Twitter or Blog | Blog or Twitter

Do we need a blog and a twitter account or is just one enough?  Even a short message has a place on a blog and vice versa; and if both connect with each other why do one instead of the other?

If I were a recruiter would I.....

.....BLOG?

Here's how I see it now. If I were a recruiter I would want my company to have a recruitment blog to help with SEO, company updates, general recruitment stuff etc. Otherwise you end up with an award winning set of blogs a la PwC i.e. one or two posts a year from their young bloggers who do not appear to have the time, inclination or incentive to post more often.

Whereas, give a recruiter a Twitter account and it is easier for them to maintain and allows them to update candidates about specific recruitment activities they as individual recruiters are working on.

Blog = company. Twitter = recruiter.
Both = better SEO and conversations.

2009 will demand more than 'expert' knowledge

Knowing how to cook a turkey (because you have a Jamie Oliver cook book from last year) doesn't mean you'll get it right.  And we all know the consequences of getting it wrong!

2009 will not be a place where the know it alls and big mouths succeed.  Anyone can read a few blogs, reports or books on pretty much any subject but it doesn't make you an expert; even though many seem to think it does. 

The last few years have been easy for everyone.  2009 will demand execution of projects or execution of bad suppliers - which are you?

If you feel insulted or picked on by this post then maybe you should think about who you are, what you do and ultimately, what value you really add. 

Learning new skills is part of your growth curve but the opportunity to learn whilst being paid should come because of previous success.  If you are learning at the expense of others, and they carry all the risk, watch out.  It's not the way for 2009. The real experts will succeed in 2009, the hangers on will find themselves with no place to go. 

Let us hope that paying clients, with very focused budgets and people, make more right decisions than wrong ones.  So that put the onus on the real experts to differentiate themselves; bring on 2009!

The time of year | Christmas and annual awards!

Yesterday we had the Fistful of Talent Blog Power Rankings and now we have UK Recruiter following hot on their heels with the 2008 Best UK Recruitment Blog.  Whilst these awards are not life changing they do a lot to promote the various blogs which are in most cases good and provide useful information to the recruitment and HR community.

So please do take a moment to vote for one of the blogs so that we all know someone appreciates reading our opinions, ramblings, thoughts.......

Vote for the 2008 Best UK Recruitment Blog

Customer service - NOT!

I did a quick shop online yesterday and other than a number of bugs/errors on the site I managed to complete my shop; payment confirmation received.  Now just a matter of Royal Mail NOT leaving my parcel and me having to go and collect it and some totally inconvenient time.

And that I thought that was the end of that.

Lost for words!

I watched this video and at the end of it sat for 5 minutes totally lost for words.  You may however watch and not feel the same; if so you are not easily disturbed!

On a more positive note

This year I aim to donate at least 10 laptops to the OLPC.

The mission of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is to empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-age child. In order to accomplish their goal, they need people who believe in what they are doing and want to help make education for the world’s children a priority, not a privilege.

I for one support this kind of initiative so I'm not all bad after all!

British Airways Baggage

So now we find out that our bag has been at Heathrow all the time and has never actually gone by road to Milan. 

But, don't worry it will be on its way to Milan very soon, where it will be sorted and sent back to Heathrow over the next, erm few days.

British Airways - Terminal 5 apology

For one short second I actually thought I'd received a personal reply from BA.  Then again, I'm sure it was something a lot of people received; 28,000 or thereabouts I'd reckon! And now that my first post is on page 1, position 7 in Google let's hope my bag arrives pretty soon!!

Terminal 5 - British Airways results

Still no bags back yet but at least my blog post is getting on page 1 of Google Search and Google Finance.  Good to see that blog posts are getting some prominence!  Looks like I may have to follow some of the other bog bloggers and start to monetise my sites!?

Google Search.

And Google Finance.

So it looks like Willie and his gang still have no idea how to run an airline whilst my bag is in some kind of big pile somewhere in Europe.  But will I get it back in time to go to Spain this weekend; flying with Easyjet so at least we know that we AND our bags will arrive together!