Let’s face it, cold calling is dead so companies have to innovate and look at innovative ways of marketing to get their brands up.
MEDIA 7: Thanks for your time! Could you tell us something about your journey so far, and what brought you to this career path?
VANESSA TIERNEY: My career to date has always been around people seeing their potential and providing technology and tools for them to achieve. Early on in my career, the focus was on upskilling and training graduates for free and enabling them to start their careers in international companies where they would cover the training cost. From there it evolved to recruiting platforms and firms that would enable reduction and bias to support increased diversity hiring globally. However, ten years ago due to unforeseen circumstances, I found myself working remotely not imagining that it would be a path I would want to do indefinitely. But what very quickly materialized was the access to incredible people around the world who didn't fit the traditional office and ‘nine to five’ opportunity. For these last few years, I focused on working with amazing people to develop technologies, data intelligence, and tools that support the ability to work wherever you are in the world and feel more engaged, connected, and have access to the intelligence that’s needed to drive job creation and equality.
M7: That’s an interesting turn of events! Abodoo’s mission is to support the creation of sustainable jobs across regions that are great for our planet. Could you please elaborate on this for our readers?
VT: Abodoo stands for ‘Abode’ and ‘do’ - your home and work. Early on we realized that there was a huge need for people to have equal access to opportunities globally that would enable companies to hire smarter and faster. Abodoo has created a unique mapping and matching technology that enables companies to identify where the skills are across a region, country, or globally and hone in on the supporting social infrastructure such as co-working spaces, high-speed connectivity, education, child care that will enable a high standard of working and living. All of this information provided is visualized on a map and anonymized to ensure that we are continuously supporting diversity and inclusion. For governments, it means that this is an amazing opportunity to showcase their assets and drive inward investments in this new world which is remote and hybrid.
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We’re now in a new work revolution that will force employers again to embrace not just a 100% remote but a hybrid.
M7: Abodoo has not only been unaffected by the Covid-19 pandemic but has in fact seen an increase in the business. What smart productivity hacks did the company use?
VT: Our focus has been on improving attrition and engagement levels for enterprises and enabling them to identify the skills needed today and the critical skills needed by their industry for the future. All of this information supports a company’s ability to remain competitive and not find itself in the war for talent or increased salaries. If the world is now your global marketplace, having the data intelligence to support where and how you hire in the next 5-10 years, gives you a powerful edge and enables clever strategic planning. Furthermore, it's not just about the hard skills that workers need, it's the soft skills.
Mental health has taken a huge hit as a result of the pandemic and we have developed a fantastic program that hones in on the work and life of the employee enabling them to uncover their skills and desires so that employers can develop programs that support upskilling, reskilling, and redeployment. The greatest cost to a company is when they lose a worker. So our unique learning program not only lowers attrition but increases happiness and productivity. All of these could be mapped ‘Geonostics by Abodoo’ showcasing not just where the people are but the skills they have today, skill gap analysis, and the support they need for the future.
M7: In CNBC: The EDGE, you said, “The way we work has changed forever and we will never revert.” In what way, will technology and data intelligence bring a robust change in the upcoming years?
VT: I still very much stand by what I said, we’re now in a new work revolution that will force employers again to embrace not just a 100% remote but hybrid. Two technologies we’re most excited about, the first is Geonostics by Abodoo, giving the companies insights into their people, skills, but in an inclusive supportive manner. The second technology is companies owning their own virtual building to support ‘true’ hybrid working such as our partners at Yonderdesk. Yonderdesk has produced this incredible tool that enables the company to exactly recreate their physical building right down to the position where your office is, your office background, location of the lunch area, the innovation room, and so on.And recreate it virtually so no matter when you're connecting from home or from a coworking center, or indeed from the office itself, you have the ability to see everyone and instantly connect and drop into each other’s offices.
It also means that we’re organic. It also prevents the potential of office workers versus home workers happening and enables the recreation of the organic conversation happening or the recreation of the water cooler moment but in this case, it happens virtually. We are very excited about where virtual buildings will go in certain sectors such as business process outsourcing who face high attrition, in finance where clients are feeling more and more disengaged from the brand, or indeed the employers who want to retain that culture that they have built. Companies who provide this virtual space, where it's equal for all employees no matter where they work from for that organization will really reap the rewards in the long term.
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It's not just about the hard skills that workers need, it's the soft skills.
M7: Quite an insightful thought! Speaking of technologies, what trends in the marketing technology industry are you watching keenly right now?
VT: Well, this is really interesting because in a remote and hybrid world, there is this feeling of disengagement with brands and it's a very noisy and saturated marketplace for companies to be able to sell to. Let’s face it, cold calling is dead so companies have to innovate and look at innovative ways of marketing to get their brands up. And for start-ups, it certainly is challenging. What we have found is actually incorporating our brand online in our virtual building has been really impactful for not just our employees but clients visiting our virtual reception space and being invited into our branded rooms for an experience that might include a demo, talk with a client, or even the creation of virtual shops. Marketing technology is very much about measuring the conversions at every stage and bringing it back to basics. People are tired of jazz hands marketing being sent through, they want to see the value. If you’re going to spend time reading about a company, well, they need to get a return on their time investment and that’s what our focus has been - producing content that really adds value to our prospects.
M7: Lastly, knowing what you know now, what advice would you give your younger self?
VT: In a way, you have to go through the trials and tribulations of life and work to be able to really appreciate your current situation but at the same time when you are young and green, and you don't know what lies ahead, perhaps to be told that you’ve got this and you can have all the mentors in the world who really do bring value but ultimately, the best mentor, are your instincts. Most importantly, anytime you feel disconnected from your instincts, pause, take time and reconnect.