I’ve been planning to do a varied look at compensation, but I didn’t realize that idea started with something I read in January and here it is June. I reviewed all the comp articles I saved and thought I’d share the more unusual ones.

There were actually two January articles within a day of each other.

The first looked at who is instrumental in formulating those fat Wall Street bonuses.

But as one of the nation’s foremost financial compensation specialists, Mr. Johnson is among a small group of behind-the-scenes information brokers who help determine how Wall Street firms distribute billions of dollars to their workers.

The other was a Wharton look at the effect of excessive frugality on companies’ long-term health. My main reaction reading it was “ya think!?”

When workers feel that “the company is doing fine, but somehow I’m doing worse, at some point there has to be some dissatisfaction with that. It’s not sustainable,” suggests Wharton management professor Adam Cobb, who studies labor, worker benefits and income inequality. “I think there’s a general feeling of: This system is rigged and not in my favor.”

Shortly thereafter Dice published their salary survey for tech salaries

After two straight years of wages remaining nearly flat, tech professionals on average garnered salary increases of more than 2%…

A reminder that the jobs of the truly rich aren’t like ours comes from Rupert Murdoch who got a huge raise, in spite of legal bills from the ongoing hacking scandal being nearly a billion dollars in February; considering the continuing revelations they’ve probably surpassed that by now.

In Europe, the CEO of German startup Wooga is building a culture sans bonuses.

“I don’t believe in them,” says Jens Begemann, the 35-year-old co-founder and chief executive officer of Wooga. “If people are not motivated, you may need bonuses to make sure they work. But I don’t think that’s the right incentive.”

It used to be that people gave up some salary for the opportunity to work on bleeding edge products in companies with little-to-no structure, like-minded people and the chance to hit the jackpot through stock options—but no more.

Going to work for a start-up used to be a gamble and a sacrifice. You’d have to work longer hours for a lot less money than you would at a publicly held company. (…)To compete for talent these days, start-ups can’t skimp too much in salary negotiations.

There is much written about the rising wrath of shareholders with regards to CEO pay, but little written about a potent subgroup—shareholders who are also employees.

One potentially powerful class of shareholders — employees — seems to be rousing, too. And, to the degree that employee-shareholders band together to have their say on the boss’s pay, they can be a formidable force.

Finally, Apple’s Tim Cook raised the bar for all highly compensated CEOs Thursday; not because of a higher paycheck or by taking a symbolic $1 annual salary, but by refusing part of what he is owed.

In a regulatory filing Thursday, Cook stated that he would forgo around $75 million in dividend payments he otherwise would have revived for the 1.125 million stock awards is set to get over the next several years.

Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho

Facebook’s IPO is all over the news and who am I to ignore a topic of obvious interest? Suffice it to say that IMHO valuing Facebook above McDonald’s, Citigroup and Amazon is totally ridiculous—but what do I know?

However, I’m not alone.

A survey done by WhisperNumber.com polled 1,100 registered traders and investors, found that 71% do not consider Facebook a long-term investment and will not be buying share after Facebook’s initial public offering.

And comparing Facebook to Google isn’t a no brainer; it’s a no brains-er.

But when Facebook amended its S-1 on Monday…the company reported a season decline in revenues hitting $1.058 billion compared to $1.131 billion in the quarter before — the questions started cropping up about whether it was too much to ask that Facebook soar in the markets like Google had. Just prior to Google’s IPO, on the other hand was gearing up quarter after quarter pre-IPO and experienced sequential revenue growth of 27.2% from Q4 to Q1 before its IPO.

Bottom line is that for garden-variety investors (that us) making a profit from Facebook isn’t likely (unless, IMHO again, the market crashes and you still have spare change to invest. And even if you there would probably be better places to use it.)

But if history offers any lesson, average investors face steep odds if they hope to make big money in a much-hyped stock like Facebook.

The IPO should create at least 1000 new millionaires, but it’s unlikely that wealth will be ostentatiously displayed; the exception being when funding another startup—or buying a bicycle.

The hand-painted Italian bicycles that flash across Silicon Valley on Saturday mornings have become the new Ferrari — and only the cognoscenti could imagine that they cost more than $20,000.

My favorite bit of IPO wisdom addressed to all those newbie Facebook millionaires comes from Seattle-based entrepreneur and investor Jonathan Sposato, who earned his first taste of wealth at Microsoft 20 years ago, then founded Picnik, which was bought be Google, and is currently GeekWire’s chairman.

For some, stock wealth launched entrepreneurship and philanthropy. For others, materialism and conspicuous consumption. It was a lottery ticket, plain and simple. And statistically, 90% of all lottery ticket winners go broke after 3 years. And while people seldom talk about money in our culture, avoiding the topic makes history repeat itself, and stigmatizes issues around money.

Thus, I offer some very candid advice for my younger colleagues at Facebook, who are about to have a life-changing event.

Finally, here is some useful advice in the form of what to consider when offered equity in lieu of cash.

The shares-versus-dollars decision presents a common dilemma for startup staffers and consultants. Early-stage companies often don’t have the ready money to just write a cheque, so they have to lure talent with the promise of stock. (…) If you are in the fortunate position of weighing a juicy stock offer, what issues should colour your decision?

Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho

Maybe because it is finally spring where I live, but my mind is skipping around topics like a butterfly (although I haven’t seen any yet).

Everywhere you go the tech world, especially startups, are scrambling to hire and moaning over the perceived lack of candidates. But finding talented engineers is a snap in comparison to finding women willing to commit to a convent. Being that it’s 2012, both groups have turned to social media to solve the problem.

Rather than leave the future of the convents to prayer and chance, Sister Elaine Lachance has turned to the Internet. She’s using social media and blogging to attract women who feel the calling to serve God and their community. “But I knew I had to go there, that I had to do it,” said Lachance, who turned 70 on Sunday. “You have to go where the young people are. And that’s where they are.”

Bend, Oregon is the backdrop of an encouraging story on jobs thanks to Gary Fish, who founded Deschutes Brewery in 1988.

With 80,000 people surrounded by not much of anything — with no Interstate, no university, and the closest major city 160 miles away across steep and snowy mountains — beer has had room to make a difference. (…) “You have to thank Gary Fish for kind of creating that culture,” said Larry Sidor, a former brew master at Deschutes who left last year to open a brewery of his own this summer, CRUX Fermentation Project. “It’s been kind of a training ground, a spawning ground for the craft movement.”

I have to admit I don’t understand the willingness of people to hire strangers to do both everyday and more exotic “life stuff” for them, but doing so is more tsunami than trend.

We’ve put a self-perpetuating cycle in motion. The more anxious, isolated and time-deprived we are, the more likely we are to turn to paid personal services. To finance these extra services, we work longer hours. This leaves less time to spend with family, friends and neighbors; we become less likely to call on them for help, and they on us.

Finally, I was reminded that short-term thinking always comes back to bite when I read in January that teens were “showing their love” by sharing everything, including passwords; actions guaranteed to create mayhem as teen feelings shift.

Young couples have long signaled their devotion to each other by various means — the gift of a letterman jacket, or an exchange of class rings or ID bracelets. (…) It has become fashionable for young people to express their affection for each other by sharing their passwords to e-mail, Facebook and other accounts.

Fast forward to adulthood and that tell-the-world social sharing is still creating mayhem, although not because of changing affections.

After a few relationship-testing episodes, some spouses have started insisting that their partners ask for approval before posting comments and photographs that include them. Couples also are talking through rules as early as the first date (a kind of social media prenup) about what is O.K. to share. Even tweeting about something as seemingly innocent as a house repair can become a lesson in boundary-setting.

Enjoy today and have a memorable Mother’s Day tomorrow.

Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho

As you may have guessed there is no unifying theme today; just some very interesting stuff.

According to the media today’s college grad wants to either start a company or work in a startup, but is that really true? An article in the The Brown Daily Herald says otherwise, but obviously, the external media probably knows more than an internal college paper.

Of the 67 percent of Brown graduates who entered the workforce after graduation in 2011, 20 percent — 171 students ­— worked in either consulting or finance. Teach for America was the top employer of graduates, followed by Google and Goldman Sachs.

Next, Tien Tzuo, CEO of Zuora, shares great career wisdom from Larry Ellison, Marc Benioff and Scott Thompson, the CEO’s of Oracle, Salesforce.com and Yahoo

Larry Ellison, Oracle founder/CEO: “Sometimes, you need to piss off the boss.”

Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com founder/CEO: “Break the glass ceiling in your head.”

Scott Thompson, Yahoo CEO: “Your job is to make people successful”

Those who favor a meatier subject should read new research from Michael C. Jensen, the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, on the impact of integrity in the real world.

Behavior that lacks integrity leads to value destruction. This paper analyzes some common beliefs, actions, and activities in finance that are inconsistent with being a person or a firm of integrity. Each of these beliefs leads to a system that lacks integrity, i.e., one that is not whole and complete and therefore creates unworkability and destroys value.

How do the magazines treat your personal information when you subscribe? Do you have value to them beyond the price of your subscription? That’s what a reporter wondered, so she did an informal test to find out.

“It is revenue-producing for a publisher to collect subscribers’ information and sell it,” said Paul Stephens, the director of policy and advocacy at the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a consumer group in San Diego. “It’s just information that is very valuable to advertisers who want to target individuals based on their interests.”

Now that you’ve eaten your meat and veggies here’s a goody for dessert. It’s the best version I’ve seen of images set to Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start The Fire. Turn up your speakers, go to full screen and enjoy!

Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho

I have only one link for you today, but it’s a doozy.

It comes with the impeccable credentials of TED and is called, rightly so, TED-Ed.

It’s a link to a world for you to explore with your kids and other learning-oriented friends.

It’s one of those links that you should blast out to everyone in each of your networks and Tweet so the world will know.

“Our goal here is to offer teachers free tools in a way they will find empowering,” said TED Curator Chris Anderson, on the new TED Ed site. “This new platform allows them to take any useful educational video, not just TED’s, and easily create a customized lesson plan around it. Great teaching skills are never displaced by technology. On the contrary, they’re amplified by it. That’s our purpose here: to give teachers an exciting new way to extend learning beyond classroom hours.”

Yes, it’s a fantastic tool for actual teachers (send those you know the link), but, in the end, we are all teachers and learners.

And here’s a link if you want to get directly involved.

Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho, YouTube credit: TED-Ed

All the world is Facebook—or so Facebook would have you believe—especially with its upcoming IPO.

I don’t have a Facebook account (we maintain on for Option Sanity™, although it’s not particularly active at present). The more I hear the surer I am that I don’t want one.

Mark Zukerberg would have you believe that Facebook’s only interest is making your life better, but a comment from RickyGunns reveals a more and more frequent and unflattering view of his colossus.

…he plans to make it a mandatory agenda to broadcast everyone’s life in real time invading all privacy for his own legacy and profit trying to be another Bill Gates with the exception that he will do it at anyones expense.

Long defamed for frequent, unannounced changes to its (so-called) privacy policy, problems are now arising that are likely to play out in Congress and at Supreme Court level as the demand by private employers, government and colleges for access to candidates’ Facebook pages (either by asking for logins or to be friended) escalates.

In their efforts to vet applicants, some companies and government agencies are going beyond merely glancing at a person’s social networking profiles and instead asking to log in as the user to have a look around.

In 2007 I wrote about an executive’s dilemma when he found out that the wife of a senior manager cited abuse when she sued for divorce. Although his work performance was fine, the executive was uncomfortable having him on staff. Liz Ryan, a well know HR guru, said, “Ron should be evaluating Terry’s performance on the job, and nothing else.” Most of the other commenters agreed with this. That’s only five years ago, but the personal/professional boundaries have changed drastically.

Wharton management professor Nancy Rothbard says, “The core of the problem is the blending of personal and professional lives. We are still in the infancy of trying to understand how to deal with all this.”

Interestingly enough it is younger people who are changing their behavior to meet the challenge.

But today’s spring breakers — at least some of them — say they have been tamed, in part, not by parents or colleges or the fed-up cities they invade, but by the hand-held gizmos they hold dearest and the fear of being betrayed by an unsavory, unsanctioned photo or video popping up on Facebook or YouTube.

Or opting out completely.

But the company is running into a roadblock in this country. Some people, even on the younger end of the age spectrum, just refuse to participate, including people who have given it a try.

And there are a number of startups rushing to meet the needs of those who want to socialize only with those they really know.

Dave Morin, who worked at Facebook for four years before leaving to help found Path in 2010, explains the rationale for his company this way: “Facebook has made socializing on the Internet normal. But now there is an opportunity to return to intimate socializing.”

Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho

Tomorrow is T day (if you aren’t prepared I hope you have filed your extension), so it seemed like a good time to look at who pays what.

No new books meant President Obama’s income is down nearly a million, but he still paid 20%.

President Obama and his wife, Michelle, reported adjusted gross income of $789,674 in 2011 and paid just over 20 percent of it to the federal government in taxes.

Whereas Mitt Romney is paying 6% less tax on approximately 27 times more income.

He paid 13.9 percent in taxes on income of $21.7 million for 2010 and about the same rate for the not fully completed 2011 returns.

The current tax code is 5,296 pages long vs. 27 when it was written. The majority of the additional 5,969 pages are descriptions and explanations of how to legally cheat on your taxes.

If economists ran the tax system, there would be virtually no exemptions or loopholes. Instead, businesses, rich people, Congressmen and attorneys spend a shockingly large amount of time lobbying for tax breaks or exploiting the ones that exist.

For those who are seriously wealthy, like Ronald S. Lauder, an Estée Lauder heir worth more than $3.1 billion, beating the tax man while indulging your passions is an ongoing effort.

As is often the case with his activities, just beneath the surface was a shrewd use of the United States tax code.

Just in case you are wondering, here’s some intel on what catches the eye of those who pay in the 15% tax bracket.

Neiman Marcus sold out of pewter-color Ferraris (luggage set matching the interior included) at $395,000 each within 50 minutes of making 10 of them available through its “fantasy” holiday catalog late last month.

But in the great scheme of US taxation, Romney’s 14% is still significantly higher than many of our large corporations pay, especially those in the so-called “Dirty Thirty.”

In January, the two organizations identified 30 corporations whose cumulative profit was $164 billion from 2008 to 2011. These corporations didn’t just avoid paying taxes — they actually collected $10.6 billion in tax rebates, according to the groups. They were dubbed the “Dirty Thirty.”

Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho

There’s a lot of exciting exploration going on these days in space and under the sea, but some of the most exciting is the ongoing exploration of the human brain.

Most people recognize a certain validity in the old maxim ‘clothes make the person’, but would you believe that clothes can actually improve cognitive ability?

If you wear a white coat that you believe belongs to a doctor, your ability to pay attention increases sharply. But if you wear the same white coat believing it belongs to a painter, you will show no such improvement.

Oh, goody; once again corporate America is hijacking brain research to sell more (just what we all need) stuff.

…neuromarketing…helped researchers decode secrets such as why people love artificially colored snack food and how to predict whether a pop song will be a hit or a flop.

This next essay looks at how love affects your brain and you might wonder about its business application, but the information on how relationships change brain chemistry is as applicable to you and your boss and business colleagues as it is to you and your romantic partner—more so, perhaps, considering the hours spent in work-related relationships exceeds those spent on personal ones.

A RELATIVELY new field, called interpersonal neurobiology, draws its vigor from one of the great discoveries of our era: that the brain is constantly rewiring itself based on daily life.

Have you ever wondered why you acted/reacted a certain way? Could it be because of a cat you have, had or visited at some point?

Jaroslav Flegr believes a “latent” parasite may be quietly tweaking the connections between our neurons, changing our response to frightening situations, our trust in others, how outgoing we are, and even our preference for certain scents.

And before you start laughing, consider the words of Stanford’s Robert Sapolsky, “My guess is that there are scads more examples of this going on in mammals, with parasites we’ve never even heard of.”

Finally, an all natural, fully organic, multi-useful way to improve brain function—and it’s free! Additional benefits include potentially improved business functions and a myriad of benefits to your social life from more ways to meet chicks/guys to choosing restaurants and enjoying vacations.

Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.

Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho

Today we look at some interesting commentary on the state of the talent force (I positively detest the term ‘human capital’); some new and some seriously old.

Companies frequently hire from the outside based on the idea that new blood is good for the organization, but is it?

According to Wharton management professor Matthew Bidwell, “external hires” get significantly lower performance evaluations for their first two years on the job than do internal workers who are promoted into similar jobs. They also have higher exit rates, and they are paid “substantially more.” About 18% to 20% more.

Have you wondered if the job market will ever turn for more than the young tech-enabled? Maybe not quickly enough, but time does move on and demographics will not be denied.

A Human Capital Zeitgeist, is emerging as companies big and small are getting smacked with the realization that talent management is SO critical to competing in a volatile marketplace, they might actually have to throw a bit more respect at the “human” in the human capital equation.

This demographic time bomb isn’t new; it was recognized more than a decade ago, but managers’ ability to recognize, attract and retain talent has escalated dramatically, with the economic crash more like an attack of hiccups, than an actual change.

McKinsey declared the start of “the war for talent” in 1997. It has turned out to be a more or less permanent conflict. Revisiting their earlier work in 2001, the management consultants stated: “The war for talent will persist for at least the next two decades. The forces that are causing it are deep and powerful. The war for talent is a business reality.”

Do you believe that happy employees perform better? Not everyone agrees, although I freely admit I’m on the pro side of that argument.

Productivity measures across national economies have captivated the attention of policy makers and executives alike. Ultimately, though, the source of productivity is the individual knowledge workers who get things done every day. And the evidence is clear: People perform better when they’re happier. OR Happy employees tend to enjoy the status quo so much that they might resist changes to it. This is hardly a recipe for success in today’s world, where agility and embracing change are essentials for success.

Of course, no discussion of productivity can take place without including Elton Mayo and the Hawthorne Effect. Impressive experiments, since they are as relevant today as they were nearly a century ago.

What he found however was that work satisfaction depended to a large extent on the informal social pattern of the work group. … He concluded that people’s work performance is dependent on both social issues and job content.

Finally, no commentary on people and the workplace would be complete without something on the Millennials; the demographic the media and pundits keep insisting are completely different from preceding generations—but are they really?

“For the past 12 years, I have studied the so-called generation gap through empirical research, and have found that stereotypes of millennials in the workplace are inconsistent at best and destructive at worst.” ­­–Jennifer J. Deal, senior research scientist, Center for Creative Leadership

Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho

One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to entrepreneurs and innovation isn’t always what it seems.

How rich should you get for creating software that changed the world? Linus Torvalds created Linux and the open source revolution, which got him around a million dollars and an incredibly cool job.

Does he have any regrets? “Not at all,” he says. “Quite the opposite, actually. I’m very happy with feeling that I’ve done the right thing.” He adds: “I mean, if I’d started a company, that wouldn’t have been because I wanted to start a company. I concentrated on the technical side because that’s what I wanted to do.”

Entrepreneurs of all types are hyped as the solution to every country’s economic ills, so you might assume that the more dire the economy the more a government would facilitate startups—but you would be wrong. Consider Greece, which needs all the help it can get…

It took him 10 months — crisscrossing the city to collect dozens of forms and stamps of approval, including proof that he was up to date on his pension contributions — before he could get started. But even that was not enough. In perhaps the strangest twist of all, his board members were required by the Health Department to submit lung X-rays — and stool samples — since this was a food company.

Are you a sucker for kitchen gadgets designed to do one thing? I admit I succumb on occasion to their cool allure and the usefulness they seem to offer—if only that vision translated to my reality.

Just as often, the buyer is to blame, a victim of unrealistic expectations. The kitchen can be a realm of fantasy, after all, and even seasoned professionals can be seduced by a sexy piece of equipment, especially if it has an exotic accent.

For all the talk about the importance of marriage to long-term happiness and health it gets shorter-term all the time. Enter a couple of single entrepreneurs who believe they have the answer to keeping the romance, and therefore the marriage, alive.

Later this year, Mr. Schechter and Mr. Schildkrout will release their answer to these questions: a new dating portal focused on committed couples. It will seek to get them out of their routines, off their feet and on the town for frequent dates.

Everything is social these days and everyone seems to think that peer opinions are the ones that really count. I often ask one or two trusted friends what they think, but I’m not all that interested in sites like Yelp, because the posting are not only strangers, but also anonymous, unlike Angie’s List. But it would be a cold day in hell before I’d use this newest social site.

So that’s what MeARKET does. When you sign up, you enter the stocks that you own. Then you’re connected with your Facebook and LinkedIn friends, you can see their portfolios, and as they buy and sell, you get updated.

Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho