Posted on April 25, 2005
Filed Under Management, Policies | Leave a Comment
Interesting conversation around Microsoft’s stance on Gay Rights. Scoble’s first take on it here and another on Steve Ballmer’s email here. As you may guessed, even after several linking it is still a hot topic for blogging. Here is Vic Gundotra response to Scoble, and these are all Microsoft employees.
I am not going to opine on the gay rights issue, it is a choice people make. But I do believe that leaders are supposed to make some tough choices, that’s what differentiates them from the crowd. I have seen leaders shy away from hardline issues, or go into hiding on the pretext of discussing with others. While it is important that leaders discuss issues with others (for clarity, views or whatever), ultimately it is the leaders decision and his/her voice behind that decision. A company the size of Microsoft, will have people on both sides of the issue and it is tough to appease one side without alienating the other. But, in my opinion, Microsoft has missed an opportunity to make a statement as being the Leader and instead has become a follower.
Opinions aside, do you see the power of blogging? This is what the blogosphere was meant to be. Millions of people commenting on an issue as important as this. And then again, does transparency have any limits? Just like some things need to stay private in personal relationships, is there an equivalent thing for corporations?
Posted on April 22, 2005
Filed Under Careers, Management | 1 Comment
Ever since I started working, I have had a bone to pick with the HR department. Most of the times it has to do with expectation management and hiring practices. Joel wrote in “The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing”, “at Fog Creek Software we only hire the superstars.” My assumption is that for smaller organizations the need for immediate value is much greater than the mammoths. But what are the hiring practices of start ups?
This is from the Microsoft book, How Would You Move Mt Fuji
“Microsoft seeks to avoid hiring the wrong person, even if this occasionally means missing out on some good people. The justification is that never before has it cost so much to recruit, maintain, and — heaven forbid — discharge an employee”.
Director of recruiting at Microsoft quotes
“The best thing we can do for our competitors is hire poorly. If I hire a bunch of bozos, it will hurt us, because it takes time to get rid of them. They start infiltrating the organization and then they themselves start hiring people of lower quality”.
Google has a different policy - a single no vote from the hiring commitee means you are not in. GE has a long recruiting cycle, atleast thats what I felt when I worked there. All of these companies assume that there is a huge talent pool and can afford to pass on people that would be great fits in order to make sure the lesser fits never get in.
Its a lot harder for start ups to follow such practices, where you’ve got much more to do than you have people to do it. One small mis-step and it’s trouble fast.
Hiring a bad employee is worse than hiring no one. But seriously what is a bad employee? For startups its important to get someone quicker, reduce market time for services and products and retain skilled people. But that all happens with a good manager. It does not matter how good your employees are, if they are managed badly.
- Bad Manager + Bad Hire = Nightmare (for all others).
- Bad Manager + Good Hire = Bonus (one time only)
- Good Manager + Bad Hire = Talent (on manager’s part)
- Good Manager + Good Hire = Bad decision (by HR/Hiring manager)
Ever wonder, apart from hiring superstars, can a small company “breed” superstars?
Posted on April 17, 2005
Filed Under Marketing | Leave a Comment
Google recently announced the beta availibility of their video upload program - Google Video (Beta). Google will accept certain videos, which it will then review, and then “Users will then be able to search, preview, purchase, and play your video.” You can allow users to watch your video for free or charge them a fee for the download. Like the eBay service, for each paid download you pay a small percentage of the pie to Google.
Poynter Online blogged on this and the impact/ramifications of such a service. Frankly i like the concept of normal users being able to upload their creations - some work needs to be done on the review/censorship process. I may not upload a personal video out there, or maybe I might if the privacy is protected.
I was wondering what other uses this may have…..when I saw this entry on George Masters. This is definitely a better and more visible avenue for his iPod work. How about training programs as a pay per download service? Or How about we turn some mundane instruction manuals into training videos?
How would you use Google Video?
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