Eggblogg

Why CVs should include a person's 'online history'

Like all business owners I'm sure, from time to time I tend to get people writing to me on spec looking for work. These approaches rarely impress, the most common mistakes being:

1) failing to find out my name ('Dear Sir/Madam' - grrr!)
2) failing to visit the website or find out what the business actually does
3) spelling and/or grammatical errors

And then there are the CVs. What do they actually tell you? If you're recruiting people for online marketing, particularly in the sphere of social media, aren't we more interested in a person's internet intelligence - how they use it, what they've done with it, what networks they're active in ... in other words, don't we need a new sort of a CV to tell us this?

I'm not sure what to call it - an 'online history' maybe? These are the things I am interested to know about a potential job applicant:

- How often do you access the internet, and how (at work, at home, from a phone, etc)
- At what age did you first: use email, use a search engine, join an online community or register at a website
- Three most indispensible websites you visit, and why
- Favourite web applications
- Online networks you engage with, numbers of Twitter followers/LinkedIn contacts or even friends on Facebook, any blogs you write or contribute to
- Have you ever built a webpage/started a blog/posted at a review site/created a profile page anywhere/uploaded photos, videos or music to media sharing sites
- What do you read online ... etcetera. Maybe a proficiency test would be appropriate - with questions about search strategies and making value judgements about information found online. 

This kind of profile would say so much more about a person's level of internet confidence and engagement, and the breadth of their experience. These are crucial factors if they're going to spend all day on working online and enjoy it.

As it is, all we get on CVs is 'proficient with Word, Excel and Photoshop'. Never mind the tools, let's hear what you do with them.

Recently I received an speculative email which was articulate, struck just the right tone and didn't make any of the 3 mistakes listed above. He offered to send his CV. I almost said 'don't bother' because I could tell everything I needed to know from his email, without knowing what GSCEs he'd got or where he'd done his bar work as a student. Most 21-yr olds struggle to fill a traditional CV anyway. But his online history .. now that would have been interesting.

Steven Fry puts the case for free software

"Information wants to be free" was one of the doctrines I recall discussing at length when I did my Digital Media MA nearly 10 years ago now. But what about the case for free software?

I enjoyed Steven Fry's relaxed and articulate defence of 'hacking' - the art of changing and improving software for the good of the computer-using community at large - in this short video. It's been produced as a 'happy 25th birthday' for GNU, the free software movement that's been quietly moving forward all this time in parallel to Microsoft and Apple.

Although I confess I've never had a machine that runs on Linux, I do use and appreciate freeware and shareware. I recently started using Gimp image editing software instead of Photoshop, and NeoOffice instead of MS Office, since making the change to a Mac. With some small exceptions, I'm finding them as good as (in some ways better) than what I've been used to.

So thankyou, freeware developers of the world, and Many Happy Returns.

Ways that the internet is ruining children's brains, number 37

It used to be TV that was said to make mush out of children's brains, but now that role is passing most definitely to computers and the internet.

Baroness Susan Greenfield recently voiced the opinion that there could be a link between the attention span of children, the rise of attention deficit disorders and young children spending lengthy hours in front of the computer. It could be that the 'sedate pace' of school, or even of reading a book, has become alien to a generation of kids used to 'pressing a button and getting rapid responses from the screen'. [Rapid responses? I wish. Where exactly are those lightning speeds we're always being promised by the broadband providers? And has Susan tried doing anything on Second Life lately?]

I do sympathise with this view. However, wasn't it Susan Greenfield who a few months ago was putting her weight behind MindFit computer games, said to 'prevent the onset of cognitive decline ... and could in the long-term provide an alternative to drugs'?

Nicholas Carr asks whether Google is making us stupid. His recent essay in Atlantic Monthly sets out the argument that the medium shapes not only the way the message is presented, but the way our brains process that message. His worry is that the internet is moulding our brains into nothing more that information processors:

"In Google’s world, the world we enter when we go online, there’s little place for the fuzziness of contemplation. Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed. The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive."

Is the human brain really that vulnerable? Is it possible that those monolithic, frustration-inducing, rubbish-riddled search engines are going to re-model our thinking processes in their likeness? I remember taking a course in Artificial Intelligence in the 1980s: I went in with so much excitement, so many expectations, and came out thoroughly convinced it wasn't going to happen. Not in my lifetime, for sure.

Kids who have grown up with technology aren't going to stop using it, so there doesn't seem to be any point worrying about it. But rather than being taken over by it, I can see them growing with it. Which I think will mean that future generations will be not just more familiar with a computer-driven world, but they'll have a better understanding of the possibilities and limitations of it all, and the cultural role of what we still call 'new media'. They'll become more naturally discerning about information they encounter, will be better equipped to ask questions, carry out research and make the most of the social web for both personal and professional growth. Most of all, they'll take for granted all the stuff that still amazes us. 

Let's not forget that when the telephone was first invented there were dire warnings from sociologists and assorted experts who feared it would destroy the fabric of society. There were also those who said it would never have any application outside of the business world. Technology, schmeckmology.

A re-reading of 'As we may think'

I met with a prospective client the other day and in talking to him was reminded of all those serendipitous moments that happened to me about ten years ago, the start of my love affair with the internet.

One of those moments was reading 'As We May Think' by Vannevar Bush. It's an extraordinary essay, written in 1945, in which the author (who worked for the US military during the war) talks about his visions of the future of communications, from a proto-internet which he called a Memex, to micro computing, digital cameras and more.

It's written very much a period style, with references to 'roomfuls of girls' operating keypunch machines. I wonder if Bush was envisaging today's computer-dominated world when he mused on the possible applications of technology beyond mere number-crunching: "Whenever logical processes of thought are employed—that is, whenever thought for a time runs along an accepted groove—there is an opportunity for the machine."

Re-reading it today I still find aspects of it amazingly fresh. Do check it out if you've not read it.

Micro businesses - should we be collaborating more?

I was at the monthly meeting of my ProfitNet group yesterday and someone was talking about having been to a trade show event where the cost of a stand was prohibitive for most micro businesses.

So half a dozen micros decided the answer was to get together and share the cost.  They each turned up with their own promotional material, and agreed to help promote each other while they were there. (Trade show exibition stands aren't cheap - see Michael Fleischner's Top five ways to get the most out of every tradeshow for some good tips.)

Another member of the group discussed how she was getting together with some of her fellow professionals in the same field to offer workshop days, again sharing the costs and the profits.

With more and more of us working in this way, I wonder if this spirit of 'co-opetition' will become ever more the norm: people in complementary or even competitive businesses sharing the costs, effort and rewards of pitching for larger or more exciting projects than could be undertaken by any of them alone.

It's not a new idea, but it makes increasing good sense for those of us who are interested in taking on bigger jobs but don't necessarily want to build an agency empire.

It's not really the same as outsourcing because in that model the outsourcer controls the relationship with the client, allocates the work and decides the markup. The 'outsourcees' are simply suppliers, with no direct relationship to the client. That's not to say that the suppliers don't always get involved, I'm lucky enough to work with some fantastic 'outsourcees' who are more than willing to meet with clients and take responsibility beyond their remit. And I like what this transparency adds to the client relationship.

In a cooperative model, everyone becomes partner-suppliers. It's something I've considered in the past but thrown out as I couldn't figure out the logistics of billing, task allocation and so forth. But maybe that was just an excuse. Maybe it's time to look at it seriously again. What do you think? Has 'co-opetition' or co-operative working worked for you? Is it the future?