Tags: Talent

Borrowing ideas from Apollo 13

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in Future of Technology, People, People Skills Talent, Talent Tagged , ,

Apollo_13_Mailbox_at_Mission_Control

As someone with an interest in space, I was transfixed as the team in Houston pulled together to generate ideas when Apollo 13 ran into trouble, particularly how they brainstormed to fix the carbon dioxide removal system.

Part of Mission Control’s method to find a solution was to discover what the spare parts were and not just recycle the same old ingredients. They chose not to sit around in isolation but get more parts on the table to give them options. Eventually they found the answer and saved the crew.

Their approach lends itself nicely to the tech world we are immersed in today. How do we get lots of parts – ideas, even people – to the table? Proctor & Gamble figure that for every senior scientist it employs, there are two hundred others working somewhere else in the world, just as good. Using technology platforms such as Innocentive and Kaggle, it can reach those minds and get access to some brilliant ideas to keep it at the leading edge of its industry.

However we connect, network, generate ideas or discover new products, we must do the same.

My mantra for 2014

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in Culture, Next Gen, People, People Skills Talent, Talent Tagged , ,

sparkling_2014_lights

The new year is one of the busiest times in the calendar for people looking for inspiration, exploring change and opening at least one eye to new jobs.

I spent most of 2013 talking about talent and the value of our people as our number one differentiator. I will kick off 2014 by helping integrate a division into our business and welcoming a few new people into my team, and with technological change increasing its influence on our work and home lives, it is important to maintain focus on our talent pool.

One of the last presentations I delivered in 2013 was at the cool offices of ITV, thanks to Andy Kyriacou who set up the event. I was inspired by the people who work at ITV but most importantly by how engaged they all were.

The CEO at ITV, Adam Crozier, the man that led much of the cultural change made in the last few years there, once said:

“Silver bullets rarely exist – when great things happen, they happen because of good people, teamwork, fantastic amounts of hard work and a giant dose of luck.”

So this has become my chief principle for 2014: look after our people and create the theatre for them to deliver, for they are the best thing we’ve got.

Technology and our leaders of tomorrow

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in Pearson, People, People Skills Talent, Skills, Uncategorized Tagged , , ,

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I was thrilled to be asked by the Pearson Diversity team to present to the interns who joined our organisation this week and I was even more pleased to see how positive they were.

I chose to present something different – with our company tagline being ‘Always Learning’ I didn’t want to just talk about our division and the business we are in, so I told them why I think they are our future! I sprinkled my story with technology of course, but my emphasis was on talent.

I took this direction because I was enthused by a person who inspires me, CEO of Burberry Angela Ahrendts. She recently posted on the importance of storytelling. Each time I have been truly uplifted by a presentation, it was because of the story told and shared, and in the current digitally-driven world, where are we are often overwhelmed with information, rediscovering the age-old principles of storytelling will help us connect and differentiate, so I took that course.

It paid off – I met some great young people, our workforce of now and our leaders of tomorrow, and I had fun telling sharing story.

A Laser Focus

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in Next Gen, Talent, Technology Tagged , , ,

child-with-ipad-ogrady

I have used a video of this girl using an iPad in some of my presentations, which underlines how adept this generation is at using technology, plus I have dismissed before words that say kids today cannot focus.

On my holiday in the US this summer, I read a lot of good stuff and came across two stories along the same lines involving different youngsters, so I thought it well worth a mention. One in particular was described by Will.i.am. He used to graffiti the classroom, not because he was a vandal, but because he wanted others to see his art – to ‘know’ him. Doctors wanted to give him Ritalin (to treat attention deficit disorder – ADD) and his teacher told his mother not to let them give it to her son.

Instead he suggested that his mother encourage his creativity, that he will work out a way to work with it. How true that was.

A similar story applied to the principal ballerina at the Royal Ballet, who couldn’t sit still for her love of music. Kids do have a laser focus, just not on the often-outdated stuff we give them. We need to learn to work with them on their terms, after all they are our workforce and our customer of tomorrow.

Creative kids from Calcutta

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in Big Data, People Skills Talent, Talent, Technology Tagged , ,

kids-in-kolkota

This story inspires me and it keeps me believing in the future.

A group of primary school kids in Calcutta realised that the slum in which they live wasn’t on Google maps anywhere. Their home simply didn’t exist in the eyes of officialdom, which meant they didn’t get access to government services such as running water and vaccinations.

The school kids took it upon themselves to add themselves to the map. They went door to door and took photos of the entire area. Eventually, they were put on the map and recognised by local government.

While one result was great evidence of the amazing outcome that can be achieved by bringing together young people with technology with a community goal in mind, the thing that left me speechless was that this meant polio vaccination rates doubled in the local area. Do we understand what that means to the people there? It means health and life – all down to kids with a camera and creative genius! I am taken aback each time I recall this.

The difference is 5%

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in People, People Skills Talent, Talent, Technology Tagged ,

At a recent winter Olympics, one of the ski teams famed for their ability on the slopes won no gold models, which was a big disappointment to both team and nation. Post-event the team’s management did some analysis and discovered that if the team performed 5% better – that is an improvement of time of only 5% – they would have won almost every gold medal that they competed for. I think that is a great reflection of society today. One false marketing move, one poor product decision, one error of judgement with a customer and you are left standing and in second place. Technology has sped things up, removed our levels of tolerance and demanded instant and regular communication, but I think the example above reflects true in life and business today. I don’t necessarily like it, but it’s true – just 5% can often be the difference between front page success and dismal failure. We need to ensure our people are the best, our technology is helping us understand and maximise our business, and our strategy clear and lived and breathed by everyone.

Normal is boring

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in Pearson, People, People Skills Talent, Skills, Talent Tagged , , ,

A student was asked to describe her good teachers but she couldn’t, explaining that they were all so different, but she could easily describe her bad teachers because they were all the same.

A recent, brilliant report from Sir Michael Barber at our company, Pearson, about the future of education called ‘An Avalanche is Coming’  (www.pearson.com/avalanche) emphasised great teachers as one of the biggest differentiators in learning, and we see it time and again where students of all ages are inspired because of the person that leads their class.

Isn’t that always the case? Whatever a company stands for, is it not always the people building the relationships, doing the deals and serving the customers who are the face of our companies? Therefore why do we attempt to recruit anything but the best to represent us? As the great quotes states, “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional, wait until you hire an amateur.”

Some companies I know such as Cisco Systems recruit staff at odd places, such as the finish line of great races, because they figure these are people with true character, grit and determination.

Normal is boring, quirky is memorable and remarkable is the difference between success and failure.

Pick-and-Mix

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in Education, Skills, Technology Tagged , , ,

I enjoyed being a part of the ‘Voice of Apprenticeships’ Conference this week, where I presented immediately before Skills Minister Matthew Hancock MP. I shared my views on how technology is changing not just how we must think about educating the next generation but how we engage and reach these students today.

MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses, are getting a lot of press currently and the UK’s FutureLearn programme led by the Open University is leading the way. Smartphones and tablets are changing how we absorb information and education must follow suit, in smaller, bite-sized chunks, when and where the learner chooses to digest it.

Education may well take the form of a pick-and-mix bag of choices, but hopefully not as expensive as the pick-and-mix outlets selling confectionery. It may be that the role of the education institution includes tracking and approving building blocks of learning that add up to a unique qualification and that very few degrees actually look the same, but are pieced together based on an individual’s requirements and more importantly, the needs of a job role and the workplace.

What are the choices? History and prestige means the top tier universities will always have a demand for places, because of the prestige of having the institution listed on one’s CV or profile on LinkedIn. But for the rest, there is no choice. The majority of learning establishments have to change their value proposition; a student in a small town in England, or even as far as Africa or Asia, won’t pay to attend a mediocre lecture, when they can learn online from world experts.

Haircut sir?

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in Marketing, People, Talent, Technology Tagged , , ,

I recently finished Walter Isaacson’s brilliant biography of Steve Jobs. The more it described Steve as different, the more I warmed to him, because the imperfections made him more human.

One of the early Apple board members recounted when he first met Jobs and Wozniak, sharing how he looked beyond the fact that both desperately needed a haircut. He was amazed by the ideas and the work that he saw, figuring that the two Steve’s can always get a haircut!

The Apple ‘Think Different’ campaign really put the company on the map, raising awareness of the brand to new heights. Today, we take the genius Apple products for granted and yet we ignore the talent of people for whom the gadgets and technology are second nature. Remember the need to understand them on their terms, for they will be both our customer and our workforce of tomorrow, so market to them on their terms, and when recruiting them, please don’t ask them to fax through their CV. You will be waiting for some time..