Archives

Interview360

AI CV Interview, Auto-Generated Interview, Custom Interview types

Interview360 is an Interview simulation training tool for job seekers. It helps build confidence and optimise performance for in-person and video interviews.

Unlike other interview training tools that can only use preset questions, Interview60 analyses your CV for skills and experience to automatically create highly relevant interview questions.

The challenge

  • design and develop a brand-new flagship product that tightly integrates with the existing platform
  • leverage existing CV360 product and over 100 interview training resources
  • reduce churn by encouraging reliance on multiple products
  • six-month timeline and extremely tight budget constraints, using an external team
  • implement complex AI video and transcript analysis from third-party API

The opportunity

  • provide a training service for anyone interviewing remotely
  • build in a way so that recruiters can use it as an evaluation tool
  • allow interview and report feedback to be shared with external mentors and coaches
  • benchmark performance across an organisation
  • commercialise each interview request (as an “AI credit”) to maintain sales margins
  • support career services teams with a sales enablement pack
  • serve as a an intermediary between candidates and employers

After uploading each question, the AI response is analysed programmatically based on an understanding of standard interviewing concepts, and feedback is provided on multiple separate data points including body language, communication & speech, camera position and video quality. In addition, the transcript is scanned for filler words and relevance to the question.

The comprehensive report includes full explanations and context, as well as tips and advice on how to improve. Interviews can be re-taken many times in order to improve techniques.

I managed the entire project from conception to delivery (including external supplier, creation of marketing support documentation, internal presentations to stakeholders, financials and post-delivery improvements).

AI Ethics

Aware of the pioneering work done by AI researchers such as Joy Buolamwini and Timnit Gebru on bias in face recognition technology (as well as impacting end-users with disabilities such as speech impediments and the neuro-diverse), I advised a disclaimer should be added to mitigate any potential negative response. Shortly after launch, a number of Universities got in touch regarding this specific aspect.

Personalised
Personalised
Based on your CV
Real-time
Real-time
Instant AI-powered feedback
Lasting Sales Impact
Lasting Sales Impact
Renewable AI Credits

Outcomes

  • phased delivery approach to reduce risk
  • delivered on-time and 1% under budget
  • over 60,000 videos have been uploaded since launch
  • post-Covid remote working expanded the market
  • AI credits now expire on contract renewal, further increasing renewal uplift
  • having seen the success in the market, our own internal recruitment team now uses this tool to evaluate candidates

NZUni Talent

nzunitalent-promo

NZUni Talent is a recruitment website designed for employers to advertise graduate vacancies, internships, volunteering opportunities or entry-level roles to students and graduates across all NZ universities simultaneously.

Unlike other local job boards such as Seek, Jora, Indeed, TradeMe or Job Monster, NZUni Talent is the only job board with direct access to the platforms that the Universities are using to prepare graduates for their careers (with built-in services such as CV scanning, AI-based interview training, and skills training).

Employer access is an existing configurable component of the Access Group Career Development solution – the flexible platform that many Universities use to develop & measure student employability. With some minor development work, we were able to extend the platform to facilitate a targeted and hierarchical advertising revenue opportunity.

Jobs posted to the network by approved employers can be targeted to students (who are already using these established University employability sites to prepare for employment after graduation). Students are keen to apply for these suitable jobs and can follow specific companies to see new roles as they are published.

Job approval - flow

Employers could now advertise their roles and raise brand awareness to a captive audience of early talent. A promotional website was required in order to monetise this opportunity and market it to potential New Zealand employers.

I designed and developed a WordPress-powered CMS incorporating the client’s branding (including powerful SEO tools) to explain the tiered pricing model and drive employer self-registrations.

Following registration, the NZUni Talent sales team follows up to facilitate the creation of employer profiles (for increased company visibility) and job posts. Additional development was done to the Abintegro Career Development Platform to allow direct payments, provide enhanced reporting, and a centralised job management system (so a single job could be shared with multiple universities without needing to be created individually).

Captive Audience
Captive Audience
160,000 enrolled students
Direct Access
Direct Access
All eight NZ universities
Addressable Market
Addressable Market
500+ registered employers
Pricing Model
Pricing Model
job listings & employer profiles

Outcomes

In the first 18 months since launching in June 2021:

  • 84,000 job views and 18,000 job applications for 3,000 jobs
  • 2,600 companies
  • 1,100 employers (over 200% increase) and 132 employer profiles
  • 42,000 website views and 15,000 unique visitors
  • generating 3x initial ROI each month

Proof of Concept NFT

In order to understand web3 emergent technology, I minted my first non-fungible token (NFT). This grassroots operational approach allowed me to get an in-depth understanding of how to think about NFT’s from a consumer point of view, as well as overcoming the technical constraints required to publish an NFT.

Key Technology

NFT
NFT
An NFT is a file attached to a smart contract (the blockchain)
Blockchain
Blockchain
A blockchain is a ledger for storing transactions of crypto-currency
Crypto Wallet
Crypto Wallet
You store your own crypto-currency in this digital wallet
Marketplace
Marketplace
NFTs are located in a marketplace where they can be bought and sold

You can bid on this NFT!

Although this NFT was created as a proof of concept, it is available for bidding on the Rarity platform. All proceeds go to the non-profit charity Beam – where you can sponsor a homeless person and fund their skills training.

My process

  1. In order to create an NFT auction of value, I decided to use a photograph I had taken eight years ago outside Farringdon Station in London. This poignant image has stayed with me for a long time. Victims of homelessness can be anyone, and they are part of our community – they could be our father, our child, or our brother. As this project was intended for proof of concept only, I decided to donate any revenue received to the homelessness charity, Beam. They do fantastic work, please check them out and donate if you can.
  2. In order to mint an NFT, I needed to decide who would pay the “gas fees” (this is the cost of the transaction itself – on the Ethereum blockchain this is a unit of Ether measured in GWEI). Although gas fees were low at the time, minting an NFT can have hidden costs and not everything is transparently communicated up-front. For this reason, I chose free minting (or lazy minting), where the gas fees are paid by the buyer.
  3. Although I had an OpenSea marketplace account, for this NFT I decided to list on Rarible so I could compare how the onboarding experience was different.
  4. After choosing the blockchain and marketplace, I needed to decide on the wallet I wanted to link them together. I already owned a Coinbase crypto wallet, but have found it cumbersome due to a separate mobile-based app that needs to be linked to a Coinbase account. This time I used MetaMask and it seemed a lot easier.

Summary

I would recommend you try minting your own NFT – it’s fairly simple, once you have an understanding of the concepts involved. In retrospect next time I would probably pay my own gas fees, as I imagine this would increase traction. I would also set it to be a timed auction, and make sure I have a budget for promoting the NFT on a social media paid-for campaign (rather than relying on organic growth). Donating the proceeds to charity is something I haven’t seen in other NFTs, and this could be a useful donation-generating mechanism for the non-profit sector.

H&C

Horse & Country TV

About

Horse & Country TV is an international multi-screen network about equestrianism and country lifestyle. The digital offering (consisting of linear TV channel, live events and an extensive video back catalogue) was delivered to subscribers across web, mobile and smart TV platforms via an eCommerce B2C SaaS OTT platform.

Using written editorials powered using WordPress, potential customers are driven into a content marketing funnel from paid-for social advertising to subscription purchase.

Highlights

Refined the dunning process (total number, periodicity and messaging) to reduce eCommerce involuntary churn by over 50%.

Consolidated 15 websites instances into a single integrated WordPress multisite theme (for single global updates and performance improvements)

Release manager for a large number of app platforms:

  • iOS mobile
  • Android mobile
  • Web
  • Amazon FireTV
  • Amazon Prime Video
  • Android TV
  • Apple TV
  • Roku

Launched across six territories (UK, US, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, and APAC) in multiple languages and currencies.

Increased subscription signup conversions by testing multiple mobile-first landing pages on the UnBounce platform.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Ranking in search engine results were dramatically improved in a number of ways:

  • Creation of structured data (also known as “rich snippets”) which allowed the display of news, tv programs and individual video results to appear in more enticing ways
  • Global SSL certificates increased consumer confidence
  • Easy to understand in-page “traffic light” SEO evaluation system for editorial team
  • Better page rendering performance (including TTFB) which raised Google PageSpeed scores

eCommerce attribution

Example affiliate journey (including signposting)
  • End-to-end affiliate tracking program (which allowed full monitoring of conversions, from digital display advertising through to purchase)
  • Implemented country-specific Facebook tracking pixels (to allow the creation of “lookalike” audiences for retargeting)
  • Consolidated individual Facebook pages to a simplified geographic “Facebook Global Pages” structure
  • Google AdWords attribution modelling for evaluation of paid-for keyword ad placements

New features

  • Daily/weekly TV guide (automatically updated every hour)
  • Countdown timers for time-based events and premieres (to increase FOMO)
  • 404 error page with multiple endpoints (so no dead-end customer journeys)
  • Simple, universal navigation for the hybrid web OTT and WordPress applications
  • Hundreds of 302 redirections (to avoid 404 errors from legacy links)
  • Improved content discovery (i.e. genre-based browsing)
  • Homepage geolocation (to prevent subscriptions being purchased from the wrong country)
  • OpenX ad distribution server (for automated deployment and rotation)
  • Multi-lingual subscription drivers (including a second paragraph mobile-only unit)
Love Horses? You'll love H&C. Get our annual plan & save over 25%!
Internal digital display advertising

Other enhancements

  • Improved client service by creating easily understood technical documentation (including User Personas & User Stories)
  • Enhanced internal communications with digital infrastructure (e.g. Slack, Zapier, Trello) and created detailed step-by-step Product Support Guides to facilitate backlog prioritisation and stakeholder buy-in
  • Google Analytics and Hotjar integrations (including open graph metadata for Facebook and Twitter)
  • Hundreds of 302 redirections (to avoid 404 errors from previous site migrations and other outdated links)
  • Technical documentation for RFP and evaluation criteria for vendor selection process
  • Single, unified domain name strategy
  • Responsive (mobile-first) email marketing templates in MailChimp – including weekly RSS news emails – and automated transactional email processing in Mandrill
User interaction heatmap
v-r.reviews

VR Reviews

v-r.reviews - post template

About

Looking at the emerging Virtual Reality content sector, I realised that finding good experiences seemed to be quite a difficult process. Continue reading

Mega – The Forces That Shape Our Future

A megatrend is a pattern or a movement which has a major impact on business and society as a whole. They can be used as a tool to help guide investment – but which megatrends should we invest in?

Pictet Asset Management asked AML Group to look at ways of owning this new investment space, thereby encouraging consumers to invest with them — and after extensive stakeholder engagement developed mega.online. A fully responsive content hub, the site brings together curated articles written by academics, scientists and entrepreneurs from many disciplines and backgrounds like Vaclav Smil (Bill Gates’ ‘must-read’ author) and Leo Johnson to provide independent advice on the forces shaping the sustainable future. Supported with infographics, diagrams and video, the informative articles on topics such as eating insects and energy storage integrating a number of social media tools (such as TwitterLinkedIn and YouTube) to generate discussion and help guide users to specific theme investment funds only a click away.

A number of innovative features on the site helped to support this approach, including a ‘save for later’ tool (allowing content to be consumed on another device or shared with a group), and automatic generation of ‘reading time’ (as most of the content was long-form).

In this extensive campaign I was responsible for:

  • Prototypes
  • Digital Project Management (including Staged Delivery)
  • Information Architecture (Sitemaps)
  • Creative/Visual Design Collaboration
  • User Interface Design
  • User Experience & Wireframing
  • User Personas & Journeys
  • Quality Assurance & Testing

I also assisted with Content Planning, Social Media Integration, and Domain Name Strategy.

Brilliant - ipad

Don’t be good, be Brilliant

After two successful years promoting brand awareness of the Oxford/Cambridge annual boat race, the task to monetise the 2014/2015 sponsorship was now to explain more about why BNY Mellon have sponsored the race, how it links to what they do, and start a longer conversation with their audiences. Part of this solution was to create the BNY Mellon Brilliant website.

At the centre sits a content hub — where the target audience could discover how to take insights from the boat race and the wider sporting world, and apply it to their jobs, enabling them to perform better at work. The site contained a calendar of engaging content to populate the site, including interviews with sports and business personalities, client and prospect events, and origination of long and short copy articles and infographics.

In total, 106 pieces of content were created for the campaign, deployed throughout the year. The campaign also used social media and HTML emails to drive traffic back to the site and generate views and shares.

Protected Area

This content is password-protected. Please verify with a password to unlock the content.

Since the initial launch, site visits have reached 40k and there have been 1,200 social shares and article views. Long-form relevant content has increased site stickiness, so we know visitors are reading the content and coming back for more.

On this project I was responsible for:

  • Digital Project Management
  • Information Architecture (Sitemaps)
  • Creative/Visual Design Collaboration
  • Aggregation across multiple Social Media platforms
  • Animation
  • User Experience & Wireframing
  • User Journeys
  • Quality Assurance & Testing
The Financial Services Forum

The Financial Services Forum

The Financial Services Forum is a membership-community of professionals – they endeavour to have an understanding of the consumer, marketplace and business marketing performance. The Forum continues to provide that very focus, and the critical insight, which allows their Members to concentrate on improving performance by putting marketing effectiveness first. What makes The Forum’s agenda both relevant and beneficial is the fact that it is totally independent and sector-specific. It involves the right people, addressing the right topics — both current wisdom and future trends — through a mix of events, publications, communities and online resources.

We partnered with the FSF to create an upgraded online digital offering, using a phased delivery mechanism: Phase 1 concentrated on getting a comprehensive CMS and improved site architecture (IA) to allow for expansion into international communities — along with the capacity for visitors to engage in online discussion. Phase 2 looked at ways to increase membership, including promoting the first three months for free (to sell-in the advantages of increased article availability and event tickets). Phase 3 focused on revenue generation and reducing administration, with a Stripe payment gateway for events and subscription-based membership.

Successive phases will look at additional features and closer integration of the CRM facility for improved lead generation.

Protected Area

This content is password-protected. Please verify with a password to unlock the content.

This was a year-long partnership, and on this project I was responsible for:

  • Existing Functional Review/Evaluation
  • Functional Specification
  • Content Migration Plan
  • Prototyping
  • User Experience
  • User Interface
  • User Journeys, Email Newsletters and Autoresponders
  • Information Architecture
  • Artworking Markup and Development Support Material
  • Feature Development
  • CMS Training Manual
  • Quality Assurance
  • Service Level Agreement and Disaster Recovery Plan
  • Assisting with extensive Client Collaboration

Neptune’s New Reformers

AML’s idea was to base the campaign around valuable, engaging content for consumers, which provided a back-story for the Neptune investment funds. The content was delivered through both printed and downloadable online brochures, and a bespoke microsite — using parallax functionality and providing supporting content through video.

Alongside written content, articles featured elegant illustrations and infographics to highlight key facts about the funds and markets in a striking and clean way. Using this visual language, we created online advertising to drive investors to the site and the online brochure.

New Reformers provided cut-through in a busy ISA market by offering high quality, useful content in a visually interesting and innovative way.

AML were able to achieve the desired layout design – an easily animated, asymmetric parallax layout (similar to the New York Times’ legendary Snowfall article, but fully responsive) – with both elegance and simplicity. Through prototyping, we evaluated a number of tools (including the Aesop Story Engine), and eventually settled on Visual Composer. An additional constraint was for the client to easily and quickly update table data (without any developer knowledge) – for this, we selected the intuitive and flexible Tablepress plugin.

Completed within the allocated six weeks production timeframe, on this project I was responsible for:

  • Creative/Visual Design Collaboration
  • Extensive Artworking Markup (of colours, elements and sections)
  • Responsive SVG infographics
  • Animation
  • User Experience & Wireframing
  • Quality Assurance & Testing

The Great Business Debate

CBI is the ‘voice of business’. In today’s economic reality, in terms of public opinion, there is a loss of business confidence and growing support for anti-business legislation. To redress this issue and attempt to balance the conversation by allowing pro-business issues to be heard, The Great Business Debate campaign was launched at the CBI Annual Conference in 2014.

The campaign consisted of a website, a Twitter campaign, HTML emails, online and press advertising as well as a series of live debates. The website contained articles, news and opinion from business entrepreneurs, tax campaigners, business leaders and even the Archbishop of York. It was also a platform for polling, quizzes, case studies and a debate toolkit (so companies can continue the discussion offline).

As of September 2015, there have been over 160k pageviews, from over 86,000 users. With over 8,500 followers on Twitter, it’s definitely got people talking and has ‘moved the dial’ for trust in business. The CBI have long-term plans for this campaign (and has now created new social media distribution channels for the website content on YouTube, LinkedIn and Google+) and will extend it to include live webcasts, as well as developing more local events to stimulate the debate even further.

In this extensive campaign I was responsible for:

  • Standardised Development and Deployment Platform (WordPress)
  • User Experience
  • Quality Assurance

AML’s Christmas Cracker

This project uses WebGL  to allow the user to stretch and pull a virtual Christmas Cracker, revealing a random joke. The first 1000 cracker pulls donated £1 to Street Child Africa, AML’s official charity.

Created using Mat Groves’ excellent (and appropriately-named) WebGL PIXI.js platform (and based on one of his concepts). The music track is “Silent Night” and was kindly supplied by the African’s Children Choir.

For this project I was responsible for:

  • Research (development platform and prototyping)
  • Front-end Development
  • Quality Assurance
CFA Institute

CFA Institute Career Mapping Tool

The aim of this project was to refine a bulk email databases of prospective students, by taking them through a 10-step career management tool (to determine a suitable role and learning program). Fully responsive, mobile-friendly and IE7 compatible, this site received over 140,000 hits in the first week of launching. Users were able to share their specific result in social media, using bespoke Open Graph API integration.

Cross-platform, Responsive Design

The tool encouraged engagement between the user and the CFA Institute brand and helps the user to determine whether CFA Program, Claritas or CIPM is right for them. Fully responsive, mobile-friendly and IE7 compatible, this site received over 140,000 hits in the first week of launching. Users were then able to share their specific result in social media, using bespoke social media API integration.

Extending the Brand

In consultation with the CFA’s marketing, creative development, education and web service teams, ThisCity were able to enhance the existing creative brand guidelines using gradients and animation in order for the implementation of an attractive, smooth and elegant visual design.

Metrics & Reporting

All micro-interactions with the mapping tool were measured (e.g. questions answered, quiz completions, visits, time on site, completion, forwards, shares) and this was reflected the engagement with the student prospects in the CFA Program, Claritas and CIPM database.

55
Unique Visitor Conversion (%)
7
Degree Disciplines Targeted
7
Global Key Markets
140000
Hits in the first week

On this project I was responsible for:

  • Front-end development
  • User Journey, User Experience and User Interface
  • GA custom campaign parameters
  • Back-end hosting and server configuration
  • Database Management
  • Administrative Documentation
  • Google Analytics reporting
  • Social Media sharing integration