Archive for the 'Business' Category

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Long on hyperbole, short on facts

Published on April 11, 2011 in Media. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Watching Staticphoto © 2007 Jason Rogers | more info (via: Wylio)Canada’s Radiocommunication Act explicitly prohibits “knowingly [making] a false or misleading statement, either orally or in writing.” Thus the hyperbolic and, at times, vitriolic  media heard on American talk radio and Fox News is unusual there.  And Canadians hope to keep it that way despite political pressure to change the regulations.

In January, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission announced an open comment period on a proposed modification limiting that clause  to “cases in which broadcasters knew the information was false or misleading and that reporting it was likely to endanger the lives, health or safety of the public.”

Speaking on behalf of journalists’ union Communication, Energy and Paperworkers Union, Peter Murdoch commented, “Where is the motivation for change that would lower the standards of truth and fairness in broadcast journalism?”  And Canadian consumers overwhelmingly agreed, expressing concern about ensuring the veracity of reporting by media outlets.

After uproar, the Commission dropped plans to move forward with the revision this February.

The timing of the attempt to open the door to more manipulative reporting did not go unnoticed by media savvy Canadians.  Last year Quebecor Media announced plans to launch Fox-inspired news network Sun TV News.  Friendly government-ties to the network were questioned.

It seems that Canadians have learned a thing or two from watching US media broadcasts.

Last December, the University of Maryland release a study that found Fox News watchers ill-informed about the major issues polled on in November, more so than any other news outlet’s viewers. Give  the network’s reputation for hyperbolic coverage of policy issues, it’s no wonder that reporting that is high on emotion is short on information.   In fact, regardless of the political leanings of those polled, the more  Fox News hours clocked the more misinformation they retained.

It’s particularly disturbing because nearly half of Americans trust Fox News, while just 39% trust CNN, the next most trusted network. That Fair and Balanced branding has served them well.

Though the first amendment right to free speech precludes regulations similar to the Canadian RadioCommunication Act in the US, surely some type of truth-telling accreditation should be possible.  If food can meet certain standards so as to be declared USDA Organic, why couldn’t chyrons include labeling from  news to edutainment to opinion programming?

With the Citizens United case opening elections to unlimited corporate spending on political advertising, it’s more important than ever that Americans know where they can turn to for the actual facts.    In the University of Maryland study

9 in 10 voters said that in the 2010 election they encountered information they believed was misleading or false, with 56% saying this occurred frequently. Fifty-four percent said that it had been more frequent than usual.

It shouldn’t be challenging to ferret out the truth when the direction of your democracy can hang in the balance.  And yet there’s little assurance that we’re consuming fully veracious  content — between the agendas of media outlets and our individual viewer biases — even when we’re looking for it.

 

Wellbeing | Having a job isn’t enough

Published on April 10, 2011 in Business. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

181/365 - Life 2: The Unhappy Endingphoto © 2009 Helga Weber | more info (via: Wylio) Hate your job? Feeling underutilized and devalued at the office? Turns out the unemployed may be faring better than you.

Roughly 1-in-5 American workers is actively disengaged at the office. Gallup has concluded that these employees

tend to be significantly less productive, report being less loyal to their companies, are less satisfied with their personal lives, and are more stressed and insecure about their work than their colleagues.

And newer data is showing that the unemployed are finding more pleasure in their lives than those disenchanted with their current employer. They are more likely to say they are thriving (48% to 42%). Despite the financial hardships and present insecurity, the unemployed are less likely to say they’re struggling with their lives than those actively disengaged members of the workforce (49% to 54%).

While we keep hearing how lucky people are to have jobs in this economy, it appears a pay check may not be enough. At the end of 2010, Manpower reported that 84% of Americans would be looking for a new job this year.

Given that the 12-question Gallup survey was designed to determine how challenged and valued employees are at a given company, it seems that the intrinsic benefits of employment may be missing for the least engaged. Not only do employees want to be paid fairly (if not well) for what they do, they want to see their efforts successfully contributing to objectives that matter internally. They want work that matches their skill levels and knowledge base so that they’re adequately challenged. And they want the autonomy to decide how best to get the job done; afterall, if not trusted to do the job, an offer of employment probably shouldn’t have been extended.

So it takes a toll when one is micromanaged or finds oneself working in a dysfunctional setting that limits the little successes that add up over time. And then, voila! Work and life seem much less enjoyable.

Gallup: Daily Positive Experiences

Hopefully, you’re part of the engaged segment of the workforce.  What is your employer doing to help keep the spring in your step?   If you’re not happy in your current position, how do you keep your spirits up?

Networking: how to appear effortlessly interesting

Published on March 7, 2011 in Networking. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

...party animalsphoto © 2009 James Vaughan | more info (via: WylIf the social gods are smiling down on you, you have a friend who will attend Second Tuesday or Manic Monday Libation Hour or Save the Kittens Thursday with you. If not, and you’re like me, you’re the person standing far from the action, white-knuckling a watered-down rail drink, because you haven’t worked up the nerve to test the degree to which you’re interesting to strangers.

Am I interesting enough?

Isn’t that really the main concern tucked away at the back of our minds?  Can I launch a conversation on emerging technology that will keep folks’ attention, or will the people nearest me beg off like Agatha Christie’s 10 Little Indians?  Will that corner bubbling with social discourse welcome me into a discussion of this month’s worthwhile networking events with a charity tie-in, or will I be standing adjacent like a tool? Am I conversation kindling or a conversation killer?

The longer you consider the evidence that’s been warped by your own insecurities, the more likely you’re going home without new connections. Thus, my thrill that social technology lets you cheat just enough to be a pro-active attendee.

A long-standing rule of networking for the social anxious: Stay until you’ve met X people relevant to interest Y. If you meet 3 people relevant to the work you do, or 5 people in a book club or writing group that could sponsor your entry, then you have met your quantitative target for the evening. At that point, you’re either relaxing a bit and getting lost in conversation, or you’re calling it a night and congratulating yourself for sticking it out until you met that goal.

And here is where social tech makes life a bit easier. Branded happy hours are popping up on Eventbrite because it offers easy registration and ticket purchasing. Groups with an established Facebook presence are sharing their events on the site for easy head counts and forwarding to friends. People are sharing their event intentions on PlanCast, which builds word-of-mouth for those outings, trainings or social calls.

By default, online RSVPs are increasingly siding with attendee list transparency, which can help you decide between a handful of overlapping events. If you’re looking to make new connections, an event with all the usual suspects is OK to skip, but if you’re having a rough week, you may just want to hang out with friendly faces.

And, more importantly, it helps you figure out who you want and need to meet in advance, allowing you to craft a more targeted networking objective for yourself. Eventbrite registrations are my favorites because the event producers typically ask for employer and social media profile information from attendees. That information is often included beneath the event listing, making it easy to quickly scan the list for people and companies that could be of interest.

With the inclusion of links to corporate websites, blogs, LinkedIn profiles and Twitter handles, you can do your homework and have a few questions and comments in mind when you stumble across your networking targets at the event. You avoid any panic in coming up with a conversation topic on the spot.  A public RSVP list allows you to make that first impression less generic and  to feel more in control, so you’ll be less focused on the happy hour specials and more engaged with the crowd.

Are Principles of Responsible Media Consumption Enough?

Published on January 13, 2011 in Media. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Whatever you thinkphoto © 2009 Capture Queen | more info (via: Wylio)On Wednesday afternoon, the New America Foundation hosted Director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University and author of Mediactive Dan Gillmor for a conversation and Q&A about the impact of rapidly-evolving social technology on news production and consumption.

As part of the moderated discussion, Gillmor shared his 5 Principles of Media Consumption:

1. Be skeptical.

Don’t take anything you read at face value.  The information source can clue you into the bias that may be present.  Gillmor dismisses the notion of objectivity; everyone and every media outlet has a worldview of some sort.

2. Don’t be equally skeptical of everything.

Use your best judgment when evaluating media and finding sources to trust.  Sweeping generalizations and extremes may raise flags when you’re watching and reading. Over time you’ll find reliable news sources that you can go back to again and again.

3. Question yourself and your worldview.

When you care deeply about an issue it’s hard to remove yourself from that subjective space to consider new information that may conflict with your beliefs.   Be willing to challenge your own biases and cast a wider net on the type of media you consume.  It’s easy to find news sources that parrot your own beliefs,

4.  Seek out opinions and perspectives different from your own.

(3 and 4 could be merged, but then we’d only have 4 principles, which doesn’t feel right.)  Do your homework and learn about things you’re not likely to counter in your own life.  You’ll be more informed and perhaps a bit more aware of the privileges and disadvantages of the groups you identify with.

5. Understand how media can be used to persuade and manipulate.

Factor in a 24-hour news cycle and profit margins into your consideration of media.  What does the media company want you to believe and how does it benefit if you do?  Don’t just look at what angles are pursued, but consider why?

Overall, these are excellent basic tips for expanding your worldview, as well as evaluating the weight and accuracy of the media you consume, but how do you convince people that they want or need to move beyond the echo chamber and filter bubble effect?  How do you convince people to be skeptical of the news sources that tell them what they want to hear?

We all thoroughly believe our worldview is the correct worldview.

Remember the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor last summer, when Republicans expressed so much concern over her wise Latina remarks?  Because the perspective of a privileged white male is so sacrosanct that there must be something wrong with that notion that a group of judges another race, culture or gender might draw different conclusions.  To many of the male elected-officials in that hearing, there is only one way to look at the world.

The average media consumer is no different.

For more, you can download Mediactive for free or buy a copy.

No good or bad deed goes unpunished

Published on January 9, 2011 in Business. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

arper aston office chairs + custom conference tablephoto © 2008 Incase | more info (via: WylioLast summer, University of Washington researchers published a study demonstrating that altruistic employees can be as unpopular as selfish ones in the work place.

Subjects played a game with four phony counterparts, in which they could deposit or retrieve points (that accrued interest) from a central account shared with other players. Though researchers gave players recommendations as to how many points to it was appropriate to remove, no official point limits were put in place. One of the faux participants was assigned to hoard points, while another kept fewer points than recommended, ostensibly for the benefit of the team.

Surprisingly, the player at each extreme, not just the greedy points party, was disliked equally by control subjects. From Wired’s coverage of the study:

psychologists found that unselfish colleagues come to be resented because they “raise the bar” for what’s expected of everyone. As a result, workers feel the new standard will make everyone else look bad.

It’s a fascinating outcome because so many business books and self-help titles are geared to inspiring exceptional performance and achievement. No one wants to be average: people take personality tests and skills surveys to find  professional strengths that can be parlayed into a successful career, they eat the cost of professional development training if their companies won’t cover the price tag, and they take on student debt if a graduate degree can create the momentum needed to move up the ranks.

If we all ultimately want to be the ones who raise the bar, should we begrudge peers who do the same?

Wealth desensitizes people to the bonds between us all

Published on January 6, 2011 in Business and Community. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

In “The Rise of the New Global Elite,” The Atlantic’s Chrystia Freeland investigates the lives of the upper-echelon businesspersons  whose work means globetrotting, hobnobbing with their income-equals and a feeling of victimization (because policy makers challenge their financial success in the name of economic crisis and the growing inequality gap). Today’s uber-wealthy are earning the old fashioned way.

In 1916, the richest 1 percent of Americans received only one-fifth of their income from paid work; in 2004, that figure had risen threefold, to 60 percent.

And overall, they’re less sympathetic to those who aren’t self-made.

For the super-elite, a sense of meritocratic achievement can inspire high self-regard, and that self-regard—especially when compounded by their isolation among like-minded peers—can lead to obliviousness and indifference to the suffering of others.

And it’s an attitude that is bearing out in research as well. Because the elites spend so much time with their socioeconomic peers, they’ve lost touch with the struggles of the Average American. When you can throw money at jet shares and homes in exotic locales, money may define your key relationships rather than community interdependency.   While a group of PTA moms bond over carpool schedules and football games, the business elite are trying to out-status each other.  And it shows.

A recent study published by the Association for Psychological Science found that subjects from top education or socioeconomic status levels were less able to read the emotions of people in photos or simulated interviews than those from lower education and socioeconomic tiers.

Earlier studies have suggested that those in the lower classes, unable to simply hire others, rely more on neighbors or relatives for things like a ride to work or child care. As a result, the authors propose, they have to develop more effective social skills — ones that will engender good will.

The differences do not end there.  Living in the lap of luxury may actually impact the capacity for business leaders to act responsibly in the workplace.  A recently released Harvard Business School paper found that:

people who were made to think about luxury prior to the decision-making task have a higher tendency to endorse self-interested decisions that might potentially harm others.

In a follow up experiment, after viewing either luxury or affordable items, subjects were asked to complete a word recognition exercise involving blended pro- and anti-social words together.  While each group scored about the same on anti-social words  (like “rude, stingy, and selfish”), but the group that saw luxury items before the exercise saw fewer pro-social words (nice, giving, and helpful). Researchers concluded that the respondents prepped with luxury items in each case were primarily thinking of themselves, not others.

If these studies are applied to the business world, the self-concerned may be making decisions affecting profit and personal gain with little concern for the people that could be adversely impacted by any of the options on the table. A life of luxury could be making it harder to make decisions with broader positive impact. Considering Wall Street’s fight against tighter regulations and the banking industry’s foreclosure mills, it doesn’t take much to make the leap from the research to its real world implications.

That research puts the anecdotal indifference in Freeland’s Atlantic article in a new light.

In a recent internal debate, [a hedge fund CEO] said, one of his senior colleagues had argued that the hollowing-out of the American middle class didn’t really matter. “His point was that if the transformation of the world economy lifts four people in China and India out of poverty and into the middle class, and meanwhile means one American drops out of the middle class, that’s not such a bad trade,” the CEO recalled.

Certainly, the power of luxury over social and environmental circumstance is also being tested.   Last year, several dozen of America’s billionaire’s made  The Giving Pledge to donate “the majority of their wealth to the philanthropic causes and charitable organizations of their choice either during their lifetime or after their death.”

The question is how to make larger community considerations the standard, not the exception?

Career Musts: Mentors and Sponsors

Published on January 5, 2011 in Business and Networking. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Meeting room stencil graffitiphoto © 2006 Richard Rutter | more info (via: Wylio)Last month Catalyst’s report Mentoring: Necessary But Insufficient for Advancement discussed a key limitation on the upward mobility of women climbing the corporate ladder. For years women have been told they need mentors to make it to the top, but it’s not enough. Women need sponsorship too.

Mentorship is invaluable. Professionals learn directly from those they aspire to be like, picking up hard and soft skills necessary to entire and move up the hierarchy.

But it’s not closing the gap between male and female MBA-holders. A 2008 Catalyst survey of 4000 alumni from the best business schools around the world quantified the shortcomings of mentorship.

Alumni who had a mentor to consult before seeking out their first MBA job found better positions than those without the guidance, but outcomes for men were significantly better. Men were “93 percent more likely to be placed at mid-manger level or above than men without a mentor” versus 56 percent of women.

Wage discrepancies were especially telling “Men who had a mentor received $9,260 more in the first post-MBA job than women with a mentor,” while “mentoring made less of an impact on women’s compensation. Women without a mentor were paid only $661 more than women without a mentor.”

And as these professionals got promoted, the financial gap grew. For men, a promotion meant a 21% bump in compensation, versus a mere 2% raise for promoted women. Yes, promotions occurred at the same rate, regardless of gender,  for those with senior-level mentors. But with women and men frequently seeking mentors of the same gender and background,  a much smaller pool of top-level female executives makes it a bit more difficult for women to find the most impactful mentors.

Still, as a previous Catalyst study shows, mentoring does matter: women with mentors reported 27% higher salary growth than those without mentors, compared to 6% growth for men. But to keep the forward momentum moving, the authors of the study recommend finding corporate sponsorship.

In a WorkingMother article about this latest study, Catalyst CEO Illene H. Lang writes,

You need a sponsor—someone “on the inside.” It’s a person with clout who can advocate for you from behind closed doors, fight for you to get great opportunities, and spread the word about your achievements. “That’s perfect for her, she’s ready,” a sponsor might say, or “let’s give her a shot.”

You can advocate for your own advancement, but someone has to champion you when it’s decision time.  An executive-level advocate may be just the person to seal the deal.

Take a moment to think about where you’re at in your career.  Who have you learned the most from? Who has helped you get to where you are? Who can you reach out to for guidance and active support in fine tuning and achieving your objectives?

VOD: So you want to write a novel

Published on December 3, 2010 in Books and Business. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

A few years ago, a Jenkins Group survey found that 80 percent of Americans would like to write a book. (You can count me in too!) The reality is not nearly as glamorous as we’d like.

PS. What’s up with all of the videos, covering generalizations about various careers, that have been floating around of late?

Stepping Up with Sara Blakely, Founder of Spanx

Published on November 18, 2010 in Business. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Last night I attended Stepping Up in the City, Step Up Women’s Network’s annual member event in New York City.   The event featured Spanx, Inc. founder Sara Blakely who provided the requisite words of inspiration and the voice of experience to a crowd of up-and-coming movers-and-shakers.

Her tips:

“What you don’t know can be your greatest asset.”

Once Blakely had a successful product prototype she believed in, she faced the challenge of finding retailers to carry it.  So she looked up the buyer for Neiman Marcus in the phone book and called to ask for 15 minutes of her time.  Traditionally, new vendors present their wares at massive trade shows that buyers attend, but Blakely didn’t know that.  She got her 15 minutes and the interest of a buyer from a major upscale department store.

“Differentiate yourself…Why you?”

Ideas are a dime a dozen.   What is it about you that can take an idea to fruition better than the next guy? You can have a genius business plan, but what makes you the secret sauce?

“Don’t be afraid to fail.”

Growing up, Blakely’s dad regularly asked his kids, “What did you fail at this week?”  And if she didn’t have a good tale of failure, her father was disappointed.  As an adult she recognizes the genius reverse psychology of it all.  Her father made failure an expected part of the journey of life and the  process through which you find success.  She notes that “failure is not the outcome; failure is not trying.”

“Prayer is you speaking to God; Intuition is God speaking to you.”

Blakely referenced this insight from a friend because time and again following her gut led her to greater success.  You need to take your cues from the world around you and not second guess your instincts.

The advice is not necessarily new, but the her unique experiences gave her conclusions more credence.   All and all, a great networking event with some new contacts and food-for-thought.

Interesting profile field: Cancer

Published on September 29, 2010 in Business. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

So I’m working on completing a profile on a niche job site, when I stumble across this list.

Skills: Cancer

When did “Cancer” become a sought after skill?