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Archives for February 2010

Hello JobDeck! Plus–Twitter Productivity

 

NYT JobDeck

I recently received this tweet from Skellie, one of my favorite idea sources:

Productivity in 11 words: One thing at a time. Most important thing first. Start now.

So–I promptly threw out my entire library of David Allen and Stephen Covey books, closed my Nozbe account, and trashed my Pomodoro.

Not really.  But I do recognize that if I followed the 11-word formula faithfully, I would resolve a lot of productivity problems.  And happily, this thought fit right in with a post I’d been planning on how to avoid the social media time trap.  Then I got a tweet about JobDeck, and everything fell into place!

TweetDeck is just one of the several good tools available for managing Twitter, but it’s the one I know best.  And it’s also the one that recently rolled out a special version for job-seekers.  JobDeck is essentially TweetDeck enhanced with built-in job search functionality, a special column for recruiting news, and a desklike appearance.  The New York Times Technology section offers a nice summary of the product.

In terms of productivity—having a dashboard like TweetDeck, where you can filter and organize many Twitter streams (as well as input from Facebook and LinkedIn), is a huge help if you really want to be involved in social media.  But TweetDeck can also increase the seduction factor by making you aware of just how much is going on in the Twitterverse every minute.  So you might want to browse Tim Ferriss’s article How to Use Twitter Without Twitter Owning You—5 Tips.  One tip (“Set alerts or blocks on Twitter usage”) discusses productivity aids like RescueTime.  I’m about to test-drive RescueTime and will review if it’s interesting.

I’m also trying out Mr.Tweet.  Basically, Mr.Tweet looks at your own followers/followees and recommends other Twitterers you might want to consider.  So far, Mr.Tweet has made some interesting suggestions—and the excellent interface shows how each one was derived, as well as providing individual profiles that include Twitter statistics and sample tweets.  It’s free, and worth a look, especially if you have a focused Twitter agenda and would like to quickly find high-value tweeters.

A final thought about Twitter and productivity.  I was a late adopter of Twitter, and I’m still figuring out how best to use it.  One key (for me anyway) has been finding people whose tweets alert me to things I want to know about.  Getting the most out of Twitter requires practice, but you can learn to scan various streams quickly and pick out just what’s relevant or intriguing, while letting the rest go by.

That’s from the perspective of using Twitter as an information source.  Using Twitter as a search tool has a whole different set of considerations, and there is not a better overview than Boolean Blackbelt’s How to Search Twitter for  Sourcing and Recruiting.

Annual Reports, PDFs and Printing

unbalanced scalesI was interested to see that Nexxar have been assessing the size of Annual Report PDFs from DAX-30 companies.

Marco Schueller is right to point out that bandwidth is still an issue – though I think this continues to affect desktop-internet to some extent, not just mobile-internet. In many areas here in the UK, at least, broadband is still only up to 2MB max, not the superfast 20MB version available in cities. And in a very few places, broadband is still not available at all.

The large file-sizes that he points out (10MB-11.6MB) would indeed take a while to download.

Of course, downloading the entire file isn’t always what visitors want to do. Many companies offer indexed versions, so that the desired parts of the document – such as the financial statements – can be selected for download. Some offer the option to add individual sections or pages to a print/download basket, or to be collated into a single PDF; usually this is from within the online annual report. BMW is an example of this service; I was intrigued to notice that BMW suggested additional sections of the report that might be of interest to me, along the lines of Amazon’s well-known cross-marketing software.

A few – very few – offer a printer-friendly version of the complete annual report (see Standard Life, for example), which seems like a good idea. After all, we don’t really need the decorative images, although they do help to convey the corporate brand and messaging. One option that Deutsche Post uses is a print-page facility, so without the background and purely decorative graphics, but with the additional option to print with/without images. (Of course, it would take a long time to print the whole report like this, so a print-whole-report facility like this would be great).

Does this mean a company should come up with three versions in addition to the online annual report? One for hard-copy glossy print, one lightweight for download and one for individuals to print out on their desktop printers? Or more: large-print, audio, braille…

Once the hard work of developing the annual report is done, I think a lightweight version and a printer-friendly version should be relatively straightforward. I’m excluding the online annual report here; I know that’s a significant piece of work. And I can see that versions in alternative formats are also a significant exercise. But I think that providing multiple options for the reports serves the needs of different visitors, such as those who want:

  • to download the full-on beautiful version with lots of images and graphics
  • to download quickly to browse off-line
  • to download and print the information (no images)
  • to download key sections only
  • an accessible version
  • and not forgetting those who want to order a hard copy.

And that, surely, is user-friendly.

An Employer Resume?

 

Resume 1

The other day I heard a story on my local public radio station about the virtues of having a two minute verbal resume.  It’s an interesting idea—especially because it derives from a very realistic observation:  Very often, the interviewer has not read the candidate’s resume, or at least doesn’t remember much about it.  Therefore, the recruiter will often invite the candidate to “tell me about yourself.”

Performance consultant Scott Peek recommends a formula for responding, which I’m summarizing this way:

  1. Restate your name (just in case).
  2. Spend 45 seconds recapping your relevant experience.
  3. Spend 45 seconds highlighting how your experience and abilities fit the company or position.
  4. Use the last 15 seconds to ask a question that will open a conversation with the interviewer.

Seems like a pretty good technique, speaking as one who has floundered through more than one interview.  In a way, the verbal res is sort of an elevator speech for “Brand Me,” but it also has a nice tennis rhythm that delivers the ball back across the net.

What really struck me in thinking about resumes, however, is that candidates have them, but companies don’t.  I suppose this practice reflects the presumed relationship between employer (superior) and employee (inferior) –but that view seems a bit antiquated in the days of “talent acquisition.” So I am going to float the idea of an employer resume.

After all, why not?  The whole idea of the Careers site and the employer brand is to convey a value proposition.  Condensing that proposition into a resume format might be a stellar strategy.

I think job-seekers would be very interested in a link or tab on the website labeled “Our Resume” or “Our CV.”  The page could look just like a typical candidate resume, listing the company’s accomplishments, experience, objectives and vital statistics.  The information would be presented from the viewpoint of what job-seekers want to know about prospective employers—which means including achievements in promoting employee satisfaction, diversity, career development, and so on.  Then visitors could download a PDF copy.

The Employer Resume could also be put in recruitment packages, handed out at job fairs, emailed to prospects, and made available via the corporate weblog, Facebook page, et cetera.  In short:  An all-purpose PR piece that not only summarizes the employer brand but also signals a distinctive approach to candidate relationship management.

I haven’t seen any examples of corporations using this device, and a fairly thorough search came up with nothing. (There are some examples of “company resumes” used by small companies for business-to-business sales, but nothing oriented toward recruiting.) Perhaps there’s a perception that big companies are already well known to the public, or that their story is just too huge to be captured in a summary format.  But most companies are not well-known as employers, and all stories can be presented effectively at a very high level—it just requires a little creative effort.

Love to hear comments!

2010 – The Year of Brand Transparency, Honesty and Trust

brand_honestyEarlier this month, I wrote an article that was published on Entrepreneur.com where I listed 10 marketing trends for 2010.  The top trend on that list was transparency and trust (which includes honesty), and that trend should define 2010 for brand strategy.

The question is – will companies actually follow the trend like they should?  Some will, but unfortunately, more will probably not.

So why are transparency, honesty and trust so important for brands in 2010?

It’s simple.  Consumers aren’t naive anymore.  There was a time when consumers believed the marketing messages in ads.  There was also a time when many people believed in political propaganda, but thankfully, with advances in communications and technology, more people than ever can see through those skewed messages.  The same holds true with advertising claims.

Banks have collapsed, economies are faltering or failing, auto manufacturers took multi-billion dollar bailout packages, and many consumers have lost their last hopes that the pie-in-the-sky claims made in ads are even remotely true.

And that’s why transparency, honesty and trust are so important for brands in 2010.  Give people something to believe in.  Create expectations for your brand in consumers’ minds that they can believe and rely on.  Then, deliver on those expectations every time and in every customer interaction.

Make them believe in your brand through truth, not veiled propaganda.

Yes, I’m a copywriter and I’m saying this.  It might seem like a contradiction to say I’m a copywriter and promote a brand strategy of transparency, honesty and trust in 2010.  However, successful copywriters, brand managers, and marketers understand that the world has changed thanks to communications and technological advancements like Twitter, social networking, online video, and more.  Brands that stretch the truth are called out faster than ever and word of a brand’s dishonesty will spread faster and farther than you can imagine.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, and you need to analyze your brand, audience, competition, and so on before you modify your own brand strategy for 2010.

In fact, that’s a great area for discussion here on the Corporate Eye blog.  What brands, industries, categories, etc. would fare better to avoid embracing the transparency, honesty and trust trend?  Can you think of any?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Flickr

What Makes for Effective Investor Relations Sites? Part 11: Make Your Interim Financial Results Easily Accessible

If the heart of understanding a company is the ability to parse the financial statements, then the lifeblood of the company is the data flow about current results. The smooth and orderly flow of information from the company to investors should be a given, yet it is surprising how often one has to hunt for all of the relevant information. The press release will be in one spot, the conference call replay another and governmental filings yet another.

A good practice for investor web sites is to have a page where everything concerning the most recent results is in a single spot. Because different web sites choose to label information differently, this avoids investor frustration as they try to track down all the pieces of financial information they may want.

BT results page
Click to enlarge

One site that does a good job of this is BT, the telecommunications company. As can be seen in the screenshot on the right, their Results & Presentations page gives investors access to the news release, webcast, slides and KPIs (Key Performance indicators) all in one spot.

A couple of things set this page apart: first, not only can you view the webcast, but you can also download a transcript. Although transcripts do not give investors some of the flavor of management’s approach to the results, they can be reviewed more quickly than the process of viewing an entire hour’s worth of presentations. Second, transcripts are searchable for key phrases, so if in following a company you are particularly concerned with headcount or product returns or customer satisfaction levels, you can quickly search the transcript to see if the issues were addressed, again without sitting through the entire presentation.

mands-sm
Click to enlarge

Another site that does a good job of consolidating information about interim reports is Marks and Spencer. The approach is slightly different, grouping the information by year, but the type of information is clearly labeled and easy to find. Of note on the M&S site are video interviews with the chairman and the Group Finance and Operations director, providing additional color on the interim results.

These are good examples of web design that thinks in terms of “What does the investor need to know?’ rather than “What do we have to disclose?”

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