The new year has kicked off nicely, with interest levels from clients feeling more like pre-crash levels--though admittedly not boomtown yet!
As we grow our firm, the diversity of new opportunities to get the word out about hiring is both exciting and daunting. I thought I'd share some of the basic things we're doing in recruiting a very senior digital performance media executive--while not claiming to be an expert in social-recruiting. We'd love to see you respond with additional ideas on this thread.
For example, I've just opened up a new position for a senior leadership role as Digital Performance Media Director. (You can see the position description here.) We've decided to execute this recruitment completely free from the traditional sources--no Monster, no Recruiters, no way. Instead, just as you'd expect from Digital Performance Marketing experts, we're using social broadcasting mechanisms combined with tracking URLs that are unique to every specific place we've gotten the word out about this executive level position (we're using bit.ly but there are some terrific alternatives such as ow.ly, etc.).
In each of these opportunities I've included a unique bit.ly link to the same document. I chose a PDF document, as old-school as it is, because it is... Read more
Archive for David Shor 
How Effective is Posting a Hiring Notice on a Blog?
It's About the Data, Stoopid!
iMedia Agency Summit in Scottsdale saw its share of schmoozing to be sure, but the underlying big thing was Data on Demand.
If I could draw a graph comparing what most advertisers understand versus the value that supersmart agencies CAN bring, you'd have a wide gap between. The data and analytics tools we are just getting our hands on--major networks giving us their intelligence interfaces in 2010 and predictive analytics systems priced affordably for organizations other than the Sultan of Brunei can finally afford--just keep shifting agency capabilities further forward, back into the soothsayer category.
The parallels with the days of MadMen and the present are interesting: Where in the broadcast era people with great instincts and research budgets could, in fact, predict fairly well what the demand would be for product based upon how the limited number of media outlets would perform against the creative, we went through a bit of dark ages in the dozen years where our data exceeded our systems' capacities to predict the future.
I think that's about to change and we can start looking like wizards again (maybe in hipper clothes). Two principal technologies I'm excited about for 2010 more than football season being an... Read more
Time's on our minds
Over 100 agency folks--mostly senior digital media experts and a few creatives whose media principals thought they should attend the Aspen Group sessions at iMedia in Scottsdale--spent the day doing absolutely nothing. No client calls, no report generation, no vendor RFPs, no fire drills or campaign launches. Nada.
Nothing but thinking and discussing what we all know but seldom collectively get to discuss with peers--how we use our time and what we could be doing as digital thinkers and do-ers if we had more time available. What's to gain from an exercise if, in fact, we can't create that 25th hour of the day? Tons, actually.
What became clear is that, no matter how we got at the question of the use of time, some very consistent "coulds and shoulds" emerged:- Invest in training to deliver education throughout the agency that better integrates the agency--truly, not just on the surface- Deliver education to clients about the media opportunities, focusing on how ROI is generated- Spend more time interpreting the deluge of readily-available data--but get paid for the service- Spend more time thinking rather than doing--great ideas have high ROI but finding the time for collaborative brilliance is tough- Involve the creative teams... Read more
