Oyez Oyez

iainaitch

Are bloggers the new town criers?

We make art not money

Once in a while a gem of a podcast comes my way, and this is fresh off the feeds from IT Conversations. It would be wrong to pigeonhole this from its title "Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology", a University course that the interviewee Dr. Elliott McGucken, a physicist teaches. It doesn't even come close to covering the ground that is completed in this heartwarming and contemporary podcast.

If you love the story form, from The Matrix, Star Wars, The Godfather, Lord of the Rings to classics like The Odyssey or want to tap into your artistic value, however that articulates itself, listen to this. Should you feel that there is more depth to this life than just making money and instead want to see why it is so much more important than the futility of the greedy then take time out for this podcast. Personally I need to get hold of a copy of John Bogle's: Battle For The Soul Of Capitalism after listening to this ace find.

Update: Lauren reminds me that the first two or three minutes are not the best of starts. Hang in there :)

Headhunters

Just came across this picture on Johnnie's excellent blog and I've unashamedly swiped it because its a pretty good visual for the topic of recruitment. Last night at Pimms Pantones and Poptones with The Design Conspiracy I met John Dodds who has pretty much said the last word on the topic of recruitment over here. There are always exceptions (as with anything in life) but its worth reposting his comment in its entirety.

The recruitment process (across all industries) in the UK has been appalling for decades. It’s partly/largely down to the reliance on recruitment agencies whereby you farm out the acquisition of your most important assets to people who couldn’t get the job in the first place, don’t really understand your business and make their money on churning applicants.

They use phrases like “the client had decided to change the brief” (I was with Lauren a few weeks back when she got rejected for a temp position with that excuse - again after a series of interviews) and, of course, “you’re overqualified” as their standard get out of jail free excuses.

Wake up people! Do it yourself! It’s too important and now, of course, through this medium, we get to know people and their talents much more intimately, can cross reference them simply and the only fee we pay is some occasional abusive blog comments which frankly some of us deserve. - John Dodds