#proudmanager Alert!

We just found out that Jenni Harrison, social media manager in our team has been shortlisted for young digital person of the year at next month’s Hull Digital Awards.

If I had Jenni’s social media skills at this point I’d insert some relevant hashtags, emojis and maybe even a well selected GIF or whatever is trending right now.

 For now I’ll congratulate Jenni as a very worthy finalist and stick to a smiley! ??

 As part of the nomination I said: “Jenni is proof that when a young person is trusted and empowered to take their passion, values and skills to disrupt the way of working, remarkable things can happen.”

She really is! She’s brought pioneering new approaches into our projects, has been central to the shaping of our new division Stuff of Greatness and has gone from first-time presenter to delivering workshops to over 500 people!

This is not the first-time young people at eskimosoup have been recognised in this way. I believe that we are the only company locally to have employed two winners of “Young Achiever of the Year” (doths cap to Rich and Amy) so, I like to think that if we were a sports club people would say we had a great youth academy.

So, how is this? In the past I’ve quipped that the reason my team are so adept is the urgent need to cover for my incompetence; I realise I’m straying right into humblebrag country here! Although I think it’s actually quite simple: set out a vision that attracts people with the right attitude and potential and then show them some faith by empowering them to grow; accepting that they will make mistakes along the way.

Like the late George Michael said; gotta have faith.

Jenni is the best young digital person in our city in our eyes, and sits on a shortlist with two very accomplished C4DI-based nominees: Hayden Barton who developed the world’s smallest microcontroller and friend of the team; Matt Wildbore who is a successful business owner and great guy.

We’ll find out who wins on 20th September 2018 and whatever the outcome, here’s to the continuous development of amazing young people!