ItsDevelopmental - content + technology + people

20 things I'd like to see from a recruitment consultant

Not posted a job search update recently so thought I would go with this. Recruitment consultants have jobs that I am interested in, but I would like to see some improvements in how I am treated. Here is my wishlist. Am I asking too much?

So here are the 20 things I would like from a recruitment consultant . . .

1. To be shown jobs that actually exist
2. To be acknowledged by phone when I submit my CV
3. To have read my CV before I talk to you - so you already have a feel for my skills and experience
4. To check me out online before you call me - read my blog, my Linkedin profile, my testimonials
5. To be open-minded about what roles I would be suitable for
6. To ask me what other types of role I might be interested in
7. To help me with my CV if you think it needs it - especially for roles where I do not perfectly fit the job descripton
8. To show some understanding of the sector I have worked in and the types of skills that are important
9. To not label me - ie your career history shows xxx so I will only put you up for similar roles
10. To take personal responsibility for me - I don't want to talk to your colleagues about different jobs (especially from the same employer)
11. To communicate about an application in a regular and timely fashion - so I know what is going on
12. To manage my expectations - don't tell me I'll get an interview quickly without knowing that is actually the case
13. To tell me I did not got an interview
14. To tell me why I did not get an interview
15. To call me with other opportunities
16. To get to know me a bit more online and start to build a relationship
17. To facilitate meetings with employers outside of the formal application process
18. To point me to relevant networking information around skills, employers, target sectors
19. To be my job search eyes and ears - as much as you can
20. To make me feel you are on my side

Currently you get paid for the placement. But what if I was the fee paying customer? If you did all the above then I'd be prepared to pay for the service much like I would for financial advice, for example.

This post was inspired by a great post on this topic by Greg Savage.

From mobile apps to experience platforms

I love it when I come away from a conference inspired of thinking about doing new things or doing things differently. This was definitely the case at The Big M mobile conference in Bath.

Two presentations made the point that the next generation of features on mobiles - called the experience platform by Paul Golding - will enable users to get things done easily and quickly on mobile handsets.The platform will sit on top of apps and make the whole user experience of getting things done a whole lot easier.

When I say 'things' it could be anything - a transaction, organising ourselves and others online, finding where a bus stops on its journey - the things we do on mobiles that currently are clunky or not even achievable - unless you are a tech wizard with lots of time on your hands.

This is the slide from Paul Golding's presentation that describes the shift to experience platforms. And below is a slide from Ewan Macleod which describes how such a platform would benefit the user.

This slide was one of many slides Ewan Macleod used in his presentation to describe how he would like to be able to use his mobile to give him a seemless experience. This slide shows what could happen when you pay for a meal at a business meeting in a hotel.

What he describes is an intuitive transaction that does all the things he requires it to - quick and easy. Currently this is a complex process that would require different systems to be talking to each other. But it is not an impossible ask. The phone links you to your bank, to the hotel systems, they talk to each other.

Powerful stuff from a user experience perspective and I guess this is why we might start to talk about 'experience' platforms. Using your mobile to intuitively and seemlessly and usefully do the things you need to do on the move.

So, while we are all still looking to develop apps it would be as well to think about the user context and what would really be helpful. Paul Golding went on to talk about some of the services that are emerging that will power these platforms so we are not far away from this becoming a reality.

It's an interesting area . . .

 

Describe the difference: conference versus unconference

I've have recently been blogging from conferences and unconferences and have noticed quite a difference in how each type of event feels. I have put together a list of words or phrases to describe what I felt.

Obviously there are generalisations here but hopefuly you get the idea. And I am not proposing that one is better than the other. Indeed, Bill Boorman, organiser of the Tru unconference events, made the point that unconferences probably wouldn't work as well if you had more than 100 delegates. Each type of event has its own strengths.

That said, I am a big fan of unconferences for many reasons and the main one being that the informality leads to high quality discussions (and learning) that can be carried on after the event over social networks.

Conference	Unconference
Formal	Informal
Quiet	Noisy
Passive	Active
Presentation	Conversation
Consumption	Participation
Listening	Talking
Rows	Circles
Lunch provided	Get your own
Conference venues	Anywhere but conference venues
Success in organisers' hands	Success in delegates' hands
Name badges	No name badges
Publish content later	Publish now in real time
Know what to expect	Unexpected
Scheduled	Unfolds
Serious	Fun
Sleep	Awake
Expensive	Cheaper

That's just a start -- please feel free to add your thoughts.

Video: where good ideas come from

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H/T Brainpicker]

Where is the mobile innovation in B2B publishing?

The Apple iPad 2 launches today which made me think about how much mobile innovation has or has not been going on in B2B publishing.

Seems to me that nothing much has happened apart from sites being optimised for mobile (which is important, clearly) and apps being launched that provide content feeds or services very closely related to feeds of content. 

Looks like the progression goes - put print content online, put online content on an app. So where is the game changing innovation in B2B to match the game changing innovation in technology?

I'm ever so slightly playing devil's advocate here but on a serious note for the last couple of years I have heard people talk about building for mobile first and then scaling on to desktop (if that is required).

If you have worked in B2B publishing you will know the types of sevices that could work well on mobile devices. These services would look quite different to article rich web site content, which is the problem for publishers with a print mindset/legacy.

It is a tough one for publishers, but just because we choose to think readers do not have a sense of humour so we tend to think they do not use mobiles.

 

I brand this Twitter hashtag . . .

Interesting discussions going on about the use of the BBC's Twitter hashtag for this week's budget. Rather than using the #budget hashtag the Beeb went for #BBCBudget. There is an explanation of why the BBC made that decision.

And over at the Online Journalism Blog, Paul Bradshaw has provided a great overview of the issue and issues involved.

It's an interesting debate especially as the use of hashtags on Twitter seems, in some ways, to be in its infancy - ie for big events there will be a range of related hashtags (not neccessarily just one).

For many people using Twitter, hashtags just do not feature in what they do so I like the idea the BBC might be helping raise the issue . . .  

I'd also like to think that we did a little public service in reaching out to a broader audience about the value of using hashtags on Twitter. Research shows that the vast majority of people never use a hashtag when talking about a subject. I hope the fact that our hashtag was promoted so consistently across the BBC during the day means more people have discovered what hashtags are and may use them in the future.

Hashtags are very interesting - they are the defacto way users organise their content. Be interesting to see how their use develops. The BBC is at least trying out different approaches.

The Big M mobile conference 2011 - round-up of posts and links

 

The Big M mobile conference took place in Komedia, Bath on Mon 21 March 2011. I attended and did some live blogging and tweeting. There has been lots of great content produced from the event which I have been curating here.

Posts

Vodafone Developer's post on The Big M - The Big M - event update

Doodles from the event by Chris day (aka wordbeard) plus the entire set

Nina Volstad provides her review in Norwegian and here is the Google translation into English

David Simpson's review of the event - The Big M conference in Bath

Adam Bird provides his review - The Big M went bold and got it so right

My posts:

UX at the Big M mobile conference

Paul Golding's keynote on future trends in mobile

Raam Thakrar on app distribution and monetisation

Open data discussion at the Big M

Edited tweet stream of Bruce Lawson talking HTML 5

Aral Balkan on 'Beyond usability on mobile'

Kelvin Gan reviews the event talks - The Big M conference - the talks

Kelvin reviews the event - The Big M conference - a review

Blue Via's event review - Event report: the Big M

Gicela Morales provides her thoughts - the Big M - #bigmconf

Jack Franklin on why no wi-fi was a good thing - The Big M conference - who needs wifi?

Audio boos

Ewen Macleod on mobile networks and innovation

Raam Thakrar on apps and monetisation

 

Presentations

Ewan Macleaod - Please, Mr Operator

Bruce Lawson - Web anywhere: Mobile Optimisation with HTML 5 CSS 3, Javascript

Raam Thakrar - App distribution and monetisation - the only things more important than the lines of code

Paul Golding - Future mobile innovations

 

Aggreagted and curated content

Summary of tweets from the conference

Links to content, speakers, attendees, presentations and more on the event Lanyard page

Topysy aggregation of the event

The Big M's aggregation of content - All done . . .

 

Images

Aggreagted pictures from the event on Flickr

Pictures from the Big M conference 2011

UX at The Big M mobile conference

User experience has been a big theme at The Big M - and when I say user experience I mean the process of identifying what the user requires, the business case and the execution in a simple and, to quote Aral Balkan, delightful way. 

All the talks touched on this in some way - from HTML 5 to open data to innovation of mobile networks. Ultimately the development process is all about delivering a product/service/app etc that is intuitive, scalable and makes money.

What made the conference exciting was that there were a large number of developers in attendance and that the message was all about the basics of building successful services. All the talks were well received.

I spoke to a delegate who was a developer and he said that he felt developers don't tend to think about these issues (normally someone else deals with the client on such issues, for exmple) so the conference focus had been good for getting developers thinking about the wider implications of what they are doing and why.

This is exciting - design and content are being pushed further towards the developer community and that community has to respond with products that deliver great UX.

Today it felt as if this was a shared agenda.

The Big M - Paul Golding's keynote on future trends in mobile

 

Paul Golding ended the day with a look at future trends in mobile. He framed it in terms of future opportunities for developers working in mobile. Judging by the fact Golding's children are Android developers at the age of 11 and 13 - there is already very stiff competition from the next generation of developer!

Golding started off by quoting William Gibson (author who coined the term 'cyberspace') . . . The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet.

Golding expalined that Gibson means we have what we need to build the next generation technology - it's just a case of configuring correctly what we currently have.

This was a key theme running through the session - that innovation does not necessarily mean reinventing the wheel. Far from it - successful innovation  comes from improving what's already there - look at Google, Apple etc.

Golding then rattled through some top tips for developers:

1 Myth of first mover advantage - it is often a bad idea.
Be the first to win, not the first to market.
Copy what others are doing but do it better. People are guilty of trying to hard to innovate.

2 If you don't experiment you will never find out whether it works.
Golding uses the example of crossing the chasm as outlined in Geoffery Moore's book Dealing with Darwin) in which the real problem for innovators is jumping from 10,000 users to 100,000 or 500,000 - the point at which you really scale up.The chasm in the growth curve is where failure happens. When users don't adopt the technology in large numbers.

Trick: code towards customers (not users) so that you can identify how a  line of code benefits the customer.

3 Code for adoption and a viable business model.
Reduce your operational friction. Golding mentioned books by Steve Blank, Eric Ries, Dave Bclure, Osterwalder - see presentation below for names!

4 Don't code the future into the product. Build the future into the process.

5 Innovate where it matters.
Undersatnd where in the development process you get traction with your innovation.

6 Master the whole apps journey.
Idea, choose platforms, develop product, deliver product, engage market

7 Know when you are really a platform

8 Know a biz model vs innovation

The key shift over the coming years will be that cloud services will dominate infrastructure. Operating systems will be delivered as web services and users will be choosing 'experience platforms' where elements we like will be abstracted from their core service - the platform will curate the services we want - more on this concept later.

A final piece of advice for entrepreneurial developers: leverage the start-up eco system. Get a mentor or join an incubator.

Here is Paul's excellent presentation

Big M Conference - Future Mobile Innovations

View more presentations from Paul Golding