The dying novel survives yet another generation

"Fiction gives us everything. It gives us our memories, our understanding, our insight, our lives. We use it to invent ourselves and others. We use it to feel change and sadness and hope and love and to tell each other about ourselves. And we all, it turns out, know how to do it." These are the words of Keith Ridgeway in an article in the New Yorker published last week.

He comments that although many people are turning away from fiction and focusing only on biographies and popular science, claiming to have no time for the frivolity of fiction, he believes that fiction is not trivial, nor is the novel dying. 


We say "Yes!" and "Hooray!" in hearty agreement with Ridgeway's sentiments.  From the time we were youngsters, books such as The Famous Five, Nancy Drew novels and The Secret Seven ignited our curiosity and passion for reading.  This passion served as the foundation for the freedom of our thinking and we credit reading with much of our creativity, daring and entrepreneurial drive today.

It is for this reason that we are launching a humble, but important project.  We are collecting books from our friends, family, clients and candidates at our offices in Bryanston and we will be donating these books at the end of the month to a selection of needy school libraries.

Giving the gift of knowledge

It is a very sad reality that we live in a world where children and adults are deprived of something as simple as a book. Books force us to use our imaginations, learn new facts and improve our language skills.

It seems like forever ago that we were using books more than television to stimulate our minds and relax, whether it was an escape from the harsh realities of life, or just to pass the time. Television now covers those bases and people spend more time in front their phones, televisions and computers than in a library.

Although this may be true, the importance of reading has not diminished.  Take your pick, a good old paperback novel, an e-book, pdf or kindle copy, whatever the medium, there is nothing like good literature.

We believe that everyone should be allowed to experience the adventure of reading a novel, everyone should be allowed access to information to help them expand their knowledge. This is the reason we held a book drive this past month.

Does the space you work in inspire you?

Today’s article is so relevant to all of us at Fusion Consulting, as after 4 great years, we have outgrown our office space and have moved into new offices. We love the fact that we can now “breathe” in a space designed to meet our team’s requirements - a work space with good flow, a chill area to relax, have a meal and catch up, and comfortable and spacious meeting rooms.   

We are sure you will agree how important our workspace is as it is almost our ‘second home’ in terms of the time we spend there during the day! When choosing office space remember that even though you may think of yourself as an ‘organism’, your companies, no matter how big or small is made up of many individuals, with different personalities.  For example, there are:


-    the techies – who are comfortable with IT blurb and software jargon and are happiest when sitting behind a computer

Innovation in Recruitment

The social media channels are frequently represented as the new silver bullet for communicators of all ilk, from recruiters to advertisers, from corporates to bloggers with a cause but is it an innovation that will truly launch recruitment into a new sphere of effectiveness and impact? At a recent Think Tank in the UK on the future of innovation in recruitment, effective technologies combined with the importance of personal “human” interaction and the power of “story telling” took centre stage as the best solutions for tangible ROI and success.

We were not surprised at the findings that web-based technologies can save time and indeed money when it comes to search, but when it comes to placement, human interaction by a skilled and experienced practitioner is essential.

The Secret to Innovation in Recruitment

Recently at Barclays in Canary Wharf we had a fascinating Think Tank about the Future of Innovation in Recruitment. Again as always it was a who's who of global brands and international recruitment leaders. It was interesting for me that most recruitment leaders perceived social media as the recruitment innovation that they felt they should be discussing but few of the direct recruiters in attendance could demonstrate tangible ROI or success from social media activities to date. This presented an interesting picture for me as in one breath some leaders recognised that most innovation was happening around social media but then in the next they dismissed its immediate value as they had not experienced much tangible ROI.