Nearly 70% of SME decision-makers say that a graduate’s experience in social networks and tools is important to them when considering them for hire.

According to a new survey from OnePoll and sales software company Salesforce, 76% of graduates are also attracted to employers who actively use social networks and tools.

The survey aimed to find out the importance of social networks during the recruitment process.

It also looked into stats regarding the use of social networks by SMEs – and showed that nearly half (47%) of those surveyed use social networks and tools to engage customers and prospects.

Meanwhile, nearly 70% of respondents say that social networks and tools are important to the future of their business. This figure rose to 86% amongst decision-makers aged 18 to 24.

SMEs are also more liberal regarding the use of social networks in the office. Only 15% of SMEs ban all use of social networks whilst 37% have no restrictions in place at all. This could work in those SMEs’ favour, as 40% of graduates surveyed said that they would be deterred from working for a business that had banned Facebook and Twitter.

Nearly 30% of managers in SMEs look to new graduates to teach them about how best to use social networking sites to grow their business.

Tim Barker of Salesforce.com said: “To attract and retain tomorrow’s talent, SMEs need to understand social networks and tools and use them to engage with customers, prospects, employees and in the recruitment process.”

In a more modest research project (in partnership with Glasgow Caledonian University), we’ve actually been doing our own SME survey, looking at SME Return On Investment (ROI) by using Social Media. The first outputs can be found in the links below:

Prezi : Social Media ROI Survey – as presented at the Turing Festival in Edinburgh, and Social Media Week Glasgow.

Return on Investment: What Literature Exists on the Use of Social Media and ROI? – an annotated bibliography of academic journal articles, professional publications, authoritative blogs and other resources that address social media and return on investment (ROI).

Back in the mid to late 1990’s I had the pleasure of working for a pretty cutting edge research group called ABACUS – part of the Architecture Department at the University of Strathclyde.

Much of the work we were involved in was focussed around the use of IT (and later the web) to Architecture and the Built Environment, and Abacus developed what was at the time one of the biggest 3D city models – 25 square kilometres of Glasgow City Centre.

In 1998, I was challenged with the task of making the model available online, and using new and exciting visualisation technologies such as VRML (Virtual Reality Modelling Language) and QTVR (Quick Time Virtual Reality) – carried out a prolonged R+D period which resulted in a system we called “The Glasgow Directory”.

In short – An interactive Map/3D Model which accurately gave a true reflection of the real city with layers of data accessed on request. Our urban information system allowed web-based users to explore and “walk around” the virtual Glasgow model, highlighting areas of interest such as key city landmarks, tourist resources and more, with fancy 360 degree panoramic views of selected street-scapes… this sounding at all familiar yet?

When the Glasgow Directory was launched, it was very well received within the web research world, particularly those working in the field of VRML and city visualisation. As a result, I was fortunate enough to present a number of academic papers at various locations across Europe, highlighting our innovative system, and explaining our ideas to take it further in the future. Anyone know if Larry Page or Sergey Brin visited around that time?..

Ok – being serious – I don’t actually think that Google based their Google Maps (and more recently – Google Street View) on the VRML Glasgow Directory, but in retrospect, some of the similarities are astounding….

Above… George Square and the City Chambers… both systems have the ability to explore the “virtual space”, identify the street names, buildings of interest etc…

 Glasgow Catherdral from the roadside….  left is the VRML Glasgow Directory, right is Google StreetView

  Using the Map as an information system, searching for a good Bar in the Merchant City – in this case Bar 91

Unfortunately, much of the original source for the Glasgow Directory is now lost. Regrettably this includes a lot of the later research and development including embedding realtime audio, location specific navigation feedback (VERY similar in nature to Google Maps on the iPhone with GPS) and multi-user “avatar” based interactions.

Some links to material and examples that I did manage to dig up:

Working Glasgow Directory (kind of) – requires a VRML client such as the Cortona Plugin

Research Stuff:
Inside The Map – Academic Paper written by myself for a Cartography Conference
Visit VR Glasgow  – Academic Paper written by Myself and Prof. Tom Maver

So Google.. if you’re reading this… own up – was it me that invented Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Street View? I’ll assume that I did until I hear back from you. In the meantime, I’m off to dig out that primitive working example of an online video sharing site that I remember showing to some Paypal employees back in 2001…