The Olympics of the recruitment industry kicked off this week in the form of the 2012 CIETT World Employment Conference. As we speak, over 300 recruitment professionals from 34 different nations are meeting at the event, held at London's Landmark Hotel, to discuss the latest and future trends in the world of jobs.

CIETT 2012, Landmark Hotel, London

Our client, the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) joins speakers such as Dr Lynda Gratton, journalist and author Matthew Syed, as well as the TUC's general secretary Brendan Barber, to provide insights into the global employment market and how British businesses can get out of the recession.

Having over 20 world class speakers under one roof brings about some really interesting points about flexible working and job creation, but also some heated debate - on the one hand Kevin Green, CEO of the REC, says that part-time work keeps people in employment and should not be thought of as second class, whereas the TUC argues that it creates underemployment.

From our work with various clients, including the REC, youth unemployment also continues to be a hot topic and it's going to be particularly interesting to see how the issue is being addressed in different countries. Does every country have the same obstacles or are some countries doing better than others to help young people find jobs? Maybe we can learn from them; maybe they can learn from us.

Either way, quality recruitment is going to be vital to supporting our economic recovery, which is why I think this kind of big international event is so important right now.

Join in with the debate on Twitter #ciett2012

Jenny @jenhannajackson

It was many moons ago that the team first sat down to brainstorm ideas to raise awareness of Cisco's role as the official network infrastructure supporter of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games - in particular to do something a little bit 'surprising' as far as Cisco marketing was concerned, whilst still driving lead generation. A tricky brief to nail, but we are a clever bunch and soon, in a moment of clarity (and after several custard creams), we had it - AN ONLINE 2012 THEMED GAME THAT USES LONDON VISUALS, SUPPORTED BY A KICK-ASS VIRAL CAMPAIGN!

Most pleased, we all went home for a sleep.

However, as with all good ideas, a lot of hard work and planning was needed. So when we came in the next day, battle commenced - pitching it to the client, commissioning the game and of course creating an all singing, all dancing media plan. The team has a wealth of experience when it comes to product launches, but this time we really wanted to challenge ourselves and blend traditional media with lesser known digital tactics.

The concept of the game was simple enough - one of the Cisco London 2012 Ambassadors is British sprint kayak gold medallist, Tim Brabants, and he became our inspiration. We put together plans for a game based on a kayak simulation against a London backdrop.

And what of the name? Well a quick brainstorm put that to rights - KAYAKATTACK!

Once again, we were most pleased.

Game in hand, next came the plan. We had all the components you would expect at the core; an internal, executive and partner comms strategy, a fully inclusive social media campaign, a media alert and an all encompassing press list. Next we focussed on a seeding campaign, instigating a partnership with gaming website, GameNet, who we signed up to host KayakAttack as its featured game on the home page.

The next, and frankly only logical, step was to source a bakery that could bake and decorate 50 massive cakes with a KayakAttack screen grab and URL details. These were set to go out to our top 50 publications - a mixture of technology, consumer, business and marketing (not forgetting one for us!)

Launch day arrived and we all met in the office tired but excited - it was here and all there was to it was to make it a bloody success! And low and behold it was! Almost as soon as the day kicked off we were receiving tweets of thanks and support for KayakAttack. The likes of Heat, PC Pro, Computing and Loaded tweeted pictures, plus Olympian Tim Brabants and the Cisco Executive team also joined in the celebrations. In short, the campaign was a hit; the blood sweat and tears paid off. As launch week drew to a close we had not only exceeded our target but exhausted our finger tips playing the game - it's really rather addictive you know!

It's been a massive learning curve for the Cisco gang, but we are all bigger and better for having gone through it. To date KayakAttack has had 520,603 plays and experienced a social media audience reach of nearly one million. Needless to say… we are most pleased.

If you haven't already - log on and get playing! http://www.kayakattack.co.uk/

Bevo @KeBeveridge

When you arrive at Stratford station and walk through Westfield into the Olympic Park - it's hard to believe that just a few years ago the same area in East London was something of a 'wasteland' characterised by railway lines, neglected waterways and a history of industrial pollution dating back two centuries.

Last night when the Octopus team turned up in Stratford for the official opening of Cisco House, the scene couldn't have been more different.  Bustling with life and modern architecture, the same space is virtually unrecognisable. As we made our way up to the venue, Cisco House, which is nestled in a unique roof-top location above Westfield Stratford City, the panorama of the Olympic Park from the balcony was stunning.  And the Octopus team weren't the only ones to admire the view!

70 members of the national, business and IT print, online and broadcast press joined Cisco to celebrate the opening of the House, which showcases the transformational opportunities of technology for countries, cities and organisations both today and in the future.

With drinks flowing and some interactive technology for visitors to test out, the evening was a great success - with journalists from the FT, The BBC, Sky News, ITN,  The Metro, The Mirror, The Evening Standard, Computing, Management Today and many more enjoying Cisco's 'business transformation experience' (and tasty nibbles!)

All in all it was a brilliant event and one of the most successful press launches we've done in terms of both quantity and quality for years.  With just 79 days to go until the opening ceremony of London 2012 - and plenty more events in the pipeline - we can't wait to see what's around the corner next!

Ellie @elliejanefry

It's exciting times at Octopus Towers! On Friday, our client Cisco showcased their virtual fashion mirrors in the flasgship John Lewis store on Oxford Street.

We invited a host of journalists from top-tier tech publications like Computer Weekly, V3 and TechWorld along to get demos of the technology and try on some virtual outfits. The mirrors are impressive pieces of kit and could shake-up the way we shop!

Shoppers can create a virtual collection which they can opt to have emailed to them, including images of their selected items and the QR codes, linking to johnlewis.com. Shoppers can then share their new look with friends and family via Facebook and receive feedback from friends before they decide to buy.

The Mirrors are located in the womenswear department on the first floor of John Lewis Oxford Street for six weeks. If the trial is successful, the mirrors will be a permanent fixture in the John Lewis' first flexible department store which opens in Exeter later this year.

Check out @CiscoUKI and @johnlewisretail for more info

JP @jp_charles

I think it's fair to say that the consumer team at Octopus are often viewed as a being a little bit different, but different is good right?

To celebrate the feast of Easter we sent a delivery of 24 Easter egg piñatas and 72 boxes of eggs (that's 288 Easter eggs), no dead goldfish here, to our favourite consumer tech journalists.

Why, you may ask?  Well besides wanting to make some friends, and eat chocolate, we also wanted to treat everyone to a taste of Trend Micro's latest tech, DirectPass!  It's a really cool new piece of software designed to fight the growing menace of identity theft by simplifying and securing the log-in process for users -  no matter how many different accounts they manage online.

Where are we going with this? Piñatas and chocolate eggs... are you passwords as easy to crack as these?

Long live the media mailer, the cheesier the better. Do excuse us; we're off to find a blindfold and stick!

Kasia @kfwojciechowska and Naomi @missbarry

Customers, employees and journalists came together this week for a Taleo breakfast event discussing the impact of LinkedIn on recruitment, which I was lucky enough to attend.

The event saw a series of insightful sessions from speakers such as Dan Dackombe (EMEA Enterprise Sales Manager Hiring Solutions at LinkedIn), Richard Doherty (Head of Business Transformation, Taleo) and Chris Phillips (VP EMEA Marketing, Taleo). We all know how social media is transforming the game in terms of PR, so it was interesting to see it applied to the world of recruitment.

All about LinkedIn, from LinkedIn

First up, I was really interested to hear Dan give some great insight into LinkedIn itself, and he impressed the audience with some serious stats on the business. Take these for example; in the past 14 months, the number of employees working across EMEA for LinkedIn has grown from less than 50 to an impressive 350. And for anyone doubting the impact of LinkedIn, Dan told us that 62% of all UK professionals now use the site.

He also explained how LinkedIn works to the following three objectives;

1)      Identity - to help recruiters, companies and individuals create an online identity that is constantly evolving.

2)      Insight - allow potential candidates and recruiters to learn more about the individual or the company through various groups and references.

3)      Everywhere - make the process of recruitment and job-hunting a constant experience through their mobile app.

Best practices:

As ever, the Q&A session brought up some nuggets of vital information, and one of the biggest questions for employers, it emerged, is how to engage employees in social media participation? However, the Q&A threw up a great number of things for employers to consider when it comes to social media. Creating groups within your network, thereby allowing employees to own a group by contributing content, beginning conversations and forwarding invitations onto friends was just one idea, as was giving employees the chance to talk about their company or about relevant topics. This allows employers to carve out their identity amongst the greater community and reach their target audience of potential employees, even if they are only passive candidates.

What I definitely learnt is that social media means that the world of recruitment is undergoing massive change, led by the expansion of social media recruitment and the acceptance of new mobile applications and platforms. It's not just PR that social media is changing.

As the morning concluded, many recruiters were left excited about beginning or expanding their journey into the world of social media and all were full of delicious mini eggs Benedict and hash browns! Yummy!

Lindsey @lindsey_hemming

The deals culture in the UK is booming and our client, Hot UK Deals (HUKD), is no exception to the success of an industry thriving thanks to bargain hungry Brits. Lately though, something peculiar has been going on alongside the repetitious "3 courses for £10 at Pizza Express" voucher, the price glitch, and yesterday Tesco made a corker.

The supermarket that claims 'Every Little Helps', was taking pre-orders for the new iPad 64GB 4G, which comes out this Friday for £49.99, a modest 90% less than Apple's official price of £659. Quick as a flash HUKD community members were all over this blunder, with some ordering up to 20 of the tablets (and of course it would be rude for us at Octopus not to get involved). As expected, Tesco has stated it won't be honouring the deal and customers can expect a refund - cue a mob of angry folk demanding the iPad(s) they'd hastily snapped up. Unfortunately, it would appear Tesco don't have to fulfil this deal and there's not a lot we can do about it apart from be really, really, annoyed.

An online petition and Facebook groups have already been set up calling for Tesco to back down on its decision, so whether they decide to do the right thing remains to be seen. Following a similar 'glitch' with M&S which priced 3D TVs at £199 instead of £1,099, M&S were forced to save face and honour this after online demand, so shoppers are holding onto a glimmer of hope they might just get their new iPad. And if not, at the very least I'd like my 49 Clubcard points, after all, every little helps…

Shiv @Siobhan_83

The start of March has been a busy one for a largely unsung hero as Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension protocol, or MIME for short, celebrated its 20^th anniversary and we got busy trying to tell the world.

Dr. Nathaniel Borenstein, Chief Scientist at client Mimecast, co-created the email format MIME 20 years ago, and in doing so, laid the foundations for email to become the world's dominant personal and business communication tool. Now, although most users are completely unaware of it, MIME is used an estimated 1 trillion times every day!

The very first attachment, sent in 1992, was an audio clip and image (below) of Nathaniel with his fellow Telephone Chords barbershop quartet members singing a short jingle about MIME written to the tune of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart". Since then, however, MIME has gone relatively under the radar despite being used by most of us every single day, so we wanted to create a big song and dance, and maybe a little sing song, for the anniversary last Sunday.

To coincide with a special celebration event in New Jersey (where the Telephone Chords reunited and sang once more), we wanted to create buzz in the UK press, so set up three briefings with top tier technology publications; TechWeek Europe, The Register and TechRepublic UK. Nathaniel being Nathaniel was as intriguing as ever for the press, and received several congratulations on having pioneered such successful technology. The result was some very detailed and extensive features detailing the history of email and where it is heading in the future.

Attached to this (see what I did there!) and to demonstrate his continued love of all popular communications channels, Nathaniel, or @drmime, also hosted a 'Twinterview' to answer burning questions about MIME, the evolution and future of email, email's position in an increasingly social world, and even barbershop quartets! There were some interesting questions tweeted in Nathaniel's direction and @drmime even picked up a load of new followers. A great week! Roll on MIME at 30...

Georgia - @gg_hart

Having been in B2B PR for a number of years, I'm no stranger to working with the BBC.  I'm well versed in the logistics needed to get a chief executive up and out of the house at 4am and in Television Centre for 5.30am. I know the Millbank studio's address by heart and have achieved the holy trinity of business coverage across Wake up to Money, the Today Programme and BBC breakfast on several occasions.

But with several BBC departments set to move to Salford in 2011, what is the outlook for business news? That was one of the key questions asked at a Gorkana breakfast held last week with the BBC Business and Economics Unit. When you're working in B2B PR, getting an audience with the great and the good at the BBC is as rare as an audience with the Queen, so myself and three hundred other PRs seized the opportunity (and some morning pastries) to quiz them on the inner workings of the BBC.

Unsurprisingly, one of the first questions asked was how it could possibly make sense to move business news from the UK's financial capital, to somewhere most people can't even mark on a map. Jeremy Hillman, editor of the business and economics unit at BBC news highlighted that the move to Salford was a positive step for the BBC. He reminded us that it's the British Broadcasting Corporation, not the London Broadcasting Corporation. That it's not just about coverage for the capital but an insight into life and business news for everyone across the country and even the globe thanks to BBC World Service.

Fair point but does this spell the end for the early morning dash to television centre for our clients? Possibly not, while Radio Five Live and BBC Breakfast may be making the move up north, economics correspondent Hugh Pym reminded us that Radio Four is staying put and that the wonders of modern technology can bridge the gap between here and Manchester. There's even talk of using some of the London team to interview spokespeople direct.

All being well, it should be business as usual for us and our clients. The potential for the holy trinity of business coverage remains intact and a lie-in remains but a wishful thought as the 4am wake up call for Wake up to Money is well and truly here to stay.

Helen