Has the digital or e-resume evolved to becoming ubiquitously accepted, or will it just make you look like a social networking douchebag who's trying too hard?
via vimeo.com
Samuel Beckett certainly grasped something about life when pondering Vladimir and Estragon's dilemma in Waiting for Godot. As stark as the setting of that play was, it still serves as an allegory for the cyclical redundancy of the middle class in the 21st century.
This short video is a simple and effective deconstruction of the existence that many of us feel caught up in on our worst days. We trade time for money... everybody's working for the weekend.
via economist.com
I suppose a couple of obvious (yet maybe sarcastic) questions come to mind.
- Since the cost of labor in Nairobi is so much lower, wouldn't the cost of the Bigg Mac be cheaper as well?
- If a Big Mac cost 2.5 hour's worth of wages, would I even want one?
- I wonder if a McDonald's wage was calculated in the findings... I would think that if they only used McDonald's wages, they'd find that employees of their own stores would have to work inordinately long to even afford to eat there.
via youtube.com
I figure that since the majority of people working at McDonald's now are high school students, and we all know that High School students are prone to break out into song about anything, these gentlemen (who were very happy at mopping and cleaning out grease traps) must be the closest thing the 70s had to High School Musical... expect Fame.
Every tech and gaming conference has some sort of new-fangled physical interface to control a console or your television. Companies roll out, with great aplomb, science-fiction device which allow us to wipe our hands over the screen to manipulate objects. They develop crazy motion sensors where flailing around like a spastic synchronized swimmer will allow you to control your game avatar to do something athletic or violent. They forecast the next phase of television remote controls where you can wave your hand in some funky Z pattern to change a channel or draw a sparkler-like O to bring up a menu.
In essence every new interface system is going to require me to work HARDER?
I'll reluctantly admit that we're probably years away from an affordable voice user interface or (dreaming) a thought-based interface, but does this mean we have to retreat backwards?
As a kid I had to stand up and walk across the room to turn the television on or off, turn the channel dial, or turn the volume dial. There was literally TRAVEL involved in flipping from Laff-a-lympics to the Krofft Supershow at 10am on Saturday morning. But I didn't know any different, and was more than happy to get the frequent flipper miles. Plus, I was fueled by the sugar of two bowls of Honey Comb and had to work off the rush somehow. Eventually the television interface became a row of channel-changing buttons to punch before the eventual evolution of infrared.
When GUIs demanded a point and click device, you couldn't ask for something less labor-intensive than the mouse. I circumnavigate a cursor around the screen by moving a lightweight plastic dome an inch or two and depressing a plastic panel by a couple of millimeters. Far easier than typing in "change directory" commands followed by obtuse strings of subdirectories, the mouse has embodied micromovements.
And even more micro is the effort required to change a channel in the infrared world. I can change a channel by pressing a button with my thumb. Let me repeat that - where I used to have to stand up and walk ten feet to television and crank a dial from the number 2 to the number 13, now I can change a channel by pressing a button with my thumb. Why the HELL do we want to make this more difficult?
Sure, if you're part of the Wii-Fit cult that has to jog enough to power a grist mill in order to get your Mario Brother avatar to do jumping jacks, I suppose you're excited about a channel-changing calisthenics regime. But if you're like me, and you're thumb hasn't developed a repetitive strain injury, fight for simplicity. Don't let the Interface Interfaith Believers make waving and running an expectation for home electronics control. Until I can affect electronics by the power of my mind, my thumb'll do just fine thanks.
via youtube.com
As I prepare to kick back for a couple of months and take time away from sitting behind a "real" desk, I can't help but think emu's, abandoned offices, and Tom Waits - not necessarily in that order.
Sitting in a workshop to expound upon the new rollout of a client platform that will become the "new face" of employee interaction over the next few years, I am, at once, grateful and wary. I'm grateful that corporations are realizing the importance of Web2.0 and social networking apps to engage employees and encourage use of technology. I am hesitant and wary at the proclivity of employees to mesh their social networking activities with their employee activities.
The ability of an employer to camoflague their portal software to make it more user-friendly may enhance ease of use and familiarity with the work systems, but when I social network at home my interactions are far more "loose" than they would be on a work system. The informality of Twitter with its tinyurls and profile updates via bookmarklet applets allow us to perform a free association of text/image/video sharing that maybe completely appropriate and expected with my friends, followers, and even the world in general, but this same content could violate Standard Operating Procedure or Corporate License Agreements and lead to a disciplining of employees who decide to treat work relationships and non-work relationships in the same way.
I get it, if companies can make your buy into their intranet as a social network, perhaps you will feel better about your work and work from home. And if you log in from home, you can be tracked. Your work from home becomes data, and the data leads to expectation.
Allow me to clarify some of the background bias I'm entering this discussion with. By profession I'm a high school teacher. The school IS a social network and yet teachers are asked to use technology to communicate with the same children they see every day, in meaningful ways, at home. Teachers are also being encouraged to communicate with parents in similar ways. Imagine, however, that the flippant insignificance that you can brush off with a smiley in an email to a friend is misconstrued with a student or parent. Imagine my new "social network" includes a top list of "friends" that include three of my students, but excludes all others. You are starting to see the dangers of adapting social networking to professional networking.
I am also a teacher in a province where the expectation of the profession includes being a teacher 24/7. There is no end of the day bell that stops my responsibility to not only protect children (which is admirable) but also includes not stretching any social or legal taboos. And I get that the responsibility of any adult should be to protect children, but we've had teachers disciplined for not stepping in to stop a fight between students off school grounds on a weekend, when the teacher DOES NOT EVEN KNOW the students involved.
In addition to the social network portal to the employer's intranet, an iPhone/Touch app has been developed. The intranet/work server becomes your hub and everything sent over it becomes archived and is potentially actionable. While certainly easier and more fun to use, the disguised corporate hub may be loved by some and adopted by several others but how often do the practices of one portal of platform travel with you to another. Can you jump from one browser tab (where you're using Facebook and posting with a little bit of unrestricted abandon) over to the company portal where some of the same friends you have just talked about getting together for a night of intoxication are crossing the lines between personal and professional with their posts?
Just because someone adds commenting, wikis, and ratings to excel spreadsheets, doesn't mean I should be sucked into bringing them home with me. Beware of Geeks bearing gifts.
