Sitting and talking to a young man who was working at one of the leading tech companies in the region was an eye-opener. It was at a CyberSips event and we got around to the subject of students. He had recently been one at Newcastle University.
What made me think was when he said that during all his time at college he had never heard of CyberNorth. That was both a revelation and a shame yet students have never really been our target market. Our gobstopper has commercial cybersecurity companies at its core, with other cyber departments surrounding that and academic organisations even further out. Students have only been involved by association. The fact that he had never heard of us while at university was not really a surprise, yet a missed opportunity.
The students of today can do two things for the North East, either get a job locally and contribute to the region’s economy or, live somewhere else and advocate for us as a great place to be. Students become the knowledge workers of the future and, by not engaging with them, we are missing out on an opportunity to influence their thinking and employment pathways.
This problem has been highlighted to me through our work with Lumi. Together we’re offering to take part in the Skill Up North East initiative, a 10-day quest exploring AI fundamentals and other crucial skills needed to excel in today’s job market, while addressing a real-life problem in the Cyber Security Sector. The quests are open to: those not in education, employment, or training; sixth form students and: university students. But how do we get to them?
First of all I tried the usual channels, our website and LinkedIn sites, both my own and CyberNorth’s. I also tried the newsletter and podcast. None of them though are really connected to students (or indeed so called NEETS). I asked everyone to forward the offer onto anyone they may know that could be interested and even mentioned it at the CyberSips event.
I then cast my net wider, mailing everyone on our mailing list who did not have an associated corporate domain, assuming that many of them would be students. I wrote to the skills leads of three of the local councils (I don’t have the others names as yet) as well as people who I know have worked with students in the past.
It’s like peeling an onion, with lots of layers and plenty of tears. Everytime I try something I manage to dig a little deeper and everyday I think of new groups to think of. I even thought of one while writing this.
There is a fundamental problem in trying to get a message out to people who you have no contact with. I’ll get there though and we will end up with a much better mechanism for targeting previously unknown groups.
P.s. If you know of anyone, please pass it on. It really is a great opportunity.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 