Mark Zuckerberg Would Eliminate Your Company Email Problem By Charging for Preferred Access...

We all know that email is a huge corporate problem, and the need to CC: your boss, her boss and someone else's boss is sucking pure $$$ out of every company.

We know that, but we haven't done anything about it.

Maybe it's time to figure out a way to charge people for sending email to more than one person.  Crazy idea, I know.  But what if you assigned a true cost to sending a CYA email to multiple people in the organization.  

As it turns out, Facebook is already experimenting with this as a revenue source.  Take a look at the pilot via Mashable:

"We knew Facebook was eager for new revenue streams. We just didn't know they were this eager. If you try to send founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg a message on Facebook, Mashable discovered Thursday, the social network may offer to keep the message out of his "Other" Inbox — for a cool $100.

In our tests from multiple accounts, it appeared to be the case that users only get this message if they're not one of Zuck's 16 million followers. That, however, could still be coincidental.

Keen Facebook observers will recognize this as a variant on the $1 pay-to-message plan that the social network has been experimenting with for months. The company indicated at the time that it would be experimenting with other prices, so it's possible we're starting to see the fruits of that.

There were sporadic reports in December of Facebook charging various people $100 for the service, but this is the first time we've seen it — and certainly the first time we've seen it applied to the founder.The "Other" inbox is Facebook's dumping ground for all messages it guesses you won't want to read urgently. It's been controversial for some time, as most users are entirely unaware of its existence — and many have been known to discover messages they really wish they'd read at the time, such as job offers."

So... Let's think about that when it comes to corporate email.  What if you gave each employee a credit of $100 per year, then started charging various rates to send email to people outside of your direct workgroup?  Couple of things would happen - people would at some point become aware of their balance situation and would automatically start making decisions about who to spend money on for email access, and those receiving emails would receive fewer messages - and might actually pay more attention to someone they knew had to pay for the concept/chance of getting their attention.

Crazy? Maybe. Or maybe it's crazy enough to work.

If I'm an HR Manager in Fargo for a Fortune 500, I'm probably saving some credits for when I really need access.  True to models like Indeed, you could even spike the system to keep it on top of someone's inbox for extended periods.

Charge more, email less.  Get better results. 

Boom.

 

WHO THE HECK MOVED MY CHEESE: Here's a Money Slide for Your Next Preso on Organizational Change...

See below - stay thirsty my friends...

iPad revenue about to overtake total revenue at Dell. Film at 11am.

No more writing necessary today. The slide says it all.***

***Dude: You may not be getting a Dell.  

Pampered Employees of Rich Companies With Workout Facilities: Watch the Path of the Towel...

Damn it feel good to have a workout facility at your company - right big/rich company employees?

Of course there are some hazards (email subscribers click through for the video):

"Hey Ron, great workout..." (exiting gym floor)

"You too, Steve..."

"Let's cool down and go plot the downfall of Google, Ron..."(Wipes faces, shares towel with Ron in sign of solidarity and man club membership)

"Word."

VIDEO THURSDAY: Are Middle-Aged White Guys Capable of Understanding Diversity Efforts?

Deep topic. I'm going to Zag while the others Zig and say yes.  Of course, I'm not qualified to answer this question.

If you took me to court on my stance, I'd play this video clip - Stone Temple Pilots from House of Blues in Vegas. Watch the clip and meet me after the jump (email subscribers click through for video):

That's right - the defense calls to the stand... Scott Weiland, lead singer for STP.

Various addictions + fur coat + megaphone = Gold.  And diversity. Is there another white man that white guys could point to say that they're capable of understanding diversity?  Maybe Kid Rock?  I'm putting Weiland up on the screen to defend honkytown.

What's that?  You are correct, the first cut in this video with ample megaphone action is actually called "Crackerman". 

Here's a rarely spoken about short list of what white males need to do to show people they can comprehend diversity:

1. Present ample examples of white males who don't drive a Camry or shop at Men's Warehouse.  A little crazy is good. It interrupts the pattern of what's expected.

2. Start referring to themselves with terms like Honky, Wonder Bread and Casper.  Let's face it, slang/slur words for ethnicity are uncomfortable. But you can only use them on yourself. I'm not sure white guys do enough of that. There's no better way to make yourself part of the melting pot than by making everyone think you've got just a little crazy in you - at your own expense.

Bonus today - STP's "Vasoline" starts at 4:30 of this video after "Crackerman". Weiland morphs from the fur coat to a goth office worker. More diversity.  

What Song Plays In Your Head When Career Stuff Goes Badly?

I was on the road late in 2012 and met an old friend who had called me back in the day when some bad stuff was happening at his place of work, specifically to him.  Hadn't talked to him for 3-4 years since that time, and while I remembered talking, being supportive and helping him figure out what to do, he had a perfect memory of what I said.

He clung to one thing specifically that I said in his time of need.  That quote?  "Whatever happens with this situation is not going to define you."

That's what he remembered, clear as day.  It mattered to him that someone said that and focused him on the good stuff to come.  

Flash forward to this week. Some people I like a lot professionally got impacted by a change. They're worried about their career, and what people might think.  My help wasn't as profound as what I gave the previous friend.

This time I said they needed Jay-Z. Or, to be more specific, music in general. Baseball players have music they choose when they walk up to the plate for an at bat. I think you need the same thing for your career, especially when bad stuff happens.

I liked "On to the Next One" by Jay-Z for my friends, specifically the following lyrics:

"I got a million ways to get it...
... Choose one......
Ay, bring it back, bring it back (uh-huh)
Now double your money and make a stack
I'm on to the next one, on to the next one
I'm on to the next one, on to the next one
I'm on to the next one, on to the next one
(Hold up) Freeze! Ay!
Somebody bring me back the money please..."

The rest of the song is a mess of slurs and stuff that HR pros probably shouldn't be quoting, but I like those lines. Every time I hear that song, I think about the future.

I first heard the cut a couple of years ago at spring training in Arizona when Matt Kemp was using it as his walkup music. Videos below of Kemp talking about his scientific process for picking his at bat music ("I like hip-hop" and cuts that have "hits" in them"... Great Matt, who doesn't?) and Jay-Z doing the song on Letterman. I'm giving you Letterman because the bad stuff is bleeped out for the most part (Email subscribers click through for video).

You gotta million ways to get it. Choose one, bring it back, double your money and make a stack.

That's my outplacement program.  Boom.

NATURAL SELECTION WORKS: Did This Employee Mocking The Unknown Soldier Wave Her Right to Separation of Work/Private Life?

Hey!  Let's roll out the tried and true fun topic of the rights of your employees to avoid accountability at work for anything they do in their personal life that's not work related!

Bonus!  Weave social media into it.  Look at the picture below and let's talk after the jump...

Wow. Indeed.  Check it - From Gawker:

The 30-year-old Massachusetts native, who gained overnight infamy for posting a Facebook photo of herself mock-disrespecting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier while on a work-related trip to Arlington National Cemetery, was unceremoniously fired by her employer yesterday after it was reportedly inundated with angry emails and calls.

LIFE (Living Independent Forever), a Cape Cod-based nonprofit organization that assists adults with learning disabilities, released the following statement on its own Facebook page:

We wish to announce that the two employees recently involved in the Arlington Cemetery incident are no longer employees of LIFE. Again, we deeply regret any disrespect to members of the military and their families. The incident and publicity has been very upsetting to the learning disabled population we serve. To protect our residents, any comments, however well-intentioned, will be deleted. We appreciate your concern and understanding as we focus on the care of our community.

Speaking with a local Fox affiliate, LIFE director Diane Enochs said Stone had been with the group for 18 months, and was a "good employee."

Did this employee need to be fired?  Should the employer have defended her right to free speech/expression in her personal life?

Funny thing about free speech - people mistake it for the following - "you should be allowed to say anything you want without retribution via the concept of free speech."

YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID - The right to free speech just means we aren't going to throw you in the pokey for this photo.  Everything thing else is up to the market to decide.  Ask the Dixie Chicks how that works...

For me, I think this is natural selection at its best.  Every once in awhile, there's an antelope that for whatever reason, doesn't stay with the herd.  That's what lions and tigers are for - to thin the herd of the weak ones, ensuring that the gene pool remains as strong as possible.

The decision to do this at Arlington and post on social?  That's just a human equivalent of a crazy antelope lingering at the waterhole while the herd drifted away.  If your employee displays this judgment, do you trust them with a customer?  I think not.  Natural selection ensues.

Enter the lion.  

WEBINAR: How Collaboration Tools and the BYOD Movement Are Reshaping the Way HR & Recruiting Pros Get S#*T Done...

I know.  You get that video is going to be big.  You've heard the animals talking about how they video skyped someone and you wonder whether charges being filed can be far behind.

Actually, that's not fair.  I think we all understand video, especially with an ever-growing broadband pipe at most companies, is already huge.  And it's just going to get bigger, people.

Which is why you should be in the middle of that transformation at your company.  Add a BYOD environment being embraced in most organizations and it's time - you need to figure out what's going on with the use of video in a company like yours.

That's why my other site - Fistful of Talent - is exploring BYOD and use of video explosion in the monthly FOT webinar entitled, “Video Killed the Radio Star: How Collaboration Tools and the BYOD Movement Are Reshaping the Way HR & Recruiting Pros Get S#*T Done”.  Join us this Thursday (11/29/12) at 12pm Central, 1pm Eastern and we’ll hit you with the following: 

1. A detailed dive into why video collaboration is quickly killing the use of traditional audio conferencing tools and the positive impact the shift is having in modern day organizations.
2. Five ways you can leverage video collaboration tools in your organization today. FOT is determined to make you a believer, so we’re offering up five scenarios in which video collaboration would be the most effective route to execute challenges in your daily role and ultimately drive business results.
3. A comprehensive roadmap for driving user adoption of video collaboration across your organization. You’ve got the goods now it’s time to put them to use. FOT will break down the three barriers to user adoption and offer up a resistance free roadmap to implementing video collaboration across any business.
4. A universal script guaranteed to eliminate pregnant pauses, crickets and speaking out of turn.
5. BYOD and the Mobile Era – the final definition.  We’ll bring in Jeremy Malander from Blue Jeans Network to define BYOD and the Mobile Era, and break down why they are leading drivers in the shift to video collaboration in the workplace.

Bonus: We’ll wrap this webinar by stocking your toolbox full of free, cheap and accessible video tools and hardware to help you get started with video collaboration in your organization today.

Toss your outdated audio conferencing equipment like a pair of acid wash jeans and start collaborating like it’s 2012 – register now for “Video Killed the Radio Star”.

This webinar comes with the FOT guarantee – 60% of the time, it works every time.

REGISTER TODAY!!!  See you this Thursday...

Some Perspective on Employee Engagement: "Entire Crops Were Lost"...

First up, let me say I believe in employee engagement.  I really do.  I believe in a simple definition of engagement, though, one that's too simple to really generate consultant revenue, books or anything else that might be of value in my professional life.

Having worked at 6-7 companies in my career, here's the cold hard truth.  You can do a lot of stuff right as a company, and people are still going to bitch, to think that the grass MUST be greener somewhere else.  That simple, yet profound strand of the human DNA is just too much to overcome to arrive at a place where you could say that you've maximized engagement.

Oddly enough, I've never seen that human need for despair characterized clearer than Agent Smith did when he was getting ready to break Morpheus in the first Matrix.  For those of you not down, in The Matrix, machines had replaced humans in a future world and generated computer code to run the minds/imaginary lives of humans while they slept in pods and generated electricity.  Here's what Agent Smith said to Morpheus about a failed attempt to generate code to run the human mind:

"Have you ever stood and stared at it, marveled at its beauty, its genius? Billions of people just living out their lives, oblivious. Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world, where none suffered, where everyone would be happy? It was a disaster. No one would accept the program, entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world, but I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this, the peak of your civilization. I say your civilization, because as soon as we started thinking for you it really became our civilization, which is of course what this is all about. Evolution, Morpheus, evolution. Like the dinosaur. Look out that window. You've had your time. The future is our world, Morpheus. The future is our time."

It was designed to be a perfect human world, where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program.  Entire crops were lost.  

That's your money quote on broad-based engagement efforts.  Do them.  I get it, you'll do some good.  But never (never!) think that what you do, no matter how progressive/cool/upstream, is going to turn all the people.

We're conditioned to look for misery and suffering.  Drama.  That's called a +1 in real world.

Play the clip and look around you.  I'm rooting for you.  Don't let them drag you down.

If Creating a Corporate Jet Handbook for An Overstimulated Retail CEO is Wrong, I Don't Want to Be Right...

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  You got crazy people you support in your client group.  I get it.

When's the last time you had to create a handbook so male flight attendants on a company jet could parade around in boxers and a popped polo collar?

That's what I thought.  Stop complaining, stat.  Here's some crazy stuff too good not to share from a recent age discrimation lawsuit filed against Abercrombie & Fitch and CEO Mike Jeffries.  Let the freak flags fly, courtesy of what appeared on Gawker late last week:

"The 40+ page "Aircraft Standards" manual used by employees working aboard the company's corporate jet was introduced as evidence in a lawsuit filed in 2010 by one of Jeffries former pilots (now 55) who claimed he was fired on the basis of age discrimination and replaced by a younger man.

The environment described in the manual is the stuff of micromanaging urban legend. Here are some of its finer points:

Model Employees

• • Flight attendants are hired by a New York-based company called Cosmopolitan Management that provides models and actors "with just the right look and personality [because] appearances do make a difference," to work as event staff, trade show hosts, and personal assistants. The same company also provides staff for Jeffries' home.
  • While flying the frantic skies, flight attendants are instructed not to use the phrases "sure" or "just a minute" when addressing either Jeffries or his partner Matthew Smith. Instead, they are instructed to respond to requests by saying "no problem." Problems are not permitted.

Dressing for Excess

•  
  • Crew members are provided with the standard uniform of the guy with rage issues questioning his sexuality on every season of The Real World: boxer briefs, jeans, polo shirts, flip flops (to be worn in flight and when greeting passengers), a belt, a winter coat, a hat, gloves, sunglasses, and sweatshirts.
  • They are instructed to spritz these items with Abercrombie & Fitch 41 cologne "throughout the duration" of their shifts.
  • Winter is when things get complicated. Staff members are only permitted to wear their coats when it is 50 degrees or colder, and collar popping is mandatory (come correct). Buttons and zippers might as well have their own manual:
  • "Zip the jacket up to the fourth button from the bottom. The lowest button should be left undone, but the next three buttons up should be fastened."
  • Hats and gloves are permitted when the temperature is below 40 degrees. Hat brims should be two inches thick and pulled "so that it is approximately in the middle of the forehead," which is to say EXACTLY in the middle of the forehead.
  • "All staff must coordinate wearing the sunglasses."

Soundtrack of Adventure

•  
  • Crew are required to play Phil Collins' "Take Me Home" over the jets intercom whenever the jet takes off on return flights home.
  • Before guests go to sleep, flight attendants are instructed to "spray the bedding with sleep spray."

Middle Fingerprints

•  
  • The Abercrombie & Fitch jet, like the headquarters of Men in Black, is a 100% fingerprint-free zone. Finger prints must not be visible on seat belts, "the credenza, cabin door, galley door, [or] the cabinet doors in the lavatory."

You want to work for me at Kinetix?  The good news is that I don't use Cosmopolitan Management to provide candidates with the right look and personality.

The bad news is that you'll be pressing play on Phil Collins ALL DAY LONG.  Bad mood?  I can feel it in the air tonight.  I-9 problems?  Spotify Illegal Alien for me.  

Actually, you'll be Pandora-ing RATM and Paramore more than anything else.  But I don't tell you that until your first day.

Moore's Law and Social Sharing: Why You Might Want to Figure Out Social As It Relates to Your Career...

Social's probably something you need to figure out for your career.  Do it for you - don't do it because it's cool or any other reason.

Need a compelling reason beyond the usual "everyone is doing it?"  How about Mark Zuckerberg telling a biz accelerator group that he believes social sharing is governed by the same growth dynamics as computer processors?  More from Gizmodo:

"If you thought people were already sharing way too much on social networks, you're in for a rough future. At least, that's what your buddy Mark Zuckerberg thinks, and it's probably safe to say he's might know what he's talking about.

Zuck dropped the knowledge in a talk at Y Combinator's startup school today. He put it this way to Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham:

"It's sort of social networking version of Moore's Law. We expect this rate [of sharing] will double every 10 years. So in 10 years from now, people will be sharing about 1,000 times as many things as they do today."

For those of you that need a little refresher in Moore's Law, here it is via Wikipedia:

"Moore's law is the observation that over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years. The period often quoted as "18 months" is due to Intel executive David House, who predicted that period for a doubling in chip performance (being a combination of the effect of more transistors and their being faster).^[1]

The law is named after Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore, who described the trend in his 1965 paper.^[2][3][4] The paper noted that the number of components in integrated circuits had doubled every year from the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958 until 1965 and predicted that the trend would continue "for at least ten years".^[5] His prediction has proven to be uncannily accurate, in part because the law is now used in the semiconductor industry to guide long-term planning and to set targets for research and development."

Let's assume for a second that you think Moore's Law is absolute BS related to social sharing.  First up, Zuckerberg probably has access to information about the habits of a Billion Facebook subscribers, where your reaction is based on  - well, you.  

Then think for a second - let's say social sharing moves at a pace 2-3 times slower than Moore's law.  It's still a big tidal wave.  And there's you, saying you don't get it.  You don't have time.  You don't see the value.

Good luck with that, my friend.  People who can't aggregate networks of interest through sharing and other social activity are going to get phased out, put in non-thinking jobs, etc.  The move's really already started, and it's not about people like me with a blog.  It's really about everyone, and the trend is coming for you, king of like the grim reaper.

Be ready when the trend arrives at your doorstep.