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Sunday, May 16, 2010
Raising Dreams and Lives…Together: My Four Part Series for Employer Medical Recruiters
Sunday, April 4, 2010
The iPad Problem for Recruiters
The iPad Problem for Recruiters: Because the iPad does not play Flash video, 99 % of today’s recruitment-oriented videos will not play on it. Gulp. Fortunately, Online Job Tour and our clients are already prepared for it. What the iPad is: For what 90% of computer users use the Internet for – surfing the web, email, basic document creation – the iPad lets you do all those things totally portably and with no mouse or keypad, on a “tablet” device with a 9.5” screen that weighs 1.5 pounds. You can purchase books, movies, and music for it. There are thousands of apps for it, which are like “little softwares,” (and of course many more to come) for utilizing the Internet in a whole new way. I strongly encouraged all of my clients to buy the iPhone at its release in 2007 because of these “apps,” which in concert with Apple’s “i-technology” have become world changers. · For most users, the iPad can/should replace their laptop computers. What it does: For video/movie watching, the stunning HD display is a sight to behold, its interface for gaming grades off the charts, for touch-screen Internet browsing, it is special. And the size of the iPad screams down to the iPhone. If the iPad was just for books, it would be revolutionary. And it is. While I don't own a Kindle, I've played with one before, I've even tried Barnes and Nobles' Nook, I've read books on my iPhone, and I've read books the traditional way. It's a whole new reading experience that nothing else comes close to. Limitations: As you have likely read, discerning consumers to “Apple-Geeks” have pointed out what they think are flaws that later generations of the product will correct; for instance, there is no USB port (to me the biggest shortcoming), many are unhappy there is no camera or phone, but I think these are coming in future generations. Soon we will have 10G wireless networks and be walking and talking on portable mini computers – I don’t want to write about what features the iPad currently has or may have, but why it is important. The Future: Tablet computers like the iPad are going to be huge. They’re going to sell in the tens of millions and change the standards of how we interact with each other and with digital media. They will change written and broadcast journalism, and the way we tell stories, present ourselves, and communicate. In future forms they will ultimately will replace our computers. How this will affect recruiting professionals: While many manufacturers will produce a tablet product, certain target jobseeker demographics – including higher professionals such as physicians and high-end practitioners, and a large majority of the +$100,000 career professionals, because Apple has a growing market in certain areas (like medical imaging, for instance) that impact their careers, will buy the iPad. · This poses a compelling problem for almost all corporate and private recruiters of these higher-end jobseekers: because the iPad does not play Flash video, 99 % of the recruitment-oriented videos will not play on the iPad. Although MAC users represent only 12-15% of computer users, iPhone (emphasis on “phone”) users comprise 44% of smart phone users (physicians with an iPhone over 50%). Due to their preference for the iPhone, higher end jobseeker targets who do not have a MAC will likely buy the iPad in much larger numbers as a “bridge” to Apple. [This may end up being a truly masterful move by Apple to penetrate the PC market through a “side door” that costs $499 instead of a relatively expense MAC vs. the PC.] Online Job Tour™’s position has been to build our product to accommodate all browser platforms and for the widest audience possible. As a result, rather than a video platform that uses Adobe/Flash only, our work involves Java Scripting instead, which can host a larger number of video formats and stays away from total reliance on Flash video (a Microsoft-favored tool, which are in PCs, which dominate corporate America).
A revolutionary product, to learn more about patent-pending Online Job Tour ™ check out our website at www.onlinejobtour.com. Contact me if you would like to learn more about it, or about how will help our clients exceed their recruiting goals and challenges.
Sources: http://seekingalpha.com/article/147523-apple-palm-lead-soaring-smart-phone-de... http://gadgetcrave.com/mac-use-up-to-12-percent-users-are-more-wealthy-tech-oriented/3669/ |
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
7 Years to Patent Pay Dirt
[This is a posterous posting sent to many sites: to view my entire blog go to: http://carlbrickman.blogspot.com] · It’s a satisfying feeling to invent something as an improvement over what currently exists, and then get confirmation through getting a patent awarded that nothing like it existed beforehand. It was also nice to deal only with questions regarding its authenticity, not the invention’s patentability, with the government reviewer. How long does a technology patent take to be processed by the US Government? In May of 2003 I filed a provisional patent application for my Online Job Tour™ invention. At the time only 60 million had a high speed Internet connection (today that number is approaching 2 billion) and I envisioned a day when we all would have broadband and be tapped into the “virtual Internet.” What I invented was a development system of placing content in categories traditionally-needed by jobseekers onto a single website – as a medical recruiter I wanted to both make the jobs I was representing more attractive and deliver needed information quickly to jobseekers in order to shorten the hiring timeline. As technology changed regarding the use of digital photography, video and web design, and through a test market among hospitals in 13 states, my company, Promo Web® Innovations, has grown the Invention while staying true to its design and concept. The results of our work have been remarkable and also make sense – there are obvious benefits in providing a “virtual visit experience” for both sides – from photo tours of the hospital’s service area to testimonials – in our latest Online Job Tour we feature 50 people in Elko Nevada, as well as 37 videos totaling more than 2.5 hours. On a website, jobseekers can “visit” an Online Job Tour as often as they need. It is mistake-free and with no time or money limitations (unlike the real interview, which must be limited to only a few candidates). Unlike other recruiting products, like DVDs and streaming videos, Online Job Tour can be updated and added to – it never gets old and requires being remade/repurchased. Our new website has more details, samples of our work, a demonstration of our software, which is in development, our surveys, and our patent application materials: www.onlinejobtour.com · We have received news from the patent office within the last month, almost seven years from the official May 2003 application date, of our “Notice for Allowance,” which means a patent award is forthcoming. The patent application and following waiting period has been a truly remarkable “journey.” It takes “forever.” Due to the changes in technology, by the time the government finally got to reviewing my invention, technologies and the widespread use of the Internet, and its influence into our culture, had changed dramatically. The patent reviewer therefore never had the opportunity to evaluate my work at the time it was applied for – he would have seen and viewed it entirely different than today. As an example of what I mean, when I first introduced healthcare employers to my invention, they viewed it with skepticism and they did not yet put together how our culture was evolving toward the use of the internet as a “web solution” to many of our problems. Most all websites were nothing but text (due to Internet speed and few website development tools as web design was in the hands of “geeks” (I use that word with affection) who needed to understand math, code, etc. Instead of my work looking like many robust websites that cannot be differentiated at first glance due to robust home pages and images, in 2003, and certainly for job search, which was nascent on the Internet, the invention would have been a real eye opener. Today, my work is viewed as a “make sense” approach and not like it was eight years ago, which was “eye opening and totally different.” Back then, it took a “visionary person” who had characteristics of being “out of the box” while today a person with good business sense is all it takes to appreciate the benefits of my work. As a result of my invention taking so long to get to a patent reviewer, another issue is he was confused about what it is – a good part of our dialogues and responses were explaining to the reviewer – carefully and without seeming insulting in any way, that he continually had problems differentiating the invention from online job boards themselves. In the early 2000s there were many job board services. However, their advertisements – or the job postings on them, were text-based, appearing like newspaper ads. There are a lot of reasons for this – first and foremost that slow Internet speeds were dictating how the job boards were designed and images and robust web content would bog down job search for most users. Thus, my invention wasn’t really made for that time but for the future when Internet broadband speed would be omnipresent. Even today I am not sure the reviewer had an appreciation for that. Fortunately for us, there are legal rules of patentability he followed and those rules, which my invention adhered to and qualified under, promoted the patent being awarded. When I began introducing my work to employers, many questioned whether it was patentable – I got that out of the way early with my patent attorney, who guided me through the unusual steps of what can be patented: a technical process that has qualifications. And whether a product can get a patent is another issue entirely, requiring the government to research for prior patents or applications that may have come before it (called “prior art”) – which my lawyer also researched. It’s a satisfying feeling to invent something as an improvement over what currently exists, and then get confirmation through getting a patent awarded that nothing like it existed beforehand. It was also nice to deal only with questions regarding its authenticity, not the invention’s patentability, with the government reviewer. I used the timeframe, as well as the general lack of how to harness the Internet by employers, to test-market the invention, and over time, it has worked out well – it is an invention that has been thoroughly tested and it not only has a positive financial, time, and competitive benefit to customers, but we have also done surveys with them and with jobseekers. As a result, we are better prepared to market it to others now that the patent award is forthcoming. Unlike many who create and invention which peters out over this timeframe because it lacks viability because time has changed, in my case the online classified employment advertising industry will grow to $11 billion in 2010. A 7-year journey for any invention like this certainly needs this kind of luck at the end of it! |
Monday, February 8, 2010
Everybody’s Blogging. That’s not good news for your recruiting.
A recent study released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project produced an estimate that an amazing 1 in 10 online adults maintain a blog. The percentage of users age 30 and older increased from 7% to 11% from 2007 to 2009. The number of Internet youths aged 12-17 who blog dropped a little bit due to what most analysts think in favor of social networking sites with their increasingly brief and mobile communication habits (“teenagers,” right?). There are 30 million bloggers since 2000, when there were 0.
Major metro newspapers have shut down, and my Tampa Tribune is thin enough to sneeze at – literally, there are enough pages in it to barely satisfy a hearty sneeze, but not enough pages to get a fireplace fire going. Even my favorite sports magazines are thin now – the articles less robust and with fewer investigative, substantial stories, and instead fluff-filled ones. Facebook has boomed to be the third largest website in the world – where now everyone has a soapbox for every and any opinion, and let’s face it, much of these opinions are totally un-researched and trendy. Facebook actually has pages that incite “movements” and “fans” of incredibly innocuous things. A friend of mine once said “Facebook is when the general public gets in between great ideas and the news.” It’s difficult to disagree.
On top of real news diminishing and millions of blogs and Facebook entries blowing into the Internet, I inferred in my last blog entry that there is mounting Internet information that is already obsolete and taking up the Internet and limiting search results much like that massive island of garbage that is floating around in the Pacific Ocean.
How does this set up for your recruiting efforts? Not good. Especially for those employers who still are merely referring jobseekers to a handful of links of websites of organizations in their service area which sends the message “sell yourself” – which promotes these jobseekers go into the “Internet black hole” to find blog entries, Facebook pages of teenagers, and “glamorized news” – much of it years old, and even if it is recent, the news is often about the latest county sheriff’s drug bust, or worse.
If employers HONESTLY consider that their target jobseekers (and in our clientele’s case who target doctors and advanced medical practitioners) are in the highest tier of the intelligent people in our country (let’s call it the top 10% in the country regarding innate and learned intelligence), then sending them into the Internet hoping these professionals will arbitrarily find one source after the next which promote their careers are excellent options for them, is complete fantasy.
- News, blogs, Facebook, referring jobseekers to a website the employer didn’t produce – these get in the way of professional recruiting success, and do not promote it.
Our Online Job Tour™ invention allows employers to produce and maintain and fully control the “presentation” and the information they provide to jobseekers they are competing for. This is while they use the Internet (on a single website) to maximize the recruiting efficiency model by bringing a “virtual onsite interview visit experience” to jobseekers and their families – that is better and more comprehensive than the real trip. We are about to launch our new website which has compelling testimonials of jobseekers – one Harvard-trained physician, who are contacting our clients desiring their posted jobs without a real visit to their hospital campuses and community! ‘Unheard of before Online Job Tour. The ramifications of this are compelling – from jobseekers who now believe what they see online – particularly how Online Job Tour presents content they need, to how they are fed up with the futility of Internet job search and combing through Internet "garbage."
The answer to reaching today’s web-savvy jobseekers – especially intelligent “top 10%” professionals, are with “niche” tools and approaches that directly appeal to them that serve as bona fide web solutions to the mutual needs of both parties – especially as the Internet gets bigger.
To contact me directly, email me at carlbrickman@yahoo.com. I am also on Facebook. Learn more about my work at http://www.onlinejobtour.com/
Thursday, January 7, 2010
High-Speed Internet happened
As we enter into the next decade of the 21st Century, it is striking to see how the Internet – particularly Internet connection speed, has grown and influenced our world culture. In my opinion, Internet connection speed increasing was the most significant technology in the decade, because it led to everything else.
The real Internet boom was the emergence of high-speed Internet – not the Internet itself.
My very first blog entry was devoted to the beginnings of the Internet, which was technically started in 1990 (although its roots go back to the late 60s). The Web clearly did not come into the national consciousness until late in the last decade.
Remember AOL and “You’ve Got Mail!”? E-mail was the iconic new way of communicating with others, as well as text-chatting/Instant Messaging. Surely if you remember this you also remember the screech of the fax noise that connected you to the AOL server at dial up speed.
In 2000, less than 5% of Americans had a broadband connection. In 2006, still only 42% of households had broadband – or “high-speed” Internet (see compelling link below).
In the early 2000s it took forever for a large image file, such as a digital photo, to download due to dial up and 56k speeds. Until the speed would get faster, we would never have the Internet we have today.
Back then a few other factors were also still in place that were holding back the Internet: geeks/math people (not marketing or sales professionals) were still the developers of web content. Digital photography (and then video, which left film soon after the 35mm camera was made obsolete) was not yet viewed by the mainstream as a new approach to chronicling our lives and behavior, and cell phones only relayed voice (cell phones were not yet with a camera in the US, or with access to the Internet, nor text).
As Internet speed increased suddenly images could be downloaded in real time, and as “a picture is worth 1000 words,” the genie was let out of the bottle. This motivated us to develop robust web content to communicate in a new way, as well as newer (and smaller) communication tools – and we keep pushing the limits.
For instance, my Online Job Tour invention, applied for in 2003, created a new approach to advertising a career opportunity at an employer – as opposed to the text-based classifieds which appeared on job boards (like a newspaper want ad on the computer screen), Online Job Tour was a “recruiting website tool” that brought the onsite interview experience to the jobseeker on a website address. Now an employer can provide all jobseekers with a virtual visit experience that is in many ways better than the real interview trip.
Website design was moving away from the math geeks as web development tools became available to the general public. Concurrent with this was the growth of technology tools and the beginnings of social networking sites – there were many in the early days, but Facebook has emerged as the #3 website in the world with almost 350 million users (Google is #1). Now you can post a photo or video in a snap and the web is clearly replacing TV and the newspaper.
Here are the top search subjects by year:
2001: World Trade Center, Osama bin Laden
2003: Iraq
2004: Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Christina Aquilera, Pamela Anderson
2005: Katrina, MySpace, Wikipedia
2007: iPhone, Facebook, YouTube
2008: Obama, Palin, Fox News
2009: unemployment, bankruptcy, foreclosure
So is the Internet a reflection of us? You tell me.
Internet speed is now creating problems. Because huge image and video files are omnipresent (because they can be viewed and transmitted so easily online now), it is estimated that by the end of the year our world will be producing 1 million gigabytes of information annually – storage will be a challenge. Panning through old and obsolete information and abandoned websites and their old content, will be one of many other challenges.
Today the Internet is not feared like when in the late 1990s and early 2000s we were reluctant to give out our credit card number online. Today the Internet is a real time service to enhance our lives in many ways. Amazon.com, the biggest online retailer, keeps breaking records.
Internet speed is now up to 40 Mb speed from a decade ago – this is like Usain Bolt racing a slug (the slug being dial up Internet). What is possible online is limited only by our imagination. People believe what they see and read online, like TV. College students today cannot remember the days before the Internet. Long distance charges are not just a thing of the past, but today unlimited calling and text plans are the norm.
Regarding the tools we use to access the Internet, they are wireless, portable, getting smaller, and the way we are dealing with others is immediate. 3G networks will be 10G in 3 years. Just like broadband blew up the Internet, wireless speed increasing and the devices which facilitate it is where the most amazing changes will take place in the next decade.
Residential use of the Internet shifted away from dial-up to high-speed access during the mid 2000s. Still, over 40 percent of households had no type of Internet access as of 2005. Residential broadband access rates were estimated to be around 42 percent as of March 2006 (PEW Internet, 2006). http://agecon.okstate.edu/broadband/bb_status_us.asp
To contact me directly, email me at carlbrickman@yahoo.com. I am also on Facebook. Learn more about my work at http://www.onlinejobtour.com/
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Online Job Tour compels a Harvard MD
When I invented Online Job Tour in 2002 (this was when less than 50 million people in the world had a high-speed Internet connection – before Facebook, YouTube, before phones had cameras) I remember telling friends that the Web would take over how we do a great deal of our essential living – including career search. Aghast listeners heard that “one day, how employers appear online will be more important than how they are in person to jobseekers.”
My invention “brought the onsite visit experience to the jobseeker” – and the proposition of hospitals (our test market has been in healthcare) flying in every single person who came across their classified ads could not compete with a “virtual presentation.” Moreover, Online Job Tour would maximize the most marketable features of the client and their community – and unlike any other recruiting product, would never get old or need to be remade because it is web-based.
Our clients are beginning to regularly get inquiries from the highest caliber jobseekers – particularly recent graduates who “grew up Online” who are willing to accept their career openings without a real visit and before speaking to anyone – this is symbolic of this “new time” but also of the success of Online Job Tour. Here is a typical letter our clients receive via their Online Job Tours.
CONTACT FROM ONLINE JOB TOUR
Comments: Jason Scott Director of Physician Development Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital 305 Langdon Street Somerset, KY 42503
Dear Mr. Scott: My name is Dr. xxxxxxxxx and I am interested in the [Specialist Position] opportunity at Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital. I commend you and all those involved for your extremely informative and comprehensive website which provided the online job tour.
My wife and I are particularly excited about the possibility of returning to a smaller, more cohesive area in the Midwest, as is Somerset. We have fond memories of the Midwest, having previously lived in both Indiana and Missouri.
What draws us to Somerset and your facility is the readily apparent collegial atmosphere, the stability of the hospital, the devotion to providing outstanding clinical care including recent expansion projects and new state-of-the art equipment, and the safe, tranquil surroundings with outstanding schools. While we do not yet have children, it is certainly in our plans, and education of children is of paramount importance to us. The low cost of living and low taxes, of course, provide an additional draw.
I am now in my fourth and final year of radiology residency in San Antonio, Texas, and then will continue training at a fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Last year, I served as Chief Resident of my program, which has 40 residents. I will complete fellowship training on June 30, 2011 and am eligible to begin full-time employment in July 2011. I am happy to take my fair share of call including nights and weekends.Thus, the opportunity with Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital is very appealing.
While I realize that this is almost 1.5 years away, I am genuinely interested in the opportunity with Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital and wanted to introduce myself to you sooner than later since I believe I may be a fit. I look forward to speaking with you further about the opportunity with Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital and would be delighted to speak with you at your convenience.
I have attached my CV for your review. We find nothing missing from your presentation other than more specifics about the radiology position and would be interested in seeing Somerset in person if it was mutually beneficial. Your website is extremely comprehensive. I thank you in advance for the opportunity and look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely, xxxxxxxxx M.D.
Attached File: CV.pdf
Lake Cumberland Regional’s Online Job Tour is http://www.lakecregional.com/
To contact me directly, email me at carlbrickman@yahoo.com. I am also on Facebook. Learn more about my work at http://www.onlinejobtour.com/
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Introducing Burck Smith – get ready, world.
This phenomenon is to our world like the skin is the largest organ of our body - its influence is now so profound that we are behaving and living, in many ways, without any more conscious thought of “logging on.” The ramifications are broad and interesting to study.
We know based on statistics that “high-speed” Internet connectivity is what was the real “big boom” of Internet technology as it is the "virtual web" (as opposed to the “screech” of dial up with text-only web pages) – it grew from about 40 million using broadband in 2001 to more than 1.5 Billion today - that's hard to grasp.
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Today’s “new jobseeker” and clearly the emerging jobseeker market, moves freely between the real and Internet worlds as though there is no membrane and with no conscious thought of doing it. This is a powerful symbol and truth regarding the need to appeal to their Internet life with classified employment advertising that contains proactively produced Internet content. Being online is – I’m not stretching this – becoming in many ways more intergral to their existence and more important than what exists outside of their email account, their Facebook page, and what's on their computer devices.
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Because I am in focused on the employment advertising business, I like to advise my clients (and encourage the older garde who still have some discomfort with the Internet) that the last two graduation cycles of graduates (8 years) have “grown up online” – they think, communicate, react to web content, have defined expectations, and indeed now live on the Web as second nature. Clearly, my student Interns would die without the Internet (I’m almost not kidding). Today’s “new jobseeker” and clearly the emerging jobseeker market moves freely between the real and Internet worlds. This is a powerful symbol and truth regarding the need to appeal to their Internet life with classified employment advertising that contains proactively produced Internet content. Being online is – I’m not stretching this – becoming in many ways more integral to their existence and more important than what exists outside of their email account, their Facebook page, and what's on their computer devices.
Meet Burck Smith.
Straigherline is the brainchild of Burck Smith, a 39 year-old Internet entrepreneur with degrees from Williams and Harvard, who is bent on altering the DNA of higher education as we have known it for almost 500 years. Rather than students being tethered to campuses or an anonymous computer campus, Smith envisions a world where they can seamlessly assemble credits and degrees from multiple online providers, each specializing in subjects – and competing on price.
How does $99 per month grab you to take college-accredited courses, and take as much time as you need to complete them, no books, you already have room and board at your home, or cave with your wireless laptop, and your professor is available 24/7?
Most people are so invested in the idea of education by institution that it’s hard to imagine another way. Because Web-based higher education is still new and considered a “working class” or “second class” education by perhaps society and possibly employers (whose administrators are “old school” – pardon my pun), consumers see online courses in the same negative light.
Consumers are going to change their tune. It’s an absolute fact – here’s how I know:
First, college is becoming impossible to afford for many. Students are graduating with massive debt. There seems to be an endless spiral of tuition hikes due to a variety of hard costs of running traditional colleges (and their massive football programs, the light bills, maintenance, tenured professors, et. al). If Burck Smith doesn’t offer extremely cheap college to the hungry hordes of consumers seeking higher education and a college degree, which is the ticket to a better job and a better life, another will. The day is coming when it will be a sheer financial decision, anyway.
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– at one time music and mathematics were the only universal languages – today a third language is booming and it is that of the virtual Internet.
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Second, we’re already at a point where high school students have been accessing the virtual Internet since they could read and write. They are comfortable and many prefer dealing and communicating with others online – clearly social networking sites are metaphors for the new virtual language – at one time music and mathematics were the only universal languages – today a third language is booming and it is that of the virtual Internet. Frankly, if you haven’t stepped foot in a high school or onto a college campus lately, it is clear that students are masters of this new language already, on Wi-Fi campuses. There are entire city blocks, even small towns which are Wi-Fi. Soon we will all have a Smart Phone.
All it takes is for one generation of college students to see online courses as no more or less legitimate (that’s a college generation, which is four years – not a lifetime), and a whole lot cheaper, for the consensus of the general public to change.
Older folks remember when the computer was looked at as a curiosity and many resisted giving up their typewriters. Even today, my staff deals with employer recruiting professionals who do not buy into the need to develop proactive recruitment content to appeal to today’s obvious tech-savvy jobseekers – as though they insist on using the typewriter to continue doing their work and are oblivious to the huge losses in efficiency and opportunity.
Another college degree offered by the same professor who teaches at Duke but for $99 a month? Count me in. And set up the turnstile to count the masses that will follow me.
Check out Straighterline at http://www.straighterline.com/
To contact me directly, email me at carlbrickman@yahoo.com. I am also on Facebook. Learn more about my work at http://www.onlinejobtour.com/
