Doing Things Differently

Every year Entrepreneur Country puts on two fantastic forum events. While I am an insider (i.e. part of the Ariadne team of which Entrepreneur Country is a part) I really think these events are totally stand out – and this is why. Yes this is slightly sales oriented – full disclosure…

1. They are charged – The Buzz is huge
2. They showcase success stories by amazing people
3. Deals get done

So after 5 years of these events, with the most recent attracting 400 people, keynotes from BBC Dragons and successful entrepreneurs – what makes Entrepreneur Country different? Read more…

Seeing that Justin Timberlake is paying $35m for Myspace is interesting (http://reut.rs/mNLqAE) but what does it mean for Justin and for Myspace?

Clearly I think that as Justin is far closer to the people who made Myspace the success it previouisly was – the music fans and celebrities themselves – he has a plan and can probably make it happen. Is there however, space in the online social world for a niche / vertical OSN to compete with Facebook?

I actually think the aquisition is a very interesting one, Justin’s got gravitas with a large fan base and if he can recreate the engagement on the site – there could be a very interesting swing back to Myspace as more and more of the younger Facebook users seem to be losing interest in Facebook since their parents are on there… and that is where I think there is an interesting play to be had! Bring Myspace back to its core with better functionality.

Time will tell but now JT joins the tech investor world Ashton Kutcher has become so well known for.

Just the other day I was called up, out of the blue, by a previous client of mine, asking if we could work together again. I was really pleased that his impression of how we collaborated the first time was really positive. This had me reflect on my most successful client relationships and what the secret of their success was.

This contemplation was further enhanced by some conversations I’d had while on holiday in Dubai just a couple of weeks ago. Chatting to the founder of a very successful digital agency, and his wife, we got onto the topic of business development. “What’s so nice about Dubai in our sector is building business on relationships” they said, “knowing that going in with a hard sell won’t work. One needs to establish a rapport with the person, get to understand how you could help them and jointly find a solution.” they continued.

This was the first time I’d had the fundamentals expressed so simply and yet they represented what my natural approach is.

As a teenager, about to start boarding school I was given some pertinent advice from an older distant relative, “To stay out of trouble, keep your mouth shut and your ears open.” This became my standard behaviour for so many years. My friends – and peers – trusted me and I was able to observe so much without being stuck in the middle.

Later on I think this developed into a very keen ear for ‘what is being said and what is being communicated?’ as the two aren’t necessarily the same, reading between the lines is critical too!

In advising my clients I strive to listen to why they say and try to analyse what’s being left out. What is their vulnerability, what are they unsure of and how can I interpret that as where they may need help? I ask and gently probe and that’s where the magic happens.

When looking at investment opportunities as I also do, for start-up / high growth companies, one of the key questions we ask is whether the entrepreneur/management team are world-class. We look at how they engage us in conversation to find out how they sell their product and themselves. Again it is about the people.

Building a long term relationship as an advisor requires a relationship of trust and openness. Entrepreneurs that most impress us are those who spot an opportunity and enjoy talking about it rather than preaching about it. We love evangelist but are turned off by arrogance – we know our investors will be too. If there isn’t a rapport with us we are very weary of the ability to build a rapport with potential investors and, more importantly, with their future clients.

Person-centric business to me is built on listening, being open and forging a relationship which is often about a partnership – an equal give and take. There are of course certain tricks and must-have’s to make this more tangible but that’s for another post to look at.

The era of the digital network is just beginning as social networks become the battle ground for the next wave of killer applications. Facebook and LinkedIn are both open platforms allowing third party developers to access their user base and provide services and applications, creating a new paradigm of personal engagement. At the same time as this new paradigm starts to solidify, the world of recruitment is facing rapid changes and all the challenges that come with change. The speed of change in recruitment has increased exponentially as the jobseeker mix moves from Gen X to Gen Y, having to adopt their different view of work, careers and personal identity.

The old view of one’s career was that it was synonymous with the job one had while increasingly a job is merely a stepping-stone on the path of a personal career. The jobs we perform are becoming more transient as we start to take more ownership of our own career paths. More and more of us are freelancing, consulting and working across multiple projects within and without the organisations that pay the main pay cheque. Generation Y start their professional lives already part of the digital network, already masters of their Facebook, Myspace or Bebo social profiles. This generation has already started the journey of building its own personal brand in the social context and it’s looking to do the same in a professional environment.

The traditional, linear recruitment process of one-to-many is on its last legs, almost broken – why? As the average time people spend in a job is near the four year mark, the economics of recruitment are having to adapt. The old process required a database of resumés to be screened, short-listed and funnelled into a pipeline of candidates based on a two-dimensional paper merit match to a three-dimensional role within a dynamic organisation. The time and money required to attract, find and hire the right candidate was high. Some estimates indicated the cost of replacing a junior accountant in a corporation ranged from £3-£10k. These economics worked while the recruiter could assume that candidates would remain in their jobs for a longer period of time. As this is rapidly changing, recruiters are looking for new ways to make the right connections to the right people faster and in a more dynamic way: from one-to-many to one-to-one. This is happening in parallel to increasing development of digital networks. The future of online recruitment is no longer about how many resumés are on tap but how quickly the right connection can be made to the right candidate for the right job.

One’s personal brand is rapidly becoming equally important as the corporate brand. This is evidenced by the number of people starting out on their own at an earlier age, working as consultants, freelancers or entrepreneurs. The value of one’s personal, social and professional network is growing and recruiters are being forced to adapt to capture this value. Professional networks such as LinkedIn and Xing are already reaping benefits with some companies only recruiting from these digital networks, no longer relying on traditional offline search firms or online 1.0 recruitment models such as Monster, Fish4 or Jobsite.

Online 1.0 recruitment still relies on the linear one-to-many model and yet their value in today’s digitally networked world lies mainly untapped: Monster announced in May that it had over 4 million resumés in the UK, that is to say they have 4 million poised jobseekers wishing to engage with the professional world. Having already established a relationship with these users, Monster is but another digital network with valuable information on users with a specific need – looking for their next step in their career development. The challenge Monster and its peers now face is to enable these users to engage with the greater professional community by allowing the owners of the 4m resumés to interact and network with each other. They will then create the channels for their users to connect directly to their potential next boss in a one-to-one way.

Web 2.0 as a buzz word should be at the very top of every online recruitment company’s strategic plan. Large successful online recruitment firms have the users, have built the brand and now need to marry these aspects to the available Web 2.0 technology to keep Generation Y engaged. There is an increasing number of new, innovative companies looking to leverage this new opportunity in online recruitment building new models for recruiters to engage with talent along the premise of the digital network. Zubka.com is one such example – leveraging the personal network, providing a referral payment scheme for successful hires while BraveNewTalent is looking to build a pre-employment networking site to connect talent to their potential future employers, empowering the talent to start controlling their careers through networking.

The role of the large job-boards is not yet extinct but given the current market situation, recruitment may be forced to reinvent itself and start to embrace Web 2.0 developments with the same fervour as our Generation Y took to the online social networks. The game is on and the rewards in recruitment remain huge but the focus needs to be on the target market – digital networking, personal brand development and innovation is the future of online recruitment. As e-recruitment was one of the first successes in online advertising, will it lead in turning the Web 2.0 buzz word into a commercial success?