Posts Tagged laurel papworth

Laurel Papworth is our opening keynote speaker at RecruitTECH 2009, to be held on Friday 18 September 2009 at the Canberra Business Events Centre, Regatta Point in Canberra ACT.  More details about the event can be found here…

Laurel is Australia’s leading social network strategist and has been working in online communities, virtual worlds and forums for 20 years. She has been teaching social media marketing at University of Sydney since 2005 and her clients include Middle East Broadcasting in Saudi Arabia, and Ministry of Defense in Singapore.

Laurel is a Power150 Marketing Media blogger (one of only 3 Australians on the list) and a top Twitterer (she has over 10,000 followers). As a workshop facilitator, Laurel has provided courses in Asia, Middle East, Europe and Australia/New Zealand and recently released her courseware under creative commons (free) licence online.

Come to RecruitTECH 2009 and hear Laurel speak!

What is your job?

Social Networks Strategist

Where do you live?

Sydney

Give us a quick elevator pitch for your business…

I work with business to understand how to be social – taking corporate and government through practical solutions re: working with online communities.

How old is your business?

I have consulted in virtual communities strategies for 20 years (since early 1989), and run World Communities since 1995. Most of my clients are in Asia, including the work I do with Singapore Government although I also have a major London client.

Why are you passionate about your business?

For me, The Dialogue is The Content (that was my business tagline for years). I am particularly passionate about educating companies that social network engagement has real ROI (return on investment) and high COI (cost of inaction). I focus primarily on monetizing social media. Showing where the money is, by following the value to the community.

Name your three favourite business-related websites?

I spend my time looking for new websites and blogs – so it’s mostly tools like Blogsearch.google.com. Also LinkedIn and Facebook.

Name your three favourite websites – the ones that you visit in your spare time

I don’t differentiate between business and personal so Facebook, Twitter and new blogs again.

How many hours do you work in a typical working day and do you work weekends?

I never stop. Oh ok, about 10 hours a day that includes weekends. But even if I am watching a movie or playing a computer game, I am thinking about the social implications of the media. Even books can trigger a blog post or a tweet on Twitter

What do you do in your spare time?

What is “spare time”? I live a creative life with my job, so it’s always exciting. If I have some spare time I like to build websites myself – I usually outsource it, but I like coding. I like filming and video so I often experiment with podcasting/vidcasting though I rarely publish publicly, because it makes me cross I am not good enough. I like to play with electronic gadgets – the next day I get free, I want to set up my new video camera that does live uploading of video grabs. At the moment it is in a box until I get an hour or two to myself.

Even if I was retired on a gazillion dollars I would still do what I do. I would just be less worried about paying the rent!

How many followers do you have on Twitter?

Just over 10,000 and God bless their little cotton socks, every last one of ‘em.

How many friends do you have on Facebook?

Just shy of 1000 and …

Do you blog? Where is your blog located?

I now blog on my own domain name laurelpapworth.com hosted for $7 a month in the States. I used to blog on silkcharm.blogspot.com (Google’s free blog site) but decided to move it to my own name in January 2009.

If you were able to invite any three people to dinner, who would they be and why?

Howard Rheingold – he wrote the original book on virtual communities back in the ’80s. Ive actually met and chatted with him a few times over the years – both in real life and in Second Life – and he’s lots of fun.
David Lynch, movie director. He does quite a bit of stuff on YouTube and Twitter and Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks etc were awesomely weird.
Margaret Thatcher. She’d keep the two guys in line

Do you have a business mantra or favourite saying? If so, what is it?

“I’m worth being paid for” (I have a tendency to do too many “coffees” and (wo)man cannot live on coffee alone)
“how can I socialize this?” there’s a temptation for people to seed viral videos in communities and call it social media. It’s much more interesting if the community can change the content in some way. I particularly like looking at a website, maybe a council library page, and daydream about how I can turn it into a community website. Does that make me strange?

What is the biggest mistake that you have ever made in your business?

Listening to other people too much. People with business experience but no online community experience. It’s better that I do what I need to do and figure out the business angle later rather than do the business stuff first and lose sight of the goal meantime. I include finding joint venture partners, taking out patents and figuring out finances in this scenario.

In your eyes, what are the three top trends in the recruitment and technology space?

The first is building a profile online. The need for a C.V. diminishes if the applicant has a substantial network on LinkedIn including testimonials from previous bosses and clients, a portfolio of work on their blog, and strong reputation on industry based online communities. They become like “star” employees or CEOs. Secondly is the move towards escrow payments for open outsourcing. This is where a project is placed online, members bid to do the work, and then the money for the job is placed up in escrow. This opens up clerical, legal, art, design work to those who are working from home, mothers, remote area workers, housebound, etc.

What are you going to talk about at RecruitTECH and why is it important?

I will be speaking on Open Outsourcing (as above). The upcoming generation are quite entrepreneurial and enjoy having a portfolio or range of jobs. So there is appeal in checking into open outsourcing sites, and bidding on a selection of jobs. This gives them standing in the community with regards to trust and reputation and encourages loyalty to that site. Open Outsourcing has the potential to completely disrupt the traditional recruitment market and is where a lot of job ads have migrated to.

Come to RecruitTECH 2009 and hear Laurel speak!