Research

With the most recent employment numbers showing little improvement, you’d think most people would be clamoring for any job that would have them. Not true.

According to “Talent Report: What Workers Want in 2012,” research conducted by Net Impact, young workers are looking for jobs that are in line with their values and result in a positive difference in the world. More than half (58 percent) of student respondents say they will take a pay cut to find a job that matches their value system.

Net Impact polled 1,726 people, from college students to workers across generations, millennials to baby boomers.

Half of students say it’s important to work for a company that makes CSR a top priority. That figure falls to 38 percent when you look at more experienced workers, but half or more of both students and older workers agree that having a job that helps create a better world is important.

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Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

How do you discover the next “big thing?” In this over-connected world, there is no end to the way people can seek out new music, books, TV shows and movies. GigaOM Pro is releasing a comprehensive report today at paidContent 2012 about those sharing methods, and some of the results are surprising.

GigaOM Pro‘s report, The Discovery Democracy: How Social Discovery is Transforming Entertainment, looks at the media discovery habits of more than 1,100 U.S. fans and charts and explains how they get recommendations.

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Recruiter The Creative Group surveyed 500 advertising and marketing executives to find out what’s causing the most interruptions to their work throughout the day. The answer: Co-workers popping their heads into your office.

More than a quarter (27 percent) of respondents said these impromptu stopping bys are the biggest distraction. So shut the door, put up a sign, or hang some curtains if you’re sitting in one of those fishbowl-style office spaces. Whatever you do, find a way to (nicely) tell your colleagues to check back later because you’re busy.

WPP‘s Millward Brown has released its seventh annual BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands Study and, shocking to no one, Apple tops the list. The brand is now valued at $182.9 billion. IBM has moved into the number two spot, ahead of Google. And McDonald’s is at number four, the only non-tech company to break the top five. (Facebook entered the top 20 at number 19, just below Amazon.)

Interestingly, Marlboro is at number seven, rising from number eight last year. It beat out AT&T and Verizon to round out the top 10. The total value of the top 100 is $2.4 trillion.

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PR firm Solomon McCown & Company and Anderson Robbins Research partnered to poll 1,009 U.S. adults about their values and outlook on life, finding that the country has developed “A New Normal.”

According to the survey, 74 percent of Americans feel they have achieved the American Dream, but that realization takes a better work-life balance and overall happiness into greater account.

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Research conducted by Ketchum (with help from Communispace) finds that people around the world are most appreciative of the ways in which technology makes their lives easier, even more than tech’s entertainment value. Other countries included in the study were France, China, and Spain.

The Ketchum Digital Living Index polled 6,000 participants between the ages of 16 and 54 (between the ages of 18 and 64 in the U.S.) with results showing 46 percent of consumers want technology that is going to simplify their lives. But 76 percent said they weren’t happy with technology’s ability to make life easier. Only 35 percent said they were more desirous of technology that entertains them.

In addition, a cultural anthropologist who helped with the study, Emma Gilding, expressed surprise over the ways in which opinions differed depending on country of origin. “I didn’t expect that because the dominant narrative is that technology sells itself. But the data shows that this just isn’t true,” she said in a statement.

After the jump, we’ve got an infographic that illustrates the Index’s findings. You can also read more here.

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In the world of public perception, a scandal can knock a brand down for weeks. But Wal-Mart, which is currently facing a public relations problem with a bribery scandal in Mexico, has fared better than other brands like Taco Bell and Target, according to data from YouGov BrandIndex, which measures “buzz score” on a point index.

YouGov BrandIndex measurement scores range from 100 to -100 and are compiled by subtracting negative feedback from positive. A zero score means equal positive and negative feedback.

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You see those ads about big companies cleaning up oil spills and ads about huge firms taking steps to “go green.” But do you believe them?

Not really. Results from the third annual “Gibbs & Soell Sense & Sustainability Study” show despite news coverage on corporations going green, most consumers are still highly skeptical of corporate commitment to the environment. But they are still intrigued.

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Research from Euro RSCG Worldwide finds that people talk too much. They never shut up. As a result, they’re giving away their privacy.

“The Digital Life” study found that people around the world are concerned about privacy, with 60 percent of the 7,213 participants saying that people should stop oversharing online. The biggest concern is for millenials; 70 percent say they think that generation doesn’t have a sense of privacy and two-thirds of millenials agree.

To our point about multitasking, half of the respondents expressed concern that technology and multitasking are eroding the ability to think deeply and concentrate.

“The Digital Life” study included respondents over the age of 18 and from 19 countries including Belgium, Brazil, China, the U.S., and Argentina. An infographic after the jump illustrates the findings.

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Marcia DiStaso, assistant professor of PR at the College of Communications at Penn State University, surveyed 1,300 PR pros and they say 60 percent of Wikipedia entries contain errors about their clients. And because of rules against PRs editing Wikipedia articles, the errors can remain published for an indefinite amount of time.

According to information we received via email, DiStaso has been conducting Wikipedia research since 2006 and gathered responses from PR pros across agencies, nonprofit organizations, companies, and other groups. She told ABC News that PRs are only allowed to leave comments and wait for a public response. Ideally, Wikipedia guidelines say that should happen within five days. But nearly a quarter of respondents (24 percent) say they never heard back. More than half of respondents thought the rules should be changed.

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