I’m interested in how companies woo potential employees. It’s refreshing to come across such an honest pitch. This one is from the Careers page at Blip.tv:
We’re not partying like it’s 1999. We’re not raising a hundred million bucks and promising to build a billion dollar company. We’re building real value for real people and working to turn a real profit.
I enjoyed reading the writings from C. Northcote Parkinson that were linked to from 37 Signals.
Specifically, he describes the difference between building a bike shed vs. an atomic power plant. He explains that getting approval to build the atomic power plant is easier to do because it’s so vast and so complicated that people can’t understand it. Instead of trying to understand they assume that someone else checked all the facts before it got to them, and they go ahead and approve the project.
Contrast that with the bike shed which is so simple to build that anyone can do it. And since anyone can build it, everyone feels it’s their job to provide input on how it should be built which creates an environment where the simple turns into the complex and the shed never gets built.
From my experience, this analogy is right on the money. I’ve worked at companies where the most complex software projects were approved with very little oversight from management or the board of directors. Because the projects were so complex and only the management team understood the vision for the product, the normal checks and balances were never put in place. Yet some smaller software projects that would have helped us grow our existing business were bogged down in bureaucracy.
So maybe the moral of the story is to make your project proposal sound so complex and so intimidating that everyone will assume it’s already been checked out.
I can’t browse through this line of Hasselhoff T-shirts without laughing. But at 22 bucks a pop, I might have to pass.
From what I read, I will be one of the few who cheers when Bonds finally breaks Hank Aaron’s hallowed home run record. It’s sad to think about what might have been. This could have been a magical season for Bonds where even casual fans discussed the importance of the record because everyone was following the chase. Much the same way people talked about Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa around the water cooler during the summer of 1998.
My justification in cheering for Bonds goes something like this: During this era of steroids, we have no way of knowing who took what. It’s quite obvious that some of the games great sluggers were juiced. But so were some pitchers yet they haven’t come under the same type of scrutiny. What if the pitchers were inching towards records that were as recognizable as most home runs in a season or most career home runs? Is it possible that some some pitchers, especially hard throwing relievers, were juiced up yet didn’t garner the attention showered on the sluggers? It’s not nearly as exciting to hear about a pitcher who picked up an extra 5 mph on his fast ball through the use of steroids. Why do we demand answers from our sluggers but the pitchers and other players were also gaining an unfair advantage through the use of steroids? Cheating is cheating is cheating.
Maybe Bonds has cheated by taking steroids. Maybe they have helped him recover more quickly from injury. But I have a hard time believing they help him swing a bat or see a baseball more clearly. They don’t improve his swing or his hand-eye coordination. It still takes an enormous amount of talent to hit a baseball at the professional level. Ask Danny Ainge or Michael Jordan.
While I don’t admire Bonds the person, I do admire Bonds the baseball player. And I will cheer when he breaks Aaron’s record.
I came across this version by Lisa Loeb when I was searching iTunes for the original by Harry McClintock from the movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou?
This song is so mellow. I love the guitar near the end of the song.
[audio:bigrockcandy.mp3]I spent a few hours playing around on Facebook today after several people added me as a friend. It’s taken a while, but I’m beginning to understand why it’s all the rage right now.
My favorite application so far is called iLike which allows you to put your favorite music clips on your profile. The Music Challenge is a lot of fun, but I realized I don’t know many of today’s pop musicians. If the question had anything to do with classic rock I nailed it though.
Click on the banner below if you’d like to add me to your friends. What is your favorite application on Facebook?
Finally, a poor man’s people transporter.
It’s the details that take this picture from great to awesome. The striped tie, the pocket protector and the bike helmet are perfect.
Indie Tech created this design. Support them by buying the T-shirt.
Well, I can’t wait for next week to arrive because I’m going to my first Gnomedex! I can’t wait to meet and listen to a bunch of people I’ve been reading for years.
Tonight I came across another event called Ignite Seattle that takes place the night before Gnomedex. I sent my RSVP at Upcoming and you can do the same if you’re interested.
Here are the scheduled talks for Ignite. Talk about diverse!
Well, at least when it comes to searching for images it does. For the past few years I’ve used Google’s image search exclusively. But I started using Live Search’s image search and actually like it quite a bit more.
Take a look at this image search for “Seattle Mariners”
I like the results in Live a lot better than in Google. Live’s images are a lot more diverse and there’s less duplication. The look is very clean and I really like the “size slider” that allows you to increase or decrease the size of the images on the page. Nice touch.
Google’s results page looks cluttered by comparison. Also, the results listed on the first page aren’t very compelling. I don’t know what Microsoft is doing behind the scenes but Live’s results are a lot more in tune with what I’m after.
Live also includes a very cool feature called “Scratchpad” you’ll find in the upper right corner. Click on the scratchpad and a frame appears on the right which allows you to drag images to while you continue to peruse the results. Very easy to use and extremely helpful when I’m after multiple images or when I need to compare more than one image found on differing pages.
People who don’t feel that Google has any competition are wrong. Google may have a near monopoly on basic search but the barrier to entry is so low that switching search engines is trivial.
Microsoft has proven that they can innovate in this space and I hope they continue to give Google all the competition they can handle.
I believe that top companies handle returns with grace and flexibility. But many companies train their employees to hassle the customer to the point that the return is more painful than the refund or exchange.
The first company I worked for out of college provided training on how to wear out the customer when handling a return. The idea was that employees were trained to toss out so many road blocks that it would eventually wear down the customer to the point of leaving the store. In rare instances, exchanges were allowed but only if we could resell the original item for full price. Refunds were only allowed if the product was defective. Such policies are near-sighted and will never result in delighted customers.
Both Nordstrom and Costco are two companies that have consistently treated me well when making a return. In fact, Nordstrom seems as happy to deal with my return as they do selling the item in the first place. It’s as if they understand that each interaction is a opportunity to show how much they value me as a customer. And in doing so they earn my loyalty.
Nordquist Blog 