IBM Campaign

I was tasked by the client (as sole creative) with ideating a creative strategy to convince IBM sales teams to focus on small leads, which were being lost and becoming costly.

The campaign had to be immersive, so that sales teams could not ignore it; at the same time, I could not be abrasive or talk down to the teams in any way.

The strategic approach was:

1. A series of humor-based emails, covering introductory emails, reminder emails, progress-report emails, and congratulatory emails.

2. A series of in-office posters, designed to show how small things can be brought together to create great things. Each poster showed the work of an artist who had recreated classic buildings using thousands of matchsticks.

“Small things matter. Don’t neglect small leads.”

3. An in-office (communal space) screen installation showing a “profit pipeline” as a regular (transparent) pipe carrying water. The pipe is leaking (representing losses). As the water builds, the financial loss is counted to the right of the screen. Also, the comedic IBM characters from the email series are seen standing beneath the leak, with the water gradually rising towards their necks.

4. A luxury chocolate gift placed on every desk with a card reading:

“Small things matter. Thanks for your support!”

The client was delighted with the strategy and execution. It was used across IBM offices, apparently with robust results; and the email format was eventually used by IBM in B2C campaigns.

Company Newsletter 

I was tasked with managing the team of content writers (in-house and third party). This included forming an SEO strategy for content (B2C/B2B) and content calendars to be split across teams, each covering specialist topics, based on strengths.

In direct relation to this, I played a leading role in mapping out social media content strategy, so that SM and newsletter content could be linked and mutually support/promote popular topics, driving engagement across platforms.

Weddings Drive

A company who created websites for florists wanted to move into the weddings (B2C) market. Competition was stiff and we needed to create content that would have an impact.

I opted to create a series of long-form (2000 words each), image-filled articles on various aspects of wedding preparation: Choosing your wedding flowers, choosing your venue, choosing your wedding colors, choosing your photographer, and so on.

All the articles were linked to one main article: “Big Day Basics”, which gave a shorter guide to each of the topics; at the same time, each section invited readers to click through to the related 2000-word article for in-depth information.

This is called a Pillar Page – SEO-optimized to allow Google to understand how much information is being provided through related (linked) pages. The result in the SERPs was excellent; then we were contacted by one of the major wedding companies, asking if they could link through to our article, starting a mutually beneficial relationship.

Many of my strategic approaches are based on user research, feedback, demographics, user personas, A/B testing, and other data indicating engagement/action.

With extremely large scale preparations well underway in the ‘picture perfect’ French town of Angouleme, the 32^nd International Festival Of Cartoons — featuring the legendary American artist Art Spiegelman — is all set to continue its steady move towards the centre of the world stage with hugely ambitious events and spectacles drawing vast numbers of people to Europe’s ‘Capital of Comics’ for three magic days of art, innovation, and fun.

Four-hundred and forty-three kilometers South West of Paris and one-hundred and sixteen kilometers North East of Bordeaux, the ancient town of Angouleme — sitting snugly between the Charente and Aguienne rivers — is ‘picture perfect’ in every sense. Back in January, 1974, the town — once the center of the French paper industry, and now the center of comic-strip production in France — decided to hold an exhibition designed to showcase and encourage cartoon artists. Ambitious from the start, it was hugely successful, attracting international attention and — over the years of increasing success that followed — becoming regarded as a kind of “Cannes of cartoon”. Now, between the dates of 27-30 January, the whole town is given over to the festival, with free buses taking wide-eyed visitors from one dazzling event or exhibition to another.

“Yeah? And so what?” some of the uninitiated might say, “That stuff’s just for kids! A bit of escapism, only to be taken lightly, if at all.” No, no, no. The world of comic books and cartoons has been moving forward in leaps and bounds over the past few decades, drawing large numbers of artists to the form and huge numbers of fans. Sharp, sometimes violent, bitingly satiric, erotic, or just plain SHOCKING, this is an arena no longer guaranteed to provide escape from even the harshest realities.

ART IMITATING LIFE (THE GRAPHIC NOVEL)

Always internationally minded and seeking to cross all and any cultural divides, the special guest of this year’s festival is the legendary American artist Art Spiegelman. Art literally decided to imitate life — in a totally non-compromising way — when in the mid-eighties he set about writing Maus, A Survivor’s Tale, dealing with the Nazi holocaust by portraying the Jewish people as mice and the Nazi’s as cats, and single-handedly revolutionizing the comic book world in the process.

Working in underground, counter-culture publications in the late sixties and early seventies, Spiegelman had touched upon the holocaust before — driven by the suicide of his mother, a holocaust survivor who had suffered Survivor’s Guilt Syndrome — but Maus  was a full-frontal confrontation of the horrors and, although treated with some suspicion at first, became universally accepted, exposing Spiegelman to international fame and changing everything.

SPIEGELMAN’S INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCE

Spiegelman’s masterwork inspired a generation and opened the doors to all forms of self-expression as one part of what is known as The Ninth Art. Apart from US artists like Adrian Tomine (Blonde platine), and Crag Thompson (Blankets — an extremely long autobiographical work, considered one of last years revelations), the graphic novel is thriving thanks to Japanese artists like Taniguchi (Quartier lointain – a 2003 prize-winner), Kiriko Nananan (Blue),  and Yoshiharu Tsuge (L’homme sans talent  – recently translated into French and a nominee for the Best Album Prize at the Festival Awards this year).

And of course, France and French speaking countries love the form and include works by such names as David B, Fabrice Neaud, Fréderic Boilet, Fréderic Peeters and Marjane Satrapi.

THE LONG ARM OF ANGOULEME

Angouleme has never been shy of moving beyond the limits of the town to promote itself and the artists it represents. I was at the Press Conference to announce this years Festival here in Paris last year and was astounded at the size of the journalistic turn out. Discussions and exhibitions take place regularly in places as far flung as Paris, New York and Switzerland.

I personally was lucky enough — along with around 150, 000 others — to see the excellent ‘Blake and Mortimer’ exhibition at the Museé de l’homme here in Paris, produced by the Festival International de la bande dessinée (FIBD), to celebrate the anniversary of creator Edgar P. Jacobs a century after his birth. The exhibition moved on to Switzerland from there, before returning home to be exhibited in Angouleme itself.

One that I missed was CARS IN COMICS in Paris between September and October last year, in which the Festival teamed up with the Paris Motor Show to exhibit some of the cars appearing in the most popular of the action comics.

SEEING IS BELIEVING

One of the many highlights of the Festival this year is a highly innovative tribute to Winsor McCay’s LITTLE NEMO, created in 1905. The tribute, entitled, ‘A Concert Of Drawings’ will show the live creation of a comic, which will be illustrated by around ten major illustrators from the French scene.

Above the stage will be a gigantic split-screen, divided into four panels, forming a broad imitation of a comic book plate. Sloped desks, equipped with cameras, will be set out at each side of the stage for the illustrators to come to and work, gradually filling the four panels in accordance with the story-line. The story itself will be an original scenario written specifically for the Festival.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

The saying ‘A picture paints a thousand words,’ should indicate to readers how far short this little article falls of properly describing the variety of works to be displayed, inspired by international culture: French, Japanese, African, American, Canadian, Swedish, British, and — of course — the power of the individual imagination. Having mentioned the Japanese, it should be pointed out that the mighty MANGA will be celebrated this year.

PRIZES

Each year the judges receive around 400 albums and break them down into seven albums for each of six categories for the Official Selection. This year’s selections reflect a vast array of international talent and a wide open field of differing styles, approaches, personalities and artistic vision, ranging from American underground hero Kim Keitch in the ‘Best Album’ category, to Japanese Manga Rebel Tsutomu Nihei, nominated for best art-work.

ZEP — a thirty six year old Swiss cartoonist and star of European comics — stunned the Festival last year by walking away with the grand Prix du ville du Angouleme, usually thought of as a kind of ‘life-time achievement’ award and automatically making him the President of this year’s Festival. Apart from some of his own famous creations, like Titeuf , he is also penciled in as one of the artists in the above mentioned ‘A Concert Of Drawings’.

From Canadian Dave Cooper’s sometimes grotesque, surreal and bitingly funny imagery, to the violent, sexually explicit mangas; from PICSOU (Donald Duck’s grumpy relative), to the harsh realities of the graphic novel, this year’s Festival promises to be an orgy of imagery and idea, inspiration and innovation, as France spreads it’s love of the cartoon — and it’s belief in the value of that art — across the world with great success.

BREAKING EVERY RULE IN THE (COMIC) BOOK – WILL EISNER (1917-2005)

This year Angouleme will also be mourning the loss of one of the legends of the comic book world. Penciled in during the early stages of planning as a possible guest this year, Will Eisner died on January 3^rd. Whilst mourning his loss, his legions of fans will not neglect to celebrate his life.

Born in 1917, Eisner grew up in tenements in the Bronx and Brooklyn. Achieving popularity with his own creations through exciting story telling, Eisner couldn’t resist breaking any rule that stood in the way of his imagination, and he did so with a huge amount of success. At a time when comics were made up of rectangular panels, arranged in an strictly uniform manner, he would use panels as it suited, sometimes spreading a single drawing across an entire page and bringing a powerful, cinematic quality to his cartoons.

Later in his career he met Art Spiegelman and other radical young artists and was deeply influenced, instantly recognizing in them the kind of ground breaking innovative instincts that he had been driven by. From that point on, Eisner worked primarily with the graphic novel.

He once said, simply and modestly: ‘Just call me a Jewish Frank McCourt. I’m a city boy. I love New York. That’s what I know and that’s what I write.’ One of the original innovators and a true hero of The Ninth Art, Eisner has achieved immortality through his work.

YOUNG TALENT PAVILION

The Angouleme International Festival of Cartoons puts a huge amount of emphasis on contests for young people and brings to it’s Festivals experts, lawyers, publishers and artists in a collective known as the ‘Young Talent Pavilion,’ set up with the very serious intent of inspiring, molding and educating young talent, so that young people can benefit from the kind of help and encouragement that artists like Will Eisner and Art Spiegelman could only have dreamt of.

And if a picture paints a thousand words, that speaks volumes about Angouleme.

Angouleme International Comic Festival – 27 – 30 January, 2005.

www.bdangouleme.com

Ticket Reservations:

Internet: www.ticketnet.fr

Ticketnet Network: E. Leclerc, Virgin Megastore, Auchan, Cultura, Le Progrès de Lyon.

Telephone: Individual bookings: 33 (0) 892 390 102.  Works’ committees: 33 (0) 825 840 701.

Groups, school groups and guided tours: 33 (0) 820 20 68 28.

Travel Reservations:

25% off on SNCF tickets (French railway). Agreement no. EV17. For terms of sale, information and reservation inquire in railway stations, SNCF agencies, SNCF solicited travel agencies and Call Center: in France dial 36 35; from abroad dial 33 (0) 8 92 35 35 35.

Author: Pat Brien

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Legendary film-maker Alan Clarke must have flipped out when he first saw the youthful Ray Winstone whilst searching for a powerful, intelligent lead for his shocking, brutal account of life in a British young-offenders’ institution, ‘Scum’. (1977). Winstone said that at the time he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing, or if he wanted to be an actor, and gave Clarke full credit for drawing out of him his brilliant portrayal of a brutal, violent, but highly intelligent young man trapped in a no-win situation.

The project constituted a huge effort on Clarke’s part, commissioned by the BBC and promptly dropped the moment the BBC higher-ups saw what they had green-lighted. No stranger to controversy, Clarke responded by turning the TV-film into a movie of the same name (1979), and the rest is British cinema history.

One of the many people influenced by ‘Scum’ was Tim Roth, who, although already building a career on the stage, remained obsessed by the idea of film-acting and was given his big break by Clarke himself in another stunning piece of social commentary ‘Made In Britain’ (1983). Again, it was excellent casting on Clarke’s part, providing the director with the perfect lead, just as it was an excellent opportunity for Roth, who was provided not only with the perfect character, but the perfect teacher.

Thirteen or fourteen years later, when Roth started directing his own movie ‘The War Zone’ (1999), based on the book by Alexander Stuart, he applied a sense of integrity to subject and a brutal directness that almost certainly came from Clarke. But he also showed an individuality in his approach to film-making that I imagine Clarke would have been proud to see; just as he would have been proud to see his other discovery, Ray Winstone, turning in such an amazing, ground-breaking performance. I don’t believe that the movie-going public will ever get another chance to see Ray Winstone—or anybody else for that matter—portray a character so unthreatening, so likeable, or so evil as the father in ‘The War Zone’.

I was stunned by ‘The War Zone’. Having no idea what the story was, I at first thought that I was watching a warm-hearted family drama about a family moving to an isolated Devon farmhouse from London, and was surprised by how affable and gentle Ray Winstone seemed in the role of loving father.

Then things turned. The relentless bleakness and isolation of the winter Devon countryside is used by Roth for a reason, and the sense of each character’s isolation soon starts to grow. The film focuses on the fifteen year old boy, Tom, whose sexual awakening is becoming confused; who is disturbed by his feelings towards his attractive sister, eighteen year old Jessie; and who seemingly starts to transfer his guilt by snarling accusations to her about the nature of her relationship with their father.

Roth doesn’t reveal too much to the audience during these scenes. Instead, he invites us to sit uneasily in the dark corners of other people’s lives and nervously watch as paranoia, confusion, sexual desire, and vile, hidden truths begin to lock together in a dark, impenetrable vortex and spin hellishly out of control.

Tom finds photographs of Jessie and her friend undressed, laughing and playing around; but one photograph shows the father with Jessie, his arm around her naked form, one hand covering a breast. It should be evidence, but so many scenes come before it showing the family around each other whilst in a state of casual undress, that there is room for doubt as to what it implies.

Soon after, Roth hits his audience with a wake-up call of seismic proportions as Tom follows Jessie and his father to an isolated bunker on the Devon coastline and watches a brutal act of incestuous rape. Roth doesn’t spare us. In a way, he punishes us with the truth; shoves the audiences’ faces in it and makes them live the ordeal. It’s a moment of true cinematic agony; a moment in hell that purges all stereotypes about sexual abusers and exposes the terrible reality that a monster can be anybody. The fact that there are parallels in this film to some of the classier psychological horror films—in terms of look and atmosphere—is no accident. It is a brilliant, calculated move.

Many films and TV shows dealing with this topic do so by presenting a character who, to the outside world, comes across like the stereotype of a second-hand car-salesman: all smarm and charm and fake sincerity; but who, as soon as the front door is closed, turns into a monster who starts terrorising his family.

What is truly worrying about this film is that Ray Winstone’s character convinces the audience that he genuinely loves his family—or that he believes that he loves his family—not just before the rape scene, but after it. But, because of the brutality of the rape scene, the audience is shocked into seeing that the father’s warmth and concern is really nothing more than sentimental self-indulgence; the gross selfishness of a man capable of true evil.

Near the end of the film, as the father screams his horrified, outraged denials, you realise—to your own horror—that without that bunker scene you would almost certainly have started questioning the facts behind Tom’s crucial photograph, as well as the stability of Tom’s personality.

It is art—the real thing—and should not be dealt with as entertainment just because of the medium through which it is presented. It is powerful; and the fact that Roth approached the film from a cinematographic perspective rather than a cold, documentary perspective, adds a huge amount of power.

Rather than create a sense of distance and objectivity, he draws you in emotionally, shoves you in with Jessie during the agony of the rape; leaves you in a room with her and Tom as she burns herself with a cigarette, then invites him to burn her; plays on your mute helplessness as the boy takes her up on her offer, because she is as guilty in his eyes as she is in her own. And because he is jealous.

When you leave the dark room of the cinema, you take the dark rooms of that family’s life with you. You know that you have shared somebody’s reality and you try to deal with that by going over details instead, considering the brilliant duality of some of the scenes, one of which leaves you wondering if you were watching an innocuous family argument or a perverse outburst of jealousy on the father’s part.

Just as stunning as the subject matter itself was the revelation by Tim Roth—in answer to one of the many questions from which I built this article—that two of the crucial roles (the abused eighteen year old daughter, Jessie, played by Lara Belmont, and the brooding fifteen year old Tom, played by Freddie Cunliffe), were played by first-time actors.

I remember staring at Roth, shocked, and announcing: “But that’s a huge risk, considering the material.” Roth admitted that it had indeed been a huge risk, but one that had paid off brilliantly. And I couldn’t argue with that.

Watching Lara Belmont and Freddie Cunliffe matching the likes of Ray Winstone and the superb Tilda Swinton as mother to Jessie, Tom, and a newborn child (in real life, Swinton had just given birth to twins and used her body to make the realism in what we were seeing all the more convincing), was a revelation, and a personal triumph for Tim Roth as a director.

What Roth proves in such an artful way through this film is that one of the great problems in sexually abusive situations is the inability of adults to face up to the reality of what is going on. Unanswered questions about the health problems of the baby indicate that unless such things are faced up to, they will not only continue, but develop and spread.

The night after the screening of ‘The War Zone,’ at a screening of Alan Clarke’s last film ‘Elephant’ (1989), along with the screening of the original TV version of ‘Scum,’ Tim Roth and Ray Winstone again appeared on stage, this time with Molly Clarke, Alan Clarke’s daughter, to talk about the great man’s influence on their lives and careers. I kept thinking of Roth’s movie; of Ray Winstone’s performance in it; and of how proud Clarke would have been of them for making it.

Of course, that would have sounded far too showbiz to actually say out loud, so I kept my big mouth shut for once and contented myself with the knowledge that the Paris Cinema Festival has been a huge success, showing not only cinematic brilliance but also artistic integrity and a desire among film-makers to still use their art to make statements, instigate changes, and to do the right thing.

The Seventh Art is alive and well.

END NOTE: At the time of release Roth’s film picked up awards for ‘Best New British Film’ at the Edinburgh Film Festival; ‘The Cicae Award’ at the Berlin Film Festival; ‘Best Of First Works’ at the Troia Film Festival; ‘Best Newcomer’ (Yes!) for Lara Belmont, at The British Independent Awards; and a ‘Director’s Award’ at the European Film Awards.

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Pat Brien is British and has had countless articles published in various independent magazines in England, as well as several literary short-stories and a dramatic monologue broadcast on BBC radio.

One of his literary stories has just been published in the United States, in the annual literary journal ‘The Long Story,’ and one of his screenplays recently reached the semi-finals of Francis Ford Coppolla’s American Zoetrope Screenplay Contest.

His poem ‘Genetically Modified Food For Thought’ has also just been accepted for publication in the next edition of the New York/Paris poetry journal ‘Van Gogh’s Ear.’ He lives and works in Paris, France.

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Confirming job preferences is a simple task for Ladders members. You sign in to your account, click your name in the top right, click “Job Preferences” under “My Account” on the left of the page, then click “Edit” in the “What You Do” section. Choose your “Role” in the dropdown box, then click the list of “Specialties” that apply to you. Save and you’re done.

An easy enough start to seeking out your dream job. But what has that to do with International Women’s Day? Keep reading.

Under “What You Do”, you’ll see: “What You’re Looking For” – and another “Edit” button on the right. Click that one and you tap in a job title. Then there’s a series of dropdowns: “Recent Compensation; Desired Compensation; Zip Code; Radius.” There’s even an “Open to working remotely” option.

You’ll be informed that Ladders’ 22,000+ verified recruiters will see only your desired compensation, not your recent compensation. Save and you’re done.

With that, you’ve successfully fed Ladders‘ technology with key data about your future career, so that all the ingredients of a great job – possibly your dream job – are brought together; and from there, new openings that match those criteria are focused on you via your inbox.

Two of the above words seem out-of-place in such a streamlined, technology-driven, process: dream and desired.

So let’s look into that.

Job Preferences and perfection

Tapping a bunch of data into a machine and manifesting a dream appear to be two things that are completely at odds. In fact, it’s all about the odds – and putting them in your favor. Having a vision of something and tapping into your own potential to achieve it is not such a strange idea, at least in terms of thinking that one could logically lead to the other. 

But strange things lead to great things, too.

You might be a cynical person (nobody would blame you these days), who thinks that romantic ideas of dream jobs are for the poets, or the birds. Perhaps it comes down to what you think of as a dream job. If it’s part of a Walter Mitty fantasy life, it’s not likely to happen; if it’s the hope of combining all those desired elements above with a great bunch of people who work well together, it’s entirely achievable.

So stripping down your dream into byte-size pieces of data and feeding them into a computer isn’t such an odd thing to do after all.

And that can be demonstrated easily.

Visionaries who lived large and worked hard

If you think the goal of achieving your dream job does belong to a more romantic era, maybe we should take a look at the Romantic era itself. After all, some serious careers – including the world’s first “rock stars” – came directly out of that era, in terms of a creative revolution in poetry, literature, painting, music and architecture.

It seems the greatest dreamers were the greatest doers, too. 

Their visions turned into hard work, which became great art, no matter how flighty they all seemed; and their powerful influence is felt by every one of us today, whether we know it or not.

Those first “rock stars” of the era were, of course, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and her half-sister, Claire Clairmont; and Byron’s doctor, John Polidori.

To cut a long and infamous story of controversy, rebellion, love-affairs, public outrage and dark surprises short, they all decided to visit with Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati, in the Genevan suburb of Cologny, on Lake Geneva.

What happened became legend. The weather was not the stuff of fun vacations and the conversations turned dark as the evenings closed in. Polidori’s increasing hatred of the mocking Byron simmered; and all the talk of the fall of religion and the mastery of science – of life and death itself – disturbed Mary, who was just eighteen years old at the time.

The result was an outpouring – not of debauchery, but of creativity. Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein, while Polidori used Byron as the model for a vampire, which would later become Bram Stoker’s Dracula – the model for almost all vampires.

Still, what does all this have to do with the modern age? How do we combine this level of dreams, visions and creativity with entering data into computers, confirming job preferences, receiving helpful “job match” emails and such?

That’s easy – Byron had a daughter.

Ada Lovelace – world’s first computer programmer 

Ada King, countess of Lovelace; originally, Augusta Ada Byron – Lady Byron to you and me. Apart from being the daughter of the infamous “mad, bad and dangerous to know” romantic poet Lord Byron, Ada was a successful mathematician, who clung to logic in the way her father had clung to visions and passing females.

She referred to her professional approach as “poetical science.” But, rather than hanging out with artistic types, she became a friend and associate of one Charles Babbage, inventor of the world’s first automatic digital computer.

At one point, he asked Ada to translate a paper of one of his lectures, which had been written up in Italian by Luigi Menabrea, an Italian engineer and future prime minister of Italy. She said OK.

While translating, Ada began writing extensive notes, which took a year and became far more extensive than the original lecture. One of the notes describes an algorithm to enable Babbage’s “Analytical Engine” to compute “Bernoulli numbers” – making Ada Lovelace the world’s first computer programmer.

Unfortunately, the machine was never finished and the program never tested. Some claim Babbage had written sample programs before this, too, but it’s a weak controversy:

“There is nothing as sophisticated—or as clean—as Ada’s computation of the Bernoulli numbers. Babbage certainly helped and commented on Ada’s work, but she was definitely the driver of it.” —Stephen Wolfram; Idea Makers.

And this is why vision matters. Babbage’s vision of his machine’s potential was limited. Ada’s wasn’t.

“The idea of a machine that could manipulate symbols in accordance with rules and that numbers could represent entities other than quantity mark the fundamental transition from calculation to computation. Ada was the first to explicitly articulate this notion and in this she appears to have seen further than Babbage.”
—from The Computer History Museum’s biography of Ada Lovelace.

So when it comes to envisioning your dream job and using technology to seek it out, don’t worry about being an overly romantic dreamer. As long as you’re a doer, too, there’s no such thing.

Thank you, Ada!

Now how about confirming your job preferences?

Pat Brien | May 18, 2022

While employment booms across industries, with employers adding even more jobs than anticipated in April – 28,000 above the Dow Jones estimate – the tech sector is showing serious signs of a downturn. Industry upswing stars include leisure and hospitality, manufacturing, transportation and warehousing.

So why is tech tanking?

Obviously, there are no prizes for anybody who has the correct answer. Lockdowns led to increasing numbers of consumers spending their time and their money online. The online world provided not only the best escape from a dreadful reality, but also a practical way to answer fundamental needs, like getting the shopping done.

Of course, that’s the simple version. Lockdowns affected everything, including the broader interests and investments of companies. Here we’ll look at companies that are either all out tech, or heavily invested enough at a core-offering level to be included.

The Great Resignation has left employers trying to find the best strategies to attract and retain new talent—often by throwing money at the problem—while tech is tightening its belt and layoffs in the industry are fast becoming an alarming trend.

Naysayers now include the Stock Exchange—given that, over the last three trading sessions, Big Tech has lost over $1 trillion in value.

Let’s take a look.

Metaverse Crashing to Earth?

Issues in the real world appear to have come full circle and kicked the metaverse in the purse, right where it hurts. On May 4th, Insider revealed a Meta internal memo stating that Facebook is freezing hiring and scaling back new talent acquisition across the company. Citing “challenges” that caused it to “miss revenue targets”.

Facebook’s global head of recruiting, Miranda Kalinowski, said—in a separate memo—that the company’s engineering team would be the first among those impacted. Facebook did freeze hiring at the beginning of the pandemic, but this was a sensible move, designed to give the company time to adjust and put new processes in place for health-aware onboarding.

This latest hiring freeze, on the other hand, is all about “our business needs and in light of the expense guidance given for this earnings period”—helped along by its Reality Labs division losing $2.9 billion in the first quarter.

Curse of the metaverse? Or barely a bump in the road? Speaking of which…

Uber Hiring U-Turn

Uber is to slam the brakes on hiring after a “seismic shift” in investor sentiment, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced to employees in an email obtained by CNBC. Uber also plans to cut back on marketing and incentives spend. From this point forward, “We will be even more hardcore about costs across the board.”

He continued: “We have made a ton of progress in terms of profitability, setting a target for $5 billion in Adjusted EBITDA in 2024, but the goalposts have changed. Now it’s about free cash flow. We can and should get there fast.” Just like their drivers.

During the pandemic, Uber leaned heavily on its food delivery service Eats. After the lifting of COVID restrictions, revenue for Uber rose to 6.9 billion in the first quarter. The downside? A $5.9 billion loss during the COVID period, due to a slump in its equity investments.

Either way, Uber says: “We will be deliberate about when and where we add headcount.”

Robinhood’s Aim

The original Robin Hood (or even Kevin Costner, if you prefer), was knocked spectacularly off balance at least once in his career. Likewise, retail brokerage Robinhood has announced it’s cutting 9% of a reported total of 3,800 employees. Shares fell more than 5% in extended trading after the announcement.

Rapid expansion last year somehow led to “duplicate roles and job functions”. Unfortunately, two heads were apparently not better than one and “these reductions to Robinhood’s staff is the right decision to improve efficiency, increase our velocity, and ensure that we are responsive to the changing needs of our customers,” according to CEO Vlad Tenev.

He added: “While the decision to undertake this action wasn’t easy, it is a deliberate step to ensure we are able to continue delivering on our strategic goals and furthering our mission to democratize finance.”

Peloton in a Spin

Unable to bear the idea of running to stand still, Peloton cut around 20% of its corporate workforce – an estimated 2,800 people – and replaced its CEO, hoping a new lean look will impress investors and rejig its business for some muscular growth in the near future.

The announcement, which came earlier this month, followed rumors that the company could soon become the target of a takeover. However, the makeover news quelled much of that excitement, if not all of it. Many feel that Peloton will not escape that fate.

No matter how fast they peddle. Sorry, pedal. 

A Wall Street darling during the pandemic, the news in response to the announcement came with headlines like: “The Rise and Fall of Peloton” and phrases like “crash and burn”.

Still – no pain, no gain.

Terrible puns about the indoor-exercise success story aside, Barry McCarthy, former chief financial officer of Netflix and Spotify, is now the new president and CEO, while founder and former CEO, John Foley, is executive chairman of the board.

Most of the news since the announcement has been an exercise in things not working out: big borrowing, price slashing, stalled product production, and falling stocks – if people in high places are sweating right now, they appear determined to take the strain.

This despite a May 10 announcement that it had lost $757 million in the first three months of the year.

Peloton is going downhill, not even standing still, according to many key observers—but everybody remains fascinated by those spinning wheels. And the company could get back in shape.

Cameo Yells “Cut!”

Cameo became a star after coming up with the novel idea of letting people pay their favorite actors, artists, athletes and celebrities to send them personalized video greetings. A crazy idea that hit big with the public, the company was valued at around $1 billion last year after gaining the attention of investors such as Amazon, Google, and UTA.

This month, it announced it was cutting approximately 25% of its workforce—87 members of staff in real terms, announcing a need to “right-size” the business after a pandemic-related reversal of fortunes.

Hit the reverse button back to 2020 and we see Cameo claiming the generation of around $100 million in gross revenue—4.5 times up on the previous year. Unfortunately, one-season-only shooting stars include high-flyers such as chief product officer, Nundu Janakiram, SVP of marketing, Emily Boschwitz, and chief technology officer, Rob Post.

Co-Founder and CEO, Steven Galanis, told Variety: “To support both fan and talent demand during the pandemic lockdowns, Cameo’s headcount exploded from just over 100 to nearly 400. We hired a lot of people quickly, and market conditions have rapidly changed since then. Accordingly, we have right-sized the business to best reflect the new realities.”

Some of the biggest stars in the world have found themselves on the cutting room floor, so this shouldn’t be the end of the story for anybody’s career.

NEXT!

Contrasts and Questions

Contrasting the above with the rest of the economy is startling. In the world outside tech, employers are eagerly seeking new ways to attract and retain talent. The Great Resignation/Great Reshuffle continues to have a massive impact across industries: rising labor costs, inflation, and resignations are leaving hiring teams everywhere struggling to find their feet on continuously shifting ground.

Of the industry upswing stars highlighted at the start of this article, leisure and hospitality has had the biggest bounce back success, with job growth at 78,000. Does this signal that people are returning to their pre-pandemic habits, or that more people are learning to appreciate the “get up, get out there” lifestyle more than they did before it became prohibited? 

The tech industry skyrocketed during the pandemic and other industries suffered, so now the tables are turning. This is clear, so the real question is: How does it all balance out? If the issue can be readily identified, the tech industry can steer its way back to normalcy, right?

This isn’t Boom and Bust, it’s Boom and Gloom.

Or is it? 

Facing the Future vs. Facing Forward

As is often pointed out, tech industry trends are notoriously hard to track and analyze, because the business models are so specific to what they do and offer. Having said that, Ned Davis Research’s Veneta Dimitrova did analyze available data, including reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and concluded: “There doesn’t seem to be any leading tendency from that industry for overall employment growth.”

Then there’s inflation and the tightening of purse strings across the country. Amazon takes a hit in that respect. Back to the metaverse and we need to factor in Apple’s iPhone privacy changes, which impacted ad targeting—a potential $10 billion revenue hit—which is not to be sniffed at by anybody in this universe or, indeed, the metaverse.

If it was easy, we’d all be visionaries and business leaders, right?

Still, this places hiring teams in a bizarre world where everything is shifting with relentless speed, realities are either red hot or stone cold depending on needs, and each reality poses its own set of problems to be solved.

Ultimately, hiring managers with good recruiters on hand are always in a strong position. As mentioned in other articles, using experienced recruiters as talent advisors at the planning stages, rather than internal vendors to be issued tasks after the fact, could prove a winning strategy moving forward.

Of course, that depends on which direction you think forward is.

“Good move, Netflix.”

Boom and Gloom: The Technology Downturn

Pat Brien | May 18, 2022

While employment booms across industries, with employers adding even more jobs than anticipated in April – 28,000 above the Dow Jones estimate – the tech sector is showing serious signs of a downturn. Industry upswing stars include leisure and hospitality, manufacturing, transportation and warehousing.

So why is tech tanking?

Obviously, there are no prizes for anybody who has the correct answer. Lockdowns led to increasing numbers of consumers spending their time and their money online. The online world provided not only the best escape from a dreadful reality, but also a practical way to answer fundamental needs, like getting the shopping done.

Of course, that’s the simple version. Lockdowns affected everything, including the broader interests and investments of companies. Here we’ll look at companies that are either all out tech, or heavily invested enough at a core-offering level to be included.

The Great Resignation has left employers trying to find the best strategies to attract and retain new talent—often by throwing money at the problem—while tech is tightening its belt and layoffs in the industry are fast becoming an alarming trend.

Let’s take a look.

Metaverse Crashing to Earth?

Issues in the real world appear to have come full circle and kicked the metaverse in the purse, right where it hurts. On May 4th, Insider revealed a Meta internal memo stating that Facebook is freezing hiring and scaling back new talent acquisition across the company. Citing “challenges” that caused it to “miss revenue targets”.

Facebook’s global head of recruiting, Miranda Kalinowski, said—in a separate memo—that the company’s engineering team would be the first among those impacted. Facebook did freeze hiring at the beginning of the pandemic, but this was a sensible move, designed to give the company time to adjust and put new processes in place for health-aware onboarding.

This latest hiring freeze, on the other hand, is all about “our business needs and in light of the expense guidance given for this earnings period”—helped along by its Reality Labs division losing $2.9 billion in the first quarter.

Curse of the metaverse? Or barely a bump in the road? Speaking of which…

Uber Hiring U-turn

Uber is to slam the brakes on hiring after a “seismic shift” in investor sentiment, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced to employees in an email obtained by CNBC. Uber also plans to cut back on marketing and incentives spend. From this point forward, “We will be even more hardcore about costs across the board.”

He continued: “We have made a ton of progress in terms of profitability, setting a target for $5 billion in Adjusted EBITDA in 2024, but the goalposts have changed. Now it’s about free cash flow. We can and should get there fast.” Just like their drivers.

During the pandemic, Uber leaned heavily on its food delivery service Eats. After the lifting of COVID restrictions, revenue for Uber rose to 6.9 billion in the first quarter. The downside? A $5.9 billion loss during the COVID period, due to a slump in its equity investments.

Either way, Uber says: “We will be deliberate about when and where we add headcount.”

Robinhood’s Aim

The original Robin Hood (Kevin Coster to you), was knocked spectacularly off balance at least once in his career. Likewise, retail brokerage Robinhood has announced it’s cutting 9% of a reported total of 3,800 employees. Shares fell more than 5% in extended trading after the announcement.

Rapid expansion last year somehow led to “duplicate roles and job functions”. Unfortunately, two heads were apparently not better than one and “these reductions to Robinhood’s staff is the right decision to improve efficiency, increase our velocity, and ensure that we are responsive to the changing needs of our customers,” according to CEO Vlad Tenev.

He added: “While the decision to undertake this action wasn’t easy, it is a deliberate step to ensure we are able to continue delivering on our strategic goals and furthering our mission to democratize finance.”

Peloton in a Spin

Unable to bear the idea of running to stand still, Peloton cut around 20% of its corporate workforce – an estimated 2,800 people – and replaced its CEO, hoping a new lean look will impress investors and rejig its business for some muscular growth in the near future.

The announcement, which came earlier this month, followed rumors that the company could soon become the target of a takeover. However, the makeover news quelled much of that excitement, if not all of it. Many feel that Peloton will not escape that fate.

No matter how fast they peddle. Sorry, pedal. 

A Wall Street darling during the pandemic, the news in response to the announcement came with headlines like: “The Rise and Fall of Peloton” and phrases like “crash and burn”.

Still – no pain, no gain.

Terrible puns about the indoor-exercise success story aside, Barry McCarthy, former chief financial officer of Netflix and Spotify, is now the new president and CEO, while founder and former CEO, John Foley, is executive chairman of the board.

Most of the news since the announcement has been an exercise in things not working out: big borrowing, price slashing, stalled product production, and falling stocks – if people in high places are sweating right now, they appear determined to take the strain.

Peloton is going nowhere, according to naysayers, but everybody remains fascinated by those spinning wheels. And they could get back in shape.

Cameo Yells “Cut!”

Cameo became a star after coming up with the novel idea of letting people pay their favorite actors, artists, athletes and celebrities to send them personalized video greetings. A crazy idea that hit big with the public, the company was valued at around $1 billion last year after gaining the attention of investors such as Amazon, Google, and UTA.

This month, it announced it was cutting approximately 25% of its workforce—87 members of staff in real terms, announcing a need to “right-size” the business after a pandemic-related reversal of fortunes.

Hit the reverse button back to 2020 and we see Cameo claiming the generation of around $100 million in gross revenue—4.5 times up on the previous year. Unfortunately, one-season-only shooting stars include high-flyers such as chief product officer, Nundu Janakiram, SVP of marketing, Emily Boschwitz, and chief technology officer, Rob Post.

Co-Founder and CEO, Steven Galanis, told Variety: “To support both fan and talent demand during the pandemic lockdowns, Cameo’s headcount exploded from just over 100 to nearly 400. We hired a lot of people quickly, and market conditions have rapidly changed since then. Accordingly, we have right-sized the business to best reflect the new realities.”

Some of the biggest stars in the world have found themselves on the cutting room floor, so this shouldn’t be the end of the story for anybody’s career.

NEXT!

Contrasts and Questions

Contrasting the above with the rest of the economy is startling. In the world outside tech, employers are eagerly seeking new ways to attract and retain talent. The Great Resignation/Great Reshuffle continues to have a massive impact across industries: rising labor costs, inflation, and resignations are leaving hiring teams everywhere struggling to find their feet on continuously shifting ground.

Of the industry upswing stars highlighted at the start of this article, leisure and hospitality has had the biggest bounce back success, with job growth at 78,000. Does this signal that people are returning to their pre-pandemic habits, or that more people are learning to appreciate the “get up, get out there” lifestyle more than they did before it became prohibited? 

The tech industry skyrocketed during the pandemic and other industries suffered, so now the tables are turning. This is clear, so the real question is: How does it all balance out? If the issue can be readily identified, the tech industry can steer its way back to normalcy, right?  

This isn’t Boom and Bust, it’s Boom and Gloom.

Or is it? 

Facing the Future vs. Facing Forward

As is often pointed out, tech industry trends are notoriously hard to track and analyze, because the business models are so specific to what they do and offer. Having said that, Ned Davis Research’s Veneta Dimitrova did analyze available data, including reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and concluded: “There doesn’t seem to be any leading tendency from that industry for overall employment growth.”

Then there’s inflation and the tightening of purse strings across the country. Amazon takes a hit in that respect. Back to the metaverse and we need to factor in Apple’s iPhone privacy changes, which impacted ad targeting—a potential $10 billion revenue hit—which is not to be sniffed at by anybody in this universe or, indeed, the metaverse.

If it was easy, we’d all be visionaries and business leaders, right?

Still, this places hiring teams in a bizarre world where everything is shifting with relentless speed, realities are either red hot or stone cold depending on needs, and each reality poses its own set of problems to be solved.

Ultimately, hiring managers with good recruiters on hand are always in a strong position. As mentioned in other articles, using experienced recruiters as talent advisors at the planning stages, rather than internal vendors to be issued tasks after the fact, could prove a winning strategy moving forward.

Of course, that depends on which direction you think forward is.

“Good move, Netflix.”