Way back in the early 1980s, when companies were far more sensitive, not to mention controlling about appearance, “Roy” asked me if it was a good idea to shave the beard he’d had for 15 years for an interview.

I said sure, as long as he didn’t intend to grow it back. He responded that his wife loved the beard would probably divorce him if he didn’t re-grow it. I told that Roy shouldn’t shave.

Back then, hair was cut, grooming polished up and tattoos covered when interviewing.

If you think things have changed, think again.

People are still jumping, just though different hoops.

These days they’re rushing to clean up their social media history.

Brand Yourself’s reputation tool, introduced last month, is a logical outgrowth of its business, said CEO Patrick Ambron. While the company launched in 2009 to help business and users massage their search results, Ambron says it now focuses on helping job seekers find and repair embarrassing blunders in their online past. Employers are increasingly screening  job candidates’ social media history for red flags, and it’s incumbent upon job seekers to scrub their posts of any blemishes, he said. Simply tightening the privacy restrictions may not help when some companies are demanding social media passwords from applicants.

For the heck of it I registered to see how it works. It gave me a list of places I was identified, short, since I’m not on Twitter, Facebook, etc. At each one I had to say it was positive, negative or “not me.”

There were three “questionable” items and when I checked them I was left guessing why they were potentially damaging.

One wasn’t me, one an article from 1999 that appeared in the SF Chronicle, and one post from the Leadership Turn blog that I used to write and is archived here. There was nothing any algorithm could have taken exception to unless you could the work “sex” in a comment on the post, so I marked both “positive.”

If the word “sex” was what got flagged you have to wonder if it rates the same as the f-bomb and if WTF counts the same. If you’re interested my score was 700 (whatever that means).

I digress. The point of all this is that no matter how well you scrub the profile and social media under your control it won’t remove all the places to which it has migrated.

More importantly, no matter how you scrub your past you are still you.

Moreover, if a company is dumb enough to pass on candidates for the stupid stuff they did in college or even the more recent past, then perhaps you should see it as having dodged a bullet, as opposed to missing an opportunity.

Notice I said “stupid stuff.” Bragging about knocking your partner or kid around, etc. shouldn’t get a free pass.

Although it was not that long ago when people’s private lives were actually private.

Flickr image credit: Bernard Goldbach

Ever noticed how new projects needed by year-end put a cramp in other projects?

This is not the post I was planning to go with the interviews, but when it’s 1 am and your deadline is upon you, you do what’s necessary,

We’ve all been there.

One interview was with a researcher, who preferred to be anonymous. I’m not sure why, but his DNA privacy concerns really resonated with me.

The second was with Reed Tayler, founder of Method Yoga.

I hope you enjoy the interviews and will join me Friday for a more personal view of the Summit.

Image credit: Health 2.0

I watched a movie tonight called, “The Circle”, staring Tom Hanks and Emma Watson. (A quick thank you to Amazon and Apple for finally allowing me to stream Amazon Prime to my Apple TV!).

If you have not seen the film it is about a tech company in the Bay Area. The company is basically a combination of Google, Amazon, Oracle, and any other major tech company wrapped up into one.

I won’t explain the whole plot, but one overriding theme is that the company knows everything about you.

Your health, likes, friend and family groups, credit history and so on. The company believes that with this knowledge they can help humans live their best selves.

That total transparency will lead an individual to the right path. Secrets are what breaks down society so they must be abolished.

Obviously this is a movie that has some truth in our reality, but is an extreme version of it.

However, it made me think about the current climate of sexual victims coming forward.

In almost all the cases that have been proven the events happened behind closed doors and in secret. The assaulter hid their actions behind a veil and it was only when the victim came forward that some justice was served.

I continue to be bemused that after the victim comes forward the assaulter will release a statement saying this was a mistake and they have learned from it, it shouldn’t define them and so on.

How could transparency have prevented all of this?

I am sure in some cases the acts would have never occurred. The offender would have thought it too risky or perhaps would not have considered it at all since there were no hidden places.

This is more a thought lesson, but I could see how some increased transparency would prevent this type of action.

We have all been victimized at some point. It could be as simple as a playground bully or something much worse. Humanity is not always kind.

However, I also love my privacy and want to live my life outside the view of others from time to time. How do we balance it all?

I’m not sure I have that answer yet, but will continue searching.

Flickr image credit: Alias 0591

“We value/care about our employees” is one of the most hypocritical statements companies make these days.

(“Our customers are very important to us” is the other.)

Want proof?

The Republican-controlled Congress is pushing through a bill to give corporations the ability to intrude deeper and more personally into your life than ever before.

A little-noticed bill moving through Congress would allow companies to require employees to undergo genetic testing or risk paying a penalty of thousands of dollars, and would let employers see that genetic and other health information. (…) The new bill gets around that landmark law by stating explicitly that GINA and other protections do not apply when genetic tests are part of a ‘workplace wellness’ program.

This mean that, in the name of “wellness,” your boss will know if you were treated for an STD or that you are predisposed for alcoholism, Parkinson’s, cancer, or whatever.

Not only your boss, but the unregulated company that runs your company’s wellness program, but is not constrained by HIPPA rules.

Employers, especially large ones, generally hire outside companies to run them [wellness programs]. These companies are largely unregulated, and they are allowed to see genetic test results with employee names. (…) They sometimes sell the health information they collect from employees.

Can your company actually force you to comply?

No, but the penalty for refusing is costly in the form of higher insurance premiums and co-pays.

No health insurance at your company? You could still take a major financial hit.

If an employer has a wellness program but does sponsor health insurance, rather than increasing insurance premiums, the employer could dock the paychecks of workers who don’t participate.

In general, Corporate America’s attitude towards its employees reflects its attitude towards customers.

For the most part, that ranges from “general nuisance” to “necessary evil.”

And while the number of exceptions to that attitude, at least when it comes to customers, is growing, it doesn’t always apply to employees.

As the provisions of this long-desired bill prove.

That said, it will be a great recruiting tool for those companies that don’t do it.

Image credit: Daniel R. Blume

Companies are becoming more and more involved in their employees personal lives, especially health-wise.

That’s understandable, considering how fast costs keep rising.

Startup Omada is a good example of what’s new.

The company’s business model is unique, as it doesn’t just charge employers per customer, but it actually depends on the success of each individual to make money. Omada’s revenue is outcome based.

This means that client companies pay only when there are positive results and that’s a good thing.

Accomplishing it, however, can feel invasive.

Its flagship program, Prevent, is modeled around the National Institutes of Health study called the Diabetes Prevention Program and is designed to help participants modify their behavior and reduce their risk of Type 2 diabetes.

The client company contracts with third-party organizations to identify those most at risk for at risk of diabetes or heart disease and enrolls them for intensive personal counseling.

The digital scale that each user gets, which is connected wirelessly to their Omada account, does daily weigh-ins to track their weight loss, as that is a good indicator of blood sugar and the risk of diabetes. Omada then gets paid based on the percentage weight loss that user has seen.

However, weight is not always an accurate indicator. Based on my lifetime weight I should be diabetic, have high blood pressure and likely a heart condition.

But I don’t.

In fact, I am amazingly healthy, always have been, and require no medication, whereas 85% of people my age are taking at least one prescription drug.

While Omada’s process would work for many people it feels invasive to me and if I were an employee I’d want to opt out of it.

So the real question here is not the value of the program offered, but whether the employer forces people to do it and penalizes them if they refuse.

Image credit: Vator TV

Like porn, privacy evil seems to be in the eye of the beholder (me), but not in Google’s eye.

I’ve written in the past about the fluidity of evil and the privacy difference between Apple and the rest (Google, Facebook, etc.)

Now I see that Google is going above and beyond in the name of “user convenience.”

Google will need to convince people that having AI manage your life is more convenient than it is creepy.

I get that many of you like the idea and have no problem with suggestions and tracking, etc., so you may have no interest past this point.

But those of you who consider tracking more akin to stalking and are happily capable of managing your own life/world will find the following truly valuable.

In a truly informative and useful article Business Insider provides links so you can see what Google knows about you.

Better yet, it walks you through how to delete and control how Google uses it and what it sells to third parties.

It’s a long way from the privacy Europe enjoys, but it’s sure better than nothing.

Thanks, BI!

Image credit: Lamerie

How would you feel if someone constantly followed you and then shared that info with friends?

Would it bother you more if the info was sold for cash?

Would you report your stalkers? Or at least find a way to stop them?

Essentially, that’s what Google does.

It follows you on your jaunts around your cyber-world and both shares and sells that info.

Remembered the last time you surfed around looking for a particular product and then found ads for the same thing on every page you looked at for months afterwards?

What many of us consider commercial stalking Google and others call “improving the user experience.”

For decades, our Congress, in its infinite wisdom, has pooh-poohed the idea of any kind of privacy policy, such as Europe has, saying it would hamper growth.

My solution is using the DuckDuckGo search engine that doesn’t track you, or for total anonymity I use ixquick.

But what can you do if you’re addicted to Google and have been using it for years?

You can say thanks to Business Insider and use the step-by-step, illustrated instructions for deleting your history preventing continuing surveillance that they recently provided.

The funny thing is that what most people want is choice, i.e., the ability to easily opt out when a search is extremely sensitive — by their definition, not a third party’s.

And, at the end, since it’s all about money, perhaps if enough people opt out Google will change its approach and give you a simple way to decide who is privy to what in your own little corner of cyberspace.

Or, an even more heretical idea, pay you for it use.

Image credit: E Photos and Business Insider

New year, new ideas — one would hope.

Less ‘me too’ and more ‘me new’, or, as Matt Rosoff puts it, stuff that impresses his 5-year-old son.

By groundbreaking, I mean a technology that changed society, changed every other industry in the world. The World Wide Web was groundbreaking. The internet was groundbreaking. The personal computer was groundbreaking.

And before you write Rosoff off as a know-nothing consider Peter Thiel’s comment.

“We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.”

It’s nice to know my nobody-know-nothing opinion is in good company.

In the tech world IoT is supposedly the bright light on the horizon, but don’t hold your breath.

According to a study by Accenture of 28,000 consumers in 28 countries, the world is tired of gadgets and no interest in replacing what they have.

Worse for tech, the public is waking up to the fact that it doesn’t give a damn about people’s privacy, security or even safety as long as they buy — at least not until it’s forced to and then only enough to shut up the noise.

As Accenture puts it, companies must “ignite” the next five years of growth by coming up with products that “offer a compelling value proposition,” “ensure a superior customer experience,” and “build security and trust.” 

Read the article. Digest Accenture results.

Then think about what you can build that would impress a 5-year-old—even a little.

Flickr image credit: centralasian

Have you ever thought about a very basic difference between Apple and Google and Facebook?

All are highly profitable.

All have a laser focus on their customers.

But only Apple honors its customers privacy.

Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down with NPR to talk about privacy, and described it as a “fundamental human right.” The comments come after Apple updated its website to make its stance on privacy clearer, something Cook describes as “a values point” not “a commercial interest.”

Whereas Larry Page’s recent comments when asked about the new name Alphabet indicate a totally different mindset.

The point, according to Larry Page, the Google co-founder who will be Alphabet’s chief executive, is for the separate parts to be independent and develop their own brands. That would never happen with all of them under the Google banner, given that many associate the name solely with a consumer search product. Many of the companies operating under the Alphabet umbrella, artificial intelligence and robotics, for instance, may never be consumer-oriented.

Mr. Page, in a blog post announcing the move, took the opportunity to note some wordplay in the name. “We also like that it means alpha‑bet (Alpha is investment return above benchmark),” he wrote, “which we strive for!”

At least Google finally dropped the words Don’t be Evil from its values, which is good, because it abandoned the attitude in the name of profit long ago.

The article claims that the difference can be explained by the fact that Apple sells things, while Google and Facebook depend on ads, but Amazon (which is not mentioned) generates its revenues selling stuff and still tracks (stalks) its visitors.

Flickr image credit: Chris Scott

Want to integrate almost real-time employee action analytics to give your people better feedback and potential career boost?

There’s an app for that.

Imagine a tiny microphone embedded in the ID badge dangling from the lanyard around your neck.

The mic is gauging the tone of your voice and how frequently you are contributing in meetings. Hidden accelerometers measure your body language and track how often you push away from your desk.

The app is from Humanyze, the test subjects work for Deloitte, participation was voluntary and the anonymous results positive.

“The minute that you get the report that you’re not speaking enough and that you don’t show leadership, immediately, the next day, you change your behavior,” says Silvia Gonzalez-Zamora, an analytics leader at Deloitte, who steered the Newfoundland pilot.

“It’s powerful to see how people want to display better behaviors or the behaviors that you’re moving them towards.”

But only when there is choice and trust.

Then there’s the truly evil app that records everything employees do 24/7, with no anonymity .

The U.K.-based company The Outside View, a predictive analytics company, also recently gave staff wearables and apps to measure their happiness, sleep patterns, nutrition and exercise around the clock in an experimental project.

So your boss knows when you decide to watch your favorite TV show, instead of taking a work-related course, or sing karaoke, instead of going to bed early.

“It’s bad enough that we lose control of our identities with threats of identity theft. I think it’s even worse if we lose the privacy of our actions, our movements, our physiological and emotional states. I think that’s the risk.” –Kenneth Goh, professor of organizational behavior at Western University’s Ivey Business School

They actually think that employees will be motivated by coming to work and having their boss ask why they didn’t work-out, but were up until 2 am.

I don’t think so.

As with so many inventions through the centuries, no matter how pure the motives of creators, anything can be corrupted and its use perverted by other humans.

Hat tip to KG Charles-Harris for pointing me to these stories.

Flickr image credit: Hans Splinter