Kiva is a non-profit organisation that allows people to lend money via the Internet to people (generally entrepreneurs) in developing countries through micro-finance. It includes individual stories of each person who needs a loan so that ‘lenders’ can choose an entrepreneur they wish to fund. The money sent by the ‘lender’ is then transferred to the micro-finance institution (or Field Partner) and disbursed to the selected individual, providing them with the funds required to grow their business. The idea is that eventually the loan is repaid and the ‘lender’ recoups their money and it can be reinvested to another entrepreneur.

The concept is brilliant, and I wholeheartedly support the cause, but I was initially left with a dilemma… Who to lend the money to?

My studies of the Poor Law System hadn’t really endeared me to the idea of classifying those ‘deserving’ of funding from those not. I realised the ‘welcome gift’ my employers had given to me was a bit of a nightmare, and I couldn’t just plump for the Juan Milton because of a surname… could I?

Fortunately my qualms regarding the selection of the ‘deserving’ poor for my loan were alleviated by the fact that the full loan is pre-disbursed to the ‘borrowers’ by the micro-financiers, meaning that ‘lenders’ do not make the decision as to whether the individual is deserving of funding based on their picture and story. I could just plump for a namesake? Well I had a little think, and I’ve came up with a couple of entrepreneurs I could be pals with…

• Julius makes shoes in Thika, Kenya. I can appreciate a decent pair of leather shoes. Providing him with the opportunity to grow his shoe-making business is great; and he intends to educate his family with the proceeds. Education was an important part of the ITFC Charitable Trust trip to Kenya, and I’m an Ipswich fan, so I feel that the choice is in someway justified… I just hope I get the opportunity to buy some shoes off Julius once his business rockets!
• I have been intrigued by Peru ever since I read a fantastic article retelling the story of Peruvian political struggles during the early 1990’s. Whilst Peru has experienced massive social, cultural and economic growth in recent years, the economic disparities between communities are excessive… Dania is the same age as me (21), and hasn’t been afforded the opportunity to study that I have. Her ambition to succeed should not be blighted by her economic circumstance, and she deserves to do well! She also makes red spaghetti, and spaghetti dishes formed a pretty substantial part of my student diet, aside from cold meats and the like.

Hopefully, with the smallest of contributions, I can help these guys to build their businesses and one day see them featured alongside me on a Forbes . One day. If you would like to join us on the Forbes Hot 100 you should sign up too. If you sign up through the Chatter lending Team you get $25 free to loan.

DONE.

Harry

WEBSITES- Company Careers and Graduate sites are often the first port of call for guys looking to enter the world of work post-uni… Unfortunately the ‘unique culture’ each business claims to have engrained within itself are few and far between. Lost beneath the vague corporate message seems to be the type of characters actually required, making it very difficult to understand what companies are looking for.

CAREERS FAIRS- The fairs seem to be regarded as a ‘must attend’ by employers keen on early undergraduate engagement, yet in our experiences, they have often been understaffed by poorly prepared employees who cannot always answer the questions you really need answered… Whilst the ‘freebie hype’ is undoubted, on most occasions, the guys didn’t get the opportunity to speak to grads in the roles they had applied for… The idea that they are a ‘must attend’ if you wish to gain graduate employment is scuppered by the fact that it is very difficult to network at such events and you garner very few worthwhile answers.

LOCATION ISSUES- It is difficult to know where a company is based if the only communication you receive is ‘Nationwide’. Combined with the fact that there was no initial point of contact with a particular role, one of my mates was told they would be working in Manchester only for that to be altered to Milton Keynes as she advanced through the recruitment process.

TESTS- With a report last year claiming that every graduate role receives 52 applications, it is important for recruiters to sift, that is the accepted norm… the grievance that my housemates have is that the online ‘competency’ tests are often pointless, not a guarantee of progression, and in any case are very easy to get a pal to do! In our experiences, recruiters claim to test everyone again at the assessment centre, but on more than one occasion, have decided to ‘select’ a small amount of candidates for retest without explanation… Why such inconsistency of approach?

PERSONALITY- Creating a consistent tone/personality for a business is something I have had to learn quickly during my short time at Chatter. Rather inevitably, the grievances in this sense, should not necessarily come as a surprise… ‘Too corporate’, ‘no sense of community,’ and a ‘lack of personality’ were some of the reasons my mates felt disconnected from some graduate schemes… with a friendly atmosphere and passionate approach perceived to be one of the greatest draws.

FEEDBACK- Rejection is inevitable. It is not the worst part of the recruitment process. What is? The indifference of the vast majority of companies to your applications… You begin to lose count of the number of companies and schemes you apply for without receiving an email confirming receipt of your application… Some reply after three months, others never… Yet the lack of contact is at least consistent throughout the process. One graduate employer openly stated their reluctance to communicate- explaining to final stage candidates, ‘We’ll call you if you’ve got the job… you might receive an email if you haven’t.’

Whilst my housemates are now lucky enough to avoid being in the 40 per cent of university leavers failing to get a graduate-level job, it is clear that the of roles are just not there…When the roles are few and far between, I’m sure some of the graduate employers are likely to continue with this practice of sifting candidates with an inconsistent and faceless approach; leading to a lot of confusion… confusing enough for me is settling on one consistent accent.

Harry

Hi. Im Harry. And I’m the newest member of the Chatter team… I’ve spent most of my time as a fanatic. A football and music fanatic- sometimes trying to get involved- with little success… I’m a Leeds Uni History grad originally from Norfolk, and I moved back to Leeds two months ago with a couple of bags of clothes and a Pete Doherty poster…

Despite my lack of preparation for post-graduation Leeds, I was determined to find carve out a worthwhile media career… Fortunately I was able to convince the guys at Chatter that my career should begin with them.  I didn’t necessarily know what to expect from my first week at Chatter, but one thing I did/still do expect is… that I have a lot to learn.

With this in mind, I guessed I would detail seven things I’ve learnt in my seven days since becoming a fully ‘chatterised’ member…

One: No-one sympathises with my woes regarding the ungodly 9am starts of the working world.

Two: Business cards remain an exciting novelty.

Three: Charcuterie and crispy rolls do not form the basis for a balanced and healthy lifestyle.

Four: Despite the fact that I have made first foray into graduate work, I can still pass for seventeen, even whilst at work.

Five: Novelty/floral print jumpers are unfortunately not the norm in the working world.

Six: It’s no use explaining to people what I actually do for a living. My mum is still convinced I’m involved in something unsavoury.

Seven: Two teas, one black coffee- three sugars.

Next week hopefully I’ll learn something worthwhile, and further convince the guys that I can one day be worthwhile having around. With Doherty on the wall, what can go wrong?

Harry

It was a great night, laid on by The Drum, with entertainment from Irelands leading Hip Hop crew, Abandoman. They were hilarious, improvising a series of songs on the spot using objects from people’s pockets and people from the crowd. They even got our very own Paul up on stage to humiliate in public…join in the fun.

To celebrate the night we’ve launched a shiny new case studies section on our website, where you can find more details about all of that work and more. We couldn’t have done it without our clients and of course our lovely Flock some of whom were in attendance last night too. So a big pat on the back to all of them.

Cheers!

So, what’s it all about? Well in a nutshell, don’t worry, it’s all a storm in a teacup and fairly easily worked around…but you do need to be aware of it.

Now, the longer version!

In May 2012, the UK finally implemented the EU directive on the use of cookies (and similar technology) on websites. It was a badly drafted, badly implemented law, so broadly framed that it made pretty much every website in the UK illegal overnight. The law basically said that if your website wanted to store any cookies on a users machine, then you had to ask for (and receive) their explicit permission first.

On the face of it this sounds quite reasonable, after all, there’s lots of nasty companies out there tracking our every move right? Well, no. There are probably some very egregious uses of cookies out there, but they’re definitely the exception rather than the rule. Unfortunately genuinely useful, and pretty much benign, cookies like those used by Google Analytics, social sharing buttons, Youtube videos and some content management systems are also covered by the same law.

So we were left with the possibility that we’d either have to break the law, or ask every visitor a confusing question they’d probably say no to (it’s easier than trying to understand what’s being asked) and see the statistics for all our sites drop through the floor overnight. Making ROI considerably harder to divine!

Fortunately when the law was first introduced, the iCO also gave it a 12 month deferral period to allow everyone to get ready, which expired in May 2012. They accompanied it with some really vague guidance that left everybody nonplussed…so most web developers did what they thought best…and ignored it in the hope it would go away.

12 months later, about 11 hours before the law was due to come into force the iCO introduced new guidance that watered down the requirements somewhat…so where does that leave us?

Well, it all depends on your attitude to risk, with a potential of a £500k fine you should at the very least review all your websites and get a good handle on what cookies they’re setting and how they’re being used. Ideally the output of that exercise should then be used to redraft your Privacy Policy page to include information on how the cookies are used, and amend any links to it in your site header and footer to clearly state that it’s about Cookies as well.

Then, finally look at how you might work to either eradicate the cookies entirely, or implement some level of cookie compliance software to gain users consent. That way, if the iCO come knocking, you can evidence you’re aware of the issue and have a plan and a thought process in place to deal with any enforcement notice they might issue.

Phew…

So once the Brazilians strip us of the games (see what I did there?) what will life be like? How will we move on? It’ll surely be the worst “day after the night before” we’ve experienced ever. Not necessarily. We were in the grip of a similar bout of national euphoria when we were awarded the games on the 6th of July 2005 only to be confronted by the London bombings the very next day. 52 people had been killed.

I was in London that day and can remember how it was to see a city come to terms with such mindless destruction. What I remember most though, is how quickly everyone picked themselves up, dusted themselves off and got straight back to doing whatever it was they do every other day of their lives. Since then, it has seemed as though we’ve carried on dealing with bad news, difficult situations and challenging times. We’ve pulled in our belts so many times we’re running out of notches – but nonetheless we’ve carried on, it’s the way we are built, we’re good at making do.

And amongst all that doom and gloom, all that bad news, underhand dealings and pessimism, there’s been a group of people, who have given everything they have to perform at their very best when their moment arrived. They’re efforts have inspired us all.

The world has watched as athletes from all over the globe have brought the Olympic values of respect, friendship and excellence to life, right there in our living rooms and across our capital city.

I hope we continue to celebrate all that they have achieved. To remember how hard they worked. And to imagine how it must have felt to win. If we let them, if we push aside our cynicism and self opposition for long enough, we will allow them and their achievements to inspire us all to know that anything is possible.

What we don’t know is on what basis they won the contract in the first place, perhaps they were doomed to fail from the beginning. I say that as someone who spent ten long years of my life navigating my way through extensive, unwieldy government procurement processes. More often then not suppliers are kept at arms length throughout the tendering process, so G4S were probably bidding blind, based on best guesses and estimates, rather then real consultancy and sound data. Submissions will have been scored against criteria which won’t have made much sense, and was most probably heavily weighted around the cheapest deal.

But surely recruitment ought to be different? It’s not like buying commodities or stock. It really is an investment, it’s an investment from both sides and needs to be taken seriously. I’ve lost count of all the “back to the floor” type programmes I’ve watched over the years which almost always conclude with a moment of epiphany from the top brass…”we have some amazing people breaking their balls for us in this company, but we treat them like crap and ask them to make do with resources that aren’t up to the job. If we treat them better, provide them with the right tools, listen to and respect them, our customers will be the ones to benefit – and we can sit back and watch the profits rise”

Good recruitment doesn’t start and end with filling a vacancy. Good recruitment is about creating a great place to work. A place where employees are valued and supported to be their best. A client of ours summed this up nicely the other day when they told me their business isn’t just about profit, it’s about doing the right thing. And sometimes doing the right thing is about making investments whose returns can’t be measured on the balance sheet. Your brand and reputation is what’s really at stake when you decide to recruit, who could possibly argue that this is something not worth an investment. The trick is to select the right partners to work with, to come to a shared view on what will make the campaign successful, how success will be measured and a robust project plan to ensure everything can be delivered on time. To succeed is to realise the investment. To fail is to be left to count the cost.

We’re as busy as ever but my priority this week has been the final push on a careers site we’ve been developing for a new client based in Dublin. Time’s been tight, in fact we’ve managed to squeeze a twelve week build into a little over seven. And it’s been a real team effort, with the client working just as hard as us to keep things moving on at pace. It’s also put our business model to the test, and I’m pleased to say our fabulous Flock have had their nose to the grindstone and come up with the goods yet again – we owe lots of people lots of beer!

Today I’ve been busy organising our award entries for the RBA’s. It’s been a bit of a milestone moment when I remember back to last year and the only eligible work we had to enter was the Chatter website. This year we have six separate entries across five categories including work for Skype, Global, Northgate, The Hyde Group and Arqiva. I promise to make a concerted effort to write some of them up as case studies so you can see for yourself some of the fab work we’re producing for our equally fab clients.

We’re also gearing up for two competitive pitches which we’re really looking forward to. We took part in a couple not long after we launched, more for experience rather then with a sense we really stood a chance. This time it’s different, we’ve seen that our business really works. We have a great story to tell, lots of great work to show and support from our existing clients. It’s gonna be tough but we really want these two so we’re fighting to the end to win them…

Rocky – The Eye of the Tiger

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but felt the need to brag to my 18 year niece who loves Example and Ed Sheeran, both of whom played a set. I haven’t actually told her that I was too busy drinking Pimms to watch Example (aka Elliot) but I’m already in her bad books, so might not dwell on that!

I was told we had VIP passes, but if I’m honest I thought that we’d just get nicer seats and possibly a buffet. But the guys at Global really know how to put on a show. We were greeted in the VIP area with a glass of Pimms (don’t mind if I do) market stalls with BBQ’d kebabs, seafood, burgers, chicken and anything else you could possibly throw on a BBQ.  There was also a pizza stall, a salad stall, a strawberry stall and a big section in the middle with scones and cream cake. Not great if you’re trying to shed a few pounds for the holidays.

While we were trying to find our bearings and figure out which acts we really wanted to watch and the ones we weren’t that keen on, our glasses were constantly topped up with pimms. There was also another room, with another bar as well as ‘pick’n’mix’ and candyfloss machine.

The show opened with Coldplay who were great, and then a constant flow of acts from Kelly Clarkson, Flo Rida, Example, Pitbull, Usher, The Wanted, Jessie J and Ed Sheeran.

There were also some nice surprises with Cover Drive and Lawson, Dizzy Rascal and Cheryl (who apparently has dropped the Cole). Well he’s a cheating bugger and I’d have got shot of the name a long time ago! Oh and the boys from Rizzle Kicks made a guest appearance with Jessie J.

While we were rocking out (well swaying lightly is a better description) there were ushers constantly supplying us with Chinese food, mini fish and chips, beer and ice cream.

I actually started the day by star spotting, after seeing Neville from Harry Potter on the train down from Leeds, so made a point of trying to get to double figures by the end of the day. Here’s who I managed to see. I didn’t get back 9, but thought I’d done alright. See if you can figure out who they are…

For those Beliebers out there, we left before he came on stage, although we heard all the crazy 9 – 12 year olds screaming their heads off. Also missed Katy Perry, who accordingly to the 9 year old girl (Jessica) I met on the train back up North on Sunday morning was ‘so cool’ but she was disappointed that fireworks didn’t appear when she sang firework! A note to the artist team for next years show.

Had a thoroughly enjoyable day, felt about 50, but drunk my bodyweight in Pimms and had a good old laugh with Annabel. Hope we do enough great stuff over the next 12 months to get another invite. Maybe I’ll have to pass my invite over to one of the boys. I hear Paul is a Belieber.

Thanks to all the guys and gals at Global for being such great hosts.

Recently i’ve been doing some research into video interviewing solutions for a client. The last time I looked into this there were very few solutions available, and those they were were pretty shabby…to the point that we’d even begun to kick around the idea of building our own. In the intervening time however, things have improved and suddenly there are several people tackling the problem. As you might expect it seems mainly suited to companies with large volume recruitment needs, where the first sift needs to be as automated as possible, while at the same time hopefully not depersonalising the candidate experience too much.

On Monday, I had a demo from Sonru, who seem to have a pretty neat solution and we’re talking with a client about possibly implementing it…so watch this space for more detail as and when something gets launched.

Tuesday was a big day for us, with our clients from Northgate in for the first look at their new careers site, which is reaching the end of the development phase and almost ready for launch. It seemed to go down well and it was great to get their feedback to work in before we go live.

The rest of the week went by in a bit of a blur of UA testing and amends, all logged in our trusty Pivotal Tracker account and initial discussions and briefings for a couple of new client prospects that are looking very promising.

We did find a little bit of time-out on Thursday though, a few months back for a laugh, we all bought a Groupon voucher for a 1 hour Golf lesson at Calverley Golf Club. So joined by old friend of Chatter Ian Morgan…we trooped down there for what turned out to be a very enjoyable hour of terrible golf and even worse innuendo!