Shares in London soared to their highest level for nearly five years yesterday – taking gains for 2013 to more than £110billion.

The FTSE 100 index jumped 70.36 points to 6,347.24 on another dramatic day for investors following the best January for the stock market since 1989.

It means the value of Britain’s blue chip firms has increased by £114billion this year and by £720billion since the depths of the financial crisis in March 2009.

The rally is a massive boost to the value of pensions and investments for millions of households at a time when savings rates are at rock bottom.

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At 6am on Sunday May 5th the Nordkapp Challenge Cars will depart from Morgan’s Malvern Factory to begin their 5,000 mile round trip to the Arctic Circle, in aid of Marfan Sydrome.

A number of Jenrick’s clients recently had the opportunity to learn much more about Marfan Syndrome and the Nordkapp Challenge, whilst on a unique behind the scenes factory visit, given by Morgan Managing Director Steve Morris (also a driver on the challenge).

The day was a huge success as you’ll gather from the photos and feedback below, with a new-found awareness and understanding for Marfan Syndrome with everyone who attended the event.

“Thank you for inviting me to the Morgan Cars / Marfan Trust day on Friday. The tour of the factory was most interesting and driving the Aero 8 back from the pub with Kevin as co-pilot was the perfect finish! Learning about Marfan Syndrome and the courageousness of Lucy Morris was humbling. I have visited the ‘driven at heart’ website and will make a donation.”

“What a brilliant event… It really was a ‘one of a kind’ which I am sure we will talk about (and your invited clients and colleagues) for years to come.”

“Thank you for a terrific day out – it was completely unique.”

“I just wanted to say a massive thanks for inviting me along to your event today at Morgan. It’s was a really great day and special to know there was also such a good cause being supported by everyone. The flow of the day was perfect and seeing the manufacturing process and have a play with their beautiful cars was great.”

“Thank you all at Jenrick and Morgan for a brilliant day out, it was a wonderful experience.Steve, it was a real pleasure to meet you and thank you for entrusting me with the Aeromax, it’s certainly a very special car.”

“A big thank you to you both for a really fun day on Friday, and an even more fun day on Sat with the Aero SuperSports!! Very much appreciate your hospitality, and found the factory tour very interesting – a real insight into the Morgan family. Hope all goes well with the Marfan trip to Norway – will follow your progress.”

“This was a fantastic day, a once in a lifetime experience. Thanks so much to you guys for organising such an event.”

Further Information

• To learn more about The Nordkapp Challenge and Marfan Syndrome, please click here
• To donate, please visit Driven at Heart’s fundraising page 
• To listen to an inspiring interview with Lucy Morris on the Maximise Potential Podcast, please click here.

A few months ago the Jenrick Team were fortunate to attend a presentation given by Daryll Scott of My Noggin, an expert in Change Management.

Daryll recently created a Whitepaper which provides a wonderful insight into this (very emotive) subject, which we felt was an excellent resource to share with our audience.

Introduction:

“If you think about it, the term ‘Change Management’ is slightly unhelpful. It’s reactive. It supposes that the change has already happened and you now need to manage it; like managing nuclear fallout – we are accepting that ‘the horse has already bolted’ and we are there to ‘lock the stable door’.

Consider the difference between ‘managing change’ and ‘provoking change’ or influencing change’ – the latter are clearly more pro-active and more organic.

We all know that, no matter how sensible or well intended the change, it will succeed or fail as a result of how people react to it and how they behave after the change is implemented – so rather than dealing with change like a necessary evil; how can we shift our intentions to creating compelling, contagious change?”

Introduction written by Daryll Scott, Change Agent (for) & joint Managing Director (of) ‘Use Your Noggin Ltd’

DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE WHITEPAPER:

• Download Daryll’s Whitepaper on ‘Leading Change’ & ‘Effective Change Management’ HERE

LEARN MORE ABOUT DARYLL & THE ‘MY NOGGIN’ TEAM:

• Click here to learn more about Daryll Scott and the My Noggin team & their specialities

What do Gannett, New York City and Columbia University have in common?

Each has a Chief Digital Officer, or CDO, to bring together strategic business practices, technology, skilled leadership and internal and external communications. Most CDOs can be found inside of media companies, sitting just a seat or two away from the CEO.

Two years ago, there were lively conversations that CDOs were those who didn’t get the coveted title of President. Others maintained organizations that supported the CDO position were advocating for silos, the curse in marketing and communications. Today, demand for CDOs is outpacing supply.

A complex blend of talent and leadership

Chief Digital Officers are not self-described social media gurus or community managers. CDOs have competencies in the convergence of technology, business, boards, and organizational development.

“Business strategies now must be seamlessly interwoven with ever-expanding digital strategies that address not only the web but also mobile, social, local and whatever innovation there may be around the corner,” write Rhys Grossman and Jana Rich of Russell Reynolds Associates, a global executive search firm.

In their article titled, The Rise of the Chief Digital Officer, Grossman and Rich state:

“To help meet these challenges, companies are increasingly looking for a Chief Digital Officer who can oversee the full range of digital strategies and drive change across the organization.”

To lead a business through a technological transformation is no easy task. CDOs are innovators despite internal skeptics who whisper and rant about the pitfalls of social media.

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My name is Jane Stevens and I work for Jenrick IT, an IT recruitment agency. I speak to people operating in IT environments daily and have come to know some of them very well. All have a story to tell. I thought you may be interested if I interview one or two about their experiences gained over many years in the workplace and the huge changes they have encountered from an IT prospective.

Below is the personal story of one IT specialist who Jenrick IT have known over many years. I asked him about his memories in the workplace from some of the very earliest days when IT had a very minimal impact on the world around us and how IT evolved, from his perspective, from there on in.

Here is his story, I hope you enjoy it:

It’s quite incredible the amount of change in environments I have seen in my working life from 1974 when I started working full time as a 16 year old apprentice until present day.

I thought, for those starting out in IT today, they may find this an interesting ‘museum piece’ about how IT revolutionised the workplace, going from environments in the early / mid 70’s where IT had either no or minimum impact through to the sophisticated IT systems we have today. For those of the same age group as myself, I guess it’s more of a trip down memory lane.

Where to start. In 1974 I was taken on for a four year apprenticeship on site at a very large (at the time) global focused  corporation. Whilst in the first year attending a foundation course at technical college I had the choice of either becoming a welder, a fitter or to go down the electrical route (one heavy and one light).

I chose light electrical/instrumentation as the more interesting and technologically varied.  Additionally in my first year of the apprenticeship, my first introduction to microprocessors was by building micro processor circuitry ie micro devices to switch things on and off using good old fashioned machine code.

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Do you have a Chief Digital Officer?  The gurus at Gartner think you should, and soon.

The idea of a CDO stems from the idea that companies are or will soon be rushing to digitize whole segments of their business.  For example, moving marketing spend from analog to digital, or digitizing the research and development budget.  Organizations are also digitizing how they service their clients, in order to drive higher client retention. In addition, many companies are turning digitization into new revenue streams, Gartner analysts stated at the firm’s Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2012 here.

To address these changes, Gartner says organizations will create the role of a Chief Digital Officer as part of the business unit leadership, which will become a new seat at the executive table. Gartner predicts that by 2015, 25% of organizations will have a CDO.

“The Chief Digital Officer will prove to be the most exciting strategic role in the decade ahead, and IT leaders have the opportunity to be the leaders who will define it,” said David Willis, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

“The Chief Digital Officer plays in the place where the enterprise meets the customer, where the revenue is generated and the mission accomplished. They’re in charge of the digital business strategy. That’s a long way from running back office IT, and it’s full of opportunity.”

Article Source: networkworld.com

The answer: nobody’s totally sure yet.

The job description of a chief digital officer is as varied as the number of CDOs there are out there, says Fins.com.

New York City recently hired a chief digital officer. Rachel Sterne, 27, is responsible for “improv[ing] the city’s online communications and to encourage entrepreneurship.”

Randall Rothenberg, who recently left Time Inc, was supposed to “develop relationships and coordinate opportunities across” the company.

The CDO of News Corp is in charge of MySpace and The Daily, and the CDO at DDB Chicago is “developing web-based campaigns for the agency’s clients.”

So basically….a CDO can be anything! The role is still evolving, Fins says drily.

Sterne, the NYC CDO, founded a citizen journalism site that “never quite took off,” as Fins notes, and is an adjunct professor at Columbia Journalism School. Meanwhile, the CDO of Mediabrands (no relation to mediabistro.com parent Webmediabrands) was global president of Universal McCann before moving to his new post.

On the other hand, CDOs might not be universally necessary, Fins notes:

“In time, the role and title may simply disappear as executives make digital part of their ordinary jobs.”

Gannett has no CDO, and Clear Channel was searching for one in November but has since decided not to fill the position. And Time Inc’s decision not to replace Rothenberger “signals that centralizing the operation did not work,” Pete Gardiner, chief media officer at ad agency Deutsch New York, told Fins.

Article Source: mediabistro.com

For the last couple of years, there has been an increase in corporate executives being assigned to a post known as Chief Digital Officer. At the Gartner Symposium/iTxpo 2012 on Monday, market research company Gartner predicted that by 2015, as much as 25 percent of all organizations will have a Chief Digital Officer in their executive staff.

The first decade of the 2000′s saw a dramatic rise in two technology-centric executive offices: the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Depending upon the environment in which they work, these executives do different things. Generally speaking, however, a CIO is the head honcho of information systems and IT, and a CTO is an individual chosen to bring broader technological vision, direction and management to a company or government, sometimes outside of the realm of what could be considered IT.

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GREAT NEWS – the Maximise Potential Podcast has just been crowned ‘European Podcast of the Year.’ 

The awards, in their fourth year, have grown each year and for 2012 were entered by over 2,800 podcasts and voted for by in excess of 2.5million people.

Our podcast won in the ‘Business‘ category of the awards and was judged on the following criteria…

• Overall Podcast Content: is the podcast clear, is the technical production to a high standard, does the host add to the podcast, is there perceived expertise and subject knowledge
• Form & Style of Podcast: is a format / style positive and engaging, is the technical quality (sound / voices) good, is the length appropriate for the content/target audience, does the production demonstrate a high level of sophistication
• Presentation on the Internet & additional resources: is there an associated website & social media presence, what content is available, how does this complement the podcast, is it user-friendly
• Interactivity: does the podcaster more than just publishing podcasts
• Continuity: does the podcast appear on a regular basis, has the podcast been available for more than one year, is a “central theme” maintained in terms of content

After reading this criteria I was very pleased that the judges had felt that we had performed exceptionally well across each of these categories.

To achieve this award is incredible and one that was not anticipated, so thank you so much for voting and supporting us over the last two years!

I’ve included a short article containing a selection of feedback that we’ve received from our audience, so if you have a moment, please take a look (and send us your own!): Maximise Potential Podcast Feedback

More details can be found here at the Official website of the European Podcast Awards: European Podcast of the Year WINNERS