I want my money back...

An article published in The Times (Online) caught my interest this morning. James, who gave up his home to his ex-wife in a divorce settlement, found out a year later that the daughter he had lavished with love - and maintenance, school fees etc - for seventeen years was not his child. He suspected and accused his wife of having an affair three years into the marriage, which she denied, and at the end of the year their daughter was born. By the time she was ten or eleven, James says that he had doubts about her paternity - but he didn't do anything about it. His wife and he were seperated, although not divorced, by this time. A few years later, he felt he finally had to find out for sure, and had the test done without telling his daughter first. Devastated, and feeling betrayed, James has informed his daughter of the result - and he is taking his wife to court to get back his share in the family home, which he chose to relinquish as part of the divorce settlement. So, effectively, he wants a refund on his daughter, as she is not his and he was been tricked into believing she was (although his ex-wife claims she had no idea he wasn't the father either). One has to wonder if it will be worth his while - not only has he deeply hurt his daughter, he also has a court case costing an estimated £250,000 looming over him - but he claims it's the principle of the matter.

This made me think about refunds, and rebates in recruitment. There is a train of thought here - we're basically dealing with human capital. Most recruitment firms have some sort of rebate period to ensure that, should a candidate not work out, the client has some sort of financial safety net. Rebate periods are usually calculated on a sliding scale, with the average being three months - although some can be for as long as a year. I wonder though, at what point could the issue of a candidate leaving (whether by their own choice, or having to be dismissed) be unclear about which side should bear the costs? It is the job of the recruitment company to nuture the best candidates, rather like James nurtured his daughter, so yes - they should be 1000% sure that the person who moves into a role is suitable, reliable and capable for the job, and if they fail to do so, then the rebate is fairly claimed by the client. On the other hand, with the average company undertaking three interview stages before hiring, the client often has an adequate and lengthy period of time to make the best decision of whom to employ.

James says he was suspicious of his daughter's biological parentage well before he and his wife divorced - so why not have the test done and confirmed before signing over his share of the house to his wife on the premise that his daughter needed to remain secure in her home? Rather like an employer who has doubts at interview stage but chooses to hire anyway, James perhaps should have done a bit more research, and trusted his own judgement before making a costly mistake. So, say, if a company requests a business analyst with excellent SPSS skills for £42k, and the recruiter finds them someone whom they interview and subsequently employ, whose fault is it should they fail to match expectations? The candidate is the only one involved in the process that has nothing to lose if they underperform or simply change their mind about the job. I suppose it's much like a warranty on an electrical item - if you buy a new kettle, which six months later stops working, then John Lewis or whoever will replace it or refund your money. John Lewis genuinely thought it would work when they sold it to you, but it wasn't up to the job after all. In a recruitment sense, this could apply to a candidate - not knowingly mis-sold, but not up to doing the job that they were bought for.

For James, his case revolves around his being deliberately "mis-sold" his daughter. In the recruiter/client relationship, we may have to deal with rebates, disappointments and mistakes - but at least we miss out on the heartache and massive financial cost to both James and his daughter.

Has social media killed the cultural star?

I could hardly believe my eyes when I read an article by the BBC, reporting that Shakespeare's romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet is to be told across Twitter. The joint venture between Channel 4 and the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company, philistines) will see "Such Tweet Sorrow" - ah, the witticism - being tweeted across the social network in 140-character chunks, due to go live on 12th April. Romeo and Juliet? On Twitter? Who the heck thought that up? Apparently Channel 4 have vowed to double their arts coverage budget to $6m, so maybe they're just trying to save the advertising costs. Will it really work, though? Who is going to see this insane "broadcast" and think, 'Oooh, Shakespeare is really great after all, innit?' I get it, I really do. Channel 4 getting down with the kids, making Romeo and Juliet a funky, real love story, in small doses so that the over-hyped, information overdosed ADHD ridden teenagers can process it, making Shakespeare cool. Of course, then they will be making sure they watch Channel 4 arts programmes, asking their parents for tickets to the RSC's next production of Hamlet, and begging their teachers to let them read a Shakespeare play a week for their GCSE English Literature. I thought all this stuff had been done before. Shorter versions of Shakespeare published for kids, along with stage performances of the same. Baz Lurhman made R&J sexy for a while in the 90's, thanks to Leonardo Di Caprio and Clare Danes as the star-cross'd lovers in his abridged, camp and West Side Story-esque film. How quickly we forget. I'm surprised it's taken so long for someone to dumb down Shakespeare even more, that's all. Will it work? Who knows. Can social networking promote the arts, or will using it in this way serve only to simplify literature, music and art, alienate those amongst us who enjoy these pursuits, and give the kids something else to sneer at?

It seems that people are starting to take seriously the idea that social media CAN be good for the arts. Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA)
have been running two-day courses, Understanding Social Media for the Arts, funded by Arts Council England. There is already a social networking site aimed at fans of classical music, www.dilettante.com. According to its founder Juliana Farha, the site aims to "lead the classical uprising", and open classical music up beyond Radio 3, and London concert halls. It is a place where people can not only chat and blog about classical music, but also post their own compositions and work, developing their career as well as friendships with fellow enthusiasts. For arty types, www.myartspace.com is the place to go, to connect with other artists, display work and generally keep in the loop about the contemporary art scene. If you love reading, you can join an online book club at www.shelfari.com, where people gather to see what other people are reading, discover new books and even build a virtual bookshelf to show off your books. Obviously, this may declassify itself as "the arts" if, say, your bookshelf consists entirely of Kerry Katona autobiographies and Dan Brown, but I guess any book is better than nothing at all.

In a different twist on promoting literature in the social media, try the concept of "Twitterature" for size. Yep, it's what you think it is - an amalgam of Twitter and literature for the new technological age. Penguin even offered two University of Chicago students a book deal based on this, eventually named "Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books, Now Presented In Twenty Tweets Or Less". Apparently, now that the Twitterati are used to reading literature in short bursts, writers are starting to self-publicise their work on Twitter.

I suppose that, being a woman of a certain age now and no longer young and hip, I just don't understand why people would want to read a novel in hyperactive two sentence chunks rather than sat down in a nice comfy armchair with a cup of tea and a chocolate Hobnob - and a proper, made-of-paper book. If I want to read Romeo and Juliet in small chunks, I'll have a wee break every five minutes. Or I could watch it on DVD and press pause between each character's part. See how daft that sounds. So why would anyone want to do it whilst surfing the net? Beats me. All I know is, I can't see how Tweeting one of our country's finest playwright's works will inspire anyone to read further, or go to the theatre. After all, once we're used to this method of delivery, all others will seem long-winded and tedious without the liberal dosage of ritalin to keep bums on seats.

But what do I know? I'm merely one of the fuddy-duddies who don't understand where it's all at with literature nowadays. The Dimwitterati, perhaps.