ItsDevelopmental - content + technology + people

Why it pays to curate content

This is an example of the value of curated content but before I start let me clear up the misleading title - no one paid me for the curation I am about to describe. It would have been nice but I actually wanted to do it anyway.

Also, let me get the downside of curation out of the way now and that is that it takes a lot of time. You can pull feeds of tagged or hastagged content but if you want to hand craft the content ie put it into a new bog post with headline, link, image and them let people know about it then it takes time. Be warned.

Oh, and I am awaiting access to Storify - I hear that could be good for this type of curation. I also did quite a lot of this sort of thing at Reed Business Information (where lots of my former colleagues do this kind of thing) where we used tools such as Coverit Live to curate content.

The curation project I am talking about here is this post that aggregates all the blog posts from the Tru London 3 recruiting unconference. All I have done is pulled together all the posts that have been written about the event (last count 52).

NOTE: if this event had NOT had a hashtag this piece of curation would have been a nightmare. As it was I followed the tag on Tweetdeck and double checked what I pulled from that with a Google search. 

Taking the time to create such a post brings these main benefits:

Good search rank

Your efforts will be rewarded with high placements in the search engine results page  - especially if you are curating event content and lots of people write about it. I curated posts from the Tru London 3 recruiting unconference. Search for 'Tru London 3' in Google and this is what you get.

Add value for other readers/writers

You provide value for those who attended the event, those who blogged about it and those who did not attend the event. You have all the content in one place. Looking at the referrals to the post I see it has been bookmarked in Delicious. By adding a line about the post your including you are also adding a filter - a help to users to let them know what that post is about.

Provide content for other services 

You enable others to use the links to help them produce newsletters or ebooks or whatever else they might use them for. You will get credited for your efforts (and complain if you don't) which is good for you - your efforts have not gone unnoticed. Far from it, you get known for the person who is helping create more value from the content

Build connections

You can provide commentary on your curation project via Twitter or other channels - see below for an example tweet. This enables you to build up connections and reinforce relationships (if you are already connected/have met face-to-face).

This is a straightforward example of how you can approach curation. It does take time but it does add value for others and anyone can do it (who cares enough to want to)- it is especially useful for events.

 

When was the last time B2B content made you laugh?

Just because it's business to business doesn't mean the content has to be serious all the time. Does it?

Of course not. Why? Because we are all human and we like to laugh and to be entertained. I think B2B journalists tend to forget that readers are human and do actually enjoy the lighter side of life.

I have been looking back at some of my B2B acievements and some of them make me smile - the Diet Coke sponsored IT hunk of the year at Computer Weekly, for example, makes me laugh and cringe in equal measure. To think we printed a gallery of 60 hopefuls. I won't go on.

But seriously, content that puts a smile on your face will probably be shared and is probably far more engaging than some journalists might think.

A good example of engaging and funny B2B content is Tim Relf's Field Day blog over at Farmers Weekly.

30 million Britons on Facebook and 20,000 joining every day

So this morning Joanna Shields, vice president of sales and business development at Facebook, announced Facebook has 30m users in the UK.

And while this number continues to grow - it was at 26m in the UK only 7 months ago. How about that for customer acquisition - 4 million in 7 months or roughly 20,000 users a day - businesses of all sizes and in all sectors are still asking themselves whether it is a good idea to get involved.

 

 

Google's latest algorithm change - in the US, that is

OK, so Google has made one of many regular changes to its search algorithm, which will impact on what gets on to search engine results pages (SERPs). From casting around the web it seems the aim of the change is to penalise scraper sites and sites that do not originate content - aka content farms.

Note, this update to the algorithm affects sites in the US at the moment.

Here are some links:

The official Google announcement - Google search and search engine spam

Analysis from the SEO Theory and analysis blog

A review of the implications from Searchengineland

And here is a news feed on the announcement

Short and useful video on scale of Facebook

[H/T] Servant of Chaos

Using game design in non-gaming contexts

Excellent presentation on gamification - using game design in non-gaming contexts - from Sebastian Deterding a German UX designer and researcher.

In the presentation, Deterding points to some online services that are using gamification:

Mint - a way to manage your finances

Nike Plus - a way to get you running more

Nissan Leaf driving challenge - a challenge for drivers to drive more efficiently

Play Nice.ly - a game for debugging code

Health Month - set yourself targets to get healthier (over a month)

Club Psych - game based on a hit TV series

Barcode Hero - a shopping game

He also talks through the three big challenges for getting gamification right:

1. Creating meaning - connecting with users' passions, interests, goals
2. Enabling mastery - how to let the user gets the sense of progressing
3. Providing autonomy - how to create a sense of freedom and letting users feel curious

It is a great presentation and well worth 50 mins of your time.

[H/T the Usable Learning Blog]

How a conference backchannel can add real value - #trulondon 3

Just wanted to pick up on one of the innovations at the #Tru London 3 recruitment unconference. Bill Boorman - the event organiser - has written a great post on why he likes the unconference model and how he intends to develop it for his events.

In the post he mentions a site created for the Tru London 3 by job search engine Allthetopbananas which featured all the tracks for the event plus the ability for attendees to comment on tracks . . . 

Thanks to sponsors Allthetopbananas we were able to develop a mobile website where attendees could follow the schedule and post 300 word reviews of the session. 55 of the attendees posted over 240 reviews, over a third of the attendees sharing their learning points via linked updates to the twitter stream.

As you can see from the number of comments, this was a great success. And unlike a Twitter backchannel it felt more substantial and more aggregated ie all the track comments could be found in one place. Not only did the site give users the chance to see if they should be in another track (based on live feedback) . . . for example . . .

Discussion is around do companies need to bother with career sites? The funnel of talent acquisition is the real topic. But convesation just is not happening, this I will pop off and see what others are chatting about

 . . . it also provided Bill with an opportunity to see what was and was not working.

This, he told me at the event, enabled him to tweak some of the tracks as he went along. Now that is real-time listening to your customers and acting on what they are saying. Does that ever happen at other conferences?

Moreover, the comments were not just made for the sake of it either (which can happen more on Twitter) - they were useful and added to the conversation around the event.

This backchannel was incentivised, which was a great idea to get attendees giving feedback and adding value to the event. And it is public for all to see - during and after the event.

 

 

Literature festivals: great content marketing for authors

I went to two talks today at Bath Literature Festival - one by Kate Rew on outdoor swimming and one by Zaiba Malik on her memoir of growing up a British Muslim. Both were very interesting talks.

These events are great opportunities for authors to market their content (mostly their latest work) . . .

• They must get a slice of the ticket price to see the talk (£7 today for each talk)
• The whole session is them promoting their latest work - that's why they are speaking
• They get to plug their work and stay behind to sign copies for punters - who can buy it there and then of course

I enjoyed the talks but did not buy the books. I guess a lot of people turn up who have already read the book and want to hear the author talk about it.

For people like me (potential customers) I would suggest offering a promotional price plus links to the author online. This was not on offer. So, although it is great to attend - the event could have got more from me.Maybe these type of events need an overhaul. I'm not aware of any tweeting from it, a Facebook page etc.

PS The Bath Literature Festival website is a nightmare. books. . . digital . . . you must be joking ;-)

Amazon Jobs a jobs board for the future?

Amazon Jobs - now there's a good idea. What a jobs board could look like  . . . well, I think it is :-)

Whilst at last week's recruiting unconference Tru London 3 Amazon croppped up in a couple of discuussions. This got me thinking and the result is this post - this is me thinking aloud so apologies if it it is not well formed.

First, Amazon is the leading cloud services provider so it could run all agencies' applicant tracking systems in the cloud. So why don't agencies just hand over that responsibility to the cloud? Amazon has the expertise that could reallly transform what an ATS could do.

And then there is Amazon's understanding and application of data - again something that could transform the quality of applicant data for recruiters and agencies.

It would also bring its product marketing expertise to jobs - imagine what that could look like.

If this is a simplistic view of what an Amazon Jobs could do for agencies then it is because I am not a recruiter. Apologies NOW.

What could really be a game changer is if jobseekers were treated to the Amazon user experience. I am a big fan of the Amazon user experience, I like the way Amazon talks to me, presents me with relevant content and how it uses data on people 'like me' to refer me to things that might be relevant for me.

User generated content and how it is organised and presented is great. It is subtle, targetted and relevant. If I want more I can find it. So, I am a jobseeker (true, actually) and I visit Amazon Jobs. What do I get?

• Access to the biggest jobs database in the UK - up-to-date, no replication
• An oppoortunity to give Amazon Jobs information that will relate to the type of information I will be served up. Easy to edit and update profile
• Great search and recommendation experience based on other people 'like me' . . . people like you also searched on etc
• Great content that supports the type of job search I am carrying out - and this is a biggie for me. I would expect to see high quality, very focussed content that would help my job search. This is not done very well by job boards right now.

As I said, these are a few thoughts and not well formed. Maybe this type of job board already exists?

The more I think about it the more I think an Amazon Jobs sounds like a good idea.

3 ways good design makes you happy