I’ve seen a massive increase in tweets about culls over recent weeks and it got me to thinking maybe it’s time I just grab the bull by the horns and get on with it. Why should I worry about offending someone in a far flung country who I’ve never spoken with or for that matter, someone closer to home where we’ve had no interaction?!

So, this morning I took Allan Barr’s suggestion of using www.tweepi.com and set to work on a little ‘spring cleaning’ of my own. What an interesting hour or so!

I started with the folk I am following but who aren’t following me back, (220 in total) that was the first surprise, how many people who I actually know who had followed me and I had then followed back who were no longer ‘tuned in’, should I get annoyed or upset? I actually wasn’t (although I had thought I might be!), some were companies who just haven’t got on board with the whole twitter etiquette which is fine, as long as they are still tweeting their jobs that’s all I really need from them and as for people, who am I to say you must like my chat? (it can be a little dire/random at the best of times) It was all so easy and without regret that I reciprocally unfollowed them. (110 or 50% of the original 220 were culled during this exercise)

Next I decided to look at the 289 people who were following me that I wasn’t following back and was really quite embarrassed to find some really interesting and active tweeters in my circle and the Scottish Digital scene, so apologies but this should now have been rectified! as for all those weird and wonderful followers that aren’t spam but also aren’t regular users or really sit within my world, I’ve saved you for another day!

Feeling rather liberated now and with the safe knowledge that my twitterfeed is back on track following the old adage ‘quality over quantity’, I’m going to head out into the sunshine and have a celebratory swim! (getting fit and losing a few pounds is next on my agenda but I guess you’ll hear/see more about that in due course). Watch out Facebook as that is now on my radar too!

Another article that might be of interest is Michelle Rodger’s on quality of followers and engagement

Thanks to Allan & Michelle and looking forward to catching up with all the Glasgow ‘Digibods’ on Thursdays TheMeet140

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the Edinburgh Coffee Morning Beer Evening, the food & drink sponsors Stewarts Brewing, Illegal Jacks & Vino Wines, the cash sponsors Eden Scott and Attacat, all the incredibly generous raffle prize donors, the cake bakers and each and every single person who attended the event and helped with retweets along the way and basically allowed us to get the event off the ground!

The buzz of folk from Scotland’s Social Media and Digital scene enjoying themselves was fantastic and it was great to see a number of people who hadn’t seen each other for a very long time reconnecting. I think Stills as a venue really came into it’s own on Thursday night and from the enquiries since, I don’t think it’ll be the last!

The bake-off was a resounding success & boy did they look good! Juliet’s Club Tropicana cakes taking the prize of the evening!

The raffle raised over £600 for The Ambeciles / Edinburgh Sick Kids which was a brilliant effort. (And Baxter was so delighted with his Attacat mug that he didn’t let it out of his sight all night!)

We also tried, perhaps a little belatedly, to unlock the foursquare ‘swarm’ badge but were sadly somewhat short of the 50 log-ins required, lesson to self for the next one, prepare folks in advance!

I understand the Chilli was a spicy ‘belter’ although I seemed to spend the whole night chatting and  never actually got to try and of the food or cakes, possibly contributing to a somewhat sore head on Friday!

The ‘after show party’ went on until the wee hours (as my head the next day could attest to!) and I feel finished the proceedings off with much aplomb!

It really was a superb evening and despite the head I was still buzzing from it myself on Friday! It was also great to meet so many folk in person who I had only ever previously met online!

Just leaves one question, when shall we do it again??

Andy from Queens Hall took some fantastic photos of the evening http://bit.ly/cBUlRr

& a few of mine can be found below and here http://bit.ly/cXLEXA

I’d love to hear your comments on the event as well………….

2 of The Ambeciles

Some of the Bake-off entries

We did it!

How exciting, after almost 3 months of planning, the eagerly awaited Edinburgh Coffee Morning Beer evening is almost upon us! I can’t wait and by looking at people’s tweets and other comments I’m not the only one!

For those who still don’t really know what/why we’re doing it, and who’s involved, here’s a little run down!

WHY A BEER EVENING AT STILLS GALLERY? www.stills.org

I first met Carrie, the Development Manager at Stills Gallery www.twitter.com/maginncarrie , last summer when I was part of a focus panel to help them come up with ideas on to how better to interact with the Commercial sector and raise awareness. I was instantly charmed by a place I had walked past many times but had little idea what it represented and offered to the general public.

Fast forward until earlier this year and Carrie pops up again although this time at Centotre at Edinburgh Coffee Morning, a well known group of digital enthusiasts who gather ever Friday morning to drink good coffee and see what’s going on each others worlds’, a group that I have been attending almost every week for the best part of 18 months now. It turns out that Mike Coulter, (founder of the coffee morning www.twitter.com/mikecoulter ) has been advising Stills and suggested a Beer Evening in the Gallery as a great way of bringing new people through the doors.

Before we knew it, Kay www.twitter.com/kaykoyamagore , Danielle www.twitter.com/ellisdanielle , Carrie and myself all seemed to be volunteering to make the event happen, all bringing different and very complimentary skills to the table. Our first committee meeting was held in Ecco Vino, next to the gallery on my birthday back in April. Since that first meeting it really has grown arms and legs with tremendous support from everyone in the Scottish digital community. We always knew we wanted it to be fairly exclusive and with a 100 person limit on the guest list it was ’sold out’ within just a couple of days of being announced.

SPONSORS

Major coups include bringing on board Stewart Brewing www.stewartbrewing.co.uk as the main Beer sponsor for the event and sizeable cash donations from Attacat www.attacat.co.uk and my own company Eden Scott www.edenscott.com and food sponsorship from Illegal Jacks www.illegaljacks.co.uk . Everyone was so enthusiastic right from the outset that it was quite contagious!

RAFFLE

With so many other offers of help it became obvious that we could add another element to the evening and so the idea of a raffle to help Phil www.twitter.com/Phil_Adams from Blonde Digital raise money for Edinburgh Sick Kids was born. He had recently been telling us about how he and a group of guys called The Ambeciles www.theambeciles.com were going to be doing the Mongol Rally at the end of July in an Ambulance and it seemed like a perfect fit, the idea of one charity supporting another really seemed to fit the whole coffee morning generosity of spirit that regular attendees will know well! Then the raffle prizes came rolling in, including: a Sandstorm Bag, Stoli Elit Vodka, Vintage Port, bottles of Oltesse Cahors French Malbec, a meal for 2 at Fishers, a meal for 2 at Ecco Vino, a meal for 2 at Moo, Stills Vouchers, Queens Hall Theatre Tickets, Cinema Tickets & a Family Ticket to Mary King’s Close.

We are hoping that these fantastic prizes and the fact that this is a free event will encourage our guests to give generously for a fantastic charity and make Phil’s recent trips to the travel clinic where he has turned into a human pincushion all worthwhile!

BAKING COMPETITION

There are a number of keen bakers at the coffee morning and a cake baking element has proven very popular at the past couple of Twestivals and again it seemed like a natural fit for the event and with a lovely triple stacking liqueur set from Demijohn www.demijohn.co.uk on offer as a prize seems to have a few people’s creative culinary juices flowing. I can’t wait to see them all as the twitter feed has been promising some mouth watering delights from some well renowned bakers. @littledishy @mackfack and @ideaspotting to name a few!

And so the event has come together and is pretty much completely organised. The guest list is like a who’s who of Scotland’s digital sector, the beer will be chilled and the wine uncorked and hopefully there will be a guest appearance of the Ambulance itself. I hope to see you on Thursday evening and if we haven’t yet met please do say hello!

If you have registered for the event but can no longer make it, but haven’t yet let us know, please do as we have a lengthy waiting list of people who are very eager to come along if spaces become available.

Follow the #EdCMBE to see the latest news !

Some of it is very personal information, other times it could be seen as defamatory, incendiary or even just plain dull! None of which are going to help create a really positive image of that person to anyone who cares to take a look from a Professional perspective.

I’m pretty sure that a lot of people haven’t even thought about their social media footprint affecting their job prospects, not just in the near future but in the long-term too. As we all know, what is put out there will be there (somewhere) for posterity.

We very quickly build up an image of people these days, often whom we have only ever ‘met’ virtually, from their Tweets, Blips, Linked-in updates, Connections, foursquare log-ins, Facebook profiles etc and those flippant comments that you might think are quite funny at the time may not seem quite so amusing if you are being scrutinised by a prospective employer!

I know that most digital-savvy companies I recruit for would almost certainly look to see the online activity of prospective employees. If you’re wanting a successful career in online, you should have plenty of evidence of it but also demonstrate a savvy use of these channels rather than just a fountain of ‘overshares’

Even for Employers outwith this sector, most employers will take a look at Professional profiles on other platforms such as Linked-in or Plaxo.

Being in recruitment which can be a legal minefield especially when placing job adverts on or offline, I really have to look at everything that I say otherwise my career could effectively be over. I’ve tripped up royally in the past – advertising on S1 jobs last year for a ‘Native American’ was really not my finest moment (although unwittingly filling the job for an American Marketing Manager with a candidate of Cherokee origin was an outstanding achievement considering!)

What does your online activity about you?

Things to look out for:

• Email addresses & Twitter names – you won’t believe the amount of CVs that come in to me from email addresses that are to say in the least inappropriate. (Voicemail messages although not strictly online can also leave an unfavourable impression)
• For personal branding & search engine purposes you really should have your name or as close to it as you can get!
• Appropriate content for the Forum – many people have the same avatar across several forums, if it involves alcohol, hand gestures or ‘amusing postures’, I would suggest that might be more appropriate on Facebook with a more professional one used on Linked-in.
• With regards to the language used, make sure it’s in keeping again with the forum and who is going to be seeing it.
• Think about how interesting what you’re saying really is to your connections?

Keeping it simple though, the best advice is probably ‘Don’t ‘say anything online that you wouldn’t say to a Journalist!’

As my iPhone is currently being mended, rather than relevant screen shots, I’ll have to leave you with a few pictures from this year’s Royal Highland Show.

Are you looking at me?!

Best Foot Forwards

Show Horses

I now have several friends who have also joined after seeing my glee at becoming The Mayor or unlocking new badges, has life now become a game? & how did I get sucked into it?

For those who don’t know, foursquare www.foursquare.com is a location based social media networking site that allows you to ‘sign-in’ to venues and locations, gain badges and also become ‘The Mayor’ of venues you frequent often. You can connect with friends (like Facebook) and compare your place on the leader board on a weekly basis which resets at midnight on Sunday so it’s game-on again.

My Foursquare Profile

The Positives:

• If you are out & about at any time of day (business or pleasure) you may find that you are very close to folk you know and can then easily hook up for a coffee (or something stronger). Great if you have some time to kill before your next meeting or don’t want to head up home just yet….
• Discounts – in the US where it originated I belive it’s very common for places to offer discounts to the Mayor. They realise that they are likely not only to bring their own repeat business to their establishment (either because they genuinely like it or maybe because they wish to retain their chains?) but that they are also likely to bring new customers into the venue
• Tips – people leave tips about various venues, food, drink etc which is pretty handy especially if you don’t know the area
• You can meet new people, when you sign-in to a venue it will automatically tell you who is there already, even if you don’t know them and also who (if anyone) is The Mayor. Am I the only person who’s scanned a bar to see if I can spot the other folks already signed in from their avatar??

The Negatives:

• Do you REALLY want people knowing you are not at home or in the office or wherever else you should be
• People who you don’t know send you friend requests (not something I would advocate on accepting for obvious reasons)
• The competition element – for some people I can imagine that the thrill of unlocking the ‘Bender’ badge or getting more points than their mates will spur them on and we all know the effects of a ‘good night’ on both your well-being and your wallet!
• Some people take signing in to the extreme, signing into their own homes, shops, buses and train stations, is this really necessary and for that matter, that interesting? one really should be King of your own Castle so to speak! (mercifully there is an ‘Overshare’ badge which usually does the trick!)

Foursquare in Edinburgh at present:

I’m not sure on the figures for people signed up in Edinburgh but I do know that a lot of my fellow Edinburgh Coffee Morning-ers are, probably because of the high concentration of digital enthusiasts rather than a proportional representation but I do see plenty of other people using it. Whilst at Murrayfield watching the Japan v Scotland game this week, there were 3 other people signed in, in a 1/3 filled stadium, not great numbers admittedly but it is on the up! I regularly sign in to places to discover people I don’t know already in-situ. (Although I have yet to introduce myself to any!)

Discounts – although common in the US this is still to really catch on here, certainly some venues are looking at this Chop Chop www.chop-chop.co.uk, Illegal Jacks www.illegaljacks.co.uk and Moo Cafeteria www.moocafeteria.co.uk have all been making noises.

What I do find interesting is that I build up a picture of someone (rightly or wrongly) from their foursquare log-ins, same as you do from people’s other online activities such as Twitter, Facebook & linked-in. If I am doing that then almost certainly other people must be doing the same about me. What do my log-ins say about me? For sure I probably spend more than my fair share out and about, it comes with my job, especially through the week, but do I really want folk thinking I’m some sort of ‘lush’…….?

Will it last? It definitely has arms and legs and the potential, I know I won’t be able to help myself rolling with this one, certainly for the forseeable future and it’ll be interesting to see how it develops and if it is adopted as another mainstream social media force.

This week's leader board

The Facts (briefly)

• In 2001 3 self-professed IT Geeks, frustrated by the difficulties in comparing flights develop their own site to do just that
• now in 2010 they employ almost 70 staff across 2 offices in Edinburgh and in Poland
• you can compare the flights of 600 airlines, in 20 different languages and in 60+ currencies
• Car Hire & Hotel booking is also available

Skyscanner, has recently been showing incredible growth, going from 30 to 70 employees in the past 12 months alone, now that is an awful a lot of a recruitment for a company of its size so I caught up with Frank & Barry who’ve really been ramping up the commercial side of the business in the past 18 months to hear what goes down well and perhaps more importantly what doesn’t, when interviewing with them.

I asked Barry what has impressed him the most when interviewing and without shadow of a doubt it seems to be the people who have gone the extra mile. We all know it’s an employers market at the moment, jobs are fewer, competition tougher and the successful jobseekers have upped the ante! No longer is it the norm to turn up to a 1st interview having looked at the company website and remembering key facts to regurgitate at some point during the interview, those who really stand out come armed with competitor research & analysis, plenty of ideas of their own and business plans ready to go.

The right attitude, approach and team fit are key things that Frank looks for, along with people who are able to back up their claims/experience once they start to dig a little deeper. He admits that looking back to when he was in his early 20′s he probably wouldn’t get through a 1st interview by today’s higher interviewing standards and expectations. In my experience job offers from Skyscanner are usually directly proportional to the level of preparation and thought that a candidate has put into their interview.

Skyscanner in the next 12 months:

Although recruitment will be slowing down over the coming year there will still be a number of new positions coming up within the commercial team and on the technical side, so watch this space! www.edenscott.com (or follow me on Twitter and join me on Linked-in).

Advice on preparing for a Skyscanner interview:

• Do your research, make sure you know ALL the Skyscanner offerings – they are regularly in the press so set yourself up a google alert so you don’t miss any key interviews or press releases.
• Dress appropriately, although they can often be quite casual it is still an interview
• Make sure you know your facts, and can back up everything in your CV 
• Demonstrate a passion for digital and the ability to learn & grow with the organisation, this is not a business that sits still or rests on it’s laurels
• Be a bit of a ‘geek’ – nothing to be ashamed of, it’s an in-house byword and a requirement I’m afraid!

Things NOT to do in a Skyscanner interview:

• Do not call them SkyscannerS!
• Do not ask what SEO/SEM/PPC etc means if you are going for a job with that in the title!

From a personal persective it will be great to see how Skyscanner continues to develop & grow moving forwards, at the moment they remind me of Bigmouth Media in the early days and look at the size of them now! If you are interested in finding out more about upcoming opportunities at Skyscanner, feel free to drop me a line.

Talking of skies, here’s a shot that I took o my way home this evening of the sun breaking through the clouds over Haymarket

The sun breaks through over Haymarket today

Recruitment is a very high pressured and targeted environment and previously I would never have dreamed about taking two weeks holiday any time other than over the Christmas/New Year period which is usually quite slow, but I am still amazed at how relaxed I am one week back under my belt. Yes, there were still several hundred emails that needed responding to and yes the new financial year had started but there is so much going on and I’m working with some super clients on some really interesting digital jobs both in Scotland and further afield in more exotic locations such as the South of France – see Eden Scott for more job details.

I got the kick up the behind I needed to get back to my blog at the Edinburgh New Media Breakfast on Thursday at The Tower Restaurant, thanks to Tim (of Attacat Internet Marketing fame)!  It was lovely to catch up with the guys from Civic and other friends from Edinburgh Coffee Morning and the Twestival. Friday’s Coffee Morning was, as usual, great and am looking forward to meeting up with Kay, Danielle and Carrie from Stills Gallery on Weds night to start working on the fundraising evening to keep their new Film Lounge which is a co venture with the Edinburgh International Film Festival, as a permanent fixture.

Read on if you’re interested in hearing more about my travels, if not, I’ll be back next time with more of Scotland’s digital goings ons, once I’ve had chance to fully catch up to speed!

La Boca

Apart from having always wanted to visit Argentina (red wine, steak, sunshine, tango, probably influenced by Evita & Moulin Rouge’s amazing Tango scene) the premise of the trip was to surprise a friend, Gina who was finishing off 6 months of travelling in BA, another friend, Catherine, was already planning to go out and they had an appartment & dates arranged so it wasn’t as risky as it may initially sound. I think we can safely say mission accomplished, Gina was absolutely speechless (no mean feat I can assure you) and the trip (a 2 week ‘girls’ holiday, the thought of which would usually make me shudder in horror) was one of my favourite holidays ever.

BA itself is made up of a number of different ‘Barrios’ and each was very different. There was the colourful and dangerous Port area of La Boca where the houses are painted in bright primary colours, tango dancers perform in the street and street kids and stray dogs mix with tourists all adding a little frisson of excitement, an area we revisited twice more. The micro centre itself was pretty unpleasant, it was highrise, smelly, hot and generally unpleasant with the  roads being between 8-16 lanes wide, with cars/buses often pumping out huge trails of black smoke but other areas like San Telmo with it’s cobbled streets, lively antique markets and curios, leafy tree lined Recoletta (where we stayed) and Palermo (an up & coming barrio full of boutique stores and good restaurants).

The daddy of all steaks

The food & drink was outstanding, I managed to consume half my bodyweight in red meat, with Asados (BBQs) being a key stable to the Argentinian diet, we never had a bad Malbec _ Red, White and Rosés all vied with each other to sit in our top spot, none stayed there long as we continued our wine tasting forays. Restaurants were of a high standard, the meat was always exceptionally good but the potatoes/chips were often poor, it’s very much protein all the way out there!

Apart from the eating & drinking of which we did a lot it has to be said, we were very keen to learn Tango and got ourselves lessons which built up to a full on Milonga (a sort of ‘disco’ for tango). We took the Tango very seriously, in fact I think we had all purchased a couple of pairs of handmade tango shoes before we even started the lessons and I actually ended up bringing back 4 pairs! (a little excessive perhaps but being as clumsy as I am I NEVER wear heels and was surprised to find that these specialist shoes were so well made with a dead centre heel and cushioning that I could actually walk and more importantly dance in them, they are also very beautiful).

Tango lessons

The Milonga was for me one of the truest slices of Argentinian life we saw, talking with Marcello, one of our instructors, he said it had very much fallen out of favour but in the 90′s there was a bit of a revival leading to today’s full blown renaissance with many Tourists travelling to Argentina just to learn the dance. There is a very strict code of conduct in a Milonga which we found fascinating, a man & woman arriving together will dance only with each other, if you intend to dance with more than one partner you must arrive separately. A female must never ask a male partner to dance and a man will never ask a female to dance unless he has already seen her on the floor.  Being asked to dance is actually a sideways look across the floor to which an accepting female must nod & smile. Watching the dancers seamlessly kicking & flicking their way around the floor, we realised very quickly that our Tango abilities were woefully lacking, but valiantly we each took to the floor in front of a 12 strong, contemporary live orchestra in BA’s youngest, hottest Tango scene to strut our stuff, graceful perhaps not, bloody good fun, hell yes!

We also went to the Evita museum and got to see her clothes, dresses, shoes, handbags & hats all perfectly preserved behind glass, it was actually quite haunting and the story had a lot of parallels between other tragic ‘icons’ of the last century, Grace Kelly & Lady Diana. A day trip over to sleepy yet utterly charming Uruguay was also a big success.

Eva Peron's dresses

I’m well aware I’ve probably written much more than I should of but hope you’ve enjoyed it, if you’re thinking of Argentina as a holiday destination I can’t recommend it highly enough and please feel free to drop me a line if you want to find out more. (& I’m sure as my Tango classes continue here in Edinburgh I’ll be keeping you informed of my progress)

Congrats to Nev Stokes & Jim Wolfman’s team, winners of the Edinburgh Coffee Morning Social Media Quiz, holding on to the title for another year. I was delighted to be in the 2nd placed team along with @kaykomagore, @ellisdanielle, @mike-mcgrail, @suchprettyeyes and @lorraine_p, Well done Mike Coulter (www.digitalagency.com) for organising it, it was a great start to the day and was lovely to see so many people turn up for it. I especially loved the drunken tweetings later when all the winning teams were relieved of their prizes (due to non attendance of the prize giving itself) and they were then redistributed to those that were there, quality!

Very much looking forward to the Edtwestival on Thursday, sounds like going to be an even better turn out than last year.

I was, at the time, at the EICC for the Scottish Legal Awards and happened to find myself sat next to a super girl who does all the online marketing for Solicitors Pagan Osborne (www.paganosborne.com) so had a brilliant chat (and also gained a new recruit for the #EdCM). It was really interesting hearing about what they are doing to try to get social media accepted in the Legal sector, one where traditionally law firms have their clients and everything is very secretive, probably not too different from recruitment, was good comparing notes and I’m sure once there are a few demonstrable cases of ROI, the Legal sector will start embracing it.

Another interesting subject that was thrown up this week that got me thinking of a future blog post was that of group interviews, are they a good thing or not? Should they be used only for very junior positions or can they be used effectively at senior level and how does that affect confidentiality, are companies missing out on getting applicants because they don’t want their identities revealed by going through an assessment centre scenario, I’m going to have a wee chat with an employer who uses this method as well as candidates that have had this type of interview to see what they say, if you have any experience on this it’d be really good to hear your views so please drop me a line.

Posset and Plums, Leith's desserts, delish as always

This Friday we have the Edinburgh Coffee Morning’s Social Media Quiz of The Year, (Centotre as usual) which should be great fun, everyone seems to be really looking forward to it and next week it’s the Twestival in the beautiful new venue Ghillie Dhu (was a somewhat more classy place for us to watch the rugby in than usual this weekend, the upstairs with it’s gothic vaulted ceiling was superb), lots of buzz about both.  More info for both can be found at www.edinburgh.twestival.com 

Ghillie Dhu's stunning gothic ceiling

 
Excitingly my blog got picked up by Google for the first time this week and I’ve been thrilled by everyone’s feedback and warm wishes, it really gives you an amazing boost when people tell you how much they’re enjoying your chat.
Thanks again to the ever helpful Tim Barlow (www.attacat.co.uk) for his latest invaluable blogging advice – TOP TIP for everyone, keep your paragraphs short, no chunks of text bigger than a £10 note (attributed to Andrew Hayes @andrewghayes), & here’s your link Tim, better late than never! 
 
I also can’t wait to catch up with the lovely Sal @salidatious / www.patothecity.com as she also has some really good ideas for it, coming to a blog near you soon……..
 
This week I’ll also be catching up with Skyscanner’s Commercial VP and one of it’s Founding Directors to bring you the inside scoop on one of Scotland’s fastest growing and most exciting online businesses.