Tagged: news

LinkedIn All-Stars Discover Bosses Furious

Earlier this year LinkedIn celebrated its tenth anniversary.  With ten years under its belt, the Silicon Valley tech giant has finally fallen prey to researchers.  The findings aren’t pretty.  Among a newly released 500-page report there are some notable discoveries:

  • 63% of LinkedIn Users report spending time each day to see if the infinite scroll really is infinite.
    • Of those users, 25% admit feeling “genuinely disappointed” when, upon reaching the end, they read “There are no more updates at this time” instead of congratulations for beating the game.
  • 84% of Users have achieved All-Star Profile Strength.
    • Of those Users, 100% believe they are more likely to receive a promotion within the next 6 months because of it.
      • Of those Users, zero worked in companies whose promotion decisions factored in their employee’s LinkedIn Profile Strength.

And most damning,

  • After not having the heart to crush their employee’s hopes and dreams and tell them, “No, browsing LinkedIn is not what I’m paying you to do,” 100% of Bosses spend at least 10-minutes wishing for the “good ol’ days” when employees earned their pay.

Finally, the researchers noted first, that despite these findings, employees generally felt that they were more productive because of LinkedIn and second, that more research should be done to validate their findings.

What Would President Obama Think About Me Not Liking Him?

I don’t like President Obama.  Can I still admit that even though in doing so I might offend a “sizable group of people?”

Here in the purple state of Colorado, expressing this opinion–my opinion–gives me pause.  It can be difficult to tell if I am speaking to someone who agrees or vehemently disagrees.  Discovering the answer is always an adventure.

Here’s why I don’t like the president:  The president pretends to not know his own influence.

From the moment he took office, it was made known that he would be a very accessible president.  “Ask him anything and he’ll tell you,” they said.  The unthinking American loved his openness.  His openness surely attracted positive popular sentiment.  But make no mistake, it is a very calculated move on the president’s part.  Think about it.  What would happen if your boss started voicing that he or she really liked a particular camera…right around Christmas time?  What would happen if your boss started describing how much he or she disliked the color blue?  In my experience, in the first situation the boss would likely be given that camera as a gift at the company party; in the second, the color blue would be avoided in the office where possible.

The credible boss, the boss with high character understands the economics of his or her language.  He or she understands that there are only so many hours in a day and many things have to be attended to.  The boss knows, therefore, that he or she cannot afford to communicate for forever.  They have to offer their guiding leadership eloquently, and rely on an able-bodied workforce to carry out the plan.  This happens every day.  Even the most micro-managing boss has limited time–thankfully–to communicate all that he or she wants to.

Likewise, when a president offers his opinion on something, it starts a chain reaction.  Decisions are made based on the opinion.  Take this together with the way our country’s political sphere has unfolded–the president being viewed as newsworthy celebrity rather than public servant–and there is a problem.

Bob Costas attempted to use his power to persuade the Washington Redskins owner to act.  So far, it has been ineffective.  Bob Costas is a virtual nobody.  He is a talking head.  Generally a pleasant to listen to talking head, but he is as effectually powerless over another man’s actions as the next man.  The same is not true for the president.  No matter what he’d like us to believe, it is not just “his opinion.”  And he knows it.  But he pretends not to.  He pretends like he really is one of us.  He isn’t.  It’s categorically impossible.  The us he is attempting to fit in with know their place.

For example, I know that this blog will have no appreciable effect beyond providing momentary pleasure for no more than 10 people.  It’ll receive 1-2 ‘likes’, if that.  More likely, it will irritate some people and be a stumbling block to my professional possibilities as I’m publishing it on LinkedIn.

Don’t buy this argument?  Just wait.  History will prove my point.  Like the boss receiving a camera for Christmas, the Redskins will change their name.  When they do, to deny the president’s influence will strain even American credulity.

In the end, I really don’t wonder what President Obama thinks about me.  I just want him to stop pretending that his opinions are inconsequential.  I want him to stop using his limited time to weigh-in on ridiculously un-presidential matters.  I want “more work, less talk.”  Is that too much to ask for?

Same Sh!t, Different(?) Day

Unless you live under a rock, you heard that President Obama recently had three dictionary’s (Google, Merriam-Webster and Cambridge) add the following entry to the definition of literally:  “Used to acknowledge that something is not literally true but is used for emphasis or to express strong feeling.”

In typical fashion, that isn’t the only, or most impactful, word/definition that the president had modified.  While everyone was abuzz over the fact that a definition clearly in opposition to the word’s actual definition was added, nobody noticed the other word the president had changed: different.  (Of all the words for this to happen to, that he chose ‘literally’ to accomplish his ultimate goal is genius as it is so fundamental to a dictionary that it necessarily would draw attention.)

If you go to dictionary.com and look up different you’ll find, “not alike in character or quality” as the number one definition.  However, the same three dictionaries the president has in his pocket have caved to the pressure yet again.  Instead of just adding a definition to the number two spot, though, they actually erased all the previous definitions and instead put, “being the same.”

Now, we could discuss how, yet again, the president’s actions–always hiding bigger changes behind smaller changes–are disreputable, but let’s not.  We could discuss how, yet again, the president’s actions–endlessly overstepping the limited nature of his power–are illegal, but let’s not.  We could discuss how, yet again, the president’s actions–his surprisingly unsurprising changing definitions of words–are narcissistic and disrespectful to all mankind, but let’s not.  Instead, we will focus on how his most recent action, changing the definition of  different, clearly illustrates how he has a fundamental misunderstanding of his main campaign promise: change.

President Barack Obama promised to change this country, presumably for the better.  We turn again to dictionary.com and find that change is defined as, “to become different.”  Do you understand what has happened?  The nature of all the president’s flaws are revealed perfectly in this one seemingly minor action.  He wants to have it all.  He wants to “have his cake and eat it too”.  He wants to “have it both ways.”  However, as long as there is one other human–functional backbone included–in existence, he’s going to have a problem reconciling his ‘wants’ with reality.

His changing the definition of different doesn’t even make sense if he doesn’t have these ‘wants.’  How can a man who promises change fulfill his promise if everything is the same?

Some of us might be inclined to let this minor change be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.  Let’s turn to a dissenting opinion:  His entertainment value alone has been worth it.

For those of us who first learned how inept presidents were with Clinton, we were even more disappointed in Bush II.  And out of these three presidents that have done nothing but drop the ball, has President Obama not been easily the most enjoyable to watch.   Will you join me in admitting that rather than getting upset, you actually hope President Obama never leaves office?  Long Live King Obama!

A Letter to the Editor

The NSA conducts surveillance.  The New York Times commits treason.  Which is worse?

In publishing what can only be described as a paid advertisement–Leonard H. Schrank and Juan C. Zarate’s, “Data Mining, Without Big Brother,”–the Times dragged itself through the gutter just to sell papers.

In their July 2, 2013 editorial, Schrank and Zarate abused the responsibility the national spotlight demands.  Their piece informed us that they worked on a program—Swift—that has no practical correlation to the NSA’s surveillance program beyond the quite obvious fact that they both work with big data.  To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  The Times should be ashamed for printing this.

Schrank and Zarate conclude, “Ultimately, the Obama administration needs to demonstrate that the programs are not only valuable and legal, but also that the government’s use of that data can be constrained and verified.”  In other words, they conclude that the Obama administration must prove a negative.  With all their schooling, professional accomplishment, and first-hand experience deterring terrorism, their big conclusion is a logical fallacy?  Not even President Obama’s rhetorical abilities can overcome their logical error and prove someone is not doing something.

Let’s switch gears for a moment.  What is the problem in this whole Snowden story?  The problem is that an NSA employee couldn’t keep a secret.  Are we or are we not a country who understands the value of secrecy when it comes to security?  If Americans want to keep “winning”, we need to be sure our enemies do not know our capabilities.  Thanks to Edward Snowden, they just became more aware.  We should be asking, “What was he thinking?”

The elementary lesson Snowden somehow missed, the truth that the New York Times allowed itself to be distracted from, is that for secrets to work they must be kept secret.  A secret’s power is derived from the requirement that it remains secret.

The Times, in running this editorial, demonstrated either that it never took an undergraduate course in logic, or that like Snowden, it too has committed an act of treason.

When Jeffrey Wigand revealed that Brown and Williamson knowingly included carcinogenic additives to boost the nicotine in cigarettes, it was a clear case of acting in good faith to better inform the public about a commercial product.  On the other hand, revealing one method an agency charged with national security uses to accomplish its mission is a clear case of treachery.  Since not everyone is able to immediately discern the distinction, an established publication such as The New York Times decidedly has the responsibility to publish writers who can.

Rather than publish a distracting paid advertisement for Swift, the Times should publish a case study on Edward Snowden.  Publish the study because in every failure there is a lesson.  We need to learn the events of his life which led him to the conclusion that revealing national security secrets is somehow in the best interest of national security.  Our freedom depends on it.