Retain Your Talent by Alienating the Industry

In last week's installment of Silicon Valley tech company drama...

You might of caught some reports of Yahoo! and its suit against social networking behemoth Facebook, alleging that the world's most popular social site has largely been built on ten separate Yahoo! patents. Some color on the Yahoo! contention from the linked ars technica piece above:

Yahoo claims Facebook infringes patents related to online advertising, privacy, Web customization, social networking, and messaging.

Yahoo's complaint does not allege that Facebook directly copied Yahoo's products. Rather, Yahoo appears to have claimed broad categories of website functionality, which Facebook may have infringed by accident in the process of building its own website.

The lawsuit illustrates how patents are becoming a significant barrier to entry for new firms in the software industry. Given how many patents Yahoo has, and how broad they are, it's hard to see how Facebook could have avoided infringing them. And, of course, Yahoo is far from the only software incumbent with a large portfolio of broad patents.

But until recently, there was a tacit agreement among major software firms not to sue competitors for patent infringement. All firms recognized that a full-scale patent war would be ruinous for the industry. But that gentlemen's agreement began to break down in the heat of competition in the mobile market. And now the patent wars seem to be spreading beyond the mobile market to the software industry more generally.

Apologies for repeating so much of the ars technica piece, but I think the context is needed to better understand and form an opinion on a follow-on development stemming from the Yahoo! suit, that is, the potential detrimental impact it might have on the Yahoo! employees, not the leaders and execs, but the rank and file talent, that almost certainly have nothing to do with their company's decision to pursue these patent claims.

For shortly after the news broke about the Yahoo! suit, many observers, leaders, and media that cover the tech industry began expressing disappointment, rage, and even fake support that Yahoo! would pursue these claims.  And if outrage over Yahoo's decisions to file this suit, a rival tech CEO, David Sacks of the enterprise collaboration vendor Yammer, took aim at not only Yahoo! leadership, but really everyone working at Yahoo!.

First Sacks opined via a Tweet that Yahoo! could be stopped by blackballing it's staff, effectively creating a kind of rebellion or groundswell inside of Yahoo that, in theory, might make the company back off these claims against Facebook. 

Silicon Valley can stop Yahoo: simply declare that any employee still there in 60 days is blackballed forever. We don't hire patent trolls.

— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) March 14, 2012

Later Sacks committed his company to this ostracizing of Yahoo! staff strategy: 

I'm declaring it: Yammer will never hire another former Yahoo employee who doesn't leave in the next 60 days. Who will join me? #stopyahoo

— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) March 14, 2012

And finally, Sacks upped the ante by offering a $25,000 signing bonus to any Yahoo! employee who jumps ship from Yahoo! and joins Yammer in the next 60 days:

I'm pleased to announce a $25,000 signing bonus for any Yahoo employee who joins Yammer in the next 60 days. yammer.com/jobs

— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) March 15, 2012

If you are an employee of Yahoo! what you think about the patent lawsuit almost doesn't matter - leadership of just about every company makes decisions that are potentially unpopular with the industry and possibly their own employees from time to time. That's just business in the real world. But it is a little unusual for a company's strategy and tactics to directly impact not only the employee's current job security, (bad decisions leading to bad results leading to cutbacks), but also their prospects for future outside employment in the industry. 

While it seems like Sacks' comments are mostly about drawing attention to the core issue, i.e., the validity and propriety of the patent suit, the addition of the blackball threats and then the bounty directed at the average Yahoo! employee makes the story at least a little more interesting. From the perspective of the employee, it is certainly one thing for management to make an unpopular decision, but it is another thing entirely if those decisions jeopardize your future.

The Yahoo!/Facebook/Yammer story is yet to play out, and my suspicion is the suit will go away, as Facebook doesn't need the distraction in the run-up to their IPO, and soon thereafter, (if not before), Sacks comments will be mostly forgotten as well. Sure, maybe Yammer will nab some talent from Yahoo! in the next two months, but if Sacks' idea for an industry-wide blackball of Yahoo! employees ever did take hold, then Yahoo! will have other problems to deal with besides negative public opinion about the lawsuit.

They'll have to answer to a group of pretty upset employees that have suddenly found not only their current jobs under pressure, but their future prospects compromised through association. And if that were to happen, well, that won't be good for anyone.

What do you think - have you ever refused to consider a candidate based simply on where they have worked in the past? 

Big Data, coming to a staff meeting near you

Big Data is probably the latest buzzworthy term to enter into the discussions amongst technology solution providers, pundits, and enterprise information technology types, all of whom are jockeying to variously understand, explain, and offer insights as to all the fantastic opportunities, (and challenges) that Big Data presents. In case you may be late to the Big Data party, (maybe you've been goofing off too long on Pinterest to keep up), let's take a look at a basic definition of the concept from Wikipedia:

In information technology, big data consists of datasets that grow so large that they become awkward to work with using on-hand database management tools. Difficulties include capture, storage, search, sharing, analytics, and visualizing. This trend continues because of the benefits of working with larger and larger datasets allowing analysts to "spot business trends, prevent diseases, combat crime."

 Scientists regularly encounter this problem in meteorology,genomics, connectomics, complex physics simulations, biological and environmental research, Internet search, finance and business informatics. Data sets also grow in size because they are increasingly being gathered by ubiquitous information-sensing mobile devices, aerial sensory technologies (remote sensing), software logs, cameras, microphones, Radio-frequency identificationreaders, and wireless sensor networks.

Got all that?

Essentially, our ability to generate and store massive amounts of data, from disparate, always-on, and almost unlimited sources, is surpassing our ability to understand, analyze, interpret, and take actions based on said data.

Where there is an identified problem with data, (massive amounts of it that don't fit traditional tools and methods of interpretation), we can expect more and better technology solutions to continue to be developed to help organizations and institutions. Doing a quick search on 'Big Data tools' already yields thousands of results, ranging from technologies and processes from some of the largest information technology companies in the world, to new ideas from start-ups trying to innovate and get a toe-hold in this emerging domain.

But like any other new technology trend, the trouble that Human Resources professionals could fall victim to is thinking that the problem of 'Big Data' is fundamentally a technical one, and that with the right or new or more powerful computing resources that suddenly 'Big Data' will start spitting out all kinds of actionable insights into their business and talent.  Data has always been just that, data, and possessing more and more of it just makes it more apparent that without the ability to ask the right questions, propose the right theories, and the capability to implement the strategies suggested by all this data, then all the Big Data in the world won't mean all that much to the HR professional.

I was thinking about this after reading a recent piece titled 'Can Big Data Replace Domain Expertise?', a review of some recent articles and discussions among leading academics and data scientists debating whether or not if one possessed the data, the needed technology, and some core 'data science' skills, that actual domain experiences, (e.g. for HR or Talent data, actual experience in HR or Recruiting), would not be necessary to extract insight and actionable information from the data. In other words, "given the right data set, a data scientist with no domain expertise can out-perform experts that have been working in the field for decades."

For domain experts, this kind of a conclusion would certainly be disputed, after all, how can a techie or a statistician know more about my business, or more pointedly, my people, than I do? How can simply crunching the data take the place of the knowledge I can bring to the table?

Personally, I tend to side with the domain experts on this one, perhaps it stems from watching so many NBA games and seeing the increasing importance statistical analysis is playing in the sport and in how coaches, teams, and players are managed and evaluated. Often when I read detailed statistical analysis of a player or team that seems to be at odds with my unscientific (and likely biased) views, I often want to ask, 'But did you actually watch the games?'

But eventually the data will get to be too much, too universally known, understood, and accepted, and some of my opinions and biases might have to change if I want to continue to be seen as a relevant, or even astute judge of the NBA and its talent.

Eventually just watching the games won't be enough.

And I suspect the same thing is going to happen for managers and judges of talent inside organizations as well.

Off Topic - In the 1990s, an amazing future awaits

Back in the late 1960s, an amazingly accurate, (and unintentionally hilarious) video titled 'Telecommunications Services for the 1990s' was produced in the UK by its Post Office Research Station at a place called Dollis Hill. The eight-minute video, (go ahead and watch, you can spare the time), offers a vision of a future world where every house is connected to a central data service, video calling is simple, easy, and inexpensive, businesses and consumers will access things like bank statements from their own computers.

And the nature of work, with all these advances in technology, will change dramatically, In fact, 'Given all these facilities, the businessman will scarcely need to go to his office at all. He can do all his work in the comfort of his own home.'

Check out the video below, (email and RSS subscribers will need to click through), then come back to see the list of everything the post office folks got right:

So what did they correctly predict would be coming?

High-speed internet connections to every home and business

Worldwide video calling, (essentially Skype)

Pagers

Fax machines

A crude form of Web Conferencing/Screen Sharing

Online banking

Online mortgage calculators

Widespread remote working enabled by technology.

Pretty amazing, wouldn't you say?

Hope you had a laugh with this one, and have a great weekend!

A Tax on Old Technology

This little piece in Engadget caught my attention yesterday - AT&T urging customers to upgrade to 3G, possibly killing off 2G. The main takeaway from the piece is that for several technical and financial reasons AT&T wants to migrate users of older technology, (phones, network protocols), to newer 3G or 4G communications networks.Rocking the 2G

For the moment let's put aside the question, (that I personally think is pretty relevant), that AT&T and many other mobile providers do more to confuse their customers and the general public with all the references to 3G and 4G and LTE and HSPA+, than they do to educate and inform (and sell), about the real value proposition to the customer of upgrading. Does anyone really understand all the little acronyms and symbols and little indicators framing a mobile phone display? Save for 'How many bars?' But, I digress.

Why I really took notice of the Engadget piece was how it reinforces the costs, or as the writer expressed it, the 'tax' that is more and more frequently being levied on users of old technology, or in the form of a kind of opportunity cost, (and sometimes real cost), for those among us who for various reasons have decided against the adoption of new technology. Think about most examples of older technology that you still may possess and use - an old TV in the spare room or in your office, a coffee maker you have had for 10 years, maybe an old truck you keep around to use in the winter, (really common where I live). While these examples, (and many others), might offer fewer features and less capability than the latest LCD flat screen, or high-end espresso-cappuccino-single cup mega-machine, they still function, they still get the job done, and (at least for now), whomever sold them to you isn't turning up at your house to let you know you need to upgrade pretty soon or they won't work any more.

And beyond that, think about how many of us, (me included), sometimes feel about those late or never-adopters. While most of the rest of the world has moved to debit and credit cards, you get stuck behind the guy in the grocery check out line who is paying with a paper check. Or maybe you're waiting at the airport stuck in a queue because some passengers can't quite grasp the nuances of the mandatory check-in kiosks. Or possibly you're starting to get frustrated with a co-worker or business associate that has yet to upgrade off of their 2G phone so they can get mobile E-mail access, and thus be available to respond immediately to all of your 1:30AM on Saturday missives. We seethe at those people, smug in our technological superiority.

The one general law of technology is that it always advances. Faster, better, more amazing all the time. And the rate of that acceleration is only well, accelerating.  Making it really easy to be left behind. Making the cost or tax or missed opportunities only larger.

Mostly, we are ok with that. We usually, eventually see the benefits of the new technologies as greater than the monetary, psychological, and emotional switching costs. We pay out for the flat screen, the iPhone, the GPS for the car, even if we don't really have to. We still have a choice, though.

But as the AT&T example shows, sometimes we don't have a choice, sometimes the technology drags us along regardless. And again, mostly we are ok with that too.

Until the day when 'Big Coffee' figures out a way to render all those old drip coffee makers useless. 

Then we might see a revolt.

Off Topic - Shut it. Shut your trap I said.

Did you have to endure a meeting this week where someone just would not let go of a topic and kept blathering on and on endlessly?

Did you find yourself stuck on a commuter train or bus or maybe waiting on a plane when Mr. or Ms. Big Shot Important Person could not get off their mobile phones for one second, subjecting you and everyone else around them to the intimate details of their (boring) lives?

Or maybe, just maybe, that significant other in your life has been on your case about something you sort-of-but-not-really promised you'd do and have not managed to get around to it yet?

Well I just might have a solution for you - get yourself one of these cool Speech-Jamming guns, direct it towards the person you'd like to silence, and suddenly.... Shut it!

The details of this awesome new invention come courtesy of the MIT Technology Review's Physics Blog with this piece - How to Build a Speech-Jamming Gun. 

From the MIT piece:

The drone of speakers who won't stop is an inevitable experience at conferences, meetings, cinemas, and public libraries. 

Today, Kazutaka Kurihara at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tskuba and Koji Tsukada at Ochanomizu University, both in Japan, present a radical solution: a speech-jamming device that forces recalcitrant speakers into submission. 

The idea is simple. Psychologists have known for some years that it is almost impossible to speak when your words are replayed to you with a delay of a fraction of a second. 

Kurihara and Tsukada have simply built a handheld device consisting of a microphone and a  speaker that does just that: it records a person's voice and replays it to them with a delay of about 0.2 seconds. The microphone and speaker are directional so the device can be aimed at a speaker from a distance, like a gun. 

In tests, Kurihara and Tsukada say their speech jamming gun works well: "The system can disturb remote people's speech without any physical discomfort."

Money. Shut up that person who needs, (at least in your mind), shutting up with the added bit of awesomeness in using their own words fired back at them. I'd love to try one of these out sometime.

What do you think - did you find yourself looking around for a Speech-Jamming gun this week?

Have a Great Weekend!