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Every organisation wants skilled employees, but are IT qualifications worth the paper they are printed on?

Few IT directors or CIOs would disagree with the claim that having skilled employees is an important component of operating an effective IT department. Far more contentious, however, is the question of which skills are most beneficial to the organisation, and which IT qualifications and training courses are worth sending employees on to acquire them.

Perversely, the training budget for employees is often one of the first things to be cut during a downturn – after all, the business can at least survive without its staff progressing.

But that is a false economy in the long term; training existing staff is a highly economical way of improving the effectiveness of any operation, as well as a proven technique for retaining valued employees.

Still, IT budgets are down across the board, and making sure training investments deliver value is critical.

Again and again, I experience both myself, and my professional colleagues, that typically SME’s are making the same recruitment errors.

Getting that resource in “quick” to finish off some work, or “taking a punt because we’re desperate”, is not the way to recruit staff. One needs to show diligence, a concerted effort to check detail, check over the CV. Background checks. Regardless of what people will tell you, most SME’s are not doing thorough background checks. I KNOW! I’ve checked!

What about technical competency tests for technical people? It takes but a moment to set up a free on-line technical survey, post up some multiple choice well researched questions relating to the field, and emailing it off to your candidate.

What about the interviewers? 26% of candidates are lost because THEY have chosen not to work for the hiring company based on the quality of the interviewer! Asking the wrong questions is a no-no, not being qualified enough to actually interview the person is another common mistake. The BIGGEST mistake however, is the HR minefield, and that of illegal questioning.

I’ve cringed in interviews, and then promptly walked away from the company after, due to some ill-advised middle manager or CEO with little understanding, asking things such as “how old are you”, or “are you married”, “do you have children” etc. Post interview, companies look at me goggle-eyes when I advise them this is wrong, and their lack of understanding is undermining them, and their business.

What I am referring to is how people in business seem to be ‘not paying attention to paying attention’.

I get sad when senior people, make small errors, such as typo’s, incorrect grammar, poor communication or have inconsistent or even non-existent psychological understanding of not only the people that work with them, but the business they are in.

Some people think that this lack of attention may be due to a cultural shift in the workforce — younger workers are characterized by their desire for short-term instant gratification and lack the ‘big picture’ focus and spend too much time worrying about the details of a single project — neglecting other items that need addressing. Older workers are characterized by their desire to build a career and may have too much of a ‘big picture’ focus and can often neglect the smaller details. This is not always the case though but it tends to ring true in many businesses.

However, it may not be that culture affects the ability of either generation to focus on multiple tasks and follow through on all fronts of a project. It may actually be that these people have so much going on and just don’t have the ability to go back with a fine tooth comb to ensure that all tasks are being done and done properly — , it may be because you have a disease that you didn’t know you have.

The solution? Take the time to figure out how you may be affected and make sure to structure your team of employees to compensate for any bit of A.D.D that your team has on board. Doing so will ensure that work is done, it is done right, and done to the satisfaction of your clients who are the reason you exist at all.

The company has said an update to its operating system – iOS 4.0.1 – “improves the formula to determine how many bars of signal strength to display”.

Many users have reported problems with reception on their device, which is caused when their left-hand covers an antenna in the lower left-hand corner of the iPhone 4. This so-called “death grip” issue will not be corrected by the software update.

The company started contacting US-based technology journalists on Wednesday, inviting them to the hastily convened press conference.

Apple has given no further clues about the nature of the event, but has confirmed that the key topic for discussion will be iPhone 4.

The company has faced a barrage of criticism in recent weeks for the way in which it has handled a series of problems with its flagship device. Many users have reported a loss of reception whenever the hold the phone in their left hand, covering one of the antenna built in to the stainless steel band that runs around the middle of the device.

Apple said that such problems were common to all mobile phones, while Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, responded to one angry customer’s email by telling him to simply stop holding his iPhone like that.

Apple issued a statement earlier this month claiming the reception issues were a result of an error in the way the iPhone calculated signal strength, usually indicated by a set of bars in the corner of the screen.

“Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays two more bars than it should for a given signal strength,” Apple said.

However, many users have rejected the diagnosis, claiming that holding the phone in a certain way actually reduces the signal strength, rather than simply the way the phone interprets the level of reception.

Earlier this week, a leading analyst warned that a recall of iPhone 4s would cost Apple around $1.5 billion. Apple sold more than 1.7 million iPhone 4s in its first three days on sale.

Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst with Bernstein Research, said such a recall was “highly unlikely”, and that Apple would be more likely to give away cases to customers affected by the issue.

Consumer Reports, a US consumer watchdog, also issued a damning review of the iPhone 4, highlighting the signal problems, and concluding that it “could not recommend” the device as a result. It also urged Apple to fix the issue quickly, at no additional cost to customers.

The emergency press conference is almost unheard of for Apple, which prides itself on the carefully timed release of information, and has dealt with other problems in the past simply by issuing an open letter from Jobs.

However, the company has come in for strong criticism for the way it has handled these signal problems, with many branding its attitude towards loyal customers as “arrogant”.

“I think the fact they’ve called this press conference at such short notice is indicative of the seriousness of the situation, and the way in which it’s snowballed,” said Geoff Blaber, an analyst with CCS Insight.

“Apple needs to be seen to be taking some steps to address this problem. I think a full product recall is highly unlikely, but there is a clear need to be proactive.

“There’s less than a week to go before Apple’s next quarterly earnings call, so the timing of this press conference is crucial.”

Blaber said that Apple may give away cases to iPhone 4 users, but that by doing so, the company would be making a tacit admission that there was a significant hardware problem.

Sacconaghi estimated that it would cost Apple around $1 per unit to give away cases to iPhone 4 customers.

For many marketers involved in SEO, the three letter acronym CMS can sometimes be more like a four letter word.  Depending on the CMS and the implementation, there are some serious problems that can impact your SEO efforts.  From duplicate content to unfriendly redirects to lack of content optimization, the list can get quite long.

The irony is that CMS packages & content management software are supposed to make your life easier (and many do), but there are times they can negatively impact your SEO initiatives (and that’s an understatement).  There are many types of content management systems on the market.  Some are tailored for specific industries, others for running e-commerce shops, and then you have the major players which can run robust and high volume websites.  Some packages are more flexible to work with, while others have limits.

I’ve mentioned SEO a few times already, but you probably noticed that the title of my post focused on SEM and not just SEO.  That’s because I’ve been running into more and more CMS-related SEM problems than I’d like to.  Some of the problems can be avoided if they are addressed up front, while others are more difficult to tackle.

My goal is to arm you with information that can help you avoid some of the headaches I’ve seen when running SEM campaigns while using a CMS to power a website.  And as many of you know, hell hath no fury like an SEM that can’t track his campaigns properly.   By the way, I am by no means saying that CMS packages in general are problematic for marketing departments.  I simply want to explain specific situations where content management systems can be a thorn in your SEM side.

But Isn’t SEM Straight Forward?

There are times when I’ve been brought in to help companies and clients vet and choose the right CMS packages.  Regardless of the size of the client, most of the focus has been on the potential SEO impact.  I think many people see paid search as something relatively easy to implement.  For example, choose your keywords, build campaigns, point them to your site, and you’re good to go.  That’s not necessarily the case.  Sure, the SEO implications of choosing the wrong package for your specific situation could be catastrophic, but when many SEM campaigns are heavily judged on ROI, you should be able to give yourself the best shot at success (and that means control).  That’s where some CMS packages can be a pain in the neck.