How does technology influence your world?

We are all striving to make our lives that little bit easier, save ourselves a bit of time here and there. It would be naive to think that technology hasn’t had some influence in how we live, interact, work and play. For all the benefits technology advancements have introduced there has to been a downside.

This got me thinking how technology has altered my world?

Growing up I remember video recorders, Walkman’s that chewed up your cassette tapes, Commodore 64 and the original teenage ninja mutant turtles and I’m only 33.

Today technology has moved things considerably along. You have mobile phones that no longer look like bricks and can be used as mini personal computer, iPad. Even reading a book has evolved and gone digital with the Kindle. Maybe I’m a bit old-fashioned but there is something about reading a ‘traditional’ book that you can’t get from an e-book.

Communication

Social Media

I do have a Facebook page but am not a regular ‘Facebooker’. My account is gathering virtual dust and cobwebs from the lack of attention. Other than emailing people don’t have the motivation to share little anecdotes of my life on Facebook..my life just isn’t that interesting. This could have something to do with the fact that I spend at least 40 hours a week in front of a computer and don’t really want to spend the few precious hours I have to myself also in front of a computer.

There is talk that social media is ‘ruining our minds’, this infographic discusses how our brains and behaviour has adapted to technology, in particular social media. Data mentioned in the infographic highlights how our attention span has become smaller. There is a claim that ‘social media makes us more self-centered’, what do you think?

I may sound like I have a vendetta against social media which I don’t. I happily use it as part of my job, I find it interesting and fascinating the amount of information we can share with each other. I just want to try to have a balance between the virtual and the physical world if that is possible.

Mobile Phones

A term I heard today was ‘bleeping’ referring to the sound a phone makes when there is a new message.

My vice is texting, which I guess makes me a bleeper!

When looking at mobile phone tariffs I’m not too concerned about the free minutes unless they can be used across all networks but more about the number of free texts. There is something creative about being able to cram the key points of a conversation into a 160 character text message, this could also be seen as a breakdown of language with the introduction of text speak. The only times I’ve used terms associated with text speak is when testing or emailing. These days I hear the odd group of people speaking in acronyms, as in LOL, OMG and WTF although this one does come in handy when surrounded by young children.

I have had disagreements battled out through a series of texts when it would have made logical sense to have picked up the phone and talk, but I’m a ‘bleeper’ remember? It seems I have substituted human emotion for digital emotion through the use of smileys. I am considering adding a texting dictionary to my birthday list.

Don’t want to dip into your text bundle? There are alternative methods to mobile phone messaging which won’t cost you the earth.There is the application WhatsApp and for Blackberry phone users there is BBM.

Emailing

I do email more than I used to. In the past I have rented out my spare bedrooms and have remained friends with some of the tenants. One lives in China and the other in France email is a cheap and effective way of staying in contact. I can take my time, read over what I have written making sure no crucial details has been missed out.

Information

The way we research and take in information has changed.

If I want to research a topic or find the solution to a problem / question, in the past I would have  gone to the library or called the relevant people. These days my first point of contact is Google.

The internet is great for sharing information, for something that is simple to repair you can find the answer online saving you a few bob or two. With the help of an online video found through Google search a friend and I learned how to change the sparks plugs and the air filter on my old Fiesta!

Science                            

This topic has made me think about how my interaction with others has been influenced by technology and how my brain is changing to keep up with the modern world. Various articles are claiming we as humans are no longer able to focus on something for very long before becoming uninterested and fidgety. is this true?  I still like to read books and have a verbal conversation with others whether it is on the phone or face to face and don’t think I have any problem with focusing.

If technology is having an impact on how our brains evolve then what about the next generation, the Gen Y’s who have grown up and rely on this modern world? Perhaps I am over generalising and pigeon holing an entire group of people in which case I apologise but how would the brains of the technology savvy generation handle not having access to their mobile phone or internet access for one hour let alone one day? Would they go into a state of panic or cope like the rest of us?

Conclusion

When you sit back and think about it, if you wanted to you could have a full-blown conversation without either parties ever uttering a single word.

All this said, when the time comes and I decide to reproduce I would like to be able to speak with my children face to face and not through some futuristic technology from The Jetsons.

Whatever the outcome technology advancement is going to keep moving forward and so far the pros outweigh the cons for now. Imagine a world like The Terminator or even I,Robot? Maybe the world of The Jetsons isn’t so far off…I did always enjoy watching the cartoon.

Some useful links you may find of interest.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/features/timestopics/series/your_brain_on_computers/index.html

http://www.whathifi.com/blog/are-we-losing-the-art-of-communication

http://media.mediaexperts.net/?p=11124

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-565207/Modern-technology-changing-way-brains-work-says-neuroscientist.html

Insightful new ways to interact with our clients! Written by Rachel Reading

There is certainly no underestimating the rapidly growing use of social media as an advertising tool for recruitment, and although there is no clear analysis to prove that advertising via these methods will ever overtake Job Board advertising as the method of choice, we at JobServe do believe that there is some merit in using these avenues for the right requirement.

However, before you take a leap into the world of social media, we also believe that the right information can help you to make an informed decision and ensure that each of your requirements is getting to the correct audience.

Over the coming months, this series of short articles will serve as a guide to all things JobServe, from the usual JobServe processes and products we have to ensure your advertising performs at its very best, to all of the complimentary services we offer and the “behind the scenes” work we do!

All great candidates need a great job searching tool!

Well, with all good stories let’s start at the beginning…

All job boards are created with one goal in mind…to be able to provide candidates with a selection of job opportunities from which they are (hopefully) able to secure further employment.

We all know that without a steady stream of new and re-visiting candidates, a job board cannot deliver applications to its clients (that’s you) and therefore keeping the candidate happy is the first major hurdle to ensuring we keep ahead of the game!

With the job boards available in the market all professing to offer the same amazing candidate experience, JobServe has taken a step back to look at the searching experience and explore how this can be improved to become the most user friendly and effective in the market!

With the new JobSearch facility we are able to offer the job seeker an interface which they are already going to be familiar with (think popular email interfaces and you may be close), allowing less time to be spent clicking from one job to the next and back again, and more time spent reading and applying for jobs…every job seekers dream!

Quality of results is very important and by making it easier for a job seeker to review matching jobs and read them in full will lead to better quality applications. With the ease to review many jobs that match a search, being the first in the results is less important than writing a good job to attract candidates.

To take a look at our brand new JobSearch click here!

Advert Shelf Life

With the above point in mind, it is interesting to understand how advert ‘Shelf Life’ can affect the performance of your jobs. The majority of jobs typically receive 76% of their applications within the first 3 days after advertisement, which leads us to think that despite many job boards offering 28-day/1-month postings, recruiters might be better considering 7-day postings?

Therefore, by posting a job for 7-days, and then renewing it three times, substantially more applications may be received than posting the job once for 28-days.

The magic renewal period is 7-days, and most recruiters will find benefit from implementation of this “refresh” strategy!

Similarly, it is surprising to see how recruiters will blindly re-advertise difficult jobs for weeks on end without making changes. If a job hasn’t performed due to niche skill set/location for 1 week, the chances are that if you re-post an identical advert for a further week, it will perform the same in the second week.

Instead, make small changes to the job title, include further key skills or look at advertising further positive information about the role to attract a different audience.

In essence…“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

You can also view this article via JobServe http://www.jobserve.com/content/jobserve-insight-the-key-to-good-response.htm

1 Broken saucepan handle and 3 burns later….

This past weekend what was meant to have been dinner for me and a friend became dinner for 2 friends, 2 sisters, 1 brother, 1 cousin, 1 brother in law and two nephews (aged 2 and 7 months).

For someone with limited cooking abilities and is generally considered accident prone in the kitchen would have  panicked. However this number of people is considered small, my brother, his girlfriend, my parents and an uncle didn’t come.

Menu

Main

Chicken Curry – made this enough times that it turned out nice

Tandoori style chicken – marinated overnight in some tandoori powder yoghurt and lime juice. These turned out nice as there weren’t many left by the time I got to the dining table.

Potato cakes – first time I had made these. They came out a bit ‘smushy’ but apparently tasted nice. Think next time will use some fresh parsley or coriander

Brown rice – I forgot about it and some of it got stuck to the bottom of the pan, the rest tasted fine..I think as it was all gone by the time I got to the table.

Boiled rice – Decided I hadn’t made enough brown rice hence the boiled rice.

Ready-made kebabs – these turned out awful. I can take a bit of spice but these could have fuelled a rocket!

Ready-made Chapattis – I’m not that good..yet

Dessert

Toffee Cheesecake – courtesy of my friend

Ice cream

Have to say I pulled it off. Now when my mother tries to marry me off she can tell people ‘my daughter is attractive, educated, has a job and can cook’ no one needs to know who well I can cook ;-). In the Asian culture being able to cook can be considered just as important as an education. The future mother in law will want to know that her son will be well fed and won’t waste away from being given beans on toast.

I digress, back to my dinner.

Apart from the kebabs which I think I will try and make myself next time, everything else turned out nicely.

So well in fact it looks like I could be cooking again this Saturday.

I may use my mum’s kitchen, she has a dishwasher!

Now where’s my purse?

Perhaps I’m being somewhat naive but I thought building up your brand via social media took some effort and involved providing relevant content, engaging with existing and future followers?

Then I discover this known practice of ‘buying followers’, giving the illusion that a social page is more popular than it actually is. What’s that all about?

I have seen articles flying around recently regarding the twitter profile of Mitt Romney. Analysis carried out by security firm Barracuda Networks ‘noticed that Mitt Romney in particular had recently hugely increased his following, which rose from 673,002 to 789,924 followers on a single day, 21 July, an odd-looking 17 percent rise.’ via http://news.techworld.com

According to Barracuda’s investigations being able to purchase followers regardless of whether those accounts are real or fake is not that difficult to do. I decided to have a look online and see for myself.

Companies that offer this service have different methods of ‘selecting’ the right followers for you. Take this website for example, buyactivefans, their selling point is that they target only those people ‘who already fit your idea of ideal consumers’.

From buyrealfollowers you could buy up to 1,000 followers for as little as $17, that increase could (not always) make a difference to the attention your profile receives. However there is no mention as to the ‘type’ of followers you would receive.

Then we have Barracuda’s finding who were ‘able to purchase between 20,000 and 70,000 bogus accounts for the three profiles from one a clutch of eBay sellers and third-party websites offering them for around $18 per thousand.’

It seems with the right website you could buy a relatively large number of ‘followers’ at a reasonable price.

Is it worth going down this route?

Through the power of Google I came across the article ‘Should you Buy Twitter Followers? One Business Woman’s Story’ written by Kelly Kautz. In her own investigation Ms Kautz purchased 3,000 followers at a cost of $39 ($15 for 1,000 followers, to improve her Twitter search ranking decided to purchase a further 2,000 at $24 )

Overall Ms Kautz findings were ‘if engagement is what you are looking for, buying Twitter followers is probably not the best solution’.

In the short run you will increase your followers but at what cost? Mentioned in Ms Kautz article was the lack of control she had over the type of followers she received, resulting in her tweet feed being ‘overcome by dumb tweets…’

JobServe

Compared to its competitors, JobServe’s Twitter and Facebook follower numbers are low. JobServe has only been actively working on its social media campaign for the last 10 months. During this time JobServe has seen its number of followers steadily increase, this has only been achieved by working on JobServe’s social networks and seeing what works for its followers and what doesn’t.

In a nutshell, if you want to create a successful social media campaign then put in the required hard work and effort and the followers will come, if they don’t then re-evaluate what you’re doing.

Don’t cheat, it’s just not nice!

Websites & LinkedIn Groups I’ve found useful

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/

http://socialmediatoday.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Strategies-Tips-on-Social-Media-3138374?trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Social-Media-News-3255188?trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

Proof is in the Banana Muffin

In my last baking related blog ‘Just because it looks like a chocolate brownie doesn’t mean it tastes like a chocolate brownie’, I talked about a missing baking recipe book. This all signing all dancing baking book has been found!

Who had it all along? The same person who denied all knowledge about the whereabouts of said book…yes it was my mum. Parents, what can you do about them, can’t live with them, and can’t live without them.

This weekend I discovered how much a leak in my roof was going to cost to repair, I’ll spare you the details. Needless to say if I’m to continue to have little sweet treats I’m going to have to make them myself. It works out cheaper and once I master the techniques I’m hoping will taste nicer. I’m also going to need to make full use of my gym membership!

With the reappearance of the baking book the banana cake recipe found on Pinterest has been put on the back burner. I did still make some banana muffins which turned out quite nice. I thought they were a bit dry but others thought otherwise, I think they were being polite.

The problem I have when baking is I can’t eat it all myself and unless my siblings are feeling brave I’m have plenty left over.

So I decided to be all caring and sharing. From a batch of 12 I had about 4 left over. Gave 3 to my sister and my parents had one each and I ate 3, leaving me with 4 muffins to test out on the  two guys that sit next to me at work. As far as I know they have not suffered and adverse side effects as a result they have agreed to be my guinea pigs for future experiments.

My next baking expedition is to be chocolate chip cookies. Wish me luck!

I’m ready for my close up

When creating an online networking profile a question that always arises is what type of profile picture should you have or if you should have a picture at all?

For some having a picture of yourself online can be a bit of a daunting experience as you open yourself up to being judged based on your physical appearance.

In the beginning I was apprehensive about placing a picture of myself on some of my networking profiles, simply because I’m just not a photogenic person. I have now placed a picture of myself on my LinkedIn profile and on JobServe’s Pinterest page. One, because the LinkedIn profile in under my name. Two, ‘we’ as in my manager thought having a ‘human’ face on Pinterest made it more personable.

JobServe’s Facebook and Springpad pages currently use the company’s logo.

From a business perspective I think it is beneficial to display a picture whether it is of yourself or your company’s logo. It is something your followers will remember & associate your profile with.

Still not convinced? According to these articles the first place people look when viewing your profile is your picture.

Article via Mashable.com:  http://mashable.com/2011/11/30/social-profile-eye-tracking/

Facebook

Google+

Klout

Article via businessinsider.com: http://www.businessinsider.com/should-you-include-a-picture-on-your-linkedin-profile-2012-5

In the case of Klout, the first place user’s look was at the profile score, the score is in place of where a profile picture would normally be.

Based on the information acquired so far having a profile picture is beneficial. The next question is what type of profile picture you should have?

Do you opt for the –

1)      Professionally posed photograph

2)      DIY but still professional

3)      Family photo

4)      Holiday photo

5)      Night out photo

6)      Avatar

A comment made on a current LinkedIn poll is that  some viewers would like to see photographs of people that show their personality, whereas others have raised  the point that on a professional networking site such as LinkedIn the user should display a picture that shows them in a professional light.

Is this true of all social media sites?

For LinkedIn the argument is it is a networking site for professionals so profile pictures should adhere to this. Can the same be said for other social networking sites?

Facebook started out as being a social networking site to link with friends, families sharing information in an informal environment. Now the site is used by businesses and people alike as a marketing tool to promote themselves.

It is not an unknown practice that potential employers are also checking prospective candidates Facebook pages.  If you don’t want any unwanted attention Facebook users are advised to increase their pages security settings.

Like Facebook, Pinterest is generally an informal environment for users to ‘pin’ and ‘repin’ information with others.  Users have taken advantage of this latest social tool using it to promote businesses and create innovative online CV’s. Unlike Facebook, Pinterest does not have any security settings to restrict who can and cannot view your Pinterest page.

Twitter is a place where your comments are more likely to generate attention more than your profile picture.

Conclusion

It’s up to the individual what picture they want to display on their profiles.

In a virtual social world a picture can say a zillion things, so think about what your profile picture says about you.

Just because it looks like a chocolate brownie doesn’t mean it tastes like a chocolate brownie!

Wanting something sweet and chocolatey I thought I would bake some brownies with my brother. It was a good family bonding exercise.

We couldn’t find our usual cook book which contained the tried, tested and successful brownie recipe. So we settled for what turned out to be a sub-standard brownie recipe. Key point to remember here is before you start cooking read the recipe properly, as it turned out mid-way through making the mixture we noticed the recipe didn’t contain any butter. How can a full fat, sugary, chocolatey treat not contain any butter? I know all you health, nutritionist nuts are thinking this is a good thing for your diet, in reality not good for anyone with normal taste buds.

Result

The chocolate chips had sunk to the bottom and the top of the brownies had this crumbly appearance to it. The taste, well they tasted AWFUL! Even a hot drink could not wash those crumbs down, that’s if you got past the urge to discreetly spit them out.

My brother and sister tried to be polite about the disastrous attempt, something that is out of character for them. Even they couldn’t stomach the lead, dry, brick type imitation brownies. If I ever run out of poly filler, these brownies would be a good substitute. Yep, they were that bad.

The doomed brownies, are currently sitting in a Tupperware box on my mum’s kitchen counter. We’re thinking of a) throwing them away or b) Feeding them to the cats that keep using my garden as a public lavatory. Fear of the RSPCA knocking on my door and ending up on the front page of the local newspaper as the ‘black widow to cats’ is causing me to sway for option A.

I still can’t find the baking book that has the golden recipe. If I am to find a good, brownie recipe with all the fatty goodness and taste to match anywhere then it will be Pinterest.  I’ve already found a good recipe for banana cake to try out!