LIKE21 Event - Detect, prevent and reverse information blackholes

Thursday evening saw me arriving at the Crown Tavern in Clerkenwell withouth any cash on me, retracing my steps back to Farringdon to find a cash machine, and finally arriving as Hannah Kazerani was in full flow describing her experiences as a consultant advising organisations on their information management.

The long walk was well worth the effort, as Hannah is an engaging speaker and the situations she described had everyone in the room nodding in recognition.  She told how one utility company where she did an information audit turned out to have 32million documents stored which were duplicates!  It seemed common practice for computer outsourcing companies to routinely tell their clients they needed to increase their document storage by 40% year on year - whereas Hannah's experience was that this varied from 20 to 45%.

We weren't allowed to escape with simply listening to Hannah's entertaining anecdotes, however.  She got us all to put our thinking caps on and to work in groups to consider several questions (apologies to Hannah for paraphrasing her carefully thought out questions):

• What eight topic headings would you have for an Information Governance project?
• How would you engage successfully with IT colleagues?
• How would you go about a Sharepoint implementation?

Unsurprisingly beer and cake were mentioned as techniques to engage with IT, while topics for Information Governance included information audits, taxonomies, retention/disposal plans and training. 

By this time the food was arriving, and a hot meal and wine accompanied by a load buzz of conversation was certainly a very welcome end to an altogether enjoyable evening.

- Nicola Franklin

Innovative Monetisation – the future of Facebook?

The UK version  of Facebook Deals launches today. 

Whilst many of Facebooks attempts’ at change and innovation are met with online protests and increased requests for a dislike button, Facebooks latest offering in localised marketing may be the exception to the rule.  Big name advertisers are already signed up with a broad range of offers – Starbucks will be offering 30,000 free coffees today, Debenhams will give away 1000 beauty products, whilst Mazda will be giving away 5 cars.

How it works:  Facebook users are able to check on their Smartphone for places nearby via the Facebook Places feature – this will then show which venues have a deal.  Think of it as a cross between Groupon, a Tom Tom satnav and a cut out coupon.  Typically, users will then simply have to show their phone to serving staff.

What I like about this offering is that it really is marketing at its most relevant.  Not only is it localised but there are also different  types of deals – charity deals, loyalty deals, individual deals and friends deals.  In addition, it develops the role of Facebook even further, with many likely to use the site to save money, as well as connecting with friends/games etc.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to try and get my hands on a Mazda....

- Tom Lakin

Twitter comes of age....?

 Twitter is unarguably one of digitals’ more complex beasts.  No other site manages to divide opinion in quite the same way.  To many of its 175 million users (and adding 370,000 per day), Twitter is the freshest, most interactive way to communicate whilst to others, it is simply a faintly egotistical platform to loudly announce which sandwich you ate for lunch...

Whichever camp you may sit in, it is now achieving what sceptics doubted may happen – it is now starting to make money.  Twitter booked around $45 million in ad revenue in 2010, (generated by Promoted Trends, Sponsored Tweets and Promoted Accounts) . This year, eMarketer expects strong growth from the small base to reach $150 million.  In 2012, this is expected to increase to $250 million.

This may sound like pocket change compared to Facebooks’ $4 billion 2011 revenue, but it does suggest that Twitter may be finding its feet.  One concern is that revenue forecasts are based on continued surges in growth, which will be near impossible to maintain.  The real question lies in how Twitter can develop creative, user friendly ways in which to engage users.  With the entire premise of Twitter being it’s usability and simplicity, it is unlikely to be able to match the (arguably) targeted nature of Facebooks ads nor the creativity of virtual community sites such as Habbo.

Twitter may be finding its feet, but it will need a combination of creativity and continued user growth in order to truly fly...

- Tom Lakin

PRJS is changing to Fabric today!

It’s with great pleasure that I can announce our official launch of Fabric today and our three new services for clients.

Clients and candidates of PRJS, you know us well as specialist PR and communications recruiters – which we very much still are!  However you may not be aware of our specialist recruitment teams in digital, marketing, information and sales.  To reflect this wider offer we are today taking the exciting step of changing our name to Fabric.

For both clients and candidates, the benefits to you are immediate:

• For our candidates we now offer a far wider choice of career opportunities across the whole digital and marketing spectrum.  

• For our clients, we’re now talking to and engaging with a much wider pool of talent boasting a whole variety of skill sets.  It is access to these new skills that our PR agency and in-house team clients have been asking for as it allows them to find the right talent for every clients’ needs.

Looking ahead to 2011, we’re particularly keen to support clients further by advising and helping improve their overall recruitment strategies and we have three new consultancy services to deliver this.  The services are:

• Competency based interview training for line managers
• Retention strategies
• Internal recruitment consultancy

Each of these services is designed to deliver significant savings and truly enhance how a company attracts new talent and then keeps it.

Here’s to a great 2011; I hope it is a good one for you.

- Justin Kent

NetIKX event - Using social media to achieve organisational goals

Wednesday saw me heading off after lunch to the BDA offices in Wimpole Street, London, to attend my first NetIKX event, full of curiosity to see what this group is all about.  One or two familiar faces in the group when I arrived made me feel at home, and as the room filled up the atmosphere became positively buzzy.

The format was to have two speakers, then a coffee break, then syndicate sessions with roundtable discussions of several key themes drawn out of the presentations. 

Our first speaker was Hazel Hall from Edinburgh Napier University and the key point that sang out from her presentation, and really struck a chord with me, was that it is vital to have a purpose and an understanding of which services you want to deliver - and only then consider which social media tool(s) would best suit.  In line with this idea, Hazel’s presentation focused on the various services social media could be useful for, rather than running through the usual ‘this is a blog, this is a wiki, etc’.

Some of the services Hazel mentioned where social media tools could help included:

·         Broadcasting information  -  blog, Twitter, Facebook

·         Collaborative project work   -  wiki, instant messaging, online tweetups

·         Staff development, training & teaching  - amplified events, YouTube, podcasts, webcasts

·         Information discovery & access  - blogs, online guides

·         PR & marketing  - blogs, Twitter

·         Personal profile  - LinkedIn, Facebook, blog, Twitter

·         Invite peer review of ideas  - Slideshare, blog

·         Crowd source ideas  - twitter, Facebook

The second speaker was Nicky Whitsed, Director of Library Services at the Open University.  Nicky showcased a range of practical uses that social media tools have been put by the OU to support their 250,000 students.  These ranged from YouTube (the OU is their largest provider of educational content), to iTunes U (they’ve had 20 million downloads from this service, mainly from non-UK based students) and OpenLearn, which is a free service open to all and allows collaborative working and learning on the site.

After some welcome coffee and networking, the syndicate group I joined got down to the serious business of discussing the current and potential uses of social media in our various organisations.  These covered a range of sectors included the NHS, insurance, accountancy, university, membership body, independent consultant and recruitment. 

A common theme was that almost everyone still felt they were quite novice at the whole social media thing, and were still feeling their way in terms of how to use these tools, or in some cases how to persuade their organisations to allow their use at all.  Some successes were also described, including the use of Yammer (similar to Twitter) within a large accountancy firm to share knowledge and have conversations across silo boundaries, and using the wiki functionality of Sharepoint to develop and share instruction manuals at the insurance firm.

An interesting point that came out of the wrap up discussion was that in the past disruptive technologies (such as the Internet itself) have taken up to 10 years to be developed and adopted, and more conservative organisations could ‘opt-in’ later on once they were comfortable with the new.  Today, however, is the era of ‘perpetual beta’ where new applications and tools become available and are adopted within months, and can disappear again just as quickly, and it is the flexibility and adaptability to use what works and be prepared to switch and change that is key to success. 

A salutary warning was also made, that conversations among customers and clients are happening within social media, whether organisations engage with them or shut their ears, and that ignoring your customers is a dangerous tactic to take.  See also Val Skelton’s report in Information Today.

- Nicola Franklin