Taking a Seat on a Panel Does Not Mean You're Right

Back in the mists of time, I attended a networking event for women in IT & Engineering* in DFW.

The event was about findings jobs (I was quietly looking at the time) and they had a panel.  The panel was accepting anonymous questions.

So, I asked the panel if any of them had ever disguised their gender on their resume.

One of the panel members became rabid at the concept of doing that.  She went as far as to say if she ever knew another woman did that, she would do her best to block that woman from ever getting hired (boy, I was glad the questions were anonymous.)

She seemed to take it as a personal affront that anyone might think that discrimination still exists.

There's a study that was recently published in Discover.  The study seems to point out that maybe using your initials on your resume isn't such a horrible thing, despite what Rabid Panel Lady said.

Fake CVs reveal discrimination against Muslims in French job market

Yes, this was a study of race and religion in France, but I think follow up studies in the US based on gender, race, and disability would be similarly revealing.


*Well, it was supposed to be IT & Engineering as our Web group had merged with an Engineering group.  Until I went to an event, and was sneered at for not being an Engineer and couldn't find any of the other Web women... never went again.

My Story on The Story

I was interviewed for The Story on NPR and it aired today. It's online at www.thestory.org/archive. I start at 32:44.

Yeah! I Knew It!

It is absolutely silly that companies spend tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars to "catch" one 9$/hr clerk sending a Hallmark card to grandma...

Now there's research to show how really silly that is.

"Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the Internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a days' work, and as a result, increased productivity," he said.

and

"Firms spend millions on software to block their employees from watching videos, using social networking sites or shopping online under the pretence that it costs millions in lost productivity," said Coker. "That's not always the case."

See more: Hey, boss! Facebook makes better employees

I hope he's paid well...

Recently all the blogs are carrying stories about RyanAir (unfond memories of being forced to strip to my camisole and put everything on the scale so they could charge extra)'s CEO saying they will switch to pay toilets on their fleet of planes.

What caught my eye wasn't that, but this gem:

but his spokesman cautioned Michael O'Leary often just made things up at will.

That's a job no one wants. Spokesman for the guy who just makes things up.

Scott Adams Is Just Plain Mean Today

I read Dilbert™ often enough to know that the plot line here is that Dilbert® has lost his job for hosting a web site from work.

However, in a time when his core constituents face the worst recession of their lifetimes, is it really necessary to tell the millions of jobless that they are "utterly worthless"?

Since Scott Adams^(?™?) is a multi-millionaire himself this strip seems particularly tacky and tasteless. I am reminded of the stories of George Bush Sr.'s shock and awe at the grocery store scanners-- someone who is out of touch with the trials of average folks.

Unfortunately, Often Seems True

Ohhh, Noooo...

Looking for a job for a family member, saw a listing for the census:

"Come join the Census Team, where everyone counts."

Ohh, no, no puns in the official government job listings!!

the right video

That's Right, Blame The Web....

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's national police headquarters has banned officers from using a popular social networking site similar to Facebook because they were spending too much time using it, a newspaper said Monday.

Every time something like this happens I wonder the following:

• Where were these officers' supervisors?

and

• If the job performance didn't suffer, why does it matter?
• If the job performance did suffer, blocking the site will not address the behavior. It will just move the behavior

People can slack without texting on their cell phones, people can be distracted or unfocused without being on the phone (flashbacks of NO PERSONAL CALLS jobs), people can do less work than you want even if you time their bathroom breaks. The Internet is nothing new. It's just another distraction in a long line of distractions.

There are thousands of books on motivating and inspiring employees. Motivated and inspired employees might just use Twitter during the day, but they might also move mountains, and then you won't care.

How To Identify Federal Employees

Mention, in one breath, all of the following and see if they blink. (Sentence structure is up to you)

• Contract Mod


• Section 508


• Funds Obligation

It's trixsty, because I didn't use any acronyms... things like, "GS level" and "OMB" are dead giveaways.

Women Web Designers! Take Note!

A List Apart is doing that survey again: http://alistapart.com/articles/survey2008

You know which survey. The one which people (men) used to justify keeping IT an all boys club last year.

So women, and minorities, and generically, people who don't live in New York.... click in and be counted.

You white men aged 35-45, making around 70k a year in the NY corridor? I have an alternative activity for you... Have you seen Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog? Do you have $4?

If you know anyone looking for a help desk job in Dallas

They could always try Wal-Mart: http://consumerist.com/5026600/walmart-to-unleash-its-own-geek-squad-in-dallas

*shudder*

Why Is It Always California?

A disgruntled city computer engineer has virtually commandeered San Francisco's new multimillion-dollar computer network, altering it to deny access to top administrators even as he sits in jail on $5 million bail, authorities said Monday.

More: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/14/BAOS11P1M5.DTL

Worst... Boss... Ever

Way to demotivate your people.

Success is not gained through fear of a foul mouth. Respect, yes, important. I don't happen to think that throwing things and yelling profanity gains you respect... it certainly doesn't inspire your people to do anything but cringe.

A career shouldn't be an endless trip through a prisoner-of-war labor camp.

A76 To Be Eighty-Sixed?

Bill would block use of competition system
06/19/08 -- 09:22 AM
By Matthew Weigelt


A House appropriations bill in its early stages seeks to block use of the public/private competition system for a year and let the next president deal with the issue, a House member has said.

Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Financial Services and General Government appropriations subcommittee, said June 17 the governmentwide provision would halt "this administration’s controversial and detrimental federal workforce program.”

Competitive sourcing, governed by the Office of Management and Budget’s Circular A-76, pits federal employees against contractors for government work that isn’t deemed inherently governmental, and administration officials have said on numerous occasions that the competitions save the government money. Citing a May report, Paul Denett, Office of Federal Procurement Policy administrator, said he expects the competitions completed in fiscal 2007 to yield nearly $400 million in savings during the next five years.

However, the fiscal 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act requires the administration to tell Congress how it calculates the billions of dollars in savings that officials say come through competitive sourcing.

Congress has opposed the initiative in other bills and continues to work to contain its use. Most recently, the fiscal 2009 National Defense Authorization Act, passed by the House May 22, would suspend such competitions until 2011.

Serrano’s bill was sent to the Appropriations Committee June 17 for further consideration. The text of the bill won’t be released until the committee approves the legislation.

Today's Dilbert...

Is probably funnier if you haven't been downsized from a company 3 days after they ran out of paper (rumor had it: OfficeDepot cut off the line of credit.)

This is my life...

http://redesignland.blogspot.com/2008/06/and-all-other-duties-as-assigned.html

Seen Online: Usability Director for Blue Nile

http://jobs.nwsource.com/careers/jobsearch/detail/jobId/9500527/viewType/rss?rssref=pinw

I have a Google feed for Usability-- this popped up as "news".

On Interns and Daft Punk

So, I'm actually going somewhere with this.

Start the video (for the sound), then keep reading.




I love having interns. I had (I have a spreadsheet) 24 interns over the course of the seven years I was at my last job. That's a lot of interns.

Some interns were bloody brilliant. Some were, frankly, drains on my time.

I miss having interns.

I'm trying to work on getting one maybe sometime ever again...

Anyway, by now the song should be going (you did press the big play button, right?) and I can talk about what LCD Soundsystem has to do with interns.

The song is basically the intern/mentor experience distilled.

You got to set them up boy.

The better the intern, the better the assignment.

I’ll show you the ropes, kid, show you the ropes

The worse the intern, the less creativity and independence they were given.

All the furniture is in the garage

Every intern was assigned to read segments of Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think (I told Steve Krug this once, he objected to the phrase "force fed.")

You got the set them up, set them up

So, reports I've written 6,549 times? They aren't interesting to me anymore. Give them to the intern! (Teaching point? There's more to this than pretty pictures).

I bought fifteen cases for my house, my house

Have meeting number 435 of the month? Mix it up, take the intern! (Teaching point? What a meeting in a job where no one wears name tags is like.)

There’s a freak out brewing in my house, my house

Need a usability test subject? Intern! (Teaching point? Take home Don't Make Me Think.)

You got the set them up, set them up

Need to write a memo? Intern! (Teaching point? Don't ask interns to write memos unless you want to edit them 11,435 times.)

No never, never, never let them go

Sometimes, yes, the intern gets the crap task.... but only the crap task I've done myself 4,324 times. Looking up interesting facts for the intranet comes to mine. (7 years x 52 weeks/year x 5 facts a week = too many damn facts.) (Teaching point? Someday you can make your intern look up these. Or maybe, "effortless looking things can require a lot of damn work.")

I love interns, but don't make them make copies.

My coworkers used to mock the interns--- me and my herd of ducklings -- but there's a lot of work that got done that would have never been done otherwise.

I’ll show you the ropes, kid, show you the ropes

Stupid Phrases That Need To Go Away: "Web Manager 2.0"

It's short, so I'm going to whole-hog copy the Computerworld piece that has irritated me.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=311869&source=rss_topic10


Web Manager 2.0
A new breed of Web manager is emerging to replace the traditional webmaster, says Tony Byrne, founder of CMS Watch, an analyst firm in Olney, Md., that evaluates Web content management systems. The title of webmaster -- which implies lots of HTML coding and page layout -- is "probably on its way out," Byrne says.

While centralized layout templates and HTML conversion tools have automated some of the traditional work, Byrne says the new "Web manager 2.0" needs a higher order of skills in areas such as these:

Managing, analyzing and testing user experiences.
Understanding information architecture, organization and search engines.
Assessing the consumer value, or return on investment, of the Web site.
Lobbying to make sure the Web site is customer-driven.

Plus, many Web sites and intranets have become bloated with too many pages, Byrne says, so today's Web managers are looking to get rid of the clutter.

-- Mitch Betts

1)I've taken training classes from Tony. I value Tony's opinion in his area highly, but really, Tony is not the head of Dice.com or the lead recruiter at the P&G internet marketing wing.

2) Webmaster as a title "which implies lots of HTML coding and page layout" was dead by 2000!

3)I'm heartily sick of "2.0" stuff as well as the upcoming 3.0 name. I've even seen 4.0. Honestly, we didn't realize Web 2.0 was "different" until blogs and social networks had been out for years. I think it's a little early to be declaring 3.0 and 4.0. Web Manager 2.0 implies someone to manage Web 2.0 stuff specifically, not a better Web Master.

4)The description of a Web Master they have here is just a fraction of what the good webmasters I know do. Their titles vary from place to place, and most stuck with the antiquated "webmaster" are lobbying for change, but the duties are not as hidebound as this article implies.

Honestly, I don't know anyone working as a web manager or web master who doesn't pay attention to usability... and to code, and to servers, and to design issues, and to cost and metrics, and to just about anything that applies. They don't have a choice. Most don't have 4,032 staff to delegate to; it's know everything or drown.

I expected actual news from Computerworld, not stuff we were discussing at conferences seven years ago!