Posts Tagged ‘jemima kiss’
e-mentoring, social networking with a purpose and the WYGU careers advice opportunity
December 2nd, 2010
We usually have a rule at Liberate Media blog-HQ – write about anything relevant, but avoid the client sell. I’ve talked with the team about this today and we’re agreed that, for this one time only, I can write about something that is close to my heart and which should make a big difference - and happens to be a client.
I hope you’ll forgive me for this, but I think that WYGU (or When You Grow Up) will fundamentally change the way we discover what we want to do in our lives. For the first time effectively, people of all ages can understand the jobs they are best suited to. WYGU can reinforce their vocational aspirations. It can guide, inspire and connect.
WYGU (pronounced ‘wiggu’) is a new form of social network. It has a purpose beyond friendliness and connection. The WYGU idea is Alun Baker’s, a successful businessman from Wales, who had a simple idea to improve the way we develop our careers and acted on it.
Alun has spent his own money, and raised difficult investment, to develop the WYGU platform. It’s basically a “Facebook for careers advice” and we most definitely need it now more than ever, given the cuts in state careers advice provision and the failings of careers advice in schools, colleges and universities.
What’s more, it’s free to use.
WYGU has now launched and today we have a much better way of finding out what we want to do in our working lives, which after all shapes so much of our personal lives. Please check out what Jemima Kiss at the Guardian had to say, and listen to Alun’s recent appearance on Radio 4 You & Yours consumer programme to find out more. Alun’s interview is also at: wygu-alun-baker-radio-4-you-and-yours-interview
The team at Liberate has already signed up as mentors and we’re looking forward to giving something back. As Alun says, to make a change you have to take Personal Social Responsibility.
I’ll shut up now but do look at the wonderful video created by Nonsense for WYGU that explains it all and also the expressions of support from people like broadcaster Andy Townsend, and if you feel like you would benefit from careers advice, or can offer it, please sign up. After that you can also try the excellent and unique WYGU careers matching engine to appreciate what type of career you could be suited to.
Let us know what you think.
Personality versus brand on Twitter
April 24th, 2008
There’s no denying that over the past month or so, Twitter has increasingly become a brand promotion tool. On the media side in particular, journalists, newspapers and magazines are using the communications tool with increased frequency to break their stories.
What I’ve noticed is that subconsciously I’m paying far more attention to some media Tweets than others…while some are very useful and time-saving, others are admittedly going straight into my mental ’spam’ folder. I thought it might be interesting to share my views with you on why I think this is, and seek your feedback…
It appears the most useful Tweeters are those who are using the platform under their own name, sharing not only their breaking news as it happens, but also their personal views on issues within their sector. Jemima Kiss is a great example.
On the other hand, journalists Tweeting under their newspaper or magazine brand are having a tougher job of attaining ’stickiness’ with me. If the tool is only being used to promote stories, with no individual voice coming through, the Tweet is of far less value. I’d much rather receive news roundups as a daily email, than eight Tweets in a row. This is particularly aggrevating when the news isn’t exclusive or breaking, but rather something that is all over the news already.
Media Week has been making great strides on the social media front recently, and I was encouraged by its Facebook message on the subject of Twitter today:
“The twittering is also coming along nicely. So far we’ve been posting headlines and links, but we’re going to be flexing our gossip glands a little more in future so feel free to sign up for tip-offs on the stories behind the headlines - we’re at twitter.com/mediaweek if you want to keep an eye on us. If you’ve got any suggestions on what we should be sending out, just let us know.”
It will be interesting to see if Media Week can effectively combine personality with brand. Travolution is incidentially doing a very good job of this.
It would be interesting to know whether people agree/disagree with me…