blog364

The other day I came across two quotes that left me completely bewildered. I was bewildered not because I didn’t understand them, but because they shown a lack of understanding, vision, imagination and questioning of what is and what should be. And the worst part is that I know many, many people who repeat these two quotes on a regular basis as if they were some magic spell or New Age way of managing a business. And they are not! All they do is mask more serious issues and questions that should be addressed in a direct manner at every step of building or creating a new product or service. They are empty words lacking actionable power and guidance. Accepting their ‘wisdom’ at face value and expecting that they will lead to a successful and long lusting business is the same as thinking that you can solve an algebra equation by chewing gum.

Without any further due…

Go Build It!

Build it and they will not come: Oh, really? Well, duh! Ok, fine. Yes, it’s true: just building or creating a product or service is no guarantee that anyone will want to buy it. But what’s the option? Not to build it? If you don’t then there’s NO business, period! So clearly, not building it is not an option (at least not a good one). Thus the quote as it is written is empty of actionable value and pointless. You have to build it, you have no choice. You didn’t go into business to “do nothing, build nothing”. Most likely you went into business because you either have a crazy idea that you can’t get out of your head until you build it or you’ve identified a problem with a large enough user-base and think that you have a solution for it. Either way… you are in business to build it! So go ahead, make “your day”! If you don’t, then the quote becomes a self fulfilling prophecy even before you get started. If you build it, what’s the worst that it can happen? That “they” don’t come? Hmmm… well if you don’t build it, for sure “they” won’t come.

Let’s turn this empty quote into an actionable statement/question:

• How do I build it so they come?

But lets not stop there. Why? Because we don’t only want users to come… we want them to buy too. So let’s add:

• And buy it?

Now you have a product that solves someone’s problem in an efficient manner that’s worth paying for. But this only will get you so far, so many customer and so much money. It’s in the last part where the magic happens…

• And they tell all their friends about it?

Ok, so may be this is not much of a quote, but it’s one heck of actionable question/statement to help you build a solid product or service:

“How do I build it so they come and buy it and they tell all their friends about it?”

We can distill this statement into three actionable steps:

1. Concentrate on the core problem that you are trying to address/resolve/fix for your target users/market. Everything else is noise!
2. Implement a solution that in the words of Arthur C. Clarke is “indistinguishable from magic.”
3. To borrow/steal from Seth Godin: Make it a Purple Cow. Why? Because when you see one, the first thing you want to do is tell all your friends!

In the words of William Shakespeare: “To build or not to build? That is the question.” And the answer is simple: YES! Build it. You can’t afford not to!

Am I doing what’s good or what I’m good at: This quote really scares me, because the understanding is that you should be doing “what’s good” for the company. But what’s the value in doing “what’s good” if you are not “good” at it? If the most important thing is to do what’s best for the company but you are not the best at it, then by simply attempting to do “what’s good” you are in effect doing “what’s worst” for the company. What’s best for the company is adding value to it and you can only add value to it if you are doing for it what you do best. Attempting to do “what’s good” when you don’t have the right skills can end up in a worst situation than if left alone. Instead you should be focusing on what you are “good at” and then finding a way to use your particular set of skills to add value to your company, its products or services. If you want proof that doing “what you are good at” is indeed the best thing you can do for your company, then you don’t have to look any further than a professional sports team. Why? Because in a top performing team, each player (i.e. employee) as a specific position to cover and task to accomplish. And they are put in these positions because that’s what they are best at, not necessarily what’s best for the team. You wouldn’t expect a three-point shooter to be a great rebounder or a filed-goal kicker to be a great defender, would you? They have special and specific skills that they bring to the team and they add value by doing what they do best. It’s the collective actions of each team member doing what they do best that results in doing what’s best for the company.

Another good reason to do “what you are good at” instead of “what’s good” is that you’ll never stand out doing “what’s good” if you are mediocre doing it. You might get a pat in the back and a ‘good job’ here and there, but your contribution will be soon forgotten. Your only chance to stand out, to be what author Seth Godin calls a ‘linchpin‘ is to do what you do best!

I recently changed my mobile plan to a family one. Not getting all the information about it that I wanted online, I decided to go down to the nearest AT&T store to get more information in person. After finding a suitable plan I decided to make the change on the spot. The sales person helping me was very easy going and patient with all my questions and explained the entire plan in detail, including what kind of new monthly bill I could expect.

Everything was good until yesterday, when I received an email with my monthly bill (the first one under the new plan). Upon opening the bill, there in plain sight was the total monthly cost. Problem was… it wasn’t what the sales associated had told me it should be. I figure there must have been some kind of error (Yes, I did try to read/understand the bill, but they make them harder to decipher than an Enigma machine, and for good reason!), so I called AT&T customer service to find out what it was.

Sure enough, there were three “extra” charges that the sales associate had forgotten to mention (and I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt!):

1. Activation fee ($18)*

2. Internet access fee ($2 PER occurrence) – even though I had explicitly said that I didn’t want this option active in my mother’s phone

3. A strange pro-rated charge ($22) that the customer service person on the other side of the phone could not explain (not at least in a believable manner)

So there it was, an extra $42 added to my bill without my consent or knowledge. That totaled an extra 40% above what I was told the monthly bill would be. I explained to the person helping me that it didn’t seem fair to be getting charged for things that: 1) I wasn’t told were part of the deal, or that I had explicitly said I didn’t want, and 2) they couldn’t explain what they were, how they got in my bill or why I should have to pay for them. So he did the right thing and removed the extra $42 from my bill. Well done AT&T!!!

Apathy

I’ve always been of the opinion that if you can ‘pitch’ you should be able to ‘catch’. The same goes, if we can trash companies when they don’t behave ethically and treat their customers properly, that we do recognize when they do the right things (after all is not “that” often). So, once again, well done AT&T. You made me feel heard and that resolving my pain was, at least this time, more important than an extra $42 in your quarterly revenue report. Keep it up!!!

But, this post is not really about how AT&T changed, is changing, might change or what. No. This posting is about us, the consumers, buyers, customers, the ones that keep the business in, well… business. And how we seem to have grown used to, somewhat tolerant and, worst still, expectant of certain level of mistreatment from the companies that we used to provide us a product or service.

We sign up for services without reading the “service agreement”. We accept what comes on our bills without second thought or consideration. And most of the times, when we notices an impropriety (i.e.: extra charge, poor treatment, etc.) we don’t even bother to speak up. No wonder then, that companies are not chaining and still getting away with this type of behavior…. it’s call conditioning, and we have no one to blame but ourselves. And that’s sad.

But it doesn’t have to be like that. From Dell Hell to Antennagate, we’ve seen how making a stand for what’s right can make even the largest corporations stop, listen and, more and more often now, make changes that will have a long term positive impact, not only on their customers but, by association, on their bottom lines. The Internet, with all it’s tools (i.e.: search, email, Twitter, blogs, forums, etc.), is allowing customers to come together (there’s strength in numbers, and the Internet’s numbers can be mighty forces of change!) and hold companies accountable to their actions and demand changes. And that’s a good thing. But a tool is only as good as the person handling it and if we don’t continue pushing forward and demanding better treatment from companies then the momentum will be lost and it will be back to the status quo.

Our silence would just continue to reinforce that they are in control. But that doesn’t have to be the case. We are entering a new era of “customer empowerment”. This is a time to make our voices heard, specially when we feel that we’ve been wronged by a company. Companies need to come to terms with the fact that in this always-connected world, one bad customer service experience or “extra” charge can no longer be swept under the carpet. And that when these situations do occur, that we won’t stay on the sidelines and send, yet another, check in the mail. No. Now we’ll be tweeting, writing our blogs, posting on forums and sending emails all around the world. We’ll be asking for change and we shall receive it, because the price of doing nothing will be more costly to the companies than any short-term financial loss.

But for this change to happen we, customers, need to change too. And this starts by standing up, picking up the phone (or email, or whatever means of communication you deem appropriate) and contacting the offending company and requesting that they fix their errors. I know it sounds crazy, but it really is that simple. Call the company (be nice about it), explain what the issue is and how you’d like it to be resolved/fixed. Don’t accept NO for an answer. As long as what you are asking is reasonable, just and fair you shouldn’t feel bad for asking. You’ll be surprised how many times they’ll correct the mistake. Just be prepare to present a valid reason!

In the past month, I had three instances where I felt that I wasn’t being treated properly:

1. Over-billing

2. Negotiating a new car lease

3. Bad service experience at a restaurant

Each of these times I found who the correct person would be for me to talk to. I explained the situations and how I’d like for my needs to be resolved. Each time, I got exactly what I wanted. Had I not ask, not only would I have felt that I got the worst end of the bargain but I would have felt that I let myself down and that I didn’t have any control over a situation that I was part of.

We seem to have forgotten that the easiest way of getting what we want is by simply asking for it. Not doing so will cost you more in the long run, not just financially but emotionally too.

You are in control. And that’s not something that you need to ask for!

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* This ‘activation’ fee is wrong for several reasons, and here are two:

1. No activation, no service. No service, no customer. No customer, no revenue!

2. Why should I pay to activate a phone/line which is already active under a different plan

NOTE: These ‘activation’ fees are the same as the typical gym’s “sign up” fee. It’s 100% profit. I know because I used to work at a gym. All it takes is for the sales associate to punch the new customer/client’s information on the computer and hit <ENTER>. So next time you sign up at a gym tell them that if they want you as a member, they better waive the fee!

I love Apple products. I love how they look, I love how they function and I love how they make me feel when I use them (Seth Godin was right in All Marketer are Liars when he said that we don’t buy products, we buy the stories that we tell ourselves about the products we buy!), but please don’t call me a “fanboy”. A “fanboy” has nothing but great things to say for the brands/products he/she loves. As much as I can see and appreciate the greatness in Apple (whether you like it or not they’ve come back from an ‘almost’ assure extinction), I can also see its shortcoming, mistakes and fumbles. From the app store approval process to the recent “antennagate“, Apple has had and will continue to have its share of issues. But one issue that no one seems to have brought up or made much fuss about is the current inability to delete any one of the pre-installed Apple apps on any of the iPhones.

My iPhone 3G came with 20 pre-installed apps. Of all these, there’s only one that I can think of that shouldn’t be deleted: Settings. This would be the same as deleting the Control Panel on a PC or System Preferences on a Mac. Clearly there’s a need for it. But why can’t I delete any of the other applications, such as: Weather, Stocks, Clock, Photos, et’al? Certainly, there are thousands of other applications in the App Store that can do the same things that these pre-installed apps can do and better. Why is it that Apple will let me uninstall pretty much any application that came pre-installed on my MacBook Pro but won’t let me do so from my phone?

So I decided to call Apple Care (I paid a pretty penny for it, so I figure I’d put it to some good use). After a little bit or “routing me around” I finally heard what I was expecting: “We don’t support that functionality. If you don’t want to see the pre-installed apps, just move them to the last ‘page’ on the phone.” Again…. F#$*ING LUDICROUS!!! Move them? Shove them under the proverbial “carpet”? OMG – LOL! This to me sounded much like the, now infamous, email from Steve Jobs to the user complaining about the iPhone 4 reception issues where he tells him to “Just avoid holding it in that way.”

I’m not saying: “don’t give me any pre-installed apps with my new phone”. All I’m asking is to have the choice to remove them if I want to. It’s my phone, I should be able to have a saying in what I put in it and what I remove. Can you imagine Ford telling you that you cannot change the tires on your new car or the stereo? Ludicrous!!!

Not too long ago Microsoft was made to capitulate about including Internet Explorer with Windows OS. Microsoft argued that it needed to include IE with Windows for the OS to work. The courts didn’t buy the argument and Microsoft had to provide a way to remove the intruding program (albeit in a way that made you feel that you were better off WITH the program rather than trying to go through the week long process to remove it!). That was ONE program. My iPhone has over 10.

To: Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive, Apple designers, et’al: your customers are smarter and more capable to make choices on their own, even if you don’t agree with them, than you give them credit for. Exercising such a tight control over your products long AFTER they have left the factory and been paid for will only help, in the not so-long term, to alienate your core supporters and only leave the “fanboys” behind. Of which, I’m sure aren’t enough to sustain your delusions of grandeur. You created the BEST MP3 player in the world but you didn’t tell us how to fill it up. You gave us great laptops but trusted us to fill them with useful applications…. please trust us that we are equally capable with your….err…. OUR phones!

Sincerely,

A loyal Apple user, but NOT a “fanboy”

This post is similar to the previous one about “Baby proof my stereo” in that it finds, yet, another everyday household item which could use a little bit of TLC-UX redesigned aimed at parents with young children. I’ll tell you, there’s nothing like having a young kid in the house to teach you a thing or two about the difference between how product manufacturers intend their products to be use and how they actually “could” be used.

Two days ago, I got a very clear demonstration. I was in the kitchen preparing breakfast when I hear the door of the microwave oven close and the a series of beeps. I hadn’t heard anyone come into the kitchen but I figure it was my wife warming up her cup of tea, so I said: “Good morning love.” The answers surprised me…”Hi daddy!” I turn around and see my son standing there, adorable as always, with a big smile on his face. He’s a very happy kid and smiles a lot, but that morning there was something particularly suspicious about it. It was a mix of angelical with “Oh boy am I gonna get in trouble now or what!” I said: “Dash, are you playing with the microwave?” Without losing his smile, he said: “No. I’m drying clown fish (don’t worry, we don’t actually have a living fish in the house!)” Clown fish is his favorite stuffed animal. Trying hard not to lose it or laugh I asked him why was he putting him in the microwave. He explained to me, with terms and logic that only a soon-to-be three year old knows how, that he had wet his pants and “clown fish” and he wanted to dry him.

I don’t know why but the image of the “Gremlin in the microwave” image immediately rush through my head. And then… a more sinister thought: what if he tries to put our cat in it? OMFG! This got me immediately thinking: how can you “baby/kid poof” a microwave? The answer came pretty quick. The SAME way that you baby proof a stereo!

Remove the interface controls in the unit and put them on a remote control. The only button should be the one to open the door. Nothing else.

Microwaves have simple enough functionality that fitting it in a decent size remove shouldn’t be too difficult. With bluetooth or some other wireless technology, you could even control it from any room in the house. If you have small children in the house this would be a wonderful solution. You’d never again have to worry about how the microwave “could” be used or whether the family’s pet might end up in the nightly supper stew, or whether they kids might set the house on fire (clearly the cooking stove is another candidate for this, but this article is not about “baby proofing” it. At least not yet!).

Now, this idea of removing the interface to all our daily household appliances and putting them on a remote control might seem over simplistic, or extreme, or both. But why not? The only reason that microwaves and stereos still have controls built in, instead of being remote-only operated, is because that’s how these products have been designed for decades. And they were design with these built-in controls because the technology to use remote controllers didn’t exist yet. But today, that’s not the case any more. Today we have technology to get satellites to send us photos from million of miles away; I’m sure we can warm up a cup of tea from another room. The cat would surely feel safer for it!

Now, a slight detour….

Having objects that can only be control in one particular way, from one particular location doesn’t fit any more with the way in which we want to live our lives. We are constantly searching for ways to improve how we do things, become more efficient, more flexible and unconstrained. It’s only logical that we start thinking on how our current products and services can be redesigned to fit with our new routines and always-on-the-go habits. So let’s take this remote controlled microwave a step further. Why not build one that can be controlled from our smart-phones? You can control your TiVo with one!

Imagine, you get home from work one Friday evening. You are planning on sitting in front of the TV (multiple remotes in hand) to eat some pizza and have a few beers. You open the refrigerator and, in horror, realize that you don’t have any. You decide to run to the supermarket to get some, but before leaving the house, you put a pizza in the microwave. You don’t start it because you don’t know how long it will be and you don’t want the pizza to get cold (you hate re-heated pizza. It’s so saggy). You grab your smart-phone and get in your car. Once you are in line at the supermarket to pay for your beer, you estimate that it will take you 20 minutes to get back to the house. You reach for your phone, open the MicroCook app and set it to: 10′ defrost – 5′ cook @ 90 power <RUN>. Presto! You get home 20 minutes later and you have a delicious and warm pizza waiting for you.

Oh, the possibilities! It’s not just about “baby proofing” our products and lives. It’s about getting more control without having to sacrifice our freedom, independence and flexibility. We are, slowly but surely, morphing from a “push” society into a “pull” one. This means that we want products, services and data available when/how/where we need it. We don’t want to have to be at a particular place and/or time to be able to take an action. Technology exists today to give us 24/7/360 access and control to most things that we need to from any where in the world. It’s time to start thinking whether we want to be restricted and constrained in what’s possible with the products or services we use and start re-thinking and breaking out of our user-experience boxes and designing and demanding the experiences that we truly crave.

Hopefully, some of this will become a reality in a not too distant future. Hopefully before “clown fish”, Shamu or Pipking the penguin get nuked!

This post is about three years old.

How do I know that? Well, because I started writing it three years ago.

And how do I know that? Because my son is about to turn three years old and he’s the one that gave me the idea for this post.

I guess you could say that I have a little procrastination problem. Should we get to it?

Five hears ago, my wife and I bought and moved into our first house. It was a brand spanking new, modern looking townhouse in the East Bay. With no kids in sight or mind, we decorated the house with a very clean, and modern style. As a treat for the new house we also got our first flat screen TV which got mounted at a perfect eye-sight height on the wall facing the large and plush family couch. We bought a beautiful, dark-wood, open style console for the hi-fi receiver, cable box, play station et al, which was just inches off the ground, just below the flat screen. It was also very functional as we didn’t have to open or slide any doors to expose the components and get the remotes to work. It looked beautiful and worked great, until Dash (my son) arrived in out lives.

As anyone who has kids knows, once the little rascals become mobile (crawling, cursing, standing tall and walking) you very quickly start to realize that your house as you knew it can’t be no more. Anything that’s within reach is “fair game”. Picture frames, flower vases, glasses, the cat and, in our house: the hi-fi and all other electronics. Families deal with this in different ways. Some will move “everything within reach” a few feet up. Some might put all their photos and vases in storage until the rascal becomes “more civilized”. Some families will just put a gate in front of everything that they don’t want the kid to get too, turning their houses into a San Quentin extension.

Non of these options worked for us. We liked our photos and vases just where they were and we could see. Wanting to keep the simple, clean style we didn’t want to load the walls with shelves and gates… well, NO gates! We figured that with some patience, lots of repetition and distractions, Dash would eventually stop harassing our possessions and move on… and he did… to the stereo. I think it took Dash about a day to figure out how to turn the volume ALL the way up, turn speakers on/off and change to the different components. The fact that the console was so low to the ground and open was clearly an invitation to “come play with me”. I blame it on all the adorable blue and red lights that electronic manufacturers like to put on these things! Any way… you could argue that I could have gone and bought a “closed” console and put a baby-lock on it. But that would have messed up the “feng shui” that we had going on.

So one day I’d come home from work, turn on the stereo and our ears would get blown up (fortunately we had some great speakers and they never blew up). Another morning I’d wake up, go downstairs to cook breakfast, turn on the stereo again and… this time there would be no sound! I’d check all the cable connections only to discover that Dash had turned the speakers off (Occam’s razor). And so it went for several month. Never again was I able to turn my stereo on and have it just work. I’d have to play with its settings for several minutes until I could undo the puzzle that Dash had made for me.

So this got me thinking…. why haven’t household electronic manufacturers (i.e.: Sony, LG, Samsung, etc.) come up with a way to “baby proof” some of the staple electronic components that most families have at home? My guess is that no one working at these companies has kids! And if they do, they are probably adopted the year before they go out to college.

Each year, these companies come up with more and more fancy products, adding more and more features that I’m sure only 0.001% of their users can figure out and actually use. The should read John Meada’s Laws of Simplicity. A fascinating little book with some great wisdom on how to improve the design of services and products by simplifying them. In it, John talks about the 10 laws of simplicity. The last one is particularly useful: “Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful”. And meaningful in this case would be a “baby proof” button in the remote control.

Thinking about how to keep Dash from changing the stereo’s settings I came up with several ideas, but no one seemed simpler to integrate and design than adding a “baby proof” button to the remote control. Today everything comes with one. Even the $20 CD player that I bought at Radio Shack. So why not add a simple button that, when pressed for 2 seconds, disables all the controls (i.e.: buttons, knobs, etc.) on the hardware? This is a low-tech solution that has HUGE advantages, specially for us parents. This little button, will simply “disable” any input through the console buttons and knobs. It will only accept input from the remote. That way when the little ones come and play “Simmon says” with them, they’ll get all the satisfaction of “being in control” and we’ll get non of the side-effects.

How hard can it be to design and build this? It’s nothing more than a “mute” button for the controls in the actual hardware.

This can be done in one of two ways:

1. Keep the current functionality in the remote and ONLY add the “baby proof” button. This will cut time/cost in redesigning the entire interface/functionality and will be the simplest for users to learn how to use. All the more advanced settings can still be controlled/changed from the hardware. Just press the “baby proof” button for 2 seconds and presto! You have control with the knobs and buttons. When you are done, again, press the “baby proof” button for 2 seconds and now the little rascal can go to town on the stereo with no harm. Just make sure to put the remote control out of their reach. Because, believe me, it won’t take them long to figure out how to “unlock” the thing again!

2. Let’s do away completely with the hardware’s knobs and buttons and move all the functionality to the remote control. This requires quite a bit of re-design on the remote interface and functionality and some on the hardware side, and there’d be a reduction in cost as there would be less parts in it. With today’s technology and ultra thin, high resolution screens (think iPhone 4 retina display) it would be very easy to port the entire set of features and functionality to a small screen that you could carry around the house with you and make changes to your stereos settings without ever having to touch the thing. You’d never have to worry about your little one messing things up again. That is, until he dissevers all the cable connections in the back!

My son is turning three and discovering new things to “play” and keep himself entertained with. He has moved on from the stereo to the iPod (which thankfully it’s a lot easier to use and troubleshoot). So for me, if this idea ever makes it into the market, will be a bit too late. But for the millions of parents-to-be it will be a welcome break.

So… Samsung, Sony, LG and the rest: get a few parents with young children into your focus/user groups or send a few of your so called UX “experts” to their houses for a day or two. Or even better, bring some young “testers” into your design labs and learn the difference between how you’d like your products to be used and how they “truly” are!

There’s been quite a bit of fuzz and buzz in the last year or so about whether “Googling” someone before an interview should be legal/accepted and/or used in making hiring decisions. I have several friends that work in HR for a few startups and established companies and they’ve been going crazy training employees and managers on how to conduct themselves online and how to go about performing a background check on a candidate and what can and cannot be said or used during the interview. Is all this really needed? All this “don’t ask” even though “they” (the “will be” candidates) are telling (by posting their lives on the web)? Have we become so incompetent at following basic social and democratic guidelines that we need laws to save us from our own stupidity?

Now, I’m all against discriminating (whether be it for a job or in any other situation) based on skin color, age, gender, social class, religious affiliations, etc. and I understand why managers have to be reminded to stay clear of these areas during an interview. But, what’s the real harm in “Googling” someone?

Here, let me paint a scenario for you: You have a 16 year old daughter and she’s very pretty. She has never gone out on a date before, but you know that day is coming. Until one day it just happens: the family is sitting at the table having a nice dinner when she says: “Today Chuck Waggon asked me out on a date. He’s picking me up at 8 pm” – It’s 7:30!!! You dash out of the room…. Where do you go? To your office. What do you do? You Google: “Chuck Waggon”. It doesn’t take you too long to come across his Twitter/Facebook/MySpace/Hi5/etc. profiles and updates. You recognize that smug face. There, for the whole world to see are pictures of “Chuck” with some “ladies” in some interesting “situations.”  His Twitter one-liners aren’t much better…You’ve seen and read enough. You run to double-bolt the front door, set the alarm and fetch the family dog. You sit back at the table and your look says it all: “He’s been GOOGLED! You are NOT going out with him!”

Now, this might be a little bit funny and not very related to an interview situation… or is it?

We live in a 24/7/360 digital, always connected world. The barriers (barriers? What barriers?)… never mind… There are NO barriers to keep us from dumping every little detail of our personal and professional lives online. Tweeter and Facebook have proven that. We use the “my First Amendment rights say…” excuse to justify and explain why we feel that we should be able to say/post anything we want online. The only problem is: We want people to find and read it but NOT to judge us by it.

Let’s not be hypocritical here! If you want the right to say/post whatever you want to (clearly with the intention/understanding that it will be found – otherwise you’d be keeping an old-style paper journal in a safe at home) then you should do so knowing that it will be found and that, YES, people will read and talk about it and, very possibly, JUDGE you by it. We need to learn to respect other people’s points of view and ideologies, but we don’t necessarily have to agree with them. As much as we are all free to write/post whatever we want to; we are also all free to form our opinions based on what they post and make decisions/take action based on what we learn about them.

We are constantly searching for information and using what we learn from it to make almost every decision about our daily lives…So, now we need to hire the best possible candidate to fill in a position but we are not allowed to use what we learn on Google/LinkedIn/Facebook/Tweeter et`al to make the decision? That’s not only crazy…. it’s STUPID!!!! We have access to one of the best resources of information available in the history of mankind but we cannot use it for what’s intended (i.e.: search, gather, interpret/analyze, use information)?

We Google the movies that we want to see and the books we want to read. We Yelp a restaurant that we want to try out before making a reservation. We listen to previews on iTunes before downloading. We Bluebook a car before we buy it and read the MySpace/Facebook/Twitter/eHarmony profile of our next date. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Like Joshua, the computer, said in War Games “the only way to win is not to play.” If you are so concern about the possible repercussions of something that you are about to post on the web, then take a moment to think it over before pressing the SUBMIT button. We own our silence but are slaved by our words and in this day and age of great technology we are slaved by everything we post online!

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I’m not sure if what I’m about to say and do has any legal standing… but there’s only one way to find out. So here it goes:

i. I, Diego Schmunis, hereby grant permission to any and every future employer to “Google me” (let me make it easy for you, here’s my Google link) . That means that you can search and re-search me online to your hearts contents and use this information in my interview/hiring process.

ii. As long as I’m being treated fairly, the information about me is not being misconstructed in an unfairly manner and am given a chance to explain and/or answer any questions regrading information that you might have found about me online, I resign any and all rights to “sue you for discrimination”.

Happy now? You can know as much as you want to about me… anything that I’ve posted online is fair game and you won’t get in trouble for knowing about it or asking me.

But let’s take this a bit further: “Googling” me is a REQUIREMENT if you want to hire me! That’s right. As much as you, my interviewer, expect me to know about the company I expect you to know about me. It’s a two way street. Besides, you know that I’m going to “Google” every name in the company directory that I can find and find out as much about them as I possibly can. If what I find out about my will-be manager and team mates isn’t good, chances are that I’ll decline an offer no matter how good. That is NOT DISCRIMINATION…. it’s being smart and avoiding making a bad decision.

It’s time to even out the tables and stop the hypocrisy. If they can post it, then we can use it.

Good night.