This article in the ERE newsletter, written for HR and recruitment is even more true today. With the job market heating up, and recruitment focusing on digital profiles and information, a resume for most, but the highest executives, just gets in the way.


Why “Name-only” Employee Referrals Produce Dramatic Results
by Dr. John Sullivan Oct 29, 2012, 5:42 am ET

Employee referrals provide the highest quality and the highest volume of hires, but you won’t receive as high a level of results if you don’t minimize roadblocks to referrals. Requiring a current resume for employee referrals is a major “under-the-radar” detriment to reaching the goal of having referrals exceed 50% of all hires. 

Requiring a resume to start a referral process might not seem like a big deal (because the resume is “the currency” of recruiting) but it can be. Although “active candidates” all have current resumes, employed people who are not actively looking (some people call them passives) don’t have an updated resume available and they may have little interest in creating one.

Requiring an updated resume in order to move forward slows down and occasionally stops employee referral efforts. Consider an alternative approach, which is offering an option to employees, so that all they must submit is a prospect’s name and contact information in order to begin the referral process. This approach is known as a “name-only” referral.
read full article here

What the article does not emphasie is that we the participants deliver the media with comments.


What Facebook Will Look Like by 2024
by Todd Wasserman, Mashable.com

Online empires come and go. At one time, Alta Vista was the top search engine and Netscape was the only web browser. Both are now gone. Will the same happen to Facebook?

It's unlikely the company could completely exit the stage. However, the Facebook of 2024 will look very different from today's version. Primarily, the company will continue to morph from a social network to a more traditional media company.
read full article here

Start thinking about how you can transform your boring white papers into image-driven 200+ slide decks. Not many people are priinting out documents to read today when it is far quicker and easier to graze the information on your tablet or smart phone.  Hence, the movement towards succinct delivery of information with images.

Start  rethinking your next boring 3 bullet powerpoint slide presentation. Re work it into a smal visual ebook instead.

Or would you rather read  formatted as an article?
Note each sentence is a slide so instead of a short article you get to zip through a fun and interesting 70 slide deck.

Launching a Career Comback, Linkedin Blog Post
How to Rock the Perfect LinkedIn Profile from LinkedIn
Matt Henshaw June 11, 2014  

Hello, I’m Matt Henshaw and (like the beautiful Slideshare above shows) I launched a successful career comeback.

What does that actually mean? Well, a little while ago, I realised I was doing a job that was not my dream. So I decided to make a change and follow my dream – to become a singer-songwriter and self-sufficient working musician, like I said, my very own career comeback. Here’s my story and how LinkedIn played a part in it.

From my time at school to the end of 2008, I was in a band called Censored. What started as a few lads from Nottingham messing about soon became serious.

It was a great time – we were even supporting our music heroes, bands like Supergrass and Ocean Colour Scene. And hanging out with the likes of the Kaiser Chiefs and the Arctic Monkeys – what could possibly go wrong?

I suppose I never really thought about the future and without any real guidance, we took on too much and spread ourselves too thin. I got burnt out and had to cancel gigs and festivals. Sometimes when you lose momentum, you don’t find it again.

I was in touching distance of my dream career – then it was suddenly over.

Skip to 2012, I was working as a Computer Science Sustainability Research Assistant – try saying that with your mouth full! It was OK, it paid the bills but it wasn’t my dream.

Then I went to watch some music gigs for the first time in a long time. The Stone Roses had reformed and Jack White was playing solo shows with all the joy and freedom that goes with it. And that’s when it hit me – I’m one of these people, I’m a musician, that’s MY dream! I had to get back in. But the music landscape had changed since 2008. And it hadn’t exactly gone well last time.

That’s where LinkedIn came in. I thought if this can work for office stuff why not music as well? I wanted to showcase my passion, my personality and make sure people took me seriously as a professional – not just another lad with a guitar.

After updating my profile, I soon found endorsements rolling in from my old network backing my music skills.  It was a massive confidence boost.  Then I found people started coming to me! For gigs, festivals and just putting stuff together in the recording studio.  My profile was like a magnet – all because I had added a bit more detail.

I now have a gig at the Camden Roundhouse and the Elevator Music Festival.

You may be thinking “good for him but I don’t want to be a musician”. Well, that’s not my point.

Whether you’re a musician, a lawyer, a scientist or an accountant you can always do better. LinkedIn is for anyone with ambition. It’s not going to magically make things happen for you, but if you want to follow your dream then investing in your profile and having LinkedIn in your corner can only help. LinkedIn played its part for me and it can for you.

What’s your dream?

Peace, Love & Tea, MHx

PS. If you like my Slideshare, why not share it on 

The article goes into the details if you are interested. I would think this confirms what everybody knows already.

It will be interesting to watch Zillow's entry into China with the US housing market site translated into  Chinese. There is the expectation of a flood of wealthy investors from China rushing into all US markets. This seems to be a spread across the globe of wealth control by the few.
When the country was first founded only property owners could vote and everyone else was disenfranchised. Are we moving to a new kind of public disenfranchisement? With years of student debt upon graduation, diminished opportunity to own a home which represents financial stability, and no job security,  are we passing on a future devoid of opportunity for the next generations?


Families Blocked by Investors From Buying U.S. Homes
By Kathleen M. Howley - Oct 24, 2013 7:10 AM PT

The homeownership rate declined to 65 percent in the first half of this year from a peak of 69.2 percent in June 2004. The level is expected to stabilize at about 63 percent, adding more than 2 million households to the rental population, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Haendel St. Juste.

Pendulum Swings Families are still able to live in single-family homes with a yard for their kids to play in, said Daren Blomquist, a RealtyTrac vice president. However, they’re sending their money to investor-landlords, rather than paying off a mortgage.

“The pendulum is swinging too far from the direction we saw during the run-up to the mortgage crisis,” Blomquist said in an interview. “Then, we tried to make everyone an owner. Now, we have people who have the income to pay a mortgage and have the desire to own a home who are stuck being renters.”

Read the article and view the video here