Digital Recruiting

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.

Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) Winter Survey 2009

The Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) have just released the latest AGR Winter Survey 2009

 

Phil Lane discusses overall ideas and especially David Lammy’s solutions over in the Barkers Blog

 

But I want to look at a different side … the increase in investment in websites and campus activity vs. the decrease in paper and online advertising.  

 

I just want to say – at last!

 

For many years I have seen pointless campaigns running in the media and I am sure no one asked why are we doing this?

 

And if anyone did question the ideas we were hit with the same old response – we have to do it.

 

Do we have to?  

 

Campus based activity will always give the best rewards … and back it up with a great search campaign and a well optimised website.  Have a dialogue and let people find you.  

 

It makes a lot more sense than shouting to people who are really not interested in the same old advertising …

Fired Up! Ready to Go!!

Last Friday we held a seminar for clients on Obama and his fantastic use of marketing and branding to help bring him to power.

One of the speakers was an author, who is currently featuring in our 'Smarter ways of working bookclub'. It was a corker of an event and myself and hopefully our clients found it really useful.

The author Ian Leslie talked us through amongst other things, Obama and his teams use of technology (iphone apps etc), social media, the positioning of the campaign as a grassroots campaign as opposed to the traditional top down approach, fund raising and the the Obama logo   itself being a symbol of change and optimism.

The country, as a result of Bush etc was crying out for change and 'man did meet the moment.'

The presentation climaxed with a clip from Youtube, (where else) of the man himself delivering a speech to a USA trade union. This clip really brought home to me what a charismatic, fantastic orator Obama is - his brand ultimately succeeded because, he himself, is authentic - and really seems to be genuinely willing and able to bring change - lets hope so!

Its well worth a watch, fast forward to 2:52 seconds to see the best story and the mark of the man. Fanbloodytastic!

Fired Up! Ready to Go!!

 

The future of newspapers? Surely not.......

News report from 1981! So much I could write about it but for now I'm going to let you just watch it.....

Obama, dogma and the demise of UK Internet Advertising

*We welcome Richard Tyrie as our first Guest Author for quite a while for this post*

Councils told not to use websites to compete with local media

Secretary for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls, has told councils not to undermine local media outlets by trying to compete for readers and advertising revenue with their own websites and publications.

So here we are, still basking in the immediate after-glow of the rousing Obama inauguration speech last week.  We heard about his plans for a new era of openness, transparency and trust in government (US government, anyway); a sole focus on policies that were beneficial to the electorate, and the scrapping of policies that were dogmatic and ineffective.  Fantastic stuff.  Whatever your position on OB, you can’t deny that his inspirational leadership style, and the spirit and substance of his plans (not to mention his oratory skills) will bring about significant change to the nature of government in the US.

And then we have our own government.   .

In the last fortnight alone, we’ve had the Heathrow third runway debacle;  the attempted draft bill to exempt MP’s expenses from Freedom of Information Act legislation, ergo: “we don’t want to tell you taxpayers what your £87.6 million pa is being spent on”, which, incidentally, our Gordon did a sharp U-turn on, following a *significant*  backlash by the internet ‘massive’ (way to go tweeps and facebookers..).  Now government has come over all ‘traditionalist’ with the announcement of the latest initiative from Ed Balls’ office telling councils “not to undermine local newspapers by competing for readers [with their own websites]”

WTF?  Do what?  Are you serious?

Err hold on a minute…   Last time I heard, the careers section of a local authority website was reported as being the most heavily trafficked section of all LG websites; in fact SOCITM (the society of IT Managers) reckon that the jobs section of a .gov.uk website is likely to serve four times more page impressions than the next most trafficked section of a local gov site (which, incidentally is the rather fascinating ‘planning application’ bit…)

 Speak to any local authority hiring manager that actually measures where their response comes from (there are a few out there - not many mind…) and they’ll tell you how little response they get from ‘trad med’.   What little response they do still get is precisely what they don’t want:  the same types they’ve always attracted (pale, male and stale are, I believe, the descriptors du jour amongst local government officers). 

The fact of the matter is, the local press just isn’t a practical, cost-effective solution any more,  nor does local press advertising generate even vaguely diverse shortlists. Local Governments historic use of press as a primary attraction method (and the subsequent nature of the local government workforce) amply bears this out:

1) The private sector (proportionally) hires three times more young people than local government  (Only 6% of a workforce of 2.2 million is under 25)

2.)Only 9 authorities (out of 336) have a workforce that reflects their communities in terms of ethnicity

3.) They largely attract ‘more seasoned’ applicants;  in fact 31% of the workforce is going to retire in the next decade (see point 1)

Oh dear.

So employers… no young people? Just loads of err ‘experienced’ people? Not enough applications from black and minority ethnic communities?  You betcha!

 Funny that, but then that’s the profile of local press readership..but then if you do what you’ve always done….

On the flip side,  we have the web, which is now making the majority of hires out there (London borough of Newham make 86% of all hires online now). Its proving to generate   a *massively* more diverse candidate pool – indeed, one LA reported over 1000% more interest from BAME’s (black and minority ethnic applicants) per pound spent compared to ‘traditional’ press advertising..

That’s a compelling business case for the web – non?

Local press is dying.  Its Darwinian; survival of the fittest; natural selection.  The truth is, inefficient, structurally weak, strategically adrift businesses die over time – and so they should.  Frankly, if they don’t move with the times, they should be left to wither..  trying to prop them up is analogous with US congress bailing out Ford or GM.  Utter madness. 

So when the Newspaper Society bleats on about how important local press is, in “ahem, providing a voice for local communities”, I suggest you get with the program Mr Balls, and see what’s really occurring out there.  Speak to local authorities.  See what’s happening.  We know it would be nice to keep the local press happy, but hey, this is about getting the right people to provide public services, not just currying favour with publishers with ever decreasing influence by ensuring them a few quid in advertising revs.

Do the right thing, and ditch the dogmatic stuff that isn’t in our interests any more..  Failure to do that, could mean you find yourself withering too, and probably quicker than you imagine.

 Richard Tyrie

Founder, Jobsgopublic

The beginning of a revolution?

It’s been a long time since I posted, and I guess that’s because I’ve been a little distracted recently (or have just been a little too busy having fun being a dad) but I’ve now seen a couple of articles today that for some reason seem to have made me feel I need to post.

 

Now I totally understand that a new site/product has to launch itself, and find a way of capturing people’s attention, but I’m struggling with the whole premise that ‘this is the beginning of a revolution in the recruitment market’.  Is it not more a case of someone making the logical link between Social Media platforms and job ads, and developing a platform to target grads in this way?

 

I’ve been in this industry for some time now (listen to me – online old fart) and I have to say I’ve seen a lot of ideas come and go – some with some pretty impressive/aspirational launch statements/claims (anyone remember Revolver.com?  I still have the business card collection if anyone's up for another round of Business Card Trumps…), but this is a bit of a new one on me.

 

I get the whole premise, I really do.  And you know, I’m pretty certain it will succeed as a product longer-term as it is well-backed, is being run by some very bright people, and seems to have a well thought out plan, but as for it being a ‘historical day’, well, I’m just not convinced.  I think I’m just a bit more battle hardened I guess…

Like I say, I may be totally missing the point, but I think that to make such bold claims based on the launch of an alpha site into an incredibly complicated, very mature and particularly fickle (candidate) market seems a little brave - but hey, the world needs brave people to push things forward, so good luck to you guys - I truly hope it does work for you. 

Social Media and the inauguration

I'm still actually watching it so I'm not going to make this a long post! Managed to take a screenshot of the CNN's streaming video and Facebook integration. Pure genius....if you didn't believe social media was the future now might be a good time to think again

UPDATE - Here are the official stats for it (from Mashable)

The stats released, as of noon ET:

1. There were 200,000+ status updates through the Facebook integration on CNN.com

2. at that time, 3,000 people commented on the Facebook CNN feed per minute

3. Obama’s Facebook Fan Page has more than 4 million fans and in excess of 500,000 wall posts

A RAD hangover (or just a miserable aging git)?

There’s no doubt I was considering myself very lucky to get an invite (even as a late stand in – I’ve never been too proud to be someone’s second option come good) to the RAD awards this year. But thanks to the generosity of Jobsite.co.uk I made the event.

I think a bit of pomp & celebration every once in a while does you good, and for me having the RADs in January helps put off any silly new years resolutions for the month of January, pushing them back (if there are any I’m feeling silly enough to make anyway – usually around curtailing of alcohol intake) into the shortest month of the year ☺

I think it’s only fitting (within this particular blog) to keep any observations about awards to those digitally based – and I’m very happy to say that after a some previously negative comments about the rationale and wisdom of judging decisions (of RADs and of course the NORAs) I think there were some very worthy winners indeed. In particular I thought the Shell game looked truly innovative (am hoping that Sinead will get to write us up a case study of it), the Asda site holds together very well indeed (no easy thing for a main careers site), the Landrover site was a vision of flash loveliness (I agree probably a bit too form over function – but a beauty to behold none the less), and I agree with the judges that the National Graduate Development Programme video was a very powerful piece superbly executed and so to me looked to be a worthy overall champion.

It’s nice to write a review about how I think it’s clearer than ever (certainly in the categories listed above) what was ticking the judges boxes – and, most importantly for me, the candidate engagement aspect wasn’t lost in the appreciation of the work before them.

But I was left with a strange after taste from the event (and one that was even stronger than the gin & tonic with double baileys chaser that “did me in” – thanks Gemma! ;). The event was hosted very ably by Rob Brydon, but despite his best efforts (and I don’t think it was just me) did it seem to take a bit longer than usual to get to the awards element of the evening? Did the food take longer (less people than previous so can’t see why that should be the case)? Was there more of a gap between food being cleared and it starting?

Whatever it was, the longer the event takes to get into full swing then the shorter the audiences attention span – which I felt to be a real shame, as there really was some excellent work on show. The audience seemed, well, more disassociated from what was actually happening than I can recollect from previous years.

This feeling was made all the stronger when I met someone at the bar later in the night who agreed that they’d had a great time – but quickly went on to say that there’s no way they’d suggest their HRD (FTSE top 50 company) should attend because it seemed little more than a bit of an agency/media piss up. And don’t get me wrong – I, and in many cases unfortunately very well documented, have enjoyed more than my fair share of serious hospitality and intra-industry exuberance. But it got me thinking whether there were simple steps that might be taken that would allow such an event to have it’s creative integrity & best practice filled cake and eat (or rather drink) it?

So here’s some sober thoughts / suggestions / musings:

1. Could the event start earlier? Let’s face it – it’s a big night out and many people have to travel for at least half the day to be there, so why not shift it forward an hour.
2. Do the awards element first. If the event is truly about the awards – the celebrating of creative excellence from our industry – then why not hold off the meal and excessive merriment just a little longer? (obviously starting earlier would help this too)
3. Show the shortlisted work before hand so we actually get to know what’s been judged and can come with a raised level of interest and opinion whatever our agency / client chances of success on the night.

I believe some of the work that I’ve seen over the years from our industry – in whatever humble or not so humble way you may take my ramblings – is truly worldclass, and we should be proud of it. Extremely proud of it. Sometimes a creative team or agency clicks into a winning grove, often or not led by a particular client that gives them the kind of brief(s) or latitude (as well as sometimes budget) that others of us can’t always seem to engineer. But then all of a sudden the landscape changes and some really great work comes from another direction all together. And it’s for that reason that I’d actually like to see steps taken to afford more deference to the quality of what we’re seeing and celebrating – more deference than most of us (it’s quite apparent) can muster straining at an image on a screen after c.4 hours “networking” over a light 3 course meal.

But all that said I don’t want to detract from the fact that I’ve been very impressed as to how the RADs have, certainly in recent years, worked hard to evolve with an industry that has seen it’s media and execution sophistication shift at what (certainly in business terms) is near light speed. With some strong and clear direction, through listening to those at the evolving coal face, and almost certainly some good chairpersonship along the way, I think the RBI team have kept these awards relevant. So well done to all those who produced work they thought good enough to enter as well as those of course who won on the night – and here’s hoping that the RADs push to keep pace with our industry's changing landscape, whilst perhaps taking some steps to ensure this great work gets the focus and acclaim it truly warrants on the actual night.

The Rads - Two Years on.

It's two years, nearly to the day that I posted my first entry on this blog. It was titled 'Putting the RADical into the RAD's'. Two years ago!....where has the time gone?

My post wasn't pithy, in fact it could have given War and Peace a run for its money, but I certainly got a lot off my chest and you know, I found it quite cathartic. (good to know blogging is good for my state of mind then).

I had some beef with our industrys' awards ceremonies/judging criteria and my view was that the judging of the RAD awards and CIPD's was based solely on creativity and little notice or importance was given to the media/channels used to engage with the target audience or the actual effectiveness of the ad/campaign.

As such, this limited focus on creative wasn't a reflection on the best solutions and work our industry had to offer, especially in our current communications and media landscape.

Fast forward two years on and again I'll be donning my frock to attend the RAD's this Thursday, but will I be moved to write another post outlining my concerns or has our industry or the RAD's evolved and moved on?

In the wake of my post, I got a call from Richard Andrews, who runs the awards and we had a good discussion. I was subsequently asked to be a judge for last years event,(really interesting and enjoyable) a clear sign that the RADs and Richard were open to feedback, change and that they recognised that digital, media selection and tracking were key elements of recruitment solutions.

There were a few of us 'digi' types involved, such as John Buffey from Barkers and after the event we both met with Richard to work on honing the judging criteria for this years event.

This year Matt Alder and Drew Spencer are part of the judging panel so again there will be focus on the importance of all elements in the mix and with these guys, great representation.

Perhaps another key sign that the RAD's has evolved and wants to be the awards ceremony that recognises the best work in the industry, was its openness to accepting entries from multiple parties who have worked together to 'develop and deliver the recruitment solution collectively'.

What this means is that for the first time, a media communications agency like MediaCom will be recognised along with our creative agency partners in the awards ceremony.  Yay!! (in the past even though an agency may have provided the research, media planning and channel innovation along with the tracking and data on effectiveness it was the creative agency who got the nomination and award on the night).

Now, I know that I'm not 100% objective on this development, ;) but this can only be a good thing and it genuinely demonstrates that our industry is moving in the right direction. All aspects of the recruitment solution including the results of our most innovative and creative solutions are being reviewed in the selection process.

Now, any awards aren't perfect (in fact I'm gutted one of our submissions didn't make it through to the second round in the innovationcategory - it was blooming marvellous!! :) and although there are improvements that can and will be made, I'll definitely be a bit more confident on Thursday night that the nomination and winners on the night are a good reflection of what our industry has to offer.

Oh, and give us a cheer when you hear our name and wish us luck...

p.s. think my posts are still too long...

Fly Fishing by JR Hartley - Downstream to Lifestream

So, it was New years eve, eve, 2008. I was running around Belfast with my mummy in tow, trying to find a Star Wars, Princess Lea outfit for my NYE's 1980's fancy dress party in London. The only Lea outfit left in the whole city seemed to be xtra-small size (and I ain't no xtra small,....especially after such festive indulgence). As we drove around, I was using my blackberry to go online and look for other fancy dress shops in the city and surrounding areas. The results coming up on Google were pretty limited....yet we knew there were others out there...

Time was running out so we popped into a small haberdashery shop, to look at some material we could maybe use, to alter the aforementioned xtra-small outfit. We asked the lady behind the counter did she know of any other fancy dress shops, in the hope we wouldn't end up having to get the sewing machine out.

After some chit-chat she suggested something that threw me a bit...

'Do you want to have a look at the Yellow Pages?' she enquired.

'Oh...er, well.. yeah sure, why not', I said. How very antiquated I thought....

Intuitively, I looked up F for fancy dress and before my very eyes, in clear, comprehensive listings were every fancy dress shop, with addresses and phone numbers I should ever want in N. Ireland...wowsers, perfect!

I slipped my blackberry back into my handbag...only to be taken out later, to make a phonecall to one of the shop numbers the helpful lady had jotted down for me....

So, there you have it, does this mean my prediction for 2009 are directories?, well no, but this experience of using my mobile for search did make me wonder about the prediction (some would say, the perennial prediction) that this year - 2009, is the year that mobile advertising goes mainstream and is key - I'm thinking yes, mobile is becoming more and more important but not sure 2009 is its critical mass advertising year..maybe 2010. But hey, who knows, things change so fast...

This Guardian article, notes a couple of key upcoming themes, - the increasing flat-rate, mobile data charges that will enable us to access the web via our phone, freeing us from onerous monetary concerns. This will be a key factor to enable critical mass - and this will be very significant and impactful. (Check out the post below this Guardian article for a different and pertinent point of view)

Secondly - the role of a social media aggregator such as Friendfeed that will pull together for us, all our networks, into a one-stop, easy, individual source (in the 'cloud').

This will be our Lifestream - all our various networks tipped into one virtual funnel, resulting in one master-stream that helps us to manage and stay connected with info and friends that appear across a multitude of sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn etc.

Friendfeed is the king of aggregators, as among other things, its the first lifestream service that is viewable on mobile (all devices) and this robust service has recently signed a deal with Facebook -so expect a tab on your profile page soon.

An aggregator of this type and the possibilities it has for Career management and networking are very interesting.

So, there you have it, the first of many thoughts for the new year. Happy new year everyone, hope its the best yet.

Sinead

Review of the year and don't forget to vote for us

Thanks to everyone who voted for us in Louise's Best UK Recruitment Blog of 2008 , we've made the final shortlist of 6 which is great news. We just need you to vote for us all again now, which you can do here.

Just so you all know what you're voting for I thought it would good to remind you of the five most popular posts on Digital Recruiting in 2008. I was going to do these based on traffic but in the brave new world of engagement I decided to pick the posts which had generated the most comments. So in reverse order......

5    Linkedin and the death of the CV - 11 comments

4    Going Down  12 comments

3    Linkedin follow up post - 13 comments

1 = Some desk based nostalgia and reflection - 14 comments

1 =  Social Media an inaccurate truth - 14 comments

Massive thanks to everyone who has supported us this year, hope you all have a great Christmas and here's to an interesting 12 months of blogging in 09!

Matt

Get into the Christmas spirit at someone else's expense

If you’re reading this then I would think I’m probably fairly safe assuming that you are aware to at least some small degree that for the best part of the last year (in all senses :) I’ve been establishing a business we call 3D MarComms. Well we wanted to get into the Christmas spirit and need your help in doing so. All you have to do is visit our blog, leave a comment with the charity of your choice and then we’ll give the most popular charity £1 per comment left.

Go on – it’ll take you all of a minute at most, so click through and give a quid from our pocket. It couln't be much easier

:)

What’s that coming over the hill?

Well, as the song goes – for 2009 it is indeed “a Monster”. A renewed and re-invigorated Monster.

On Monday I was invited to the launch breakfast of the new Monster.com look and functionality. Launching from Millbank Tower, the home of the New Labour spin machine and from a job board that was practically there at the start of the Internet (and certainly mastered the art of it’s own brand of Internet hype I’d suggest), I was expecting polish and shine but to have to leave questioning whether there was any real substance. I was pleasantly surprised to actually find quite the reverse.

Our starter was a 60second advert which we were told by Monster’s UK MD was made but never aired because the American target audience only ingest 20-30second adverts. Hmmm – was this a portent of what was to come – something made that looked nice but actually didn’t do the job and left you wondering “how much?” & “why?”?!! Oh dear. I thought the presentations themselves were actually pretty flat, which was surprise reversal of expectations no1 – but hey I’m no polished Alan Whitford myself, so I’ll just leave it at that and move on to looking at the substance.

So what did I make of the new offering? Well let’s start with the fundamental principles. Aggressive growth through global acquisition is a tough business model to deliver against long term, especially when you’re in the websphere and “bringing together” different systems – and Monster have clearly been honest with themselves about the fact that it was approaching do or die in terms of addressing this. So as of January every single Monster site (well most – the rest to come) will be working off the same single platform. No different inventory for this site or that site – and one would also hope the facility for a sales team to access real time stats and data (and costs?) to give you a simple response to what should be a simple global question. So, in theory, tick one.

The next thing they’ve done is completely re-invent the user interface. What’s a user interface? Well that’s what the visitor to the site interacts with. And I think they’ve done a cracking job. Now of course the proof is actually in the using, but from the screen grabs I saw I’d say that this is a significant advance – for both the candidate user (front end) and the recruiter user (back end). NEVER underestimate how dramatically a bad interface will ruin / hamstring your site, or for that matter how much a good interface will enhance your site.

If people can’t work out quickly how (or why) to use something then they just won’t – particularly in such a crowded place as the job board market. So it doesn’t matter how clever this widget is or that whodjamaflip - if it’s not easy to get to grips with they won’t be arsed (you may have heard of two examples sites that do this element pretty well: Google & Facebook). To a slightly lesser degree the same is true of a back end experience – if it’s a pain to understand and work with then it’ll be barely used (or used just as little as it can be), and if the candidates don’t fall in through basic use then it all adds up to a negative overall impression of the entire proposition. Monster has reinvented both experiences.

I see this as a massive tick for Monster and short term will be a big positive. Knowing they HAD to change the underpinning system (more on that shortly) they did the right thing and used the time to also bite the bullet on design (which due to the new technology on offer they probably had to do anyway), but I think from what I’ve seen it looks like they’ve done their work very well.

But what of this much vaunted technology that’s going to “change everything”? I actually think it does indeed have the potential to do so. Monster have looked at their CV database not as just a pile of CV’s, but as a source of knowledge from which to train a kind of search based artificial intelligence. Is it going to be perfect from day one? No. Is it going to be a pretty blunt tool? Absolutely – but it’ll get better and is already significantly less blunt than other sites’ can offer. Monster are actually doing their bit to bring the future to today – and this system (if it’s worth the millions they’ve spent on it) will just get better. It will never stop learning, and as more people rate the relevance of the possible matching vacancies it delivers them it will learn some more.

Look – if you’re reading this you’ll be bored to tears with discussion about what web2.0 is/isn't/might be – but this is indeed web3.0. And if you know me you know I hate to bandy terms for terms sakes, but sometimes it’s easier. Web3.0 is about the intelligent web, websites doing some thinking for you and in return for some of your data and/or perhaps a little time provides you a far "richer" experience (without you even realising it most of the time). And that’s what this is.

And do you need to know how it works? No. All you need to know is this:

•     Monster has a very impressive audience to tap into to start with – that’s a good start.
•     They’ve redone their interface so it’s easier for candidates to use – that will pay dividends in the short term (possibly leading to better informed candidates, my money says certainly leading to more candidates).
•     The search/profile matching is very clever but will take time to bed in – but it should be pretty good to start and it will get better and better and better.
•     The more people that use the system the better the search/profile matching gets (it’s a recession, so you can pretty much guarantee an upswing in traffic).
•     The better the search/profile matching gets the more people talk about it and the more people us it.
•     <repeat last two ad infinitum>

Now there were lots of other bits and pieces talked about but I’m sorry to say I didn’t necessarily buy into those as the shinning future. For me it was largely about a job board trying hard to gain some Social Media space (or at the very least some headlines from those who fall for massively complex diagrams and organisations trying to be the next Facebook or LinkedIn) and IMHO will generally in practice wash over the greater candidate community.

Monster is trying to do in web2.0 terms what Workthing did with web1.0 when they entered the market not as a straight up and down job vacancy posting website, but rather a kind of career advisory facility with jobs. Everyone does that now though, so Monster are using latest technology to do that in a far more engaging way. It may take off, it may not – when you’re talking Social Media not even Monster are in charge of whether the web takes to it or not (no matter what the pitch says). Anyway, time will tell for that – and just because I’m a cynic doesn’t mean that I won’t applaud them for trying. And at least they’ve not put all their eggs in that one social career networking basket.

I’m a simple man at heart and I think simple things work best on the web. And it’s those elements I’ve laid out above as to why I think it looks as though they have some fundamental elements right to actually indeed game change the job board market.

But – I’m gonna slip in a disclaimer here – and quite a big one. Over the years (admittedly I’m going back quite a few - but the market is slow to forget) I had plenty of clients coming to me disillusioned with the Monster sales machine (or indeed the delivery that didn’t back up the dream they felt they bought). My worry is that in a down recession where the pressure is on a hard pressed sales force then the dream weavers will be out and by 2010 we’ll be seeing another pile of client/media relationships in tatters.

Make no bones about it: I think Monster have here what could be one of the best interfaces of any jobboard with the clever underpinning technology to back that up and keep evolving and enhancing the candidate experience – it should be a winner.

All that really matters to people buying space is bums on seats and I see no reason why that shouldn't be significantly enhanced by your tech & design teams' efforts. But please guys n gals @ Monster – resist the pressure (as much as you can without losing your job) to blow it by believing your own hype and go all short term and aggressive on us again – keep your focus on the site delivering great results and this will in turn beget great results for you. The investment WILL pay dividends, but it will need time and nurturing. With a platform that looks like it can really deliver Monster should seize the chance to be a little more approachable like the toy Trumpy given out on Monday - I just hope it doesn't have an ugly short-termist sales crazed monster inside all too desperate to get out and get us all angry again.

It's that time of year again.......

Yes that's right it's December and that can only mean one thing. I am of course referring to Louise's UK Recruitment Blog of the year competition. Now far be it from me to blatantly solicit votes for Digital Recruiting but you know what....I'm going to

So if you've enjoyed our sometimes insightful, sometimes random but never dull prattling this year then we'd love it if you voted for us here

Mobile internet usage surges by 25%

The number of Britons accessing the internet via mobile devices increased by 25% in the third quarter of 2008, according to new research from Nielsen Online.

Source: Nielsen Online. Growth in internet use via PC and mobile from Q2 to Q3 2008

Results from the study Mobile Media View, highlight that usage of  the mobile internet is increasing eight times faster than PC-based internet growth, rising from 5.8 million to 7.3 million between the second and third quarters of 2008.

BBC News is the most popular site, being visited by 24% of British mobile internet users, followed by BBC Weather, Sky Sports and Gmail. This compares to PC-internet favourites Google Search (23%) and eBay (43%).

"Recruitment - but not as you know it!" - the biggest digitally focussed event of the year...

... (that's being held in The Gate in Farringdon) is now nearly here.

:)

You've probably heard of it already (MLL tend to get themselves heard) - but just in case thought we'd give it a final plug. Now there's a rumour that it might actually be over subscribed for agency types - I don't tend to like believing rumours though, so if you're intrested get onto MLL and tell them just why they "need you" to be there and that you know there's room in one of them famous Gate leather boothes for you to squeeze in with another friendly person.

I think they can also squeeze in a further media or two though - so if you're reading this and have something that is pretty new / innovative / not your run of the mill digital media offer and just has recruitment communication potential written all over it then do get a move on and tell Jamie (jamie@mylonglunch.com or @jamieasleonard). If it screams "Web 2.0" (and I don't mean Paul Harrison in the shower!) and you're reading this blog, so therefore one might assume you have a recruitment industry interest, then you gotta think this audience is worth a couple of hours.

Who's there already? Well some names you'll know, some you won't - but hopefully most (although probably all) of whom you'll be impressed with (even if you can't see a way of working together right now) and I'm sure all will help you leave feeling a little more enlightened as to the potential on offer.

This is all (well I think it is anyway) about getting a snap shot of what's out there in the digital world that you might not come across in your every day media schedules, or else seeing what's new and exciting with some brands you think you already know - and if there's just one thing you pick up, one new contact you make, something that renews your interest in digital developments that will impact the recruitment world or something/someone inspires you to go back and slap your clients until they get with the digital programme then that's gotta be worth a show up. Hasn't it?!

So wanna see if they squeeze you in?

It's at The Gate (Farringdon) and starts at 3pm on Wednesday 26th November.

Matt Wise: matthew@mylonglunch.com
Jamie Leonard: jamie@mylonglunch.com

T.   020 7183 1227

Maybe see you there.

Phone sexiness (of the technical persuasion)

We've been waiting what seems like an eternity for a promised post from our very own Matt "3blogs" Alder about why he felt that the i-phone (of course he had one within the first few days) was indeed a game changing technology. I mean we all have a good idea that it's fun, very cool to have, got some nifty features and is beautifully designed - but what does a user I know find about it that means phones and the way we interact with them will never be the same again?

I'm particularly interested at the moment as I've been having my own phone provider related issues (if you've got time to kill you can find out here why I'm gutted to not be getting the G1) and so in an "habitual need for annual technical toy replacement" will likely be ditching t-mobile and deciding between Blackberry Storm or the i-phone in the not too distant.

Anyway - whilst we all wait I did pick up on these two videos today, and have to say "Oh my god - how clever are these people when they work together".

Now I've never seen fit to even use voice activation on any of the phones I've had in the past where it's an option - and I'm not so sure this will be used more than showing off just how cool your i-phone is to mates in the pub (although I understand a significant flaw/frustration with the i-phone is the virtual keypad - so maybe google have effectively helped create a bit of a work around for apple) - but if nothing else it's just impressive to see technological advances continue to trickle down at an amazing speed to us (quite literally) in the street.

 

and

WOW!

Innocent guilty of mediocrity, but still pick up award

In case you missed it the National Online Recruitment Awards (NORA) 2008 were announced at the end of last week. The debate has already raged (e.g. on the UK Recruiter blog & globally on Cheezhead) about how contentious these awards are (we also took issue with the results last year). Anyway - in case there's any interest out there and the news hasn't filtered through to you already you can pick up all the results here.

Anyway - congrats to all winners (it's nice to get an award even if no one can really work out how some of the decisions are arrived at).

My focus is looking at Employer activity and I still stand by my comments on the quality of the Best Employer website shortlist (left this in response to Andrew Baird's blog post on the nominations) and in particular the stand out favourite (in a poor quality field) Innocent:

Yes Innocent has a quirky tone and good written content because it's clearly got it's employer proposition right - but the delivery is as flat as a flat thing. The only media rich element is the video of a TV interview which (not sure about your browser) but for me was so distorted it was pretty much un-viewable and would have been better, at this quality, stripped down to just audio.

Perhaps NORA judges are looking for something different to myself - but I have this, perhaps quirky, feeling that awards should be awarded for "best in class", not just "quite good". We're living in a world where rich media and true creative engagement is not just possible but all around us - so flat careers sections with an animated button or two just shouldn't be held up as anything other than "awright" or a "decent effort".

Now I don't profess to have my finger on the industry pulse for best work coming out, but I do know there's far far better out there. Perhaps the problem is how NORA draw up their shortlist, maybe they're not seeing the full picture either - but however you cut it for any of these to win "Best Employer Website 2008" will do the Recruitment Communications industry a massive disservice in regards to the strides we have made with creative digital execution.

So - the "massive disservice" was of course followed through (as it had to be) and Innocent was proclaimed 'best employer website of 2008'. I suppose the positive for this year is that it was without doubt the best of the flawed shortlist - where as last year the disservice was done by the shortlisted (and truly excellent) Royal Navy site losing to a flawed Police site, so let's check back in 12months and see if Stephen O'Donnel has listened or is impervious to the very public feedback this years awards has stirred up - or whether the controversy storm that is now associated with these awards more than the results is such that it doesn't actually warrant whatever benefits running such an event provides Stephen & his interests.

Obama may digitise but did he monetise online?

When I first came across Obama's use of social media and blogged about his barackobama.com site here in April 07, I noted its potential and asked a couple of questions:

'Registering to vote is made easy.....Will the Internet lead to more people taking part in the political/democratic process by making participation easier and more accessible?'

Answer: Yup - this election achieved an unprecedented record level of people voting, with huge amounts of people voting in advance and many queueing for 3-4 hours to place their vote.

'...it's a great example of 'Recruiting for Power' in practice and also demonstrates that recruiting people via the Internet for votes or anything else for that matter (note the fundraising options) is extremely effective.'

Yup - the site recruited 1.5 million volunteers and generated $600 million from 3 million people, which were fundamental to the success and election of Obama.

Now, everyone knows that in this 'Youtube'  election, Obama's online strategy has been superb and has given him the funds to win the election.

However I read an article a couple of weekends ago which reveals the challenge if not the dichotomy of the Internet platform, especially from a media and publishers perspective.

Of the $700 million that was reportedly spent on advertising in this campaign, it has been estimated that less than 1%of total expenditure has been allocated to online advertising. So whilst the Internet has powered the whole communication strategy,it has recieved a miniscule proportion of the paid-for advertising - such is the free, democratic, user-generated nature of the medium.

Herein lies the challenge that many media, especially 'traditional' media face when devising their digital strategies. How can we translate the incredible value that this digital communications medium offers into tangible financial value, on a par with media that has gone before?