Who Bricked the Electric Car?

You may have caught the story last week about Tesla, the maker of extremely high-end electric vehicles, (EVs), and the accusation that if the $100K Tesla Roadster's battery pack was allowed to drain all the way to zero, (basically to go completely dead), that the car could not be simply re-charged in the normal fashion, and that in fact the entire battery pack would have to be removed and replaced, (at $40K).

This phenomenon, and already some are disputing how much of a real problem it presents, has been termed 'bricking', as in without the ability to operate the $100K Tesla has been effectively turned into a brick. A stylish one no doubt, but a brick nonetheless.  And having your $100K car essentially rendered useless without dropping another 40 large for the repair would have to classify as a bad day, and if indeed this is even a remote possibility, one would hope Tesla has taken adequate precautions and will look to improve the technology such that this kind of bricking either can't happen or really almost would never happen.

But for now, it appears like at least the possibility for bricking exists, according to a follow-up piece in Engadget, the Tesla company (sort-of) acknowledged that a full battery drain would indeed 'brick' the car and issued the following statement:

All automobiles require some level of owner care. For example, combustion vehicles require regular oil changes or the engine will be destroyed. Electric vehicles should be plugged in and charging when not in use for maximum performance. All batteries are subject to damage if the charge is kept at zero for long periods of time. However, Tesla avoids this problem in virtually all instances with numerous counter-measures. Tesla batteries can remain unplugged for weeks (or even months), without reaching zero state of charge. Owners of Roadster 2.0 and all subsequent Tesla products can request that their vehicle alert Tesla if SOC falls to a low level. All Tesla vehicles emit various visual and audible warnings if the battery pack falls below 5 percent SOC. Tesla provides extensive maintenance recommendations as part of the customer experience.

Essentially Tesla is saying, 'Look, we sold you an incredible piece of technology, the most fabulous EV on the market. All you really need to do on your side is to not leave the car idle for months on end and forget to charge it up. And we will even offer to call you up to remind you to run out to the garage and plug in the thing in you forget. For months. Seem reasonable?'

Probably pretty reasonable.  Tesla, like just about any other make of cars, gadgets, games, or even business systems at some stage arrives at the end point of their ability and responsibility to ensure that the consumer will have a great experience with their purchase, and won't actually do something really dumb with their new shiny object after they take it home.

Over on Talented Apps last week, Meg Bear hit upon this point when she re-stated Meg's Law for Talent Management software development -

It is the intention of our team to build excellent, usable software to optimize a well thought out talent strategy.  BUT if you suck, there is nothing we can do in software, to fix that for you. 

And I am pretty sure Meg's Law could apply to Tesla as well.  I am sure it is their intention to build the best EV in the world, but if you suck, and you forget that an EV actually needs to be plugged in once in a while, we can't fix that for you. Or rather we can, but it will cost you $40K.

Sadly, the organizations that Meg is referring to, the ones with the terrible talent strategy, can't get off that easy.

Off Topic - This Is My Home

Do you ever get a little tired of reading about Human Resources, workplace concerns, technology, or Jeff Van Gundy?

Me too. 

So for a Friday let's go off topic. This is the most interesting thing I think I read or saw all week. A short film by filmmaker Marc Cerosimo titled 'This Is My Home', about a man who has created an interesting and unusual home in the middle of Manhattan. A place filled with antiques, treasures, and collectibles but also one that is much different than what is expected.

A kind of vintage shop where anyone is welcome to explore, but nothing is for sale. Unless...

Check out the film, (email and RSS subscribers will need to click through), it is about 6 minutes long and I think you can spare the time on a Friday.

This Is My Home from Mark on Vimeo.

So what did you think?

Have a Great Weekend!

PowerPoint for the iPad? Well that's no fun.

Lots of chatter in the tech news and blogosphere this week about the possible launch of an iPad version of Microsoft Office.  First the news of the Office for iPad was broken by The Daily, denied, (kind of), by Microsoft, examined in more detail by ZDNet, then reconfirmed on Twitter by a staff member at The Daily. And I am sure there were lots of other takes on the potential release of Office for the iPad, most of which making it seem like it is not a question of if Microsoft will release the iPad version of Office, but rather when the apps will be released.Source - The Daily

So based on the evidence, and the sort of non-denial denial from Microsoft, let's assume that indeed in the 'coming weeks' there will be a release of MS Office for the iPad. Most of the accounts about this possible new Office version herald this development as a positive one, both for Microsoft, essentially absent to this point in the rapid rise of the tablet ecosystem, and also for the millions of iPad users that now can become 'more productive' now that the ubiquitous Office suite will have a native iPad version.

But for me, I have to admit I don't feel all that excited about having Excel, Word, or PowerPoint on the iPad. Even assuming that the iPad versions of these workplace stalwarts manage to leverage the best capabilities and usability features that the iPad offers, you are still crunching spreadsheets, writing (boring) documents, and futzing around with another PowerPoint. You know, working. And work, sadly, is often not much fun. And perhaps through no fault of their own, Excel and PowerPoint take a lot of reflected shrapnel for that if you get my meaning.

People love their iPads because they are fun, (assuming you can mentally set aside how they are actually manufactured, but that is another story), they provide an amazing user experience, and mostly what you do with them either isn't work, or doesn't feel like work. It just seems cool, hip, easy. Not words we often associate with work. Especially when work takes the form of spreadsheets and slide decks.

So when MS Office for the iPad comes out will I rush to load it up? Probably not. But I imagine I will eventually succumb, as the allure and utility of being able to tweak that presentation file on the iPad when sitting in the airport will prove too tempting and seem too necessary. It's work right? Need to get 'er done whenever and wherever.

I just hope I won't have to drop Angry Birds to make room for Excel. Because that would really stink. 

Skip the Assessment and Head Over to Facebook

I'm going to submit this one without much comment, I'd rather you, the gentle readers, think about it's relevance, accuracy, and relative importance for hiring, job seeking, and for the million, (billion?), dollar industry that provided employment screening, background checking, and various other pre-employment services.

Dateline: Chicago

Headline:  'Facebook and Job Performance: New study finds social networking site profile pages can be an indicator of future job success.'

The Chicago Tribune article describing the findings of a Northwestern University study, led by Management Professor Donald Kluemper, that attempted to test the theory that quick, 10-minute scans of a job candidate's Facebook profile would be a better indicator of eventual job performance than the typical behavioral and IQ tests that many companies administer as part of the screening process.

What did the study find?

From the Trib piece:

"Hiring specialists were just trying to eliminate someone who was doing something inappropriate," Kluemper said. "What we did is try to assess the personality traits in a similar way that they might be assessed by a standardized test."

Several "raters" were given two hours of training on how to evaluate a Facebook page and answer specific questions relating to personality. They would then spend five to 10 minutes evaluating pages; a total of 274 were reviewed.

This excerpt from the study shows the type of indicators they were looking for:

"Those high in agreeableness are trusting and get along well with others, which may be represented in the extensiveness of personal information posted. Openness to experience is related to intellectual curiosity and creativity, which could be revealed by the variety of books, favorite quotations or other posts showing the user engaged in new activities and creative endeavors. Extroverts more frequently interact with others, which could be represented by the number of SNW (social networking websites) friends a user has."

The researchers followed up with the job candidates after six months and got performance reviews from the supervisors of 69 of them, about 25 percent of the original group. Across the board, the study found that these relatively quick Facebook evaluations more accurately predicted success than standard tests. 

Interesting. For this, admittedly small, set of candidates/new hires scanning Facebook profiles for 10 minutes and drawing conclusions from those reviews turned out to be a better predictor of job success than the usual tests and screens. 

I said at the start I would submit this without comment, so I will, but I'd like to offer one question to folks that read this and have a stake in the sourcing, screening, assessing, and hiring game.

And that is this - since scores of people (candidates), today freely and willingly offer up so much of themselves online and on social networking sites I wonder if the primary challenge to candidate sourcing, screening, etc. in the future is figuring out the best way to evaluate and interpret this data in a way that does not run afoul of the myriad laws and regulations associated with hiring, but also provides an accurate, predictable, and reliable method to assess these profiles and personas against established predictors of job success.

We're mostly, (not you, I mean all those other talent pros), using Facebook and Twitter to screen people out. To look for those 'gotcha' updates or pictures and when we find them, we like to get all smug and superior and talk with our friends about those jerky Gen Y'ers that don't realize that social media is hurting their job prospects.

More and more candidates create, publish, share, interact and make available so much more information about themselves, their curiousity and creativity yet we still write (boring) articles advising candidates about resume formats and cover letters. 

Can't we do even just a little better than that?

What do you think, does this study actually mean anything for assessing candidates? Or would you rather play it safe and keep arguing over how many pages a resume should be?

The 8 Man Rotation - The 2011 Season

The long national nightmare is over.

Take comfort dear readers, the latest chapter in the saga known as 'The 8 Man Rotation' is back.Get your copy over here!

It's been a year since the first edition of the world's leading 'HR and Sports' E-book was issued, and the response, enthusiasm, and general excitement that accompanied that effort had led to the next installment, the second season if you will.

Once again the mighty Matt 'akaBruno' Stollak has curated and compiled the best sports-related blog posts from the past year from some of your favorite Human Resources bloggers, and put together a fantastic E-book called 'The 8 Man Rotation - The 2011 Season'.

The 8 Man Rotation – The 2011 Season

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The roster for Season Two has been kept intact:

Kris Dunn - The HR Capitalist

Tim Sackett - The Tim Sackett Project

Lance Haun - Life Between the Brackets

Matt Stollak - True Faith HR

Steve Boese - Steve's HR Tech

Matt did another fantastic job putting together all the sports-themed posts from 2011, grouping them into logical categories, and laying out the entire project in a professional and attractive package. Over 100 pages of HR and Sports commentary, insights, and advice and all at a can't beat this price - Free!

And as a special bonus, introductions from fans of the 8 Man Rotation William Tincup and Trish McFarlane.

You can download your copy of 'The 8 Man Rotation - The 2011 Season' - here. The E-book is 100% guaranteed to satisfy 60% of the time - or your money back.

Many, many thanks to Matt for pulling it all together!