A couple of weeks ago I applied for a job. On the Monday I got a call for a screening interview with the agency who was dealing with it. I had that the next day. I was then informed, a couple of days later, that there would be an interview with the company the following Wednesday (i.e. the one just gone).

The interview itself was a bit of an anti-climax but I found out yesterday that I didn't get the job. I kind of expected that as I was promised feedback one way or another within a day or so and, consequently, it seemed to take a long time.

I was disappointed yesterday but, today, I made quite a few applications. I'm feeling positive because, I may not have got the job but, in the current job climate getting to interview stage (especially after a screening interview) is good going.

Tags: agency, interview, job, job hunting, recruitment, screen
Current Mood: contemplative

I found printing my CV out a pain with my deskjet printer because it often smudged letters. The annoying thing was that, when it happened, it was usually only 1 or 2 letters. However, that's enough to ruin a CV.

As it was only 1 or 2 letters I knew it wasn't the printer cartridge. If it needed cleaning, or was low on ink, more than than 1 letter would have been affected.

A quick bit of research online shows that it was a known issue with deskjet (aka inkjet or bubble jet) printers. I found a cheap laser printer was on offer by several shops so I went to town and bought one. I tested it last night and it's a major improvement.

I'll probably use the deskjet to print out job adverts as replacement toners cost almost as much as the printer itself.

Tags: bubble jet, cv, deskjet, inkjet, laser, printer, printer cartridge, smudge
Current Mood: pleased

Among my many podcasts are 4 media programmes. Two of them are produced in the UK (Media Show from the BBC and Media Talk from The Guardian). From all of them there is clearly a few changes (some having more impact in the UK than in other countries):

There are several trends (not good if you're a commercially funded TV station):

1) With digital switchover (i.e. the ending of the analogue TV transmissions to be replaced with digital TV): The coming of more channels means that the number of viewers for each channel as the viewers get dispersed among the various offerings. This means that each TV channel finds it harder to sell advertising space as some of their viewers are watching other channels.

2) The rise of the web: As the web is free, is accessible any time (not just when the programme coordinator thinks you should watch it) and, due to the nature of the web, advertisers only have to pay for adverts that are seen[1], advertisers have been moving their adverts from TV (which is very expensive for the notion that lots of people may see your advert) to the web.

3) Ad skipping technology: For the past few years new recorders (e.g. the TiVo and some high end VCRs) have the ability to record programmes without recording the ads. Furthermore, others give the user the ability to skip the commercial breaks quickly. That makes TV a less attractive medium for advertisers.[2]

And, finally,

4) The economic downturn: One of the first things that gets cut in a recession is marketing budgets. Given 1), 2) and 3) that means the decline in ad sales for TV, which was already a trend, is accelerated.

These trends have already led Ofcom to conclude that it would be unfair to hold ITV to its Public Service Broadcasting commitments. What are these, you may ask? In the old days (when we just had BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5) one of the conditions of getting a licence to broadcast was that, due to the how valuable the airwaves were then, all channels had to enter Public Service Broadcasting commitments. The exact nature varied from channel to channel but, broadly speaking, they all had to make programmes that were not commercially viable for the public good (e.g. ITV had to produce a certain amount of local news). Ofcom has already agreed that, in today's world, the airwaves are not so valuable so has loosened the requirements on ITV (and I think Channel 4 and 5 but I'm not sure about them).

Furthermore, Ofcom is openly discussing "top slicing" the licence fee. Basically it means that, instead of being there to support the BBC, some of the money we pay in out TV Licence should go to support Channel 4, and other broadcasters. What I'm trying to say here is that TV companies are losing a lot of money because advertisers no longer see TV advertising as effective as it used to be.

Two or three weeks ago I noticed a new advert on TV. It was TV's fight back:

Thinkbox's Ad. The point it's trying to make is that TV advertising is so effective it becomes part of our culture. It features a man remembering adverts that most of the audience would remember. However, I think that the adverts it has picked are its biggest weakness. I shall illustrate:

Cornetto's Ad (starts 7mins 40 secs into video). As far as I can remember that's from the 80s.

I couldn't find a video but Wiki states:

The Honey Monster was first seen on TV in 1976 in an advertisement created by John Webster of the advertising agency BMP.[1] The ad focused around a nutritional message which was illustrated by a "mother" (played by Henry McGee) and "child" (the Honey Monster) relationship. The mother was responsible for what the child was eating. The child wanted honey and would cry "Tell them about the honey, mummy!".

"You'll Go Monster-Mad For The Honey!!": In the late 1980s, "Sugar Puffs" adverts featured the slogan "You-ll Go Monster-Mad For The Honey".

In other words we're talking late 70s to early 80s.


I confess I don't recognise the chocolate hazelnut advert.

Fairy Liquid has been running for years and is still running.

I confess that I don't recognise the ad with "Wazzah!" in.

Yellow Pages. However, the Yellow Pages website shows how old that advert is.

R Whites Leomonade. From Wiki we find the start date is 1973. The end date is not stated but I think it was the late 80s or early 90s.

Bodyform. As far as I recall it was broadcast in the 90s and the early 2000s but I may be wrong there.

Milk Marketing Board. A quick check of sites shows that it started in the late 80s. As far as I recall, I can't remember it being shown in the last 5 years (and probably not in the last 10).

So why have I talked about the history of each one? The point I'm trying to make is that, if Thinkbox is trying to prove that it's important and relevant, why did they choose adverts that emphasise how much TV advertising glory days were in its past?

Ps.
For those who read my previous post: If you're really interested, the bit I researched was finding all the links. The first part is done from memory but, as it's discussed almost every week in media podcasts, I would feel embarrassed if I got any of that wrong.

[1] As the server only has to offer adverts when the page is requested, you can count the number of pages that have been viewed that had that advert in.
[2] It also hits the web because it's easy to get ad blocking software for your computer.


{edited 30th June 2009 @ 08:38 to include new point 3.}

{edited 11th July 2009 @ 08:52 to correct spelling of Thinkbox.}

Tags: advertisement, advertising, bbc, channel 4, channel 5, culture, digital switchover, downturn, itv, media show, media talk, multichannel, new media, ofcom, podcast, public service broadcasting, recession, structural changes, the guardian, thinkbox, top slicing, tv, tv licence, web
Current Mood: curious

Last week I was just feeling tired and unmotivated. Luckily my brother was visiting my parents the weekend just gone so I went down to take a break from everything and see my brother as well as my parents. I did miss Julie, though.

Today I left my CV with several employment agencies and I was interviewed on the spot with one. Others asked me to e-mail my CV to them. I've done that now.

After that I did my weekly shop and made myself something to eat. As I have achieved my targets for the day I'm going to indulge a little. The next item is something I started preparing before I went down to Lincoln (i.e. I researched it). Now I'm going to play media pundit...

Tags: break, brother, cv, email, employment agency, julie, lincoln, parents, shopping
Current Mood: productive

I've noticed something: Before I was given gardening leave, I felt that time was tight but since I have had whole days to myself, I feel that time is tighter? What is the reason for this paradox?

Well, it's quite simple, when I was at work I only did as much job hunting as I could reasonably afford. Now that I've got all the time in the world, I'm looking to get more done.

Anyway, I'm taking a couple of days off -- not from everything just from job hunting. I've been cleaning and tidying my flat today. I'll carry on tomorrow. Now why, you might ask, does it take two days to clean and tidy when it normally takes one? The answer is that I'm taking the opportunity to sort out my paper work (i.e. shred all the bills and pay slips that are too old to be of any use to anyone). I'm doing that because it'll create more space and it'll help keep me positive for when I restart my job hunting.

Tags: applications, cleaning, gardening leave, job hunting, sorting out, tidying, time
Current Mood: thoughtful

I found out, when I went in to work on Tuesday, that all of those being made redundant were being offered gardening leave to conduct their job hunting. I accepted and I've been at home all this week. I've made a few applications.

I'm now going to create some Excel spreadsheets and put those scripts I wrote into them. After all that's one of the reasons I bought the laptop. Next week I'll go around the employment agencies and show them the scripts in action.

I made a discovery at the start of my job search: the monster site doesn't work on Apple Macs. It does, however, work on Windows so I applied for a couple of jobs via that site last night.

Tags: apple, applications, employment agency, gardening leave, job hunting, laptop, mac, monster, redundancy, scripts, vba, windows

I've decided that I am going to buy a laptop. This would have 2 benefits:

I would be able to demonstrate my Excel scripts to employers and employment agencies, and
I would be able to submit word documents by e-mail (some employers allow applicants to fill in a word version of their application forms and e-mail them in) without having to borrow Julie's laptop.

If it was just the second reason I would agree with those who would say that it's just a waste of money.

Now I have to decide which laptop I'm going to have. The choice is between the Acer D150B or the Compaq Mini 702.

I've already ordered a mouse as I find laptop controls awkward.

The Compaq has a larger keyboard and HP are well known. On the down side it has less than 1/3 of the hard drive space the Acer has.

Acer has been recommended to me by a colleague. However, I hadn't heard of them before and reviews of the model state the track pad has sensitivity and stiffness problems (I know I'm getting a mouse but it might be indicative of the general build quality).

I've googled reliability reports for both brands and both are mixed (with a lot more praise for Acer).

Does anybody know anything about either brand?

Tags: acer, application, compaq, employers, employment agency, excel, job hunting, julie, laptop, reliability, script, word
Current Mood: thoughtful

I had a plumber out on Monday. He confirmed that the boiler needed to be replaced. He gave me quotes for that. I've made appointments with other plumbers to come out and give me quotes for replacing my boiler.

Tags: boiler, plumber, quote

I found out yesterday that I'm going to be made redundant. I've just got to work my notice period then...

It was all a bit too much to take in yesterday but I'm starting to think of a job hunting plan.

Tags: job hunting, redundancy

Again, I will be deleting my MySpace account and wanted to rescue a couple of things. This is a blog entry I wanted to rescue:

Blog Entry:

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Terrorism and democracy
Current mood: worried
Category: News and Politics
First of all, I know (and feel) that I'm more likely to be run over by a drunk driver when crossing the road than I am of being killed by a terrorist. So anyone who is looking over their shoulder for the next terrorist, bear that in mind.

Another fact for you: most murder victims know their murderers personally. You're more likely to be killed by your friends and family than a complete stranger.

What I'm trying to say is stop being paranoid and have a sense of perspective.

Having said that one thing on my mind is the suspension of the normal rules of evidence and proof when it comes to trying suspected terrorism. Remember this: the easier you make it to convict, the more innocent people will end up behind bars! Not only is that unjust (which is terrible in its own right) but that leads to three things:
1) somoene who is guilty may get away because the search is called off,
2) the anger that the friends and family of the victim of the miscarriage of justice may be more sympathetic to the terrorist group (not to mention the victim of miscarriage themselves), and
3) any country the professes democracy and suspends rights legitimately earns the reputation of being hypocritical.

What I want to say is this: If we truly want to preserve our way of life we should go about doing things with the standards we profess and not give them up because things have got a little rough.

In the unlikely event that I fall victim to a terrorist attack, I would still want suspects to under go the proper due process and retain their rights. Only that way can we be sure that we have the right people and that the evidence does prove they did it. Furthermore, I would still oppose any attempt by Government to restrict our right to privacy (e.g. super databases, tracking people without reasonable suspicion of wrong doing, etc). If you want to impose a surveillance society and/or one where suspects don't have rights DO NOT PRETEND YOU ARE DOING IT IN MY NAME!

Tags: blog, database, democracy, justice, myspace, privacy, rights, surveillance, suspect, terrorism