employability
What's your skillset?
Can your business keep pace with the myspace generation?
Our IT department issued us with new mobile phones the other day. Now I like to think that I'm pretty good with technology and can generally work things out after playing around with whatever gadget it is for a while. However, after a pitiful (and somewhat humiliating!) attempt at setting up the phone's new email facility, I had to swallow my pride and ask for help from the team’s 18-year old apprentice.
This got me thinking - how do businesses keep up-to-date with the rapidly changing world of e-communications?
iTunes, bebo, myspace, podcasts, blogging, twittering…. If this sounds like double dutch to you, then maybe you need to ask whether you and your business are keeping up with all the latest ways on promoting your business online?
A recent report carried out by Tesco Computers for Schools showed that children are outstripping their parents when it comes to getting the most out of the latest technology.
The survey found that at just seven (that's seven!) years old, 73 per cent of children could use search engines on the internet, while 62 per cent could edit a word document. From thirteen, most young people can:
Create a social-networking profile
Download music
Download photos, edit and manipulate images
Make a film and upload it.
Nowadays, young people live and breathe information technology. They think nothing of downloading music from the internet, chatting on Instant Messager, writing their blog on Live Journal, watching TV and texting their friends, all while they eat their lunch! How many people in your organisation can multi-task like that??!
In the current economic climate, businesses need to be considering new ways to gain a more competitive edge. To gain that edge, maybe it’s time to explore the options that web-based technology has to offer to promote your business. This, as the Tesco report points out is the playground of the young - who knows what innovative ways they can think of to market your business?
Think you could benefit from an injection of young talent? Do you think young people could help your business gain a competitive edge?
Comment on this blog
I sometimes feel that with all this new technology young people are losing out by not communicating face-to-face with each other as much as they used to, so they don’t develop those skills. Schools could do more to develop those skills. In exams there should be more emphasis on spelling and good English.I despair when I see some of the spellings of simple words that my staff produce.
By Dinky on 2009 02 20
Connexions Nottinghamshire is the guidance service for all young people, who are aged 13 to 19 years in Nottinghamshire. Connexions Personal Advisers based in schools, colleges, youth centres and high street drop in 'one stop shops' offer young people advice on a range of subjects from careers, jobs and education to health, money and housing.
Connexions Nottinghamshire also offers a FREE recruitment service to employers who want to include 16-19 year olds in their recruitment.
We advertise your vacancies on our website, in schools and colleges and in our local Connexions centres. We can also advise you on:
We can also advise you on:
- recruitment timing
- training
- wages
- working hours
Want to find out more
Call: 0845 8508899
e: employer.vacancies@cnxnotts.co.uk
or visit the employer pages on
www.cnxnotts.co.uk
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Disclaimer - The comments made by readers of this blogsite are not the opinions of Connexions Nottinghamshire. While we want honest opinions, we will not tolerate comments of a discriminatory nature and will delete such comments as soon as we are alerted to their appearance. If you want to report a comment to the administrator, please click here.
While I don’t deny that young people are probably more in the know about new ways to use the Internet and digital technology, I’m sometimes astounded at their lack of face-to-face social skills.
I want my staff to be polite when answering the phone, be able to write a letter in Queen’s English and be able to communicate face-to-face and not just over the web!
I recognise that many young people can do both and would be an asset to my company but I’ve had a lot of recent applications which use text speak and I find this completely unacceptable!
By redthorpey on 2008 12 10