Don’t get me wrong: I understand that letting go of employees is necessary in times of economic hardship. What sets me off, however, is the waysome companieshave been choosing to get rid of their workers.
Sent a quick, unsatisfying goodbye to the team. I watched as my access to various parts of the guts of Flickr fell away. I noticed how naturally I searched for any and all bits I could think of, just in the hope that it still existed. But no. I was shut out entirely within about 14 hours of the phone call.
This kind of treatment to anyone would be despicable, but it’s even worse when you remember that George was the key person responsible for the best thing that Flickr has done since its inception, as well as having her hand in designing its award-winning interface.
Losing your job is painful enough. Why do some employers insist on making the transition process as difficult as possible?
Companies and executives that are put in the position where they have to let go of employees need to realize that the best thing they can do for their workers (other than not lay them off, of course) is to make sure they are treated with respect and dignity so that the layoff process isn’t full of anguish, but instead becomes an time for growth and new opportunities. After all, these were the same people that ensure the success of your organization when economic times were good.
To Keep or Not to Keep?
Here’s another question that needs to be asked: are layoffs even necessary? If you look at it from an opportunity cost (and long-term) perspective, layoffs don’t seem to make much sense.
Immense amounts of time and money are spent by organizations each year to find, entice, recruit, hire, train, and retain good employees. Yet, in times of economic slowdown, these same employees — workers that have already cost the organization valuable time and money in the HR process — are let go even though the rehiring the same caliber of employee once the economy rebounds will require another intense investment of resources.
In the long term, does it not make sense to keep the good employees?
We’ve had one of these before, when the dot-com bubble burst. What I told our company was that we were just going to invest our way through the downturn, that we weren’t going to lay off people, that we’d taken a tremendous amount of effort to get them into Apple in the first place — the last thing we were going to do is lay them off. And we were going to keep funding. In fact we were going to up our R&D budget so that we would be ahead of our competitors when the downturn was over.
Makes sense to me. But then again, I’m no economist or CEO. If I were and had to conduct layoffs, however, I’d do my best to be nice about them.
In the meantime, to George Oates and all the other people being affected by layoffs and staffing changes, I send you my best wishes to get through this tumultuous period and come out not only unscathed, but stronger.
I make most of my money as a consultant to various clients who need a bit of advice when it comes to online communications and social media. I’ll admit that most consultants are expensive — not necessarily overpaid, but expensive.
A recent post on Indexed made me realize why I don’t have a problem with consultants making a lot of money doing what they do.
Many consultants make lots of money on their consulting gigs so they can devote their time and resources (often for free or for cost-recovery) to projects that are near and dear to their heart.
I call it the Bill Murray Effect.
Bill Murray occasionally makes movies like Garfield — horrible films which have no redeeming qualities whatsoever but make Murray a lot of money — so that he can devote time to making great low-budget films like Broken Flowers. The Garfields in his repertoire keep his cash flow coming, and the films like Broken Flowers allow him to pursue his interests and passions.
Like Bill Murray, many consultants charge high rates (most of the time, the rates are worth it for the expertise they bring, so they’re not really overcharging) to clients that can support those rates so that they can use some of their other time to evangelize for their passions like transit or the open web.
I help organizations working in certain domains I’m passionate about — domains like public transit, open government, youth development, and online literacy — for free during my spare time when I’m not working. I can do that because my clients pay me a wage which can support my day-to-day expenses as well as the time I take for my interests and passions. In the end, everyone wins: my clients know that they’re getting someone with connections in the field and who takes time for personal and professional development, and I get to help out causes I truly believe in.
You don’t have to pick between being a consultant and an evangelist. It’s quite possible to find the time, money, and wherewithal in your career to do both.
When I decided to go out and start working for myself, nobody was more surprised than me. I’ve never thought of myself of the business-type, and never really had any aspirations of being self-employed growing up.
I didn’t take any business classes in school, and focused a lot of energy on learning what many called “useless” theories about community interaction and social relationships. I was a social science nerd to the core. My grades were okay, but not excellent: I preferred to engage with the ideas I was studying through discussions with friends outside the classroom instead of slaving over books and papers.
“The self-employed tend to have slightly lower grade point averages (GPAs) than their wage-and-salary peers.” The students with the best grades were more likely to seek work in the not-for-profit or government sector.
Business and management majors were among the least likely to become self-employed. The most likely folks to go it alone: Social science and “other” majors.
That being said, I’m actually currently in the process of exploring some more permanent work positions that would take me out of the world of the self-employed. More on that later, I promise.
Yesterday, the citizens of the United States of America proved a few things to me.
They proved that it was possible to rise above race and elect a leader who is not defined by the color of his skin.
They proved that young people truly have a voice in the political landscape and will continue to be influential in the decision-making arena in the years to come.
They proved that they are ready to embrace a global perspective and understand that the actions they take in their own country have repercussions and consequences around the world.
They proved that there is no false hope, and more importantly, that “in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.”
They proved that an American child’s potential is limitless; that they no longer have reason to say that they “can’t” do something, that they have to stifle their aspirations because of something beyond their control.
Instead, they proved that the words coming out of every child growing up in America should be, and is, “yes, we can.”
They also proved that there is a lot of work left to be done.
They proved that bullying and scare tactics — instead of inspiration and hope — still have resonance in political decision-making. (More.)
They proved that many people are still willing to take away the civil liberties of the people around them because they are different and don’t understand them. (More.)
They proved that unity and forward-thinking on a national scale is possible, but still a long way away.
There’s a lot of work left to be done.
So today, let’s quickly wrap up the celebrations and get back to work. America has more to prove.
Today, you have the opportunity to do something that will be remembered for decades and generations to come: you have the opportunity to vote.
I’m not going to tell you who to vote for, but I am going to ask you to go out there and have your voice heard. Not because young people are a crucial demographic to winning this election, and not because young people are traditionally underrepresented in the political process —
Because young people are the future of the United States of America.
Because in a few years, you’ll no longer be “the youth” but instead you’ll be making the big decisions that will impact foreign policy, the economy, education, defense, the environment, technology, poverty, and civil rights. In a few years, You’ll have no choice but to be the people that the country — heck, the world — look to for guidance and direction.
It only makes sense to prove that you can be mobilized and make smart decisions from now. It doesn’t matter who you decide to vote for (or if you decide to spoil your ballot, as long as there’s a reason behind that decision); it matters that you care enough about what’s going on around you in your country and across the globe to make the conscious and informed decision to exert your right to choose.
So to the young people of America, my plea to you today is to get out and make a decision. Not only is it good practice for the future, but it may just have an impact on how billions of people around the world choose to view and interact with the grand ol’ U.S. of A in the present.
Thanks.
An addendum:
The young people in California have a decision to make on Proposition 8 today as well. In this case, I am going to tell you how to vote:
NO.
Denying anyone their civil liberties based on their sexual orientation is unfair and unconstitutional. You may not agree with homosexuality, and you may not find it proper for gay couples to wed, but denying them the right to do so is a blatant disregard for the core values of fairness and equity that govern the country.
We all hear horror stories about bad PR professionals annoying bloggers by their untargeted pitches, and complaining about PR seems to be something everyone has to do at least once in their blogging life cycle. I get a ton of pitches and press releases (mainly film-related) from PR and marketing professionals. At least 95% of them are useless or poorly-targeted.
Today, I’m not here to complain about bad PR pitches.
I’m here to commend and celebrate someone that gets it right. That person is Darren Barefoot.
Darren is the “head geek” and founder of Capulet Communications, a Vancouver-based PR firm that understands how content creators on the web think. I’ve had a few chances to interact with Darren with regards to events or clients he has been promoting, and each pitch I’ve received from him has been personally tailored to my interests and the ideas I interact with on a daily basis.
He’s able to do this because Darren reads my blog and follows me on Twitter. From that, he’s able to understand what makes me tick, and more importantly, what intrigues me. Instead of getting pitched on things that have no relevance to me at all, Darren’s able to feed me information on issues, events, and companies that pique my interest — and more importantly, is able to wrap that information in a personal context.
I may not work in corporate communications these days, but my work in new media still has me dipping in to public relations and marketing from time to time, so I was glad to be invited to the event just to keep abreast of the new thoughts and ideas in the field.
Before I comment on the content delivered at the event, let me first congratulate Jump Start Communications for the phenomenal organization of the evening: the venue was perfect, the ambiance was great, the refreshments were delightful, and best of all, everything started and ended on time. There are very few events that are run so diligently that everything starts and ends on time, so the fact that Fast Forward met their detailed schedule is quite impressive.
All that said, I was disappointed not by the quality of the panelists, but by some of the things they said with regards to PR and the web.
According to most of the panelists, the web seems to be some new, uncontrollable frontier that needs to be tackled on top of regular public relations activities.
This kind of thinking baffles me. The web is no longer something “new” that needs to be explored by communications professionals; the online world is an integral part of media and the public relations landscape that needs to be handled in conjunction with the more traditional PR channels. Here’s some insight on the future of public relations: the web is only your enemy if you treat it that way.
At one point during the event, Elissa Freeman from The Heart and Stroke Foundation said that “if someone can figure out a way to monitor and control ‘the blogs’ they’ll make a whole lot of money.” Well Elissa, I’m not sure if you’re monitoring this blog, but I’ve been working with ‘the blogs’ in a professional capacity for a few years now, and completely willing to make a whole lot of money.
Give me a call. Better yet, leave me a comment — it’s the first step to engaging with the blogs.
Some of us may know that as the words from the old Doublemint ads from a few years ago. Others might know it as a lyric from Chris Brown’s hit single Forever.
Coincidence? Nope.
Turns out Wrigley commissioned Chris Brown and producer Polow da Don to create a new take on the famous gum jingle to be released as part of a new marketing campaign to be launched this week. Brown just took it one step further and added his own lyrics to make the song a viable pop single.
Let’s face it: Chris Brown’s track was never supposed to be anything but bubble-gum pop (yeah, totally nailed that metaphor there). The lyrics — even apart from the Doublemint nod — were weak at best, and it wasn’t as if Brown was trying to create a song that would change the world. Instead, it’s a track that gets your feet moving and makes you want to dance — nothing more.
Why the uproar with the fact that it was originally a Wrigley ad then? It’s not as if Brown released the actual Wrigley ad on his album; he re-wrote the majority of the lyrics and used a beat that is undoubtedly extremely catchy. He’s not pretending otherwise.
Some music is created not to have a message, not to be provocative, and not to make you think. Some music was made just to make you dance.
Chris Brown’s Forever does just that. Why hold it to some standard of moral quality it doesn’t aspire to?
In the early years of college, I wrote a paper about the spread of AIDS and made a pretty bold declaration:
In order to stop the spread of the disease, we need to stop focusing on drugs, treatment, protection and abstinence. We need to start empowering young women.
The paper (I can’t find it anymore) probably had a bunch of statistics to support my claim — I’m fairly sure I got a good grade — but statistics aside, the importance of young women in development has been an issue near and dear to my heart for several years.
The message behind The Girl Effect project is simple: help raise the quality of life for one girl, and you’ll be creating an impact much larger than you had originally expected.
The rationale for The Girl Effect is simple: as primary caregivers, girls have a large impact on the livelihoods of their siblings, children, and villages. Educating young girls is a solid investment for the future of any society.
The imperative surrounding The Girl Effect is simple: adolescent girls are under-represented in international aid plans and statistics. Increasing their access to education, healthcare, employment training, and basic needs is key to effective development planning.
The question asked by The Girl Effect is much harder: how do we mobilize the international community to sit up and take notice that girls are an important part of global society? Not an easy question to answer for sure, but I’m sure projects like The Girl Effect will be an important first step in bringing that awareness.
Do you agree that more emphasis needs to be placed on girls when considering international development planning? How do we make policy-makers and planners aware of this issue?
Growing up, we were taught that our résumés needed to follow a strict format and could be no longer than two pages. We were taught that a good résumé included all our work experience and our education and everything we could cram into two pages while retaining the standard format and (Microsoft Word template-inspired) style.
Luckily, it didn’t take me long to realize that a résumé was not supposed to be formulaic: it was, instead, a reflection of not only your experiences and accomplishments, but a reflection of you as a person.
I’ve written about résumés before, and while I still believe that they are a necessary evil to getting your foot into the door of certain organizations, I have been looking at alternate ways that are people are using to pitch themselves.
Recently, I found a fun little thread on BusinessWeek that asked people to write their résumé in 140 characters — a type of Twitter elevator pitch. Inspired by the really good resuwitters in the comments (I particularly like the one by Jon Garfunkel), I came up with my own:
Hullo, I’m Vasta, and I tell stories. I help organizations use the web to get their stories heard by the people that need to hear them most.
Not too detailed, not too humorous, but it explains what I do effectively.
Of course, this 140-character blurb will never replace my résumé, which in turn will never replace any kind of portfolio or even face-to-face interaction, but it did make me realize that brevity, apart from being the soul of wit, is also key to communication.
If you can’t describe your work in 140 characters or less, maybe it’s time to reevaluate your activities and discover what it is that you actually do.
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