Computer Weekly closes and a personal memory

So if i wrote a piece every time a former giant B2B print title closes - this would be a weekly update, but i can't let this one pass without mention. I started my career on its arch rival Computing magazine (and eventually became publisher). Both titles ran 100+pages of job ads every week - ratecard £10K a page - Yield about £5K. Lovely money!!

But please allow me a little personal reminiscence as the memories flood back.

The most important meeting of my career thus far was when i was publisher of Computing and was with European MD of VNU its owner - i had to present a 5 year plan (5 years!!!! who does that anymore) for the title. And had prepared 56 slide(56 slides, i know...) masterpiece full of research, plans, spin offs. Unfortunately Slide 5 was the projected recruitment ad revenue for next 5 years which resembled a ski jump without the little lift at the end. We never got to the other 51 slides. As i showed him that £20 million of revenue was not and could not be made up (i was not responsible for online). To paraphrase the Labour manifesto of 1983 , it was the longest career suicide note in history. My stratospheric rise in company suddenly halted and i think i resigned about 4 months later without a job to go to and joined 33, and a few years later set up UK's first digital ad agency.

I am not sure if you had told me then that CW print would close within 10 years - not even i would have believed you but this industry transformation seems to be getting faster and faster. And the thing is - it is so difficult for those inside the establishment media to see it or more importantly to react to it, its such a potentially horrible scenario that it leads to inertia with brief bouts of panic thrown in. And i think that point still applies to many media owners out there now.

print rec ad market to return......

Someone mentioned that they firmly believed that the print classified (jobs,cars,homes) would return due to dissatisfaction with quality and quantity of response etc.
And then someone said so on twitter (my former golf buddy @alconcalcia) too
My first thought was they were joking but apparently not.
now the solution to quantity and quality response problems are

Clear employer/job offering and compelling reason to apply
Good copy - keywords / seo etc
Plan and buy the Relevant and best media
'attractive' advertising
Simple response mechanism
And great process/screening/resp mgmt

Now by definition these are broad topics that will differ and the solutions need to fit each client, but give me the above or let me create the above and your responss problems will disappear.

Now to use response as a reason to go back in time 5 years is to like reacting to some repairs that need doing to your car by ditching it and getting a horse instead.

To be fair it would mean i made a hell of an entrance when i arrived at my next meeting.

Service vs Growth - or Service and Growth

Speaking at a conference tomorrow (Caterer/recruitment/social media) and organised a networking event last thursday www.omexperts.co.uk/events (a good friend of the biz Gill Davies really organised it but we sponsored it.)Now the problem is we meet lots of great people - many of whom are lovely enough to want to discuss digital/PPC/Social and what they can do/should be doing better.

However - we are a service led business - we have to deliver on our promises. So how do you prioritise new business??

Answer - its just growing pains i guess and a good problem to have but we have made a very clear decision to split new biz and delivery. what we won't do is compromise on our service standards as it has been in our DNA since Day 1 and if i am being mercenary about it - clients recommending us to friends, peers etc has been by far and away our best source of growth.

A disconnect with the real world

So in the real world
- rumours of a double dip recession
- inflation getting to be a nasty problem
- 'savage' cuts happening that will further drive down consumer confidence
- retailers saying feb figures look grim

In the OME world
- wildly busy
- most agencies and media i respect also say they are doing great
- retail clients expanding
- even had some not very interesting enquiries about taking a stake in our biz


Where is the truth? I have not got a clue but i prefer the latter scenario.

Tribal Resourcing sold to TMP (UK)

So sale of Tribal to TMP is clearly quite interesting. This is my very quick take on it.
1. sold for £1 - puts it in same cost bracket as the Evening Standard sale in 2009. Statement of the obvious but there is clearly something wrong with underlying profitability of a company that is given away, is it crippled by high costbase? declining markets? losing too much money? duff product? or more likely a combo on some or all of the above.
2. 2010 - £37000 profit on £39m turnover - is a 0.1% return. Ouch...One presumes that most of this turnover was media billings and such like so those figures are pretty horrible given that 2011 is going to be uglier in their markets (government/health)
3. My non insider view is that they are caught in perfect storm of reliance on public sector and still largely print revenues which are in cyclical and terminal decline respectively.
4. TMP (UK) taking it on - possibly most interesting thing. Their mgmt (and investors) must believe that they can convert the client base to digital, sell more product and retain in long term relationships. And economies of sale are obvious too. But, and i say this no relish, one would presume the cost cutting would be quick and deep to get things moving in right direction. Their must be some brand equity in the Tribal name and i have no idea how they intend to run the brands.

Anyway - i am sure we will get some statements from both parties in next few days - which will clarify the situation.

SMART 2011 / RAD Awards

Thursday was a long day - i attended and spoke at the Smart 2011 conference - where i put extra stress on myself by deciding i would cover a new topic and also go for a workshop interactive session rather than more standard pres. Now the sad thing about speaking is i dont get as much as value from the other sessions (too busy selfishly thinking about my slot) but i really found the approach of conf refreshing. It was a world away from the uber bullshit world of social that existed in Q1 2010 - maybe it was the speakers (#mattallder #andyheadworth #steve_fogarty) but it was really grounded stuff - real world, practical advice etc.
would loved to have networked more but had the Dinner Jacket on for the RAD Awards in evening. Now this is the biggest awards in our world but our industry has changed so much - i always feel that this is an "old" industry event - still has awards for best local press advert etc. To be fair to them - they have made huge strides to make categories more modern and digital but i still feel like a bit of an outsider in the room - explaining to people/other agencies who we are and what we do - which is a bit odd 4.5 years in.
The brilliant bit of night was that our clients had 3 nominations (Pizza Express and YO! Sushi) and Pizza Express/Pink Squid won for www.pizzaexpressyourself.co.uk) - so congrats to all involved.

Friday was a quieter day....

Conference Speaking - Smart 2011

Speaking at the www.smart2011.com conference next week. And via a complex set of circumstances - i am covering a slightly different topic from my initial brief. My session title is "impact of social media on recruitment value chain". After my initial thought of blimey - i am going to actually do some proper work to organise all my thoughts/experience/analysis into something coherent (he hopes....) i am quite excited. Why?

- I am a bit bored with the "building blocks to a social media rec strategy" which i have been updating and delvering in 2011. Its good stuff but the Do's and Don'ts may be quite simple for what i think looks a more experienced audience.

- I actually think the topic is very interesting (see below for why)

In last 5 years i have spoken at quite a few conferences/seminars etc and the breakthrough for me was to stop trying to cover everything, don't think it has to be perfect, don't worry about people disgareeing with you and dont watch other speakers and panic that they are nicking all your good stuff! When i am in the audience all i want is not to get sold to (very dull) and to hear a few things that are interesting. I don't want comprehensive - i want to be stimulated or even better provoked.

So for me when i look at this conference - there are some great people like @mattalder @billboorman @andyheadworth who know their stuff and will give great overviews of industry trends and great tools and techniques. And they will do this better than me, So what do i bring???

Well (excuse the immodesty) OME work with some of the UK's biggest recruiters, who have grasped the digital nettle and now want to have same success with social. However like most organisations - budget for innovation is limited and the precious time of the recruitment team is extremely short. So our views have to be based on the practical nature of implementing social programmes and how to avoid wrong turns. All of our clients want/demand that we save time and money and increase quality. And what does "save money and increase quality" typically mean


- reduce reliance on rec cons

- reduce candidate attraction costs from direct sourcing

- find new channels for candidates

- have more relevant response/less irrelevant response

- beat the competition


and all those points above have SEISMIC impact on the Recruitment Value Chain!!