Technology Recruiters Mortimer Spinks Show How To Engage Technology Industry Leaders

Social Media and Recruitment / Social Media for Technology / Social Media in London
Posted by Colm Hannon on 28, October 2011 with No Comments

London technology recruitment company Mortimer Spinks put on a great event last night for technology leaders in a cinema styled room at the stylish Soho Hotel. Popcorn and drinks were distributed to a 250 strong and 97% male audience.

The speakers on the night were:

Jason Hart from Cryptocard who gave a truly fascinating talk about online security and his history as an ethical hacker and highlighted how vulnerable we all are from our passwords being cracked. He showed how iPads could be unlocked and how portable WiFi devices can be renamed BT OpenZone and your iPhone details can be cleared out. It was truly fascinating for me and it raised the question, why don’t companies train their staff on this stuff to reduce their risk?

James Christian from Net-A-Porter is their Innovation Lead and from what I can see has one of the best jobs in London working with beautiful women in the fashion industry and playing with all of the latest gadgets. He is a big fan of open source technology and explained how Net-A-Porter are constantly pushing the technology boundaries online. I’d be surprised if Mortimer Spinks will be placing him elsewhere soon!

Peter Baron – Director of External Relations EMEA for Google was intriguing to me because his background was that he used to work at the BBC and most recently on the News Night program. He talked about the importance of the flow of information online and the right to express one’s self online. He gave a good insight to Google’s approach to open source and him being a non techy was interesting too as it shows that success of Internet companies is as much about content and people as it is about technology.

Albert Ellis – CEO of Harvey Nash who own Mortimer Spinks spoke about the way the World and the Internet has changed our lives and the impact of social media on us all. He discussed Gen Y versus Gen X and he discussed diversity. He showed a photograph of the Facebook board, a group of young trendy guys and then showed a photo of the GE board and whilst they were older and certainly less trendy there was actually more diversity in the GE board. Ellis seems a fun and dynamic leader and seemed very at ease with the mic in his hand.

James Hallahan – MD of Mortimer Spinks gave a brief review of the findings of their Computer Weekly survey of 650 technology professionals. The highlights being that most people surveyed planned to move in the next 12 months and that projects and open communication were greater influencing factors for passive job seekers than salary.

 

Personally I had a few takeaways from the event:

  1. Being in the room with other technology leaders made me very aware that I am 34 and white and I am pretty much a stereotype amongst my peers as a technology employer in London, gutted – I hate being a stereotype!! Technology has a problem and it needs more women not only to address the talent shortage but also because FTSE 100 companies with more women board directors are proven to perform better. 97% of the attendees were male and white and 30 to 50 years old.
  2. Online security is going to be more important than ever especially going into the mobile Internet device era. All companies need to do is train their staff on the basics and it would massively reduce their risk. Just do it, make a 20 minute elearning module on the subject today.
  3. Open source or closed source was the topic but I don’t think the end user cares, they want good content and ease of use.
  4. Social media is changing our lives but how many companies train their staff to interact online. We are in a real sweet spot for this at the moment I think. It is one of the fastest growing areas of our business, planning and education around social media is now on the agenda.
  5. Survey results and data are interesting but I find real people with real life experiences are even more interesting.
  6. Mortimer Spinks gave a hash tag at the beginning of the event to encourage questions but they never fielded any of the online questions to the panel at the end of the event so what was the point? It's not just them, every event I've been to recently have done the same thing and it is like asking someone a question in the pub and walking away before hearing the answer.
  7. There was a great opportunity to keep those 200 people engaged in the topics they had come to listen to by continuing the conversation online after the event for the next few weeks or months and inviting them to an online conversational space. It seemed like a wasted opportunity to incentivise all of those technology people in the room to join a Linkedin Group or a private online Yammer community on the topic. Basically there was an opportunity for better integration of a great offline event with what could be further fantastic online conversation and insight. There was as much talent in the audience as the was on the stage so facilitating two way communication after the event would have benefitted everyone.

All in all it was a really good event and whilst I had heard of Harvey Nash before I hadn’t heard of Mortimer Spinks and I’ll now have them front of mind when I think or talk about technology agency recruitment. 

If you are a FTSE 250 Leader in Digital, Marketing or Communications ask me about the Digital Leaders Think Tank @ColmHannon

 

Colm Hannon
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