Apr
2
Just because your company is privately held doesn’t mean it can’t stay connected. IncBizNet, an online community exclusively for private companies, aims to bring them together to network and help develop and manage their online presence. For a quick tour of IncBizNet, just visit this page.
IncBizNet was developed using Drupal by Mansueto Digital, which also owns Inc.com and publishes a yearly feature called the Inc. 5000; Inc. Magazine’s annual list of the fastest growing private companies in America. IncBizNet and the Inc. 5000 are now directly linked to each other because all new applications completed will automatically create a profile for the company on IncBizNet with the information submitted. As a result of this, the site already has a large member base of private companies with detailed profiles. These companies, along with all the other companies that have joined the site since it launched, vary greatly in many ways such as length of time in business, size, and industry.
I think younger run companies will be first to see the potential of the site because they will find the most value in what IncBizNet has to offer. But at the same time, the site will dramatically help non-tech savvy executives and employees become more familiar with the online world of networking and information sharing. Among many of the features currently available, the site allows companies to post press releases and blog about anything they desire. Private company executives and employees may find this very beneficial mainly because press releases are provided for free at this time (saving them money) and they will no longer need to go through the hassle of creating and hosting a company blog on their own (saving them time).
A major trend I have noticed recently (especially with web companies), is that many of them launch their own company blogs along with their new web services. They are using these blogs to keep their customers updated with their latest developments and news. We have already started to see other companies (private and public) follow this trend as a additional form of communication to their customers. I think that trend of will continue either through a site like IncBizNet or through their own website because it is effective.
It will be interesting to see how IncBizNet evolves as more companies sign up. My prediction is that one of the site’s main attractions will be hosting active discussions focusing primarily on many of the obstacles businesses face on an everyday basis to survive and grow with the rapidly changing U.S. economy.
Oct
22
Standout Jobs to help employers produce recruiting videos
Filed Under Marketing, Videos, Web | Leave a Comment
Standout Jobs is one of the first companies that will help employers produce short videos for open job positions or general recruiting. The main idea behind these videos is to illustrate to potential employees what it’s like to work for the company, which will hopefully gain their interest. Before, the only way to know about a great company was by hearing from friends and family or from someone on the inside through word-of-mouth. It is quite obvious that video recruiting will not take off fast because it is a very new type of recruiting, but it should be a steady, gradual growth.
I think being an early entry into this type of job recruiting will be a major advantage for Standout Jobs when they fully launch their service (Fall 2007) and become better established. I will go even further and say that I think they will be successful with creating the tipping point for video recruiting. But, I do not think video recruiting will completely replace online job listings.
I came across the first Standout Jobs video job ad at the FreshBooks website a while back and was reminded of this video when I read an article in Entrepreneur titled Recruiting 2.0. Freshbooks found out about Standout Jobs through their first job ad video uploaded to YouTube. The FreshBooks blog summarized this service and introduces us to how Standout Jobs was started by founders Fred Ngo and Benjamin Yoskovitz. The blog post encourages employers to:
Get away from the 1950s. Use the power of new services like YouTube to tell the human story. Show the quirks and personalities that characterize the company. Expose the culture and the emotional drive and the funny bone to the world. Demonstrate that your company is not your average a 100-person team, but a place where the inspired come to inspire.
What makes some of these videos very attractive to potential employees is the comedy and creative approaches taken in some of them so far to get attention. I am unsure if Standout Jobs is behind all creative development or if it’s a joint collaboration between them and their client. The main idea behind this creative approach is: Who wouldn’t want to work for a fun, creative company? The only problem I can foresee is that some companies might try to portray a “fun” environment just for the video, therefore misleading people about their company. Hopefully it will be easy to see past this by getting the sense that they tried too hard.
What surprised me so far about Standout Job’s strategy, is that it does not look like they will be hosting the videos, but instead they will be hosted elsewhere. Then the hiring company will decide how they want to showcase them, most likely by placing them in their blog or just hoping they spread by themselves on popular sites like YouTube. I think as Standout Jobs grows and builds a name for itself, more people will go to their site directly just to view the new video job ads.
These recruiting videos could be a huge success with similar young entrepreneurial tech companies like Xobni, which has also already consulted with Standout Jobs to help them produce a video. For example, I could also see a company like skinnyCorp (parent company of Threadless) using this type of recruiting. They are a young, successful company with a very cool environment. Connected Ventures (parent company of College Humor) made this video for fun and 4 million views later, their inbox was overflowed with resumes and they are still getting them to this day. Another thing that certainly surprised me was when I saw that Standout Jobs was not even making video ads for their own job opportunities. What’s up with that?
I certainly can’t see large companies like IBM or GE consulting with Standout Jobs anytime soon. If these ads prove to be successful, they might get the attention of other large companies like Apple, Netflix, and Amazon who like to promote their unique work environments. Some more examples of similar types of video recruiting are Yahoo’s video here and Google’s video here.
Check out the Standout Jobs website for their latest work and to get an idea of what video recruiting is if you are unsure. If the video is done right and it spreads successfully, the best candidates will come to you. This is currently an unconventional method of recruiting, but it can be a very effective way to attract great employees in the future. Well, that is if your hiring. If your not hiring, then I would advise against making a video with your employees for fun and posting it online.
Update: I received an email from one of the co-founders of Standout Jobs which points out that their focus will not only be on videos, but to also help market and build their client’s brand through other tools. Something else to look out for in the future.
Oct
22
If you mistakenly type treumors in Google (simply swapping the u and the e like I did), the results will look like this. Guess what? It doesn’t look like the number one result, treumors.com, is one of the 55 domains Guy Kawasaki registered for Truemors.
I registered 55 domains (for example, truemors.net, .de, .biz, truemours, etc, etc). I had no idea that one had to buy so many domains to truly “surround” the one you use. Yes, I could have registered fewer and spent less, but who cares about saving a few hundred bucks compared to the cost of legal action to get a domain away from a squatter if Truemors is successful?
I wonder if Guy is already aware of this already and if he plans to try and obtain this domain from the squatter trying to profit from unsuspecting users. (unless you like to get paid to complete offers!) My guess is that Guy simply wrote down all the possible domain name variations he could think of without trying an actual typing test to uncover some of common mistakes people might make when quickly typing Truemors. I could be wrong though and maybe this domain was simply overlooked or he thought it would not be an issue at all.
I want to add that I am a regular reader of Guy’s blog and enjoy it. Besides the development costs of $12,107.09 that most of us have already read about, I can imagine he put a lot of his valuable time into Truemors so far and I hope it pays off for him eventually.
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