RecAddiction

It’s been a whole since I blogged here so thought I’d update the universe on life, love and everything else.

In terms of business it’s been crazy. March was squeaky bum time. A direct result of 0 pipeline after 2 months in India. April was good enough to make up the hole March left and May his our best month to date, with a week to go. Happy days.

We’re coming of the back of 3 fantastic events in Bristol, Mobile and Social. Listen, we’re had stinkers before and I’m sure we’ll have them again, but our new pricing policy means our clients don’t get stung, just us!

There seems to be a big demand for good sales people at the moment. A week doesn’t go past that I get asked, “Who do you know?”. That’s a good sign. Investment back into high paid sales staff means confidence is back in the market.

A UDI (unidentified drunken injury) has meant my knee is, to use a medical term, fecked. Mustn’t gribble though.

Our little girl is crawling now and hitting her head on everything. This has resulted in a quick baby proofing whih has left our living room looking like a rubber walled insane asylum. Handy though when you come back after a few beers, literally bouncing off the walls.

As an avid Arsenal fan I was over the moon to see Chelsea win the CP. Not because I wanted an English team to win or a German team to lose, but because it meant Spurs lost their CL spot. In years to come I won’t remember this season for the greatness of Van Persie or City winning the league, I’ll remember getting more ahit from Spurs fans than every other year combined. Mind the gap? Can you hear that? It’s the sounds of 300,000 Spurs fans trying to tune in channel 5.

Keep smiling.

J

My dad asked me earlier why I use social networks and I had no one line answer for him.  After some thoughts, here’s why.

I use Facebook to stay connected with people I like and love, no matter now far away they are or how long it’s been since I’ve seen them.

I use Twitter to share my thoughts with the world and learn what other people think.

I use Foursquare to share the amazing places I’ve been.

I use LinkedIn to do business.

I use Instagram to share the beautiful things I’ve seen in the world.

I use Pinterest because my peers have started to.

I use Google+ for what it could be.

I am a social networker because it improves my life and hopefully the lives of people I’m connected with.

The view from our walks in the morning

Apologies for not keeping this up as much as I had planned.  To be very honest, after 2 weeks, I sort of got into my holiday groove and could not be bothered to write anything.  There’s been some highlights.  Our friends came over which was loads of fun and it changed the vibe from chilled family time, to a bit more towards partying with friends time.  There are some amazing stories, but I’ll leave them on the beach where they belong.  If I tell you we were chased down the road by a monkey and that was only the 3rd most interesting this that happened that day, you start to get the idea.

The local kids could be future CEOs with the business brains they have

As I write this now I’m very much missing home.  Not just the material things I’m longing for, like cider, Sky+, thick matreses, quick wifi, electricity that doesn’t cut out once a day, soft pillows, pork sausages and football on at a godly hour, I’m also missing family, friends and London itself.  No matter how much we moan about it, it’s still the greatest city in the world.

It’s been an amazing break, and I feel fully rested and ready to take on 2012 with a clear head and a passion to make our business fantastic.  But most importantly I’ve realized how much my little family mean to me and how lucky I am to have both of them. Spending so much time with Poppy has changed our relationship from “I love her because she’s my daughter.” to “She’s my little buddy.”  We play constantly, have our own songs we sing, and I’ve learnt so much about her.  She’s incredible.

So goodbye Goa and hello London, you beautiful mess you!  Thanks for reading and have a wonderful 2012.

It seems a McDonalds Twitter campaign went wrong yesterday.  Full details here.  I think it’s funny as hell.   I love it when large corporates try to tame the social media beast, only to have it come back and bite them in the ass, and there’s no larger or more corporate than Ronald himself.  What does worry me is the response from their apparent Director of Social Media, Rick Wion, doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp of Twitter or how it works.

“Within an hour of pulling #McDStories the number of conversations about it fell off from a peak of 1600 to a few dozen. It is also important to keep those numbers in perspective.”

Pull what numb nut?  It’s a hashtag, it’s out there.  It reeks of Ricky boy having an advertising background where disasters can be limited by pulling advertising campaigns from TV or radio, but it doesn’t work like that with social media.  You cant “pull” a message that is already in the hands of the masses.  And the fact that he’s issued a press release about how small the damage was, will only fuel the flames of the people hell bent on ruining this little gem of an idea.

For what it’s worth, with only 1600 people having used the HT for evil, I would have publicly asked them to elaborate on their stories, listened to the issues  and thanked them for their input and then put out a press release on how you plan on tackling these problems.  Turn a negative into a postive story, rather than trying to pubically sweep it under the rug.

I’m loving it!

10. Mobile is the new social, in that the less people there are that know about it, the more money there is for the people that do.

9. The generalist job boards continue the game of “whos is biggest” with their UU numbers, even investing in the holy grail of candidate acquisition, TV advertising, painfully unaware that the last thing employers want, is more applications.

8. The HR mouth pieces of the industry will continue to blog the death of the rec cons with one hand while the other hand signs off a check to S3 for a £2m retainer.

7. There will be more events for HR professionals than there are HR professionals, resulting in ultra hyper niche conferences with 7 suppliers, thinly vailed as speakers, presenting to 1 very scared HR manager. Whoevers stupid enough I be in the HR events business this year deserves everything they get. **As he cries on the keyboard**

6. Job boards will continue to lose jobs, application tracking systems will continue to lose applications and anything “social”will continue to loss money.

5. Corporate career sites become so self indulgent you have to complete 3 levels of Super Mario Brothers before a twitter based group video interview whereafter your rejection letter will be posted to your Facebook wall.

4. The ad agencies will continue to merge until there is only one;
MEGACOM!!!

3. LinkedIn will continue to eat everyone’s lunch with a sales force that rivals the Chinese Army.

2. The recruitment section of all print titles will do a great impression of an anorexic teenage girl in denial; telling you they’ve never been better while they get thinner and thinner until they disappear.

1. And as always, not one 2012 prediction blog will come anywhere close to predicting what actually happens!

NOTE: This was just for fun, don’t get your knickers in a twist. The one prediction that will come true is that most of you take this shit far to seriously!