Poking through 13+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.
Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.
For years I’ve written about the lie/cheat/steal attitude of social media sites, such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, the list goes on and on. This post is only a year old, but I thought it could use some updating. What I can tell you today is that nothing has improved, in fact it has gotten much worse — as you’ll see over the next two days.
you ever been to a post-holiday potluck? As the name implies, it’s held within two days of any holiday that involves food, with a capital F, such as Thanksgiving, Christmas and, of course, Easter. Our group has only three rules, the food must be leftovers, conversation must be interesting and phones must be turned off. They are always great parties, with amazing food, and Monday’s was no exception.
The unexpected happened when a few of them came down on me for a recent post terming Mark Zukerberg a hypocrite. They said that it wasn’t Facebook’s or Google’s fault a few bad actors were abusing the sites and causing problems. They went on to say that the companies were doing their best and that I should cut them some slack.
Rather than arguing my personal opinions I said I would provide some third party info that I couldn’t quote off the top of my head and then whoever was interested could get together and argue the subject over a bottle or two of wine.
I did ask them to think about one item that stuck in my mind.
How quickly would they provide the location and routine of their kids to the world at large and the perverts who inhabit it? That’s exactly what GPS-tagged photos do.
I thought the info would be of interest to other readers, so I’m sharing it here.
The Berlin conference was hosted by an online forum called Stack That Money, but a newcomer could be forgiven for wondering if it was somehow sponsored by Facebook Inc. Saleswomen from the company held court onstage, introducing speakers and moderating panel discussions. After the show, Facebook representatives flew to Ibiza on a plane rented by Stack That Money to party with some of the top affiliates.
Granted anonymity, affiliates were happy to detail their tricks. They told me that Facebook had revolutionized scamming. The company built tools with its trove of user data (…) Affiliates hijacked them. Facebook’s targeting algorithm is so powerful, they said, they don’t need to identify suckers themselves—Facebook does it automatically. And they boasted that Russia’s dezinformatsiya agents were using tactics their community had pioneered.
Android owners were displeased to discover that Facebook had been scraping their text-message and phone-call metadata, in some cases for years, an operation hidden in the fine print of a user agreement clause until Ars Technica reported. Facebook was quick to defend the practice as entirely aboveboard—small comfort to those who are beginning to realize that, because Facebook is a free service, they and their data are by necessity the products.
I’m not just picking on Facebook, Amazon and Google are right there with it.
Amazon and Google, the leading sellers of such devices, say the assistants record and process audio only after users trigger them by pushing a button or uttering a phrase like “Hey, Alexa” or “O.K., Google.” But each company has filed patent applications, many of them still under consideration, that outline an array of possibilities for how devices like these could monitor more of what users say and do. That information could then be used to identify a person’s desires or interests, which could be mined for ads and product recommendations. (…) Facebook, in fact, had planned to unveil its new internet-connected home products at a developer conference in May, according to Bloomberg News, which reported that the company had scuttled that idea partly in response to the recent fallout.
Zuckerberg, positioning himself as the benevolent ruler of a state-like entity, counters that everything is going to be fine—because ultimately he controls Facebook.
There are dozens more, but you can use search as well as I.
Poking through 13+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.
Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.
A lot has changed in the 12 years since I wrote this, but the preference for pictures to words has grown exponentially. That said, used well the right words can still draw pictures in your mind.
The old adage, “one picture is worth a thousand words” is usually true, that’s why fundraisers use some kind of graphic to show how close they are to their goal. That concept gave rise to millions of .ppt files, entire industries dedicated to presenting information graphically, and billions of dollars spent annually to do it.
The best communicators use words to create pictures—images that are simple and graphic enough to create identical impressions in all the minds that hear/read them.
When I was recently asked for an example of this I offered my favorite, which is a version of an email that’s been making the rounds for at least a decade. I think you’ll agree that the mental image created would be universal—and very graphic.
Lipstick in School
According to a news report, a certain private school in Washington recently was faced with a unique problem.
A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints.
Every night, the maintenance man would remove them and the next day, the girls would put them back.
Finally, the principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night.
To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required.
He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it.
Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.
This version ended with the comment, “Here lies the difference between teachers and educators.” I would add that here lies the difference between talkers and communicators.
Back in 2015 I wrote about the importance of living your own life, instead of trying to live someone else’s as seen on Instagram. Last month we considered the idea that it is our values that are the basis of true authenticity and yesterday the lesson was that mea culpa was valueless if it wasn’t sincere, AKA, authentic.
Given all that, what do you do when you
know you messed up; and
are incapable of admitting it?
Gurus of whatever type love to apply the 80/20 rule to situations like this, meaning that once you know/understand the problem (80%) then applying a solution is relatively easy (20%), so just do it.
Which, based on all I’ve seen and my own personal experience, is bunk.
If there’s anything I’ve learned in my life it’s that one size or solution does not fit all.
What do you do when you know you should take responsibility and just can’t make yourself do it?
Let’s start with what you don’t do.
You don’t
shift the blame (responsibility) to another person or the group;
pretend it didn’t happen; or
act oblivious.
Doing the first will turn your people against you; either of the others will make you look like an idiot — and turn people against you.
So what do you do?
Discuss the problem/situation openly, tacitly admitting the source by not specifying it and encouraging the team to provide solutions, as opposed to you.
Your people aren’t stupid or you wouldn’t have hired them.
They’ll understand your actions giving you time to change your MAP, so you can admit it openly the next time — because there will always be a next time.
Poking through 12+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.
Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.
While politically correct has made a lot of noise since its rise in the media, it hasn’t made any real difference. Join me tomorrow for a look at the problem with many progressives and why it will undermine many of the changes they champion.
While agreeing about problematic sales cultures, he had a different take on culture in general.
His viewpoint, from someone who has been there/done that, may not be socially acceptable and could probably get him in trouble if posted on social media, but I can share it here — anonymously
Whether you’re a nigger or a bitch, this is the shit you have to deal with. I prefer environments where it’s obvious what the culture is, like this, than politically correct cultures where bigotry is the norm, but you never know for sure why you didn’t get the bonus, promotion or accolade with superior performance. Screw political correctness!
I believe it’s important to know where you stand, because then you can make informed choices. Give me this culture anytime – when I enter, I will know what the rules are. If I stay, it’s to accomplish a particular personal goal. When I leave (if not immediately), I will know why I stayed, left, and what I gained. I’m richer, they are poorer.
There is no such thing as “politically correct”. The term itself is an oxymoron that implies consensus building, popular sentiment or sinister machinations. Politics is about popularity — we never let others know where we stand or what we stand for in order to win a popularity contest. It is giving in to the tyranny of the mob, not daring to have unpopular opinions or stances, because one will not be popular.
Being a black man, I prefer a racist that’s honest about who he is and what he is. I prefer working for such a person because I know what to expect. I presume it would be the same for you as a woman regarding sexists. These days no one is a racist, we just have “unconscious biases” that prevent us from taking unpopular positions and that ensure that the powerful can continue to exclude the less powerful.
Politically correct environments rob me of information, choice, and the ability to navigate astutely to attain my objectives.
One of the dumbest (stupidest?) actions during the original dot com boom was two-fold.
The first was title inflation, with larger companies taking a leaf from the financial services industry where customer-facing positions, such as brokers and non-teller positions, were often VPs.
Second, bigger titles were often handed out in lieu of promotions and raises, while in the startup community titles bore little-to-no relationship to the person’s skills or experience.
Both created major problems for candidates when interviewing at new companies, especially for those who bought into their titles. It came as shock that the skills required to be a VP in a “real” company are seriously different than those needed in a startup.
Considering the examples of bad writing in Monday’s and Tuesday’s posts it’s obvious that much of the problem comes down to a lack of clarity.
No surprise there, but other than confusing everyone, bad writing easily morphs into no writing, which can be a disastrous to product development, especially in tech.
As the image above shows, lack of writing skills impact every part of a sale, but lack of documentation is probably the worst.
Think about it. Things go wrong with equipment all the time and when it does you go to the manual to see how to fix it.
Software is even worse.
With minimal-to-no documentation, fixing bugs, iterating and keeping legacy software running is extremely difficult, especially if the primary developers leave the company.
No matter your education or experience, if you can write coherently you will have a serious edge over other candidates.
Does writing matter? Do capitals matter? Does punctuation matter? Does reviewing what you wrote matter?
Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes.
We’re not talking about becoming the next Tom Clancy or winning a Webby.
This is about sounding professional and respecting your reader, whomever they may be.
There are a lot of things that go into good writing, but the most important thing is that it makes sense, not how many multi-syllabic words are used. Obviously, this Fortune 500 company manager didn’t believe that when he described his job.
“It is my job to ensure proper process deployment activities take place to support process institutionalization and sustainment. Business process management is the core deliverable of my role, which requires that I identify process competency gaps and fill those gaps.”
Additionally, it requires using the correct words, as I said in another post.
“Are most people loosing their minds, while I am losing mine?
Years ago KG sent me a memorable reminder of the importance of capitalization. I used it then and here it is again.
“Capitalization is the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse.”
A missing comma cost Oakhurst Dairy a lawsuit for overtime — they lost.
Finally, it takes very little time to review what you wrote; the best way is to read it out loud.
CB Insights shared a hilarious example from a resume they received.
P.S. We’ve been asking folks about their job interviewing and resume reading tips. Here’s a pointer for candidates: think carefully about your wording when submitting a CV. We received this earlier this week:
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
