear...why are women seen as a specific niche audience when it comes to technology, who need to be given child-like tech tips like morons?  it's....well....its just plain insulting.

Note to self - do not ever do this in recruitment.

So, which colour is your favourite? I just can't decide!

Two Tribes...Control v. Creativity

Lately, I've been mulling over the reports that newspapers intend to charge for their online content.

A futile exercise by Murdoch and the like, long after the dam wall has bust?

or justified compensation for valuable content that in fairness should be paid for?

It's a tricky one for sure. To pay or not to pay.

In terms of recruitment, we blogged about the subscription model on recruitment sites, such as The Ladders a while back and more recently and much deeper into the recession, Matt has got the debate going nicely on his own blog.

I read an article from the Observer recently and it made me think.

It was all about Charles Percy Snows 'infectious idea/meme' that there exists two cultures in society.

Literary Intellectuals v. Natural Scientists - both who had mutual incomprehension and mistrust which had negative repercussions for society.

According to John Naughton, today its about those obsessed with control and those who celebrate openness and creativity.

Here is where it gets interesting - its the early 1990's when the dawn of electronic networking is being recognised. He presents two options from which we could choose from:

1/ 'Government-provided terminals in every home on which appear information and services from a small number of approved providers (the BBC and Guardian for news, the Met Office for weather information, Reuters for stockmarket information, and so on).

Everything is controlled and reliable.

2/A publishing system in which anybody can publish anything - including lies, propaganda and pornography - with no prior approval. '

Question: which system would you have chosen?

Second scenario: -to design the world's first global encyclopedia

1/ A huge project with top minds and thinkers, experienced editors who source the best most authoritative articles - all rigorously checked for impartiality and accuracy.

2/'The alternative proposal is from a guy who says "Well, I think we should put up a website and ask people to write stuff for it."

Which one would you have chosen?'

Now lets think of a recruitment scenario. You are looking for a job and you are given two future options:

1/An online recruitment service that provides jobs in your specific industry, houses your CV and matches your skills and personality to an organisations' cultural fit -

You Pay for this tailored service.

2/An online recruitment service that provides jobs in your specific industry, houses your CV and matches your skills and personality to an organisations' cultural fit -

You do not pay for this tailored service.

Which one would you have chosen?

Interesting Article On Newspapers

This was in the FT yesterday ... Future of Newspapers some very interesting points ... have a good old read.

The Conference Season

  

We don’t tend to plug many conferences on Digital Recruiting but I couldn't let the opportunity to mention mine and Paul Harrison’s double header and double bill coming up over the summer pass by.

As well as both speaking at the Onrec conference next month (Paul is talking social media and I’m chairing the panel debate) we are also both doing a turn at the UK’s first, Social Media Recruitment conference in July.

Paul will be regaling the audience with his thoughts on how to put a corporate social media strategy together and I’ll be getting my crystal ball out to predict how social media will evolve in the future.

Rumours that we’re both in the running for the most overexposed digital recruitment professional of 2009 award are of course completely unfounded ;-)

Matt

Sorry - It's Gone with the Wind

It's Bank holiday Monday and in the absence of anything decent of TV, I've put on one of my favourite movies, Gone with the Wind whilst I tip-tap on my laptop. The opening quote of the movie describes the fall of the American old south - Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered. A Civilization gone with the wind..."

Simultaneously I've been catching up with the latest news online and came across the article on how The Evening Standard is about to launch an advertising blitz ahead of it's relaunch this month-

Evening Standard launches ad campaign to say sorry to Londoners

After carrying out market research it found that Londoners have deserted the paper due to it being overly negative, too partisan and anti Ken Livingstone, too national in its outlook and not London focused enough.

'...Buses and tubes will carry a series of messages throughout the week that begin with the word "sorry." The first says "Sorry for losing touch". Subsequent slogans say sorry for being negative, for taking you for granted, for being complacent and for being predictable'...

It would seem the free London newspapers with their celebrity filled content on the latest starlet to fall out of the Mahiki club, has been a suitable reading substitute for commuters on their evening commute home.

There seems to be no mention of how the Internet, which will act as the main source of the latest news for Londoners throughout their day, may have impacted on the irrelevance of the Standard as a viable, reputable news source.

In fact, the access to news, as and when it happens, via visits to websites and RSS feeds may mean that the London free papers are a welcome diversion from reality on the way home.

I like the way that the Standard realises there is a issue and is trying to sell itself and in effect, its medium, to its target audience. To do this would have seemed inconceivable a number of years ago. However, is it fighting a battle when the war and its digital winner is already a foregone conclusion? 

It is absolutely right to get back to the local angle - as this is perhaps the one USP that it can still demonstrate its value to for its London target audience.

Everything else it would seem is Gone with the Wind. (sorry had to say it).

In the words of Captain Rhett Butler who after years of being in love with Scarlett is worn down by her seeming indifference to him (and their misunderstandings and cross-purposes), gets to the stage where even though he still loves, he utters his famous line 'Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn'.

Breaks my heart every time.

Twinternship for the twins

So, I have a little brother and sister who are twins and are in university at the moment. Gavin and Louise are their names, they are the babies of our family and although I may be biased, they are pretty great.

They are looking for a paid internship to start in September for a year and are finding it pretty tough to get one. Lou studies marketing and Gavin studies engineering. It's looking like they may have to go to plan B and volunteer for a few days a week at a company and continue to work in their part time jobs to keep them going.

It's pretty critical they get experience in the workplace if they are to stand a chance of getting a job when they graduate. And you know, I don't think its a bad thing to volunteer in exchange for really useful experience, especially in the current economic climate.

Last week I read that Pizza Hut have advertised a position for a Twintern in the USA.

'..According to the company’s site, the position will include sharing insights and experiences via social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, attending marketing meetings, ad shoots and other events, monitoring social media for happenings that may be of interest to loyal Pizza Hut fan, working on PR programs.'....

This sounds like the ideal job for 'digital natives' like the twins - especially for Louise, who studies marketing. So, fingers crossed Louise can get some experience by offering her services in a social media monitoring and response mechanism capacity. Fantastic for her in terms of gaining vital experience and great for the prospective company, in terms of a much need social media resource.

Of course there are a stack of tools that facilitate social media monitoring and response (certainly a considered strategy with content creation and distribution in social media is critical for our clients). However often one of the concerns of companies is the internal resource required to manage a social media strategy. 

Does the precarious economic and job situation that students find themselves in, offer companies access to a willing pool of digital savvy resource? Will students and graduates provide the necessary skills and time to execute a considered social media strategy for companies?

They just might.

Sinead

The end of Advertising agencies as we know them

This is pretty much a completely lifted article by Sean Carton posted on ClickZ.com, but I just thought it was so well put that I wanted to paste it across. I have taken the liberty of amending it in a few places to make it more UK recruitment industry relevant (talking about TV ads isn't really us), but I think the parallels are so striking overall it holds up. See what you think (oh - and there are some great posts linked to from the article too - so give yourself 15 minutes, get a coffee and have a good read).

The end of Advertising agencies as we know them

Do we really need advertising agencies anymore? Are we witnessing the great "reboot" of the advertising industry hastened (but not caused) by the current recession?

It's pretty obvious to any reasonable person watching the tens of thousands of layoffs in the industry along with the simultaneous implosion of the newspaper industry that the ad biz as we know it is in serious trouble. Couple that with the ongoing decrease in advertising spending along with new studies (such as this one from Microsoft) that predict that the Internet will overtake TV in 2010, and it's clear that advertising as we've all grown to know it is on the way out.

I'm not predicting the death of advertising. That's baloney. If anything, we're witnessing the rebirth of an entire industry that's going to expand in ways we've never thought of before -- especially if we expand our concept of what advertising means. And we'd better. Before we blow it like the newspaper industry has.

To understand the tectonic shift we're in the midst of now, it's helpful to remember where ad agencies came from. Originally advertising agencies were "agents" for newspapers, placing ads produced by clients in newspapers. In 1877, the J. Walter Thompson Co. figured out it could sell more advertising space if it created the ads instead of relying on clients to create ads. The modern agency was born.

As new media developed, the advertising agency adapted. Radio and TV required new creative skills and new people. Agencies kept growing and adding more overhead. Agencies became more unwieldy, more rigid, and more set in their ways.

Then along came the Internet and all that changed.

It took a while, but today advertising is less about the big colourful press ad campaigns and more about producing measurable results across a host of media and channels. Social media, search marketing, and online direct response (with its associated need for candidate-relationship management and other data-handling technologies) have required new skills and and a new way of thinking.

And that's the crux of the issue. Advertising as we've known it has always been about an "interrupt" model that requires candidates to pay for content by sifting through pages of classified print ads. It's been about grabbing and holding attention in a linear way because that's how media worked.

It doesn't work that way anymore. And neither does the advertising agency as we know it.

Why? The full-service monolithic agency model worked fine in a world where there were a small number of national newspapers, a local/regional champion or two and perhaps a niche industry magasine too. It doesn't work when you have to deal with dozens of media channels and a plethora of options within each that change on a nearly daily basis. New technologies pop up (social networking, Twitter, online video, etc.) and new skills and new thinking are needed to deal with them. Large organizations with large payrolls, hierarchical structures, and well-defined (and well-defended) areas of expertise can't possibly hope to make any money when they have to staff themselves with a constantly expanding cast of experts to deal with new media challenges. Add to that a compensation model based on a world that's long gone (retainers and media commissions) and the agency model we've all grown up with starts to look like a relic of the past. Turmoil in the industry provides proof.

So what to do? Simple: explode the idea of the monolithic agency. Get rid of the concept that only an agency that does everything can possibly create and manage large campaigns. Look for more flexible and fluid models that expand and contract as needed, bringing in new expertise when needed and ditching it when it's not. Think distributed, not centralized. Think "collective," not "company."

As more people get laid off and can't find jobs at other agencies (who are also laying people off), more people hanging up their shingle and do whatever it is that they do best, creating an explosion of entrepreneurs and experts who (without the overhead of a big company) can do things cheaper, faster, and more flexibly than their counterparts at big companies.

If this sounds suspiciously like the "free agent" and "new economy" predictions we heard eight years ago, it kind of is. But there's one big difference: now we have the (free!) tools to actually make it happen. Social networking, collaborative tools such as Google Docs, and advances in mobile technologies make it possible to create a distributed team that doesn't need to be in the same place to work effectively.

So what's the agency of the future going to look like? Probably a lot smaller and focused on strategy, account/project management, creative leadership (but not execution), and media strategy (but not planning and buying). Most agencies will revolve around these hubs if they're honest with themselves. Agencies will exist to provide high-level strategic guidance that clients need in a media-chaotic environment. Agencies will expand or contract as needed or will explore radical solutions such as crowdsourcing to get work done for less money.

Whether this scenario turns out to be completely accurate or not remains to be seen. But nobody can look at what's going on today and say that the agency of tomorrow is going to look much like the agency of today or yesterday.

So what do you think? Has Sean hit the nail on the head - or am I just part of that "explosion of entrepreneurs and experts" and therefore my judgment is clouded by desperately hoping that the new world that Sean talks of is to become the new reality?

Advertising not a "good model" for Twitter

Twitter, the microblogging website, is focusing on creating value for consumers and companies before attempting to increase its revenues, but doesn't think traditional advertising will be a "good model", says co-founder Biz Stone. WARC

The future of the workplace

Interesting discussion about the future of the workplace ... very interesting points on how the design of the building helps to attract the right level of talent. 

http://www.monocle.com/sections/design/Web-Articles/The-Future-of-the-Workplace/

The Philosopy of Work

So, I was at the SouthBank centre last night attending a talk by one of my favourite writers, Alain De Botton. I've read all his books since one of my good friends bought me the book Status Anxiety a number of years ago for my birthday (take from that, what you will....).

The genius of Alain is his ability to articulate and make simple the biggest challenges and issues we face in life, be that love, success, friendship etc. He makes philosophy accessible to the masses.

His latest book is all about work called The Pleasure and Sorrows of Work.

He noted that if you were to look to art - be that TV, movies, books etc there is very little coverage of our real working lives - something that takes up a huge amount of our time.

It would seem in movies and TV that everyone works in three professions - Medicine, Law and Criminality and spend most of their waking lives, falling in and out of love etc.

Where is the movie on the world of recruitment advertising I ask?

He said a few interesting things from a recruitment and employer branding perspective. He explained how he had spent a number of months with the HR department of the UK's largest Accountancy firm (whose HQ's are by the Thames..).

He was suprised that there was a whole floor of these HR bods, all working on initiatives and processes for their staff. However, he began to see the important role that HR played, as when you think about it, there were over 15,000 people in this organisation - all of whom, had to get on with each other as much as possible to ensure maximum productivity and ensure success.

Unlike in love when if you p*ss each other off you can 'throw the crockery' at each other, this really isn't possible in the working environment.....pity.

What this example did reveal for me, is that a company's culture and values should really promote openess and straight-talking to alleviate stress, upset and miscommunications etc. 

The other interesting thing he noted is that there is a universal desire in all people to have a 'meaningful' job- this is what makes them happy and fulfilled.

This doesn't have to be through saving a persons life in a hospital - this can be making a difference in peoples lives through; fixing their squeaky door, booking them a holiday or producing beautiful photgraphs that make people happy etc

If a company can show employees what they do is something 'meaningful' - then jobs a winner, as they say.

Sinead

A couple of interesting posts about Twitter

When Stars Twitter, a Ghost May Be Lurking - IHT

Is Twitter becoming like MySpace - Brand Republic

I actually have no real opinion on twitter as I do not use it ... but i thought i would try and get down with the cool kids and post a few links to interesting articles about twitter.

I am going back to my hole now, texting people, searching for things and checking email ...

UK Recruitment Tweetup - latest news

There have been some very welcome developments with the UK Recruitment Tweetup over the weekend and we now have some extra capacity. You can read more here or go and register here if you haven't already

Matt

OnRec 2009 - it's getting there...

Having just read Jamie's posting on the above, which I think is a great post, pretty much summing up a lot of the evening, I did feel it missed a couple of elements that, from an ad agency perspective, were really key failings on the night.

- The winners - what did they do to win?  No-one knew, no-one was shown, and it was all a little disappointing/frustrating.

- The cost - much as Jamie says, for circa £1800 for a table (which, I believe, is pretty comparable to the RADS/CIPDS) - or £185 per head, it just doesn't seem value for money.  We were lucky enough to have a client there, and won our category, but you know normally at these events you feel like you've got value for money - plenty of wine (certainly not just 4 bottles between 10-12 people), entertainment (pre-drinks (which I missed but looked like they'd been fun), guest presenter, post-event dancing, drinking etc), and slick professional awards ceremony - not just a PowerPoint presentation cunningly introducing the 'box' animation - all add up to 'an event' and an 'experience'.  This just seemed to smack of cheapness and trying to make a quick buck (or several).

- shortlists - as Jamie mentions, these were not shortlists - they were just lists.  It's impossible to attend/bring clients when you have 6 or 7 (the six or seven you entered) in a category, or across several categories.  So some form of long list/short list approach would be great next year

- judging criteria - the categories in the most part just don't seem to make sense.  On our table, no-one really knew what most of them were, or why the clients/companies listed were in there.  This was not helped by then not showing/explaining what it was about it that made it great

- judging - there is a wealth of opinion (as can be seen by this blog, and other similar ones) and expertise out there - all keen to help push this event forward.  We need it (an online recruitment advertising awards event) and with a brand that has been around as long as OnRec, we should be in a position to deliver it.  Why not go out to the industry/clients/companies and ask them to input into the criteria/judging etc.

- after-event entertainment - there was none.  The lights went up at 11.  I've never, ever experienced anything like it before - like Jim-bob says, this is the part where networking (read: more drinking and dancing like an idiot) takes place, which makes a great talking point for the next few weeks...

Overall, whilst I was really impressed by the attendence, the venue and the level of effort the team at OnRec put into 'the event' - for which I think they did a great job - the feeling of cutting corners still comes across, and just left me with a bit of a bitter taste.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see anyone giving anyone a hand-shandy, which is a shame as that would have added to the amusement, but I am keen to see the 700 photos the photographer took of a mirror - on which he seemed obsessed for a good 15-20 minutes.

OnRec, I applaud you for taking this and creating a much larger, more aspirational event - it looked great - really impressive - I just think you now need to deliver on the expectation you create when it comes to the value an attendee gets out of the evening themselves and provide an event that should really reflect the £50-£60K of income it generates - not just a beautiful venue.

I had a great chat with a lovely lady from OnRec (i'm sorry, but having bought the table some more wine, my memory - which is pretty ropey at the best of times - was a little poor), and am keen to see how the whole product/brand evolves after its purchase, but for this event would just like to see more in return for our commitment and support.

If you can add to the level of professionalism and feeling of real value to the night, I think you'll start to see more support from Agencies, their clients and then media and suppliers.  But something really needs to happen now, as this is becoming such a large-scale event, the expectation is growing.

UK Recruitment Tweetup - some more news

A quick follow up to the last post to announce that Twitter Job Search will be sponsoring the UK Recruitment Tweetup on 1st April. You can find more details on my Recruitment Futurology blog or just go straight to the sign up page if you want to attend

UK Recruitment Tweetup

Just a quick post to let everyone know that registrations are now open for the UK's very first Recruitment Tweetup.

 You can read more about the event here or you can just go and sign up straight away here.

The only rules are that you must be a Twitter user and connected in some way with the recruitment or HR industry

The Tweetup is going to be held at an undisclosed Farringdon bar in association with MyLongLunch and another major sponsor who we are just finishing negotiations with. More news when we have it!

@mattalder and @jamieasleonard

TribalTrekGate 09 - boldly going into industry folklore

Well - here it is.

There was a bit of a ripple in the webosphere about two weeks ago when we heard tell of a Star Trek Spoof video viewable on YouTube from Tribal Resourcing, fetauring the Senior Management team. Unfortunately it seemed to get beamed back up nearly as quickly as it arrived amongst us.

But the web has a habbit of Kling(ing)on to tomfoolery and one keen eyed & public spirited citizen managed to capture the footage before it hit warp 5 and so, hoping Tribal phasers don't go any higher than just stun, we thought we'd share and let you make your own mind up about it.

Personally - I think if nothing else it shows a bit of personality and a senior management team willing to not take themselves too seriously. And if it doesn't raise a smile (certainly 2nd or 3rd time of watching) then you're dead (Jim).





Oh - and appologies for pun overdrive. What can I say - I tried to contain myself but I got to a stage where I "couldnae tak it anymoor capn!" My pun overide sensors "werre gonna blow" if I didn't redirect the full force of the bad taste photon shield right back into the post.
:-D

Missing In Action – a recruitment advertising agency video, but not as we know it

We started this week with a bit of a ripple in the recruitment advertising twittersphere from a certain agencies video post - a ripple that despite the apparent best efforts of the generating agency to remove the video almost as quickly as it was posted has left a bit of a phasers to stun kind of afterglow.

A few lucky people got to see it and I have it on good authority from one such person that Tribal have produced a spoof Star Trek-esque spoof promo. Im afraid all I can show you is where it clearly isn't (you'll get what I mean if you click on the main video as it comes up  "we're sorry, this video is no longer available") - http://www.youtube.com/user/BHTribal1

It seemingly flashed onto the web Monday morning but within an hour or two was gone again.

For me it begs the question – how can something go that far and then be pulled? Does the pulling of it say more than the making of it (apparently all harmless fun that the person I talked to about it felt showed a bit of agency personality)?

Or perhaps there was copyright infringement that they hadn't checked and worried them?

Any one got any answers? Anyone got any other theories? Anyone got the video downloaded?

Come on Tribal - leave the klingons on the starboard bow and show us your funny bone(s).

:)

So, Digital Czars, what time is your Interview at?

I  read the following headline in my digital newsletter today:

'Government slammed for £160,000 digital-czar job posting'

Crikey, I thought - is that the price of a job posting these days? - no wonder people are a bit upset - back to the Sunday Times we go....

On closer inspection, the government has created a new post for a Digital Czar to help the government connect with people through the digital social environment - on such things such as Twitter, Facebook etc

Is this a grotesque use of public money, as one opponent exclaimed? - well no, I don't think it is.

If the role is to genuinely engage the public in dialogue, share information and involve them in the democratic environment, staving off apathy in the process, then it is to be welcomed.

Enabling participation and giving people a voice is one of the most positive lessons we can take from Obama's recent election campaign.

In a similar vein, is the future use of technology and social media in Labour's future re-election campaign.

What I found interesting last week was Obama's marketing guru Thomas Gensemer pitching for Gordon Brown/Labour party business.

Gensemer makes the point himself, that there must be, in conjunction, with the smart use of technology a clear message and objective.

For all the Twittering , Facebooking, iphone apps and mybarackobma.com sites in the world, unless the message and content is genuine and compelling, the desired result or election win, through clever uses of social media and technology is by no means guaranteed.

Back to the Digital Czar job:....

'This role is not for everyone - success will be achieved by influence and encouragement, not by issuing instructions from the centre.'

 

Should make it interesting ;0)

Recruiting: SoMe, Web 2.0, Pros & Cons and the future - some thoughts

I was recently approached by OnRec.com ("The Magazine for Online Recruitment around the world") to contribute to an article. You can read the article here - Using social media and Web 2.0 effectively (with additional contributions from Jamie Leonard, Euan McDonald & Lucian Tarnowski). I thought I'd post my full thoughts here too.

How can recruiters use social media and Web 2.0 effectively to engage candidates?
The best way to use social media to engage candidates is by first ensuring you understand your target audience. If you have an idea of where they may already be congregating online or what they’re consuming (by way of web content) then it’s a great idea to ‘listen’ to them first whilst you work out what you can bring to the party. If you’re hoping that a couple of tweaked press releases every other month will in any way be engaging then you’re setting yourself up for a very public fall, or worse: indifference.

Put yourself in the audiences’ shoes because they’re asking “What’s In It For Me” and if you can’t answer that with some degree of empathetic certainty then best manage your expectations right down from the start. Engagement requires the buy in of both parties – and if you aren’t offering anything compelling or interesting then you can’t really expect to reap the benefits.

But once you are confident that you know your audience then the best advice is just to get on with it. You’ll soon know whether you’re hitting the right note and raising any interest, and then: keep it up; keep listening; stay true to your brand values; show integrity; keep looking for other avenues to broaden that reach. Overcoming the initial inertia is probably the hardest part of the whole thing, after all then you’re just doing online what you do in the real world.

What are the benefits and also pitfalls to avoid when using social media and Web 2.0?
The very least you should achieve is an enhanced search engine profile (Search Engine Optimisation), because the search engines love regularly updated content - and you should be producing that if nothing else. But the full rewards, if you get it even modestly right, are very compelling:

• The potential to broaden your recruitment horizons – reach outside of traditional, potentially stagnant talent pools and desperate active job seekers.
• The opportunity to change preconceptions about your business that might otherwise have harmed your recruitment activity (often without you knowing).
• Influence / balance online conversations that would otherwise negatively affect your employer brand.
• Reach passive candidates, establishing and then maintaining a front of mind presence with them.
• Differentiate from the competition - tangibly.

The main pitfall to avoid has certainly got to be underestimating the time commitment this will require. For some people the ability to write engagingly comes more easily than for others, but either way once you’ve started any such activity then you have to keep it up, otherwise that can often be perceived more negatively than not starting out at all (stagnant blogs or poorly updated social media groups can speak louder of your organisation than the outdated content). Another pitfall is not being prepared. If you haven’t listened then you won’t know what you might come up against, you won’t add any value and worst of all, you might not have anything interesting to say (in the target audiences eyes at least).

And finally it’s important to remember that nowadays people “trust peers over marketers”, so be ready to take the rough with the smooth as people will look to openly validate your messages against other (sometimes disgruntled, often highly cynical) commentary. If your company isn’t willing for you to be open and honest, perhaps your Employer Brand is actually as much fiction as fact, then maybe it’s best to get that right first before opening yourselves up to the full frankness of the web.

How do you see social media and Web 2.0 developing and influencing the recruitment industry in the future? What will be the next big change?
I think that web will increasingly force the transparency of employer propositions’, certainly within key skills markets. Companies will begin to understand the tangible business value of being THE “Employer of Choice” and invest in managing their Employer Brand more fastidiously, doing so from the inside-out, also realising the benefits of actively encouraging an open culture to further enhance the external Employer Brand.

Potential candidates on the other hand will increasingly hear about jobs through any number of web touch points, peer to peer networks being increasingly ubiquitous, but will also have more and more sophisticated “search agent” type tools that will scour the web on their behalf, sifting through information and collating “must read” lists that will include appropriate job opportunities and articles/comments about previously flagged target prospective employers, all bundled together with their other daily news and active interest subjects feeds.

And what this will all mean is a significant shift in the balance of recruitment spend from what is still overwhelmingly focussed on attraction based activity to a far greater investment in long-term Employer Brand management and broad reach digital engagement activity. Why? Because companies will grow to realise that the new web paradigm is more a technology underpinned attitudinal one than a new medium to be controlled, so getting someone’s attention becomes a (still) crucial but fundamentally relatively smaller part of the overall business picture.

And the next big change?
Joe Public and the Corporate World have a long way to go to get up to speed with what is possible today. The vast majority still barely get Web1.0, so there has to be a period of catch up and consolidation as the technology already here gets converged and simplified – and that’s actually what is going to be the big change: a massive swell of new and existing internet users switching from just accessing 2 or 3 elements of the web resource to becoming immersed in the complete social web.

The systems, technology and downright mindboggling cleverness underpinning the web will continue to evolve at a lightning pace too (not least in pursuit of the next next big change – The Intelligent Web), but I believe a large part of the focus will switch from “what” can be done to “how” it’s done – most importantly delivering the user experience that enables the greatest number of people to engage with each other as efficiently as possible. And with the Internet increasingly being where we store our information and where the software we use runs from (as opposed to on our local hard drives) so barriers to access will continue to diminish and remote functioning capability improve, all furthering the swell of immersed users – welcome to the age of Cloud Computing.

Best Blogs

So, I was reading the Sunday Times at the weekend and had a look at their best blogs article.

I was of course, shocked and bewildered that digitalrecruiting.co.uk wasn't on there, but hey ho....

Anyhoo - there's a blog on there on the Advertising world from a copy-writing fella named Dave Trott.

I've been reading it ever since and am loving the content and his writing style.

Check it out if have a moment - some great content on what a client briefs you and what they actually mean, a fantastic post on whether in design, all elements should be purely functional or should include non essential emotional elements to enhance and complete the full design- the WW2 story of the British colonel, the Nazi concentration camp and lipstick made a real impact.

The oft-fricticious relationship between the client facing Account Manager and the internal creative department . This particular post put me in mind of the old days at my previous agency and the relationship between the Account Handlers and the 'Interactive' department as it was once called.

Was having some banter with a colleague in the pub last week who was an Account Handler back then at same agency.

I did my impression of Account handlers back then;

'Hi Mr Client, whats that you say? you want a fully functioning website with ATS/annual online media strategy  in two days?  - sure no problem - that's completely feasible, its very easy you know...

'Hi Interactive team - what do you mean you can't do it!!!! - you guys are so obstructive and useless - JUST do it!' MR MD, Interactive are being cr*ap again'!!

She retorted with her impression of the Interactive team:

'Ok, so we are a commercial business with targets to hit and are trying to get our clients to do some best-practice interactive stuff - have managed to sell this is and its a bloody hard sell....

'Hi interactive, can you please do this project that is sustaining your department and team? Whats that you say - you need 6 months to do it?, a Prince 2 diploma project plan, with gant charts...for no apparent reason, just for the sake of it?? - argh!!!!

Good times. Good memories. :)

Two years on and still going strong

After having a conservation with someone about student marketing this week, I couldn't help remembering the video below. I first posted it on Digital Recruiting two years ago and I'm pleased to say that, despite some  formidable competition, it remains one of my favourite worst recruitment videos ever. However having clocked up nearly a million views maybe bad is good after all!

Have a great weekend

Sorry about removing content

You may have seen a rather nasty post about me recently ... i thought that is odd as I had never met the person.

From further investigation I have had to remove the content because not only had they made the comment but it had been linked to to make sure it ws listed highly in the google search results.

It is rather sad that this industry forum was used for a personal attack.

Sorry as I am a great believer in free speach ... but this was done to play a rather nasty trick.