Meet the judges: Alan Hall

Continuing our global working video competition ‘meet the judges’ posts, offering a deeper insight into why we chose our expert panel of judges and what they’re looking for. Today: student representative, Alan Hall

Can you introduce yourself to readers in one sentence:

My name is Alan Hall and I am reading Management with Marketing at Exeter University.

What made you agree to be a judge for the global working video competition?

My course deals a lot with the effects and implications of global working in the business environment. I read a lot about theories and what people have written about how others work in global situations. However, t will be interesting to see other peoples points of view and see how they analyze and would overcome those challenges.

What’s been your own experience of global working?

A lot of my modules have included assessed group work and, with there being a lot of international students at my university, I faced a lot of the problems which I presume would be evident in a global business. There were issues that related to language, miscommunication, culture, and for example if a Chinese student went home for a weekend we would need to find a suitable time to liaise with them despite the time differences. It has been a really challenging but interesting experience.

IF you were allowed to enter (and you’re not – you’re a judge!) what would your own entry look at?

I am really interested in how social media fits into the ability of global companies to work internationally. I would probably look at how internal and external communications could connect with different areas internally and with their consumers through things like Twitter, Facebook, IBM connections and other personalized business  forms of social media. Also especially with the younger generation being so in touch with these technologies, I feel that by asking around and looking at the ideas in more depth then some really innovative ideas can come through.

What will you be looking for in the entries you judge?

I will be really interested to see the originality in some of the videos. The quality of the video to me is really second to the content. I want to see videos which contain something that people either have not looked at before or have not looked at in the same way. For me, the competition is about finding new ideas. Any entries that come in and have looked at a new ways business can be aided whilst working internationally will be marked highly by me.

Previous meet the judges posts: T.H. Ong and Dr Vinay Raj Menon