As of a month ago Trader's title had been downgraded to VP of Partnerships and Studio Services, although no top sales or business development replacement executive has yet been named.

Why is he gone? No one is saying. CEO Mark Pincus says only AT [Andrew Trader] and zynga have parted ways. He made an awesome contribution. We need to continue scaling the company. Trader hasn't yet returned a phone call asking for his comment.

Zynga's revenue growth has been nothing short of astronomical over the last 18 months, so it would be hard to blame him for not bringing in the dollars. Perhaps he took the fall for the Scamville saga although that has largely blown over now.

Trader was with Zynga nearly three years, so he's vested on a lot of his stock. Given how much money is at stake, the whole story about why the first cofounder of Zynga has left the building may never come out. Zynga raised $180 million in December 2009, at a rumored valuation of above $2 billion.

And no, I have no idea why he's holding a banana in the picture.

As more wireless carriers adopt Google Android, many new consumers ask frequently how to do common tasks on their Android phone. This section is dedicated to offering Android Advice to new and experienced Android consumers. There will be more to come, however here are the top 6 frequently asked questions by new Android users:

1. What Android apps should I download?

There are many list all over the web, even many on our website (coming from Blackberry to Android see this list). We'll list a few must have best Android apps to get you started:

• Must Have: Astro File Manager, use this app to browse files on your SD card. Bar Code Scanner, use this app to scan the QR bard codes with all of our reviews to quick link you to apps in the Android Market!
• Task Management: TasKiller
• Battery/Power Management: Power Manager or Screebl
• Email: K9 Mail or Exchange by Touchdown
• Music: Pandora or Meridian Player
• Home Screen Customization: aHome or SlideScreen
• Productivity & Note-Taking: Astrid or Evernote

Keep visiting www.AndroidTapp.com for the best Android app recommendations.

2. How do I setup email accounts?

First gather your POP3 or IMAP protocol access information. Launch Email > type email address and password > Choose either POP3 or IMAP account > enter Incoming POP3 or IMAP protocol information > enter Outgoing information > choose whether email account is default.

3. How do I save battery power?

Try turning off Bluetooth, Wifi and GPS when not needed. Try to minimize update intervals of some apps such as Facebook and Twitter from the settings menu. There are apps to help manage battery power for you such as Power Manager.

4. How do I Customize my phone?

There are many home screen customization apps to give a completely different experience; popular apps include aHome, Open Home and SlideScreen.

5. How do I set Ringtones?

Either purchase them from sources like Amazon MP3 or download free with Mabilo Ringtones.

To place your own MP3 songs as ringtones go to the Android Market to download Rings Extended. Plug your phone to computer via USB cable. An icon will appear in the top left notification bar, slide the bar down (this is called the window shade). Tap USB connected > Mount > on your computer a new drive will appear > drag your own MP3 files to the drive > tap home button > Menu button > Settings > Sound & display > Phone ringtone > choose Rings Extended to browse your MP3 files on the phone.

6. How do I import my Contacts from SIM card?

From home screen tap Menu > Contacts > Menu > Import contacts > Import All (Import allows for single imports)

Have more questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below or Contact Us!

Did you really think book publishing would go the way of the music industry and publish eBooks without DRM? Amazon already wraps their eBooks in DRM for the Kindle and now, Apple will do the same for publishers in its iBookstore.

According to the Los Angeles Times, sources in the book publishing industry have indicated that Apple's FairPlay DRM the same DRM used for its apps and its audio and video content will be made available to any book publisher who'd like to use it.

While there hasn't been an official announcement on its use, it's unlikely that many publishers will decline to use it except for maybe O'Reilly who is outspokenly against DRM.

Has DRM stopped you from buying eBooks?

Disclosure of Material Connection: http://dsclzr.us/0

[Los Angeles Times]

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• Amazon At War With Publisher(s) (mydigitallife.co.za)
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Apple iBooks To Be Wrapped in FairPlay DRM is a post from: The Magical Tablet

ViralHeat, a social media analytics firm, hopes to fill the space left empty by other, far more expensive services.

Sponsor

The Basics

ViralHeat has been around for just over six months, providing a low-price but full-featured social media analysis for the budget minded. We had a chance to chat with CEO Raj Kadam and founder Vishal Sankhla today before the relaunch, which is unveiling support for Facebook monitoring, a new user interface and API support.

The fully Web-based app gives full analytics by monitoring an array of blogs, over 200 video sites, Twitter and now Facebook for mentions of your brand, which is set up as a profile. Each profile exists as a simple logic search, wherein you can keep track of your brand by searching for phrases, domains and hashtags, all in the syntax we've become accustomed to from using from sites like Google.

Champagne Tastes on a Beer Budget?

While ViralHeat compares itself on price to services like Radian6, there is a primary difference between the two services. ViralHeat offers a full set of analytics features, from standard mention monitoring to sentiment analysis using a natural language algorithm, but this is where it stays. It does not venture over to the content creation side, where we find the more expensive and extensive services like Radian6. Other services might offer workflow management, scheduled content delivery and other conversational tools, but this would be overkill for the users we imagine at this app's usability sweetspot.

We see that as an additional merit: ViralHeat has both the price point and the feature set fit for the company that wants to get on top of its image and perception on the social Web but can't afford to bring a social media expert on board - and on salary. The learning curve is suitable for the DIY set and the analytics it provides are self explanatory, not riddled with indecipherable, industry jargon.

For those of you that like the pricing but want to do a little more with the data, the service also allows you to export data into Excel format and access your data using the API.

The Price is Right

Speaking of pricing, this is a point that really brings it home for ViralHeat. With today's relaunch of the site, ViralHeat offers a three tiered pricing system, starting with a basic package for $9.99, a professional package for $29.99 and a business package for $89.99. The Basic package offers standard mentions analysis for 5 profiles, while the other packages offer sentiment analysis and API access for 20 and 40 profiles, respectively.

If we haven't drilled it in enough quite yet, here's the bottom line: ViralHeat looks like a solid social media analysis tool that is priced and designed for the more casual user, while offering simple features like export and API interaction that keep it flexible enough for the more serious user.

Bloomberg News

Apple intends to stay nimble on pricing of the iPad, possibly lowering prices if the newly unveiled tablet device fails to gain traction among consumers.

That was just one of the items in a note out Sunday night from Credit Suisse recounting meetings with Apple executives. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Apple officials who met with CS analyst Bill Shope seemed to downplay the potential for some cannibalization of other Apple lines, which analysts have noted.

Apple wants the iPad to be the best device for a few key use cases. For instance, the company believes it could eventually be seen as superior to both handheld and notebook devices for browsing the Internet, using the App Store, and consuming mobile media (video, photos, and e-books). Nevertheless, in other areas, notebooks, the iPhone, or an iPod may be more appropriate. This clear segmentation of capabilities suggests that cannibalization may be less of a concern than most currently believe.

Shope also wrote that despite the seemingly aggressive pricing of the iPad the lower-than-expected price points range from $499 to $829 Apple seemed to indicate it would respond with price cuts if demand for the device wasn't revving up the way it liked. While it remains to be seen how much traction the iPad gets initially, management noted that it will remain nimble (pricing could change if the company is not attracting as many customers as anticipated), Shope wrote.

Apple shares are up about 0.5%. On the year, they're down a bit less than 7%. And since the iPad was introduced on Jan. 27, shares are down about 5.5%.

The big project fails, the company begins to struggle and before you know it, the board of directors replaces the management team. Sound familiar? But crisis doesn't have to spell the end of the company itself.

Most companies and teams in turnaround situations focus on the obvious and important factors of balance sheet, cash flow and net income health. Teams also usually get to work quickly on market analysis that ultimately results in new product and business strategies. These actions are almost always necessary, just not always sufficient. Here are four often overlooked tactics that, if successfully employed, are critical to rapidly and successfully turning around a struggling enterprise:

1. Facilitate Closure - When a team has been through an extended period of hardship, it needs a sense of closure before it can start moving forward again, and closure is often best facilitated through a cathartic event that symbolizes the end of the perilous and painful journey. But while closure commonly necessitates letting a person or team go, don't rush to find a fall guy. Be very precise about identifying what was holding the company back it could just as easily have come in the form of an ineffective process or out-of-date strategy. Approach its removal the way you would a tumor: Excise carefully, and be wary of damaging any healthy surrounding tissue.

2. Set a Vision - According to intentional change theory, there are five steps to achieving sustained desired change. The first is to identify the ideal self, which for an organization is usually embodied in a collective vision consisting of its members' dreams (to be recognized as the best in the industry? world domination?), their desired future (market penetration? profitability?), and their strengths or values (high quality? extraordinary customer care?) Identify these in order to establish a shared vision that resonates with each team member on a deep, even emotional, level.

3. Find an Enemy - The easiest way to solidify an us is to identify a them. As Tajfel and Turner's social identity theory makes clear, people need to be part of a group, but in a company the result is often conflict between groups. The conflict that most often occurs in a crisis is affective and role-based and therefore often negative and value-destroying. There is no better way to rally the troops than to embody the fight with an external nemesis. Identify for your team an enemy outside the company and focus on beating or staying ahead of it, using everything from its press releases to its product launches to spur the team into action.

4. Tend the Garden - In our recently published book, The Art of Scalability, we talk at length about how leadership is like gardening. Leaders must hire or seed the team with the right people and mentor its members just as gardeners feed their plants. And when team members aren't working out, they need to be weeded out.

The time period between Microsoft's release of its XP desktop operating system and Vista marked the longest in the company's history between product launches. Jim Allchin, Microsoft's co-president, admitted in a Wall Street Journal interview to telling Bill Gates at one point that It's not going to work, describing the development as crashing to the ground due to haphazard methods of feature integration.

To recover from this, Microsoft enlisted the help of senior executive Amitabh Srivastava, who rooted out the process that was holding the project back. He then had a team of architects establish a development process that enforced high levels of code quality and reduced interdependencies. Once the new process was in place, the vision was set for what was ultimately a successful product launch, at least in terms of getting the product out the door and meeting the expected sales volumes.

There are entire books and domains of research dedicated to turning around failed projects and distressed teams. This list is in no way all-encompassing but if you are ever faced with the daunting task of turning around a team, these four tasks will be critical to its success.

If the acquisition of Touchco wasn't enough of an indication that Amazon is preparing for a skirmish with the Apple iPad, this should make it perfectly clear. Mike Nash, a man who has quite a history of accomplishments at Microsoft for the past two decades, is leaving the company to work on the Kindle business for Amazon.

Before leaving Microsoft, Mike was the Corporate Vice President of Windows Platform Strategy and was responsible for pieces of Windows business strategy, ecosystem engagement, consumer security, Internet Explorer, and emerging markets, according to his bio on Microsoft's Web site.

In addition to his most recent role, Nash has had a string of historic positions at Big M including a role as the first product manager on the original Windows NT marketing team; the Corporate Vice President of the Security Technology Unit; and a driver of a number of Microsoft acquisitions in the security space.

There's been no official announcement yet from Amazon so we're unsure of Nash's focus within the Amazon team.

[Mary Jo Foley, ZDNet] [Amazon Kindle]

Disclosure of Material Connection: http://dsclszr.us/5

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Amazon Hires Mike Nash from Microsoft to Work on Kindle is a post from: Magical Tablet

It can be difficult to guess judicial decisions based on the judge's oral questioning of the lawyers, but it's certainly possible to see where judges are having trouble with an argument. In today's case, judges repeatedly went after the FCC's contention that it was acting legally in the Comcast case. Because Comcast's behavior ran afoul of an "Internet Policy Statement" rather than an official rule, the company claims that the FCC had no grounds for action until it made the Policy Statement into actual policy (which FCC Chair Julius Genachowski is trying to do right now).

Judges questioning the FCC's legal team said that the Policy Statement was "aspirational, not operational," that the FCC had not identified a "specific statute" Comcast violated, and that the FCC "can't get an unbridled, roving commission to go about doing good."

What difference would a pro-Comcast ruling make, given that the company has already changed its traffic management practices? It would "free us of this black mark on our record," said a Comcast attorney, according to the Wall Street Journal. That attorney, Helgi Walker, comes from the high-powered Wiley Rein law firm in DC. Ironically, former FCC Chair Kevin Martin, the Republican appointee who sided with the two Democrats on the FCC in the Comcast ruling, was himself a former Wiley Rein lawyer.

In a statement after today's hearing, current FCC Chair Genachowski said, "This case underscores the importance of the FCC's ongoing rulemaking to preserve the free and open Internet. I remain confident the Commission possesses the legal authority it needs and look forward to reviewing the court's decision when it issues."

That decision should come in the next several months.

If you are, then WordHustler is for you! If you don't know what a word hustler is, then listen up!

Similar to pixel pushers and glyph tossing typophiles a word hustler is trying to make it in this world with the written word. And that is where WordHustler comes in.

WordHustler was started by two word hustlers writers, John L. Singleton and Anne Walls, out of their frustration for the costs and time of submitting their works in an analog world. In short, the hustle took to much time away from being able to write.

Sure, there are always elements of every hustle, job or hobby that are tedious and simply part of the process. When someone chooses to be a writer they're not making that decision based on the amount of time they're going to spend at OfficeMax buying envelopes and the right paper. The choice is made because they love hardship have a voice that needs to be heard.

With this in mind the founders of WordHustler brought the hustle into the digital age by creating a hybrid CMS that doesn't display a writer's work online but submits it to traditional publishers.

WordHustler is one of those impressive web services that is focused on serving a niche market and was developed by people in that niche. By solving their own problems first they were able to take the code and create a service for anyone like them.

No more printing, stamping, less formatting and no more paper cuts as WordHustler automates this process for their users. There's also no more searching for contests or publishers that might want to review your work. It is all here inside WordHustler.

Beyond the obvious benefits to writers in easing their submission pains there is the additional benefit of a powerful, easy to use interface. WordHustler has one of the best search landing pages I have ever seen. It elegantly integrates a standard search box, results, rankings, standard filtering and my favorite, elements of advanced search visually.

What I mean by advanced search visually' is the ability to begin filtering content at an advanced level without presenting it that way. Typically this is done through an advanced' search form with 10+ text input boxes with labels like all these words,some of these words, or none of these words.'

WordHustler presents filtering tools like an AJAX slider to limit the amount of description to display and words, tags' to filter results on the page. At this time tools like this are often used in backend administration interfaces or like this one, only available on this site. Developers and designers would do well to look at this model and tinker with it to create solutions for users to filter at an advanced level with beginner skills.

The service has a very reasonable price tag for users when compared to the cost of going analog and creating the number of submissions that WordHustler will allow for writers. It is extremely reasonable when compared to the price of building ones own platform to do the same. That is, if you are the enterprising type.

Now that you know about WordHustler and have decided that you are a word hustler or maybe want to submit that long stowed screenplay you wrote right after college, you have no excuse not to give it a try.

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Are You A WordHustler? is a post from: TechStartups.com

The gadgets are flowing and they've got both publishers and subscribers in a tizzy over their options. Are they 3g? Can I put my content on it? Just wifi? What services do they deliver? Do I need to build an app? Am I locked in?

All great questions but not the one that is at the front of my mind. That question being where is the personal media hub for all of this content? Each type of media that we consume has a disparative quality of some sort that requires another gadget or format transcoder to allow usage which means, users need a hub.

I just want to know where that hub will be. I'm not sure if it belongs in the cloud or can even exist there due to limitations placed on that content by rights holders. Which is a legitimate reason not to use the cloud since publishers need to eat.

A couple reasons to use the cloud would be transfer speeds, remote accessibility and backups. With increased gadget connectivity it would make sense to do this. An example of a gadget that needs to be fed from an outside source like the cloud is the PSPgo. It relies on connectivity to fetch games, video and browse the web.

The games on PSPgo arrive from a Sony controlled hub behind a firewall. If the cloud is too limiting due to rights management the other other solution would be to offer a private hub. Another gadget, but one that resides in the dwelling of an individual. Using the Sony model for control and privacy a device like this could be the next evolution of an inclusive hub. It seems to me to be the missing link.

Media management across multiples platforms and for varying devices would require some version of a standard protocol. The protocol probably already exists and could be as simple as HTTP with SSL. The device itself a web server that connects to cars, phones, tablets, computers, televisions, etc.

A device like this could also create new opportunities for rights holders to create new models for selling content. I'm thinking in the range of micropayments for ongoing usage or payments for amount of time used. An example would be a movie that instead of a 24 hour limit would allow the consumer to view it 2 times on any device before being crippled or offered for purchase for an additional few dollars.

My personal interest would be to have a media hub that I had control over and could add content to from any device like the PSPgo, Kindle, iPhone or computer. The ability for these devices to speak a common language for file storage and retrieval would increase consumption and sales as all of a users purchases become portable, even if lockedin to a device.

There are plenty of media hubs that exist today for personal use that can be net connected, but this device would find its niche in storing and delivering content without limitation.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Where is the personal media hub for ebooks, music and videos? is a post from: TechStartups.com

Five years ago I wrote my first Content Management System from ground the ground up. After forty-five days of coding day and night I diagnosed myself with coder's elbow'. The main symptom being a sharp and agonizing pain in on the inner elbow the ulna meets the humerus.

It was in the middle of one of these painful episodes that I was working on the database and the trying to figure out how I was going to transfer that content to the display layer that my a-ha moment occurred. I wasn't building a content management system to circumvent the issues and limitations I was having with WordPress, I was creating a distribution tool.

Once I had the content in the database the display layer could be anything that I chose it to be. It could be sent anywhere that I choose. The greatest of all these bursting thoughts was that it could go places that I didn't even intend it to. The content would have a life of its own. No more was I restricted by developing a site architecture and held to the constructs of a storyboard with A to B to C or D back to A.

With my coder's elbow I went on another week long journey through RSS to make sure that the content would be in the right namespaces, that it could be personalized with unique URL elements, creating search and keyword feeds, developing feeds that could use Basic Auth to restrict usage and the holy grail of individual content metrics. Imagine throbbing pain in both of my elbows now as these feeds overtook my life.

What came from this platform was a CMS that I began licensing for professional development, blogging, podcasting and for real-time metrics (back in 2005). I literally began my first business with it and continued to use it and variants of it for startups and media companies like MTV.

One thing remained constant in all of these scenarios syndication. Along with that syndication came the monitoring and proof that the programs and companies were getting the most value from the digital projects they had entrusted to me.

I decided to write this post and explain my process after I found a series of posts by Daniel Jacobson (@daniel_jacobson) from NPR. He was one of the individuals responsible for developing their robust, media rich API. It's not an API that I have discussed here at Tech Startups because I don't use it for any projects. I did test it when it launched and found it to be a great way to traverse NPR's archives and deliver legacy content as if it were created that day. Daniel Jacobson gets it.

So to spare yourself a case coder's elbow that could ruin your tennis game, you should start with Daniel's COPE: Create Once, Publish Everywhere post. This will put you in the right frame of mind to follow with . . . wait I'll list them in order.

COPE: Create Once, Publish Everywhere
Content Modularity: More Than Just Data Normalization
Content Portability: Building an API is Not Enough

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/4

The NPR Model Is Correct is a post from: TechStartups.com

Blogs.mu has been around for a while but I'd bet you haven't heard of it. I'd also bet that if you have heard of it that you forgot all about it. If you fall into this latter category then consider this a refresher about the easiest way to run a WordPress blog network without installing WPMU yourself.

For the uninitiated, WPMU stands for WordPress Multi-User. It is the same WordPress that you can download from their .org site except that it allows you to create unlimited blogs from one upload to a web server. It is powerful and built from the same code that runs WordPress.com. Though I highly doubt the out of the box ability to run millions of blogs form a single installation without countless hours of coding.

The folks at blogs.mu have come close to doing exactly that for the end user of their service. They have taken an off the shelf version of WPMU and spent the hours coding, hacking, theming and delivered it as a product that anyone can use with all the bells and whistles build in.

I've run a couple instances of WPMU over the years on my own servers and if I needed to run it again I would go about doing it on my own. However, I am a tech masochist that stubbornly decides that sub domains are the the best way to run these installs and then spends days hacking around Apache and other config files. Blogs.mu has taken care of all of this.

They have even taken care of themes, plugins and advanced user management for you. Believe me, this is a big deal when you want to run a network of blogs. Being able to manage bloggers, themes and plugins effectively can leave you more time to create editorial or your own blog posts.

Blogs.mu is a free' service but one that I would recommend that you pay for. Partially, because their business model and your ability to unlock some of the best tools depend on it. You can use their free version to get your feet wet and create a couple blogs to use as demos for the decision makers at your job or within your group of friends. Then upgrade to the paid version once you are comfortable and ready yourself to blog like a pro.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Multiple Partner Blogs is a post from: TechStartups.com

It's time to drag Fotomoto back onto the stage after months of maturing and talk about selling photos online. More specifically, Fotomoto's solution to facilitate the selling of digital photos as prints to anyone that wants to buy them.

A single line of Javascript code is the solution that Fotomoto offers to publisher as the solution to allow them to sell photos online. This single line of code has a powerful algorithm running behind it to sort out the images that are on the publishers site and determine which is a photo that should be for sale. That way the publisher's site logo or other graphic headings don't end up for sale.

Fotomoto adds a few text links below the salable photo that are connected to a shopping cart. This shopping cart opens in a modal box on the publisher's site. Developers take note of how to create a cohesive user experience by allowing shoppers to stay onsite to complete the purchase process.

When a publisher is logged in to Fotomoto they have the ability to set pricing for photos based on the size and type of item being printed. There are other options that you would expect in a photo sharing site and others that you might not. Like the ability to track the sales of prints and a mini-CRM tool that allows the publisher to communicate with a buyer. This introduction of community into a sales platform is a welcome addition to the rather spartan offerings photo sites. Ahem, Flickr.

Fotomoto is solving a problem that professional photographers have had for a long time how to effectively capitalize on a digital marketplace. With the advent of cheaper, better cameras there is finally a critical mass of photographers, both professional and amateur. And with a larger source of photos worthy of being printed, expect more sites like Fotomoto to popup or the long standing photo sharing sites to step up with their own plugins to allow anyone to sell photos online.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Sell Photos Online With Fotomoto is a post from: TechStartups.com

I'm a huge believer in focusing on a single area of practice. I'm convinced that being focused, early, was the principal factor in my initial success.

We all need to be known, liked and trusted. Narrowing the focus of your practice will rocket you forward on the known front. It sure did for me.

Last week I was a guest on the premiere episode of The Un-Billable Hour with Rodney Dowell. We started talking about the reluctance of new lawyers to focus on a niche. They get nervous about turning away business, any kind of business, and they take cases that fall outside of their chosen area of focus.

Why do they do it? The money, of course.

I understand being scared about income. It's tough out there and it's incredibly tempting to take work outside of your niche when you're having a slow month.

But, it's important to let it go. It's important to stay focused and build your practice by doing the work in the niche you've selected.

Why?

A bunch of things happen when you stay focused -

First, you have free time to dig deeper into your area of focus. You can spend more time on the matters you have and keep learning. When you learn more you (1) can charge more, (2) you become more efficient, (3) you can delve more deeply into sophisticated issues and cases within your niche by earning the opportunity to take on higher value projects.

Second, you keep building your reputation in the niche. The client's you're working with are spreading the word. You've got time to meet with referral sources. Everyone comes to know you as the go to person for your area of practice.

Third, you get the opportunity, with every case, to meet people that might refer to your practice. Even if you're taking the cases at a lower fee than you'd like, you'll be meeting judges, lawyers, clerks, experts and others that will refer business to you. They'll know what kind of law you practice and they'll likely remember you.

Finally, every time you turn away business you create a grateful person in your marketplace. Here's what I mean. Let's say someone calls you and asks you to handle a traffic ticket case. You respond by telling the caller that you aren't really expert in that area of law, that you appreciate the call, but that your practice is limited to family law. You, of course, refer them to someone that can help.

The caller now gets that you're the family law expert. They appreciate that you weren't willing to take their money to do something you aren't qualified to do. They appreciate your help in finding the right lawyer. They tell their friends about you because you did something remarkable you put their interests above your own. You also generate goodwill with the attorney you referred the traffic ticket to. Win-win-win.

Bottom line turn down the money. That's how you make more money over the long haul.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - for family law professionals

Why Turning Away Clients Gets You More Clients

If you're on Twitter, definitely follow me at twitter.com/joshtpm. I keep you updated on the best offerings of the day from our news blog as well as give updates on new stuff we have coming from TPM -- new features, hires, stories we're going to start digging in on, etc.

I'd also strongly encourage you to follow the main TPMmedia twitter feed which we've just relaunched -- ditching the old extremely lame RSS-based system and placing under new bona-fide homo sapiens management.

I've reviewed quite a few job descriptions and talked to a few folks in the field, and can boil down the job reqs to three major skills, they are:

The Three Essential Qualities of Corporate Social Media Positions
There's often a list of skills, backgrounds, education, and sometimes Twitter follower requirements listed but It boils down to three qualities:

1) Fulfill Meaningful Business Objectives
Here's where companies are having problems finding qualified folks. The social media early adopter types tend not to be able to see beyond the shiny technologies and understand the business objectives. I can quickly find out who these folks are as they focus on the greatest latest tool. What's a trick for landing a corporate job in social? Be able to have a 5 minute conversation with an executive about connecting with customers without ever mentioning twitter, facebook, or a blog. Secondly, these individuals will be able to use brand monitoring tools, have analytical abilities, and be able to benchmark their efforts that tie back to business metrics not social media metrics.

2) Bridge Both Internal Stakeholders and Customers
This quality requires the professional to be able to relate to internal teams that may not understand the social culture, be empathetic, be able to communicate and train them, and be able to put it into action. Secondly, they often need to understand the culture of the community which they serve, communicate with them in a trusted manner, and engage in meaningful dialog.

3) Show Credibility With The Technology
The biggest struggle with hiring teams is that the demand and excitement for social and the recession has spurred a great number of social media experts and consultants. We already know that usage and experience don't equate to social media expertise, yet hiring teams continue to look for credibility by the individuals current use with the tools. What they don't tell you is this: are you capable of learning new technologies, evaluating, and then applying for business needs. Don't misread this, it's not in your favor if you were a late adopter, or don't know the nuances of the technology, but it's secondary to being able impact the company.

My hope is that boiling down these three essential qualities it'll help both hiring managers and applicants be able to sort themselves out. But let's open it up to you, are you a hiring manager or a candidate? What's missing?

Update: David Armano shows what not to look for.

Soren Gordhamer is the author of Wisdom 2.0: Ancient Secrets for the Creative and Constantly Connected (HarperOne, 2009). His homepage is www.sorengordhamer.com. You can follow him on Twitter.

As a company, Whole Foods has impressively embraced social media more than most, gathering over 1.2 million followers on Twitter and 123,000 fans on Facebook in the process. While it is easy to understand why a relatively young company or one started by a tech-savvy founder would so completely embrace social media communication tools, it is quite a bit more remarkable for an almost 30 year old established brick and mortar company with roughly 50,000 employees and over 270 stores worldwide to have done so.

I recently visited the Whole Foods headquarters in Austin, Texas to meet with members of their new media team, including Bill Tolany, the company's Senior Coordinator of Integrated Media, and Winnie Hsia, who oversees the @wholefoods account. I wanted to know how Whole Foods integrated social media tools into their communications strategy, and what lessons had they learned from doing so. Below are five of the lessons that Whole Foods shared with me during our chat.

1. Make Content Increasingly Relevant

Whole Foods started initially with just the @wholefoods account but as it gathered followers, they realized it had limitations: while it was useful for news with national appeal, it was less so for sharing local information or addressing specific interests of customers. A percentage of their followers, for example, might be interested in an event happening at their New York City store or reviews of certain food items, but many others would not be interested.

To address this, they encouraged all their stores to start their own accounts and tweet about events at their store and news related to that local area. They also created separate accounts for specific issues, such as one for wine and one for cheese, where the head of those departments post and interact with customers. In fact, with over 150 company Twitter accounts and new ones added regularly, they likely have one of the largest corporate presences on Twitter. The goal with so many different accounts is to create increasingly relevant, and often local content.

2. Go Where Your Customers Are

When asked how they initially decided to use Twitter as a platform, which was pre-Oprah and before most other companies their size had done so, they emphasized that their goal has always been to interact with their customers no matter where those customers are. As Twitter gained momentum, they realized that a presence on it made sense, though they never foresaw that they would get over a million followers and how much staff time it would take to manage.

The conversation with customers, however, is essential to the company, whether it happens in person at a store or on a social network. Whole Foods, in fact, is active on numerous social media communication channels, not just Facebook and Twitter: they also have a Flickr page, an actively updated blog with videos on cooking healthy meals, and have employees responding on the customer feedback site Get Satisfaction. The goal is not just to pick one place and force customers to come to them, but to meet customers on their home court, wherever that may be.

3. Loosen Control from the Top

Likely the most difficult task for any large company when embracing social media is learning to let go of control. On one hand, most companies will want millions of followers on sites like Twitter, yet on the other hand, large corporations also tend to be cautious when taking risks. They're unsure how much control they are willing to relinquish when it comes to governing how social media is used.

Whole Foods seems to really understand that such a top-down approach does not work in the age of social media. In fact, I was initially surprised that several people I interviewed while at the company headquarters that managed different corporate Whole Foods Twitter accounts used them quite differently from each other. Some, for example, shared personal information while others kept posts strictly to business. When I asked Tolany, who oversees the department, about it, he said that it did not surprise him at all. While they encourage some basic guidelines, Whole Foods has learned that for social media to work well, whoever is managing an account needs to be authentic, allow his or her personality to come through, and have fun in the process. If management tries to exercise too much control, the account will be less likely to succeed at engaging people.

4. Decide What Channel to Use for What Purpose

With a presence on so many social networks, Whole Foods tries to figure out how best to use each service. For example, they have found that for customer service, Twitter is much more effective than Facebook. On Twitter people can easily @reply a question and they can quickly respond. On the other hand, for rich media, including embedding videos or longer posts or responses, Facebook tends to be better. Likewise, for posting original content, their blog serves as the hub, allowing staff from various departments to share material. The company also created a nifty iPhone application with 2,000 searchable recipes and a store locator, which is a great platform for disseminating static information.

5. Let the Conversation Happen

My visit to the Whole Foods headquarter came at an interesting time. The previous week, Facebook, Twitter, and various blogs were ablaze with (mostly negative) comments in response to Whole Foods CEO, John Mackey's, Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal titled The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare. We did not dive too much into the Mackey Op-Ed issue, but we did talk about whether having such a strong presence on Facebook and Twitter has allowed people to more easily express anger at them. During our conversation it became clear that Whole Foods realizes that people are going to talk about the company, both positively and negatively, whether they are have a presence on social networks or not. It is helpful, though, to know what people are saying and to be able to respond if necessary.

In fact, when Mackey responded to some of the criticism on his company blog, rather than turn off comments to the post, they encouraged people to express their feedback, and greater than 3,000 people did.

Conclusion

The central take away I got from my visit was the importance of engaging with one's customers no matter where they spend time. When I asked Tolany and Hsia what advice they would give to companies thinking of using social media channels like Twitter, they seemed to both agree that the first task is to know if your customers (or the potential customers you want to engage) are present there. Then and only then does it make sense to invest time on a site.

I also got that part of what has motivated Whole Foods' efforts in social media and what can account for much of their success is a willingness to be bold and take risks. Such boldness can of course have its dangers (such as when writing Op-Ed articles about delicate social issues) yet this has also helped them plow ahead in social media while other businesses their size waited cautiously in the background to see if it was safe or if these sites would gain in popularity.

Of course, any time a company opens up and has a presence on a communication channel like Facebook or Twitter, users can use those sites to criticize as much as to praise. Dealing with negative feedback, however, is better than not having a presence at all. I think Whole Foods is showing that the companies who keep such channels open, and listen to the unpleasant along with the pleasant feedback, will better know what matters to their customers and what company policies may need to change, which is likely to win them support in the end.

Whole Foods, like many other companies, is still finding its way in this age of social media, but they are showing that a non-technology company of their size can engage and innovate in this area.

More social media resources from Mashable:

- Should Your Company Have a Social Media Policy?
- 10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy
- 6 Must-Follow Steps for Selling in Any Economy
- 5 Easy Social Media Wins for Your Small Business
- 7 Secrets to Tweeting Your Corporate Culture

Tags: blogging, business, engagement, facebook, social media, twitter, whole foods

Horizon argues that Bonnen libeled the company with her May 12th tweet, which read in part Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon Realty thinks it's okay.

Bonnen's alleged twitter account, abonnen, is no longer active. But, based on information in Google's cache, it appears that Bonnen had 22 followers.

The statements are obviously false, and it's our intention to prove that, said Horizon's Jeffrey Michael. We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization. Michael added that the company has a good reputation it wants to preserve.

Sue First, Ask Questions Later

Horizon may be breaking new ground in public relations with its response.

By suing Bonnen for $50,000 over a tweet that was probably seen by a fraction of abonnen's 22 followers, the company is bringing Bonnen's complaint to tens of thousands of readers on Twitter, in blogs and in news stories that the situation will generate.

Instead of preserving the company's good reputation, Horizon Realty is establishing itself as a sue first, ask questions later kind of company.

The kind of company that will sue you for $50,000 if you have something bad to say about one of their apartments.

If Horizon's lawsuit goes forward, fixing the damage it will do to the company's reputation will take a lot more than $50,000.

Horizon's response looks like a textbook case of what not to do when faced with a new media PR problem. What do you think the right response would have been?

Note: If you want to share this on Twitter or other social network, hit the Share/Save button below!

Horizon argues that Bonnen libeled the company with her May 12th tweet, which read in part Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon Realty thinks it's okay.

Bonnen's alleged twitter account, abonnen, is no longer active. But, based on information in Google's cache, it appears that Bonnen had 22 followers.

The statements are obviously false, and it's our intention to prove that, said Horizon's Jeffrey Michael. We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization. Michael added that the company has a good reputation it wants to preserve.

Sue First, Ask Questions Later

Horizon may be breaking new ground in public relations with its response.

By suing Bonnen for $50,000 over a tweet that was probably seen by a fraction of abonnen's 22 followers, the company is bringing Bonnen's complaint to tens of thousands of readers on Twitter, in blogs and in news stories that the situation will generate.

Instead of preserving the company's good reputation, Horizon Realty is establishing itself as a sue first, ask questions later kind of company.

The kind of company that will sue you for $50,000 if you have something bad to say about one of their apartments.

If Horizon's lawsuit goes forward, fixing the damage it will do to the company's reputation will take a lot more than $50,000.

Horizon's response looks like a textbook case of what not to do when faced with a new media PR problem. What do you think the right response would have been?

By Jim Hietala

Spending the early part of this week in The Open Group Security Forum meetings, I have been struck by the commonality of governance, risk, compliance, and audit issues between physical IT infrastructure today, and virtual and cloud environments in the (very) near future. Issues such as:

• Moving away from manual compliance processes, toward automated test, measurement, and reporting on compliance status for large IT infrastructure. When you are talking about physical infrastructure, manual compliance is difficult, expensive in labor cost, and sub-optimal given that many organizations choose to sample just a few representative systems for compliance, rather than actually testing the entire environment. When you are talking about virtual environments and cloud services, manual compliance processes just won't work, automation will be key.
• Incompatible log formats output by physical devices continues to be a problem for the industry that manifests itself in problems for security information and event management systems, log management systems, and auditors. Ditto for virtual and cloud environments, at much larger scale.
• Managing security configurations across physical versus virtual and cloud environments provides similar challenges. [Disclosure: The Open Group is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

Emerging-standards work from the Security Forum, which was originally conceived as solutions for some of these issues in traditional IT environments (in house, physical servers), will have important applications in cloud and virtualization scenarios. In fact, with the scale and agility provided by these environments, it is hard to think about adequately addressing audit and compliance concerns without standards that provide for scalable automation.

The Automated Compliance Expert Markup Language standards initiative will address issues of security configuration and compliance alerting and reporting across physical, virtual, and cloud environments. The revised XDAS standard from The Open Group will address audit incompatibility issues. Both of these standards efforts are work-in-progress at the present time, and our standards process is truly and open one. If your organization is a customer organization grappling with these issues, or a vendor whose product might benefit from implementing these standards, we invite you to learn more.

This BriefingsDirect guest post comes courtesy of Jim Hietala, vice president of security, The Open Group. You can reach him here.

Developing for Intel AMT isn't easy. While 4 weeks may seem like a short time, keep in mind that I don't eat or sleep (I work 24 hours a day). That's 4 weeks * 7 days * 24 hours = 672 hours! I'm joking again. But developing a management console really does take time. Here's some quick advice on working faster:

• Understand the basic concepts. This is the best advice I can give. Know what you're doing before you start doing.
  • Check out my first and second blog posts for a good introduction to Intel AMT.
• Sign up for ISPP. The Intel Software Partner Program allows you to create a Project Plan based on the use cases and features you'd like to implement. Know where you're going before you start going.
• Take advantage of your resources. Read the documentation in the SDK. There are also plenty of samples that implement the same features that you're trying to implement. Don't try reinventing the wheel.
• ASK QUESTIONS! Use the forums and blogs to ask questions about the things that you don't understand. I wasted so much time trying to figure things out for myself. Asking questions almost always gave me the answer I was looking for. Uh, just ask questions...

Within the next few weeks, I'll talk about some of the obstacles that I faced during development along with some more advice. You'll soon be able to download IT Helper 1.0 and try it out for yourself. I wanted to have it available by today, but I still have to work out some minor details before releasing it publicly. Thanks for reading and remember to check for updates regularly.

This is part of our success story series where users share their tips and tricks on using LinkedIn more effectively. Today's user experience story comes from Divya Gugnani, a venture capitalist and principal at First Mark Capital who provides companies with strategic and operational guidance to achieve their visions. Read more on one of her more recent sponsorship deals she closed, with the help of a LinkedIn connection.

I'm a LinkedIn evangelist, and as a startup CEO, I've become an even bigger fan. I love all things social media and happily ride the Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Yahoo! Buzz wave. What makes LinkedIn different and incredibly helpful is the instant access to my professional network with an easy to use interface. As a former venture capitalist I used LinkedIn to source deals, check references for management, and connect with entrepreneurs. Today I run a media company in the culinary space, Behind the Burner, where we leverage a network of over 250 culinary experts to package their best tips, tricks and techniques in the form of short videos, articles and blogs. We also offer tools and ingredients the experts recommend at a discount. We actively virally market our food and beverage tips learned Behind the Burner and I take this same sharing approach on LinkedIn.

I've networked and participated in various entrepreneur, startup, food and wine enthusiast groups on the site, from ONEKO Internet Entrepreneurs to Slow Food to Food Service Professionals Network. People regularly send me inMail for culinary how-tos, restaurant insights, small business questions and entrepreneurial advice. Sometimes these interactions result in new business relationships.

Last month, Michael Gross (CEO of AJ Madison) one of the country's largest e-commerce appliance retailers, reached out to partner with us on one Behind the Burner's video segments through LinkedIn. He wanted to further market his appliance brand and we were considering doing a piece on summer grilling, and so we made a deal. They sponsored the segment and offered a e-commerce deal so our members can enjoy free shipping on appliances through Labor Day and as a result, they got a great professional, widely syndicated video segment highlighting their high end outdoor grills and how to use them.

I also use LinkedIn to generate buzz about my new business and keep my personal and professional network up-to-speed on my culinary happenings. Adding my profile link in outgoing emails adds credibility and the extra qualification nudge with certain requests. Your LinkedIn profile is like a mini resume, that snapshots your skills, experience and offerings and I like being able to subtly sell my expertise, as well as investigate other people's potential by reviewing their profiles. This has been great resource for recruiting new talent, including writers, videographers, graphic designers and interns.

Sponsor

The application aggregates live streaming and recorded radio broadcasts from across the US, displays their current and planned content schedules and now offers a search function that stretches across all those different types of content: live streams, podcasts and text show descriptions. It's a free app and the the organization that makes it hosts almost nothing on its own servers. The end result is a remarkable user experience that ought to be an inspiration for old media of every kind. It isn't perfect, but it's getting better fast.

The app was made by a non-profit organization called Public Radio Exchange (PRX). PRX was founded and is run by Jake Shapiro, a man who used to be an associate director at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Shapiro used to produce an NPR radio show with Christopher Lyndon and before that he was one of the first tinkerers with web distribution of music for his band Two Ton Shoe.

Two Ton Shoe didn't find a lot of success in the United States, but thanks to the long tail of the web Shapiro says they somehow found a big fan base in Korea. The band toured there and Korean bands have covered some of their songs. "I'm a Korean rock star," Shapiro says, "and I believe there's a 'Korea' out there for everybody."

About a year ago Shapiro says he called around all the major players in public radio and argued that they had a unique opportunity in the iPhone platform if they could collaborate and create a really strong offering. An organization called American Public Media decided to contribute the work they had done so far on their own iPhone app to Shapiro's project and NPR and Public Radio International agreed to lend their support to what would become the Public Radio Tuner, today renamed the Public Radio Player.

Funding Local Radio on the iPhone

Public Radio Player could facilitate that long tail experience for obscure local public radio content by making it far more available on the iPhone. But PaidContent's Rafat Ali worries that by freeing radio listeners all the more from their local radio station, the Player could sever the loyalty and fund raising connections that keep public radio alive.

To that concern Shapiro has two interesting responses. First, he says that survey data shows most users prefer listening to their local stations on the app, along with a variety of favorites from elsewhere.

Even more interesting is the project's collaboration with Cluetrain Manifesto co-author Doc Searls. Searls is at Harvard's Berkman Center now, developing a framework for what's being called Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) - a customer-based response to the business paradigm of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The VRM project and Shapiro's PRX are developing ways for Public Radio Player users to track what they listen to on the player and make financial contributions to the radio stations they've consumed from the most.

Shapiro says that part of the project faces a major roadblock from Apple. Though Apple introduced in-application payments last month, the feature is only available to paid apps (Public Radio Player is free) and charitable contributions through the iPhone are strictly prohibited. They can't even be talked about, Shapiro says, because Apple doesn't want to deal with the possibility of charity scams, there's tax complications, the platform's standard 30% fee for payments isn't tenable in a non-profit context and Apple has no financial incentive to solve this sticky complex of problems.

For now the app is funded by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That funding is up for renewal this summer. Shapiro says that a second round of funding would be used to create "showcase apps that would break new ground and create new technology." He says the company is particularly interested in technologies that represent a hybrid of digital and broadcast. "With radio," he says, "there is still a tremendous amount of reach that you don't want to give up on when you move into the digital space."

Fixing the App

That hybrid paradigm is very well represented by the new version of the Public Radio Player. The previous version, called Public Radio Tuner, was one of the most popular free apps in the iPhone store but it didn't really work that well. Radio streams got dropped a lot. That's no longer a big problem with version 2.0.

The new version of the app tackles the problem of dropped streams by making the buffering settings much more sophisticated. Remember, the App doesn't host any of the audio, it just points to the live streams or podcasts stored on public radio stations' own servers. Project manager Matt MacDonald says the app now determines what kind of bandwidth the receiving phone has, then buffers the inbound stream accordingly before serving it up to listeners. The end result is a radically more usable radio app on wifi, 3G or Edge connections.

It's still not perfect; this like every app is at the mercy of AT&T's wireless network, but dropped streams appear to be much, much less frequent than they used to be. The interface sometimes hangs when loading menus, but Shapiro says that with the new release today bug fixes are a top priority and though crash reports are appearing infrequently, they are being closely watched. "Just shake the phone," he jokes. "Then it will work better."

More Than One Kind of Content

The new app brings a whole lot more radio to your iPhone. In addition to pointing to hundreds of radio streams, PRX has co-ordinated a number of different sources to pull show schedules down to be stored locally on your phone. "Scheduling data has been a big effort," Shapiro says. "It never existed in one place and is still a moving target."

A company called Public Interactive (recently acquired by NPR from Public Radio International) has a metadata tool that originally captured music playlists but now publishes radio show schedules as well. NPR and many radio stations also display schedules on their own websites. PRX aggregates all that data, stores it on your phone, syncs it with the radio stream links and then checks for changes each time you launch the Public Radio Player app.

Having the particular show that's playing displayed along with a station name makes a very big difference in the user experience.

The 2.0 version of the app also includes support for "on demand" or podcast listening. Hundreds of podcasts are navigable by featured shows, category or alphabetically. Podcasts are integrated into some of the show schedules as well. When listening to a streaming station, you can view the rest of the day's schedule and see what other shows will be broadcast later. Then you can choose to listen to previous recorded editions of those shows. It's a pretty seamless experience.

Search is No Small Matter

The new search functionality integrates all of the above, letting you search for keywords or topics and finding both recorded and currently live shows that match your search. MacDonald says the company used an open source program called ThinkingSphynx on the back end, worked closely with the NPR API team and is still working on teaching local radio stations about the importance of standards-based content titling. Listening to streams and podcasts on iTunes or an iPod may not have been so difficult with incomplete file names, but show a radio station how broken its content looks in a dynamic iPhone directory and the message comes through loud and clear.

There have been other efforts to index all the public radio streams online; Public Radio Fan is the most notable and is more international, but is less sophisticated and is based on the desktop and browser. (After listening to some international broadcasts via Public Radio Fan it's hard not to be a little disappointed with even Public Radio Player's extensive but exclusively US menu.)

As a media technology, Public Radio Player offers a unique blend of content aggregation, focus on both real time and recorded content and extensive data integration on the back end. All on the iPhone. Its design and performance continue to improve. It's a very impressive offering in terms of content delivery; if it can find a way to use the new platform it's on to transcend the public radio paradigm of on-air pledge drives, that would really be remarkable, wouldn't it?

Jake Shapiro says that offering Public Radio Player on other platforms, including a web interface, is a logical next step. You can follow the project's progress on the Public Radio Player blog and download the application here.

In the past, I've had my fair share of run ins with dress code culture. When I was a sophomore in high school, Duncanville High School, the school I was attending, implemented a dress code that had me expelled and sent to The Summit Education Center for delinquent youth on several occasions (I was in there for wearing shorts to school, the guy next to me threw a computer at a teacher's head and almost killer hergo figure).

But, I managed to graduate from high school and as I moved into college life, I took comfort in the fact that I would never again have to succumb to a mandatory dress code. That is, until I started working for Equity Residential, my sophomore year in college. While I have adopted a somewhat hipster, laid-back look in recent years, back then, I was very much dressed as a bonafide professional. Freshly pressed Express shirts. Hundred dollar ties. Hugo Boss slacks. Kenneth Cole shoes. Head to toe, I was the image of success and my style of dress made me feel confident. Confidence is what sell, not clothing.

Around a year into my sales and marketing position with Equity Residential, though, they decided to implement a corporate-wide dress code. But, unlike most dress codes, where a color scheme is submitted that employees must adhere to, Equity Residential decided that they would force all employees to wear identical, mass-produced, cheap and, many of the garments, downright hideous clothing that they picked out for us. Now, my hundred dollar ties were being replaced with an ill-fitting, salmon, polyester knit shirt that made me want to cut myself every time I caught a glimpse of them in the mirror.

In an attempt at professionalism, I sent the following letter to my district manager as a response to the Equity Residential dress code policy:

Equity Residential's Outward Display of Confidence and Professionalism'

A uniform is a potent symbol of corporate identity and, as such, companies spend considerable time, money and effort in an attempt to ensure their staff project the right look. Equity Residential (EQR) takes great pride in the caliber of its properties, customer service and staff and has put into place many excellent systems to ensure that level of quality is upheld. Last year's Equity Residential Management Excellence Series states, Your appearance sends a message to your co-workers, residents and prospective residents, and that has been proven time and again. Not only does a well-dressed associate convey professionalism to the consumer, but also, feeling good about one's appearance can add a level of confidence to a salesperson. That added confidence could make the difference in whether the salesperson closes the sale. It is this level of confidence that EQR's proposed dress code has put under attack.

Within the apartment industry, the educated consumer has a wide selection of comparable properties they may choose to reside. EQR has consistently driven market flow to its properties by holding its employees to a higher standard than its competitors. They hire well, have implemented innovative training techniques and treat their employees with respect and kindness. In return, EQR has been listed as one of Fortune's Most Admired Companies' and should be commended on their efforts. A recent article in Inc. Magazine reiterates the old adage, A happy employee is a good employee. Unfortunately, there is a negative buzz circulating through many of EQR's properties that has dropped employee morale. The recent rollout of EQR's new dress code has left many employees in a state of mild contempt.

The reasons for implementing a dress code are valid. EQR is striving to be America's Choice for Apartment Living and in order to achieve that goal, must maintain the same quality of service at each of its properties nationwide. Consumers like to feel comfortable and familiarity creates a comfort zone for them. It is great for the consumer to know that they can go to any EQR property in the nation and receive the exact same level of excellence, take advantage of all the same programs and benefits and find a comforting correlation in an employee dressed with the same style and color of clothing as their last leasing staff, in which they were so close. It is wonderful that EQR has fronted the bill for the cost of these clothes, in an attempt, to keep the workplace fair and prevent those unable or unwilling to purchase dress code compliant clothing from having to bare that expense. In an effort to be fair, though, those employees who are more than capable of purchasing their own clothes and take great pride in their appearance; have had to suffer.

In Malcolm Gladwell's new best-selling book, Blink, he talks about the unconscious perception our brain has about people after the first two seconds of meeting them. When we meet someone new, we often pick up on subtle signalsbrief facial expressions, made unconsciouslyYou wouldn't need to hear anything I was saying in order to reach these conclusions. They would just come to you, blink. This is a powerful message in sales and even salespeople who adopt the Fake It Till You Make It axiom, still give off subtle hints as to what they are really feeling, whether they do it consciously or not. So, how does the salesperson, who is upset with their company for putting them in clothes that demean their personality, sell that company's product without accidentally giving off one of these brief signals of discontent?

A corporate uniform has many advantages and in recent years has been adopted by many companies. EQR's decision to switch to uniform dress comes with a great deal of both good and logical reasoning. But, is it really necessary to force all employees to wear the same brand of clothing? After all, the garment industry is comprised of many different designers, not only to provide flair and originality, but also, to accommodate the hundreds of different body types and structures. It is ridiculous to think that because one person might look stunning in a Blue Bill Blass Premium Dress Shirt, coincidently, ALL people will look stunning in a Blue Bill Blass Premium Dress Shirt. Why not give employees the freedom to wear clothes that are tailored to their particular needs, given they stay within EQR's designated colors? EQR prides itself on having the best customer service in the industry and expects each of their employees to uphold that sterling tradition. Why not create a win/win situation that boosts employees' self-esteem, confidence and overall closing ratios? EQR has always put its employees first and reaped the benefits, time and time again. Let's keep that tradition alive and together we can make Equity Residential Properties, America's Choice for Apartment Living!

Sincerely,

Jon Ray

Equity Residential assured me that they would take my letter into consideration and I assured them that if a change was not made to the dress code policy, I would no longer serve as an employee of the company. A change was never made and while I was fortunate enough to be able to walk away, I left a huge percentage of the Equity Residential staff grumbling over their hideous new clothing.

Now, I'm not sure if Equity Residential has changed their dress code policy. It is my understanding that they have not. But, that is not the point of this post. The point is this: If you have a successful team of employees that are doing an excellent job and look above average in terms of professionalism on a daily basis, why would you force such an obvious team-morale declining sanction on the very employees that have done nothing but help your company grow?

I have never heard of a mandatory dress code that did not leave the majority of the employees it governed disgruntled. I have not been in the corporate world for some time (I started my own company after the Equity Residential fiasco, so that I would never have to adhere to a ridiculous dress code, again), but I hear horror stories about hideous dress codes being implemented in offices, all the time. What purpose does this serve, other than stifling individualism and squashing creative freedom?

I'd love to hear a good argument FOR dress code, as I have never heard one before.

RANT FINISHED ;)

Tracking goals in a concrete and visual way is an excellent motivational tool. The Seinfeldian Chain, previously covered here, is certainly a strong example of the effectiveness and popularity of the technique when used as motivation for a single goal. The ReFocus worksheet allows you to track up to five goals over a month. From the author's web site:

The end result looks like a cross between a Scantron form and Benjamin Franklin's Thirteen Virtues form. The purpose of this form is purely to give me a sense of accomplishment and to give feedback when I'm being unfocused. I still need to keep track of tasks that need to get done, but management of tasks and analysis of progress are now separated.

Each circle is filled in completely, halfway, or not at all to indicate whether you made progress. If your goal was to eat healthy food and you ate a great breakfast and dinner but went out for lunch and ate fast food, you might, for example, fill in a half circle for that day. To the side there is space for notes.

If you like the layout and want to check out another well-designed planning sheet, check out the previously reviewed Day Grid Balancer.

Multiplatform video company Current Media said today that Mark Rosenthal, the former president and COO of MTV Networks and CEO of Interpublic Media, will replace co-founder Joel Hyatt as CEO.

Rosenthal had been a Current board member since the inception of the company. Hyatt will now serve as vice chairman.

Rosenthal had most recently been vice chairman and president of media platforms at the troubled ad startup Spot Runner, which he joined a little over a year ago from Interpublic.

Current says its cable channel is available in more than 60 million households and its web site has more than 7 million unique visitors per month. Chairmain Al Gore said in a recent speech that the site now receives more than 10 million video views per month.

The most notable news out of Current in recent months is something it hasn't actually covered the imprisonment of two of its journalists. Laura Ling and Euna Lee are being held in North Korea after being convicted for trespassing there while they were on assignment from the network.

With no disrespect to that terrible situation, Current still has some really fantastic talent we love the folks at InfoMania (recent coverage) and some great opportunities to make the web and TV work together. But it hasn't always been smooth sailing, and the network scrapped IPO plans earlier this year, citing the bad economy. In the run-up to the IPO we had also challenged the company's claims that it was profitable.

Current's most recent management hire was Paul Levine, president of new media, who had previously been with AdBrite.

Sorry about the poor quality pic; Current hasn't updated its management files yet.

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Chris Soghoian observed in CNET that

Google's terms of service, thick with legalese, state that:

You may not use Google's products, software, services and web sites and may not accept the Terms if you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google.

Of course if you're in the US that means that anyone under 18 is accessing Google's computer system in violation of its terms of service. And this applies to all Google services, YouTube, Gmail, and Image Search.

Ignoring Legal Risks Leads to Selective Prosecution
Federal prosecutors recently used the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to selectively prosecute Lori Drew as a hacker for violating MySpace's terms of service. She lied about her identity, and harassed a troubled minor who was also using the system under a false identity. After the child committed suicide, a media and political frenzy resulted in federal prosecutors turning a breach of the site's terms, which might not have even been civilly enforcable, in to a federal criminal case.

Ignoring the Disconnect Between Terms and Practice May Partly Void the Agreement
Obviously, online services retain the right to modify their own terms of use. You may begin a user experience with a minimal grant of rights and a maximum of restrictions when reflexively accepting terms. However, when site staff clearly operate to the contrary to those terms, and in some instances assure users that terms in the TOS won't be enforced, isn't the contract being modified within the user experience?

Smoking Gun: Google for Kids
Google in fact provides safe-search resources just for kids. There's no easily accessible link to terms of service, so arriving new users aren't even exposed to them.

Question 1: By creating this site and its other practices, doesn't Google by their own practice modify their terms?

Question 2: Could any reasonable person believe that a new visitor to the Google Directory for Kids and Teens should be bound by these unseen terms, which even Google seems to disregard?

Question 3: What risk is created by the gap between the lawyers who wrote the TOU, site management who follows their own drummer, and visitors who ignore the terms are entirely disconnected.

Are such TOU's unenforcable sharades posing as contracts?

Back in June 2008, I wrote Hey AP! How About Running A Real News Web Site?, which in the wake of AP making noise about fair use guidelines examined how the organization failed to provide any central article that anyone could point at. A key part of my article:

To get back to the bloggers, let me point out a key problem you have. Your stories appear everywhere, like weeds. Then they die, unlike weeds. Like they disappear after roughly 30 days. This was an issue I pointed out when the Google deal was struck.

Now skip ahead to this past May. In writing Do Newspapers Owe Google Fair Share Fees For Researching Stories?, I said:

Let's consider last week's wonderful story from the AP about how old Japanese maps on Google Earth are causing problems with some in that country. Given that news stories have a tendency to disappear, I'm going to link to the story using its entire headline: Old Japanese maps on Google Earth unveil secrets. Now if the story should move for some reason, as least with the headline, there's a chance of locating it in some new location.

Try to go to that story today, where I linked to it at, and you get a 404 error:

The page you've requested does not exist at this address.

Nice. As Jean commented, you can still find the article over at the Huffington Post. Perhaps HuffPo's deal with the AP allows stories to be up longer than 30 days. Certainly the Seattle Times still has it, also. But the copy over at Yahoo is dead, meaning all that Digg love it had generated is now going to waste.

If people wonder why I might seem so hostile to newspapers screaming about how badly they're being done by Google, bloggers and aggregators, it's stuff like this that does it. This is lunacy. It doesn't engender respect or a believe that the AP or other organizations really understand the world they're operating in.

I linked to the article the AP itself had put out on its own web site. They kill it. Links from Digg that would generate thousands of visits are allowed to die. Duplicate content across the web isn't regulated by the AP itself there's no instructions for publications to block that content from search engines; no thought about consolidating links; no thought about how no one can tell what's the authorative piece that they should link to.

And yet the AP and others yap that they don't get credit enough, that people rip them off, that Google should somehow have supernatural abilities to make up for the mess they contribute to. Please.

But hey, it's all going to be better now. AP proposes new article formatting for the Web from the Associated Press itself tells us of a new standard (write that headline down, so you can find the article in 30 days when it dies). It involves meta tagging articles, which will:

The tag[s] identifying usage rights could allow Web sites that aggregate content to automatically sort articles by copyright terms and let publishers more easily track how their stories are being used, said Srinandan Kasi, AP's general counsel.

If you want to know more about the system, visit the Value Added News site. Don't worry as you're told:

Adding semantic value to your news is not rocket science. It doesn't even require serious plumbing in the depths of your database.

Then scroll down after that intro, and your head will hurt. Like if I use the microformat for Daily News, which Daily News is that? Because there's a number of them out there. The tech specs don't help.

As for the AP already using this, when I looked, I didn't see tags on some selected articles I examined. I certainly didn't see them on AP content being redistributed by AP members. I even wonder if the tags will carry over across the various content management systems out there, once they leap forth from the AP.

But wait, there's more. What about ACAP? That's supposed to be a shining star in the rights management area that AP signed on to ages ago. ACAP, which is being positioned (see also here) to European legislators as part of a solution to protect newspapers and publishers from those evil aggregators.

So now AP is going to use a second system in addition to ACAP? And yet meanwhile fail to follow the most important system, basic SEO?

Sigh. Maybe later I'll ask the AP about it. Maybe they'll even decide that someone from the AP can speak to me, unlike earlier this year. Believe it or not, I'd like to see them succeed. I only wish it were less talk, less smoke-and-mirrors, less we can't unless and more action with what they really can do now, in an action that technically makes sense.

Scientific American's Frederik Joelving writes about a new study that shows "that swearing may serve an important function in relieving pain." Basically, a group of psychiatrists wondered why it is that we seem to react to pain by swearing and conducted an experiment in which they studied the pain tolerances of a group of students who were swearing and a control group who wasn't. The results, as you may have guessed, were positive for the folks with the dirty mouths.

But hang on. Before you take a deep breath and start screaming profanities, keep this in mind:

In extreme cases, the hotline to the brain's emotional system can make swearing harmful, as when road rage escalates into physical violence. But when the hammer slips, some well-chosen swearwords might help dull the pain.

So, beware of overusing this "method" and resort to other pain management solutions when in polite company. (And keep some bandages on hand just in case it fails.)

Do you have methods of dealing with pain that turn heads and prompt parents to cover their children's ears? How about a trick that'll help me deal with the nasty paper cut I inflicted on myself? Let's hear your ideas in the comments. And while you're swearing like a sailor, you can also skip straight to the operator with your dirty mouth.

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The Interview and PDF

The interview is about 20 minutes, a good listen. If you want to do justice to this subject, read the PDF first as background, and then listen to the MP3. For the super-busy skimmer, we attempt to distill the essence below.

Download the MP3.

The Return on Asset Bombshell

This is what caught our attention in the email -- and is the reason we wanted to do this interview:

"U.S. companies' return-on-assets (ROA) have progressively dropped 75 percent from their 1965 levels despite rising labor productivity."

That is dramatic. If you had to select a single measure by which to judge the value delivered by a CEO, board, or management team, it would be return on assets. To quote from the Wikipedia entry:

"The return on assets (ROA) percentage shows how profitable a company's assets are in generating revenue. This number tells you what the company can do with what it has, i.e. how many dollars of earnings they derive from each dollar of assets they control."

And here is the bit that matters:

"Return on assets is an indicator of how profitable a company is before leverage."

If you want to understand the financial meltdown that happened at the end of 2008, just think leverage, i.e. debt. Companies juiced up their earnings using leverage. They have been doing this more and more in the last 30 years.

What happens when you take that away? You get the return on asset bombshell that the Shift Index reveals. It is like taking steroids away from an athlete and then saying, "Now, how fast can you run 100 meters?"

Only a US and BigCo Problem?

The massive ROA drop was measured across all public companies in the US since 1965.

It would be very interesting to see the results for Europe and Asia. Would they be different? Has anyone run those numbers?

Public companies tend to be large. We were interested in knowing whether this was simply a BigCo problem. Here at ReadWriteWeb, we report on startups and small companies. Our assumption for some time has been that an historic shift in power is taking place from BigCo to SmallCo, which can be explained by Coase's Theorem.

Now that we've seen huge companies, household names such as Lehman and GM, crumble before our eyes, thinking that BigCos are in serious trouble is no longer a radical idea. And as nature and economies abhor a vacuum, this must create opportunities for others. The question is whether this shift will be simply from some BigCos to others, as they out-compete each other, or a more fundamental shift from BigCos to SmallCos.

We asked John Hagel about this, and he told us his view that the shift in power to smaller companies, even to free-agent individuals, is a short-term trend and that bigger companies will return to dominance once they figure out how to operate in this new environment. He told us that BigCos face a great challenge in part because:

"They grew up and became successful in a different environment, where scalable efficiency was the way to generate and sustain economic value."

He goes on to explain that money follows talent and that large companies are having a hard time articulating to the most talented and creative individuals why they would be able to grow and prosper more within large institutions than as free agents or in small ventures. He believes that large companies will be able to make that transition. Clearly, given his role with Deloitte, which provides management consulting to large companies, he has to take that view. But he has also voted with his feet on this issue, by even joining a large company like Deloitte in the first place, when he was already a successful free-agent author and consultant.

His fundamental message is that BigCos need to offer a rationale other than just scalable efficiency. This is consistent with Coase's Theorem. His view is that this rationale will be "scalable learning." Scalable learning sounds like it could become an over-used buzzword, but when you listen to him describe how companies build networks of partnerships that learn from each other, it comes alive.

It certainly will resonate with anyone who has worked at a startup.

The question is whether BigCos can learn to work like agile startups again. In other words, is it possible to teach elephants to dance?

How Can Enterprise 2.0 Vendors Articulate Their Value in This Context?

I asked John if he saw a day when more CTOs and CIOs would become CEOs, because really understanding systems and technology has become so essential for leaders. He was skeptical. In fact, John views the risk-averse nature of most CIOs as a big stumbling block.

John pointed out that most companies have "only skimmed the surface" of opportunities to use social media to build richer knowledge networks that cross the firewall and connect with partners and customers. Indeed, he talked about the problem of how "most CIOs are tending to become extremely risk-averse." He pointed out that CIO turn-over is increasing, and that the reason CIOs get fired is often because of some big operational blow-up. So, they avoid anything that puts current operations at risk. In doing so, they may be creating even bigger issues, as large companies miss opportunities to leverage social media to create new value.

John's advice to Enterprise 2.0 vendors is to become a lot better at articulating how their technology can build value and competitive advantage at scale. That is obviously easier said than done. But doing it is essential. The CIO will be motivated to look at operational risks only if the CEO tells him or her that the risks of ignoring them are greater.

The Interview and PDF

Download the MP3 and PDF.

Bloomberg News

Warren Buffett

It turns out that the person who spent $1,680,300 for lunch with the investment guru wasn't a person at all: it was Canadian wealth-management firm Salida Capital. It went public about its purchase Wednesday.

Courtenay Wolfe, Salida's CEO, said that she and a handful of other employees will all share the lunch, which the firm's partners paid for.

We think we will be able to gain invaluable insights from his years of experience and current insights and perspectives, she said. We think lunch with Warren is going to be a once in a lifetime experience.

Ms. Wolfe will have to wait up to a year to get on Buffett's lunch schedule, so isn't yet sure exactly what she'll ask him. The world is changing, she said. But obviously his views of where the world is and where the market environment is going will be of importance.

Will it be worth more than $1.68 million to her firm? That would be the hope, she said.

Ms. Wolfe said the firm was also motivated by making a charitable donation to San Francisco's Glide Foundation, which gets all of the proceeds.

The auctioning was done by a person, who made a decision at the last second (a Buffett tactic?) to bid just $100 more, which gave Salida the final edge. It was $100 well spent, Ms. Wolfe said.

What websites do you usually go to for design news, inspirational, or tutorials?

I'd have to say probably my favorite place right now for inspiration is ffffound.com. It's not really web design exactly but it's a lot of really cool imagery, a lot of cool colors, shapes and stuff like that.

As far as design news, I don't know if there's anything so interesting out there that I'm really watching for, but there's new great design in all directions, coming from all different places all the time. Things like poster design, new typography ideas, etc.

Is there a particular web designer that you're looking up to right now?

You know, I'm seeing more and more good design actually all the time. However, I can't say that I have a favorite right now.

Generally I'm seeing just a lot of cool stuff and stylistically, style continues to advance. But the copy and the clarity isn't necessarily getting better. I'm not seeing very many sites where I think, Wow this was really well thought out and well written. I still don't see a lot of that.

Why is there a lack of copywriting skills among web designers?

Nobody seems to be talking about it. Where are all the blog posts about how to make really super-clear content?

The thing that's really easy to look at and copy are pixels, color combinations and type. I think it's really hard to look at a website as a writing project because as a designer, we have all these magic tricks we can do with our CSS and our HTML and everything and we kind of have to put that in the back and make that take a back seat to, do I really have anything to say here?

Last week I posted to our blog about Jacob Neilsen's site, praising the the Alertbox articles. Each one is completely crafted as a piece of writing. Something to be read and understood and digested. I love the way certain points are bolded and the way the whole thing is structured is really well thought out. I think it's a really inspiring example of great copy.

If you're a designer who doesn't do any writing, you're going to hit a brick wall in your career at some point.

What books can designers read to get better at copywriting?

One of my favorite books is by a guy, William Zinsser, it's called, On Writing Well. That was an inspiration for me and I remember reading that and feeling like it really helped me a lot.

What's the one skill that new designers focus on?

You gotta start handcoding! It's the number one basic craft of web design, if you don't handcode then you're not going to be able to move into doing web app interfaces, which is really what I'm doing now.

You're not going to able to work on applications or collaborate on code or make apps, websites that really have a lot of behavior unless you get into handcoding, so I think that's like the barebones thing that for sure everybody should be doing.

What software do you use for coding?

I happen to use Vim, which is a little bit of a nerdy tool, but a lot of my coworkers use Textmate and love it. A lot of people say that BBedit is great and I also hear that Coda is really nice. There are all kinds of options out there.

As a designer, do you need to understand frontend development?

The more you understand about frontend development, the better designer you'll be. If you are really familiar with handcoding and you understand basic HTML markup and you know how CSS selectors work then you're really well prepared, for example, to use the fact that jQuery and Prototype both have a way to refer to pieces of your mark-up using CSS selectors even though your not using CSS.

If you're designing web app user interfaces, then I think it's important to get into understanding how an MVC framework works like Rails or Django. If you can understand how your templates fit in to the view, as the V in MVC then that's a huge leap. You can really start doing work with programmers and you can have ideas and you can make them into reality instead of just making designs and handing them off to somebody and hoping that someone else can plug them in.

How do you learn about MVC?

It depends on your situation. If you're a designer and you work with programmers already (who are friendly) then just ask them questions. They can really get you started on the right path. Don't be afraid to ask dumb questions - they'll appreciate the fact that you're trying to learn.

If you are a little more programming minded and you're on your own, there's all kinds of stuff you could read, a basic primer on Rails would help a lot.

Getting into programming in general is quite useful. Before I did web design I setup Access databases and Filemaker databases and stuff like that. Jason Fried did the same thing actually - he started with Filemaker databases, and I think that basic understanding about how does a database work, just what are the pieces and trying to visualize, how could I display that or how could I manipulate that data, is a really good kind of foundation level.

What is a typical day in the life of Ryan Singer?

Ugh, it's pretty busy lately. We are a small team and we try to do a lot with a few people. We actually just brought on a new designer, so we're up to three designers now which is going to help. I spend a fair amount of time designing UI for new features. We always design the interface first, before building anything.

So part of my day is actually designing new features, another part of my day, because I'm also working as a product manager here, is to figure out what we should be doing next and who's going to be doing it.

Also I love, I just love, getting into Rails and making things work too, so I do a fair bit of programming everyday. As much as I can plug stuff in, I do it.

Do you think being a product manager has helped you become a better designer?

No, not at all. I think that it's the opposite actually. When you're wearing your Manager Hat' you start to create a barrier between you and the designers and developers that are actually implementing the app.

It's really harmful to the product because anytime you have a separation from the one whose coming up with the ideas and the ones who are doing the work, it's a bad thing.

As a designer, is it important to be interested in the business side of things?

No. Either you're interested in the business side or you're not. However, if you have an understanding of what compels people to make buying decisions and how marketing works, you can feed it into your design work.

Okay, well with that, I think that our time is up, thanks so much for your time.

Yeah sure thing, thanks for chatting.

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Photo Credit: DHH

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