The key to success in Grand Theft Auto (and possibly at work)

Quick shot for a rainy Thursday, a lightly edited conversation between myself and 'P', the soon to be taller than me kid and sound editor for the HR Happy Hour Show:

Setting - 'P' playing Grand Theft Auto IV.  Me, doing something very important, surely.

Me - 'So are you good at this game?' (it is hard to tell, mostly it is just lots and lots of things blowing up and crashing, with some ancillary shootings, rocket launches, etc.)

P - 'Yeah, I am pretty good.'

Me - 'What would you say is the key to becoming good at this game?'

<Pause to think about it>

P - 'You can't be afraid to get your hands a little dirty'.

And scene.

It's a jungle out there my friends.

Happy Thursday.

What does package delivery have in common with Top Music of 2013 lists?

Two exhibits, seemingly unrelated, (actually not seemingly, these are unrelated), but to me are both interesting in and of themselves and even more interesting when placed in a larger context, (and if you are willing to suspend disbelief a little bit).

Exhibit A - This is the one you already know all about, released not coincidentally on the eve of Cyber Monday, which is of course Amazon's plan to (someday) deploy unmanned drones to deliver small packages in less than 30 minutes.

Exhibit B - You might not of caught this one, I'm not really sure why I even read about it as I am not a user of the Shazam app and not really a big music person at all, but here it is from the Econsultancy site - Shazam, Big Data, and the Future of Year-end Lists. 

Since you know all about the Amazon stuff and everyone can get the pretty obvious implications to work and workers of such a plan, let's focus on the Shazam story a little. In case you are unfamiliar, Shazam is a smartphone app that you can use to recognize the name and artist of any song that is playing (as long as it is audible), in a process called 'tagging.' The user is then given the option to tap a link to purchase and download the song.

So in the course of the year the millions of Shazam users 'tag' millions of songs, and create a massive amount of data about music exposure, trends, and general buzz about artists and songs. Shazam is now (quite sensibly) using this data as input into it's 'Best of 2013' music recaps. 

The bigger implication of this? Check out the excellent take from the Econsultancy piece:

The beginning of January in music journalism is typically a barren wasteland of occasional punditry and arbitrary list-making. The bulk of these lists are written by experts using their own opinion and instinct.

Shazam has jettisoned this tradition in favour of data, maths and algorithms.

This is obviously a far more scientific approach than traditional methods, which removes subjective opinion and puts the list in the hand of Shazam’s 400m users. It is Shazam’s way of using huge amounts of data in order to predict future trends.

A more sensational writer would proclaim that big data is the death of music journalism. Obviously it’s not. What’s the point of publishing a list of the top artists to watch in 2014, curated by 400m users, if 400m users technically already know who to watch out for?

Amazon and its delivery partners someday maybe, would theoretically need far fewer drivers and driver helpers (and trucks and all the folks that work on keeping the trucks running), if they can successfully deploy an unmanned drone air armada to do at least some of their deliveries. And probably before the Amazon drones are a reality, unmanned and self-driving trucks and vans seem both closer to reality and availability, and disruptive to the job prospects in an industry already struggling to supply enough human labor. Not really surprising given how advances in technology have traditionally eliminated jobs and job categories in the past.

But the Shazam story is much different, and newer, and perhaps even more important since it isn't a theory or a prototype or just a nutty idea. Rather it's a simple example of how data, math, algorithms, and actual, regular people are being combined and mashed-up to disrupt something else entirely, the realm of the 'expert.'

Who needs some hipster music critic or tastemaker to grace us with his/her opinion about what the best songs or books or restaurants are when we have Shazam, Spotify, Amazon, Yelp and dozens of other sites and apps that create data that 'removes subjective opinion' and presents only findings that are backed by that data?

We don't need subject matter experts at all really, at least in these discrete fields, we only need one kind of subject matter expert, the data scientist/programmer type that can make sense of the data for any field at all really. After all, data is data, right?

It is really easy to see a future and understand one where truck drivers and other kinds of manual and medium-skilled roles are going to be increasingly threatened by technology.

It is much different, and up until now kind of unthinkable, to see a future when professional 'experts' are going to be needed less and less.

Here is the advice I give to my 12 year-old son, (I know he is not really listening, I just like hearing myself talk) - "Be the chef, not the guy trying to tell everyone else where they should eat." 

Be proud of where you work: Talking points from the NSA

An internal NSA memo leaked over the weekend, one where the good folks at the National Security Agency provide some tips for their staff to take home and use over the recent Thanksgiving holiday in case they were confronted with a drunk Uncle or angry Cousin who might not be totally pleased with having a member of the family a part of cyber spying, stealing personal information, or whatever else the NSA can be accused of carrying out.

The 5-point document (with supporting examples) can be found here, and if you can overlook the source, history, context, etc., it actually provides a really useful outline of what employees can do to carry the brand message out into their personal lives.

Here are the 5 talking points about the NSA that the agency wanted, or at least advised, it's staff to share while sitting around the holiday table, with some comments from me about how they might be more generally applicable to any organization.

1. NSA's mission is of great value to the nation.

Applicability for you?

Probably some. Obvious if you work for a children's hospital or for Waste Management. Maybe less relevant if you are in some kind of management consulting group or work for one of the local car dealerships. In those cases you want to find someone (other than the greedy owner of the company) that benefits from the existence of your organization to speak up. There must be somebody, right?

2. NSA performs its mission the right way.

Take a page from the NSA, (as well as the example set by the local personal injury attorneys in your market), and stress it is not just what you do, but someone you do that thing with more integrity than the other guys that do that exact same thing as you. Don't worry about proving it, it is pretty much impossible for anyone to dispute your claim tom the moral high ground.

3. NSA performs its mission exceptionally well.

Probably the weakest of the talking points to rally behind. But I suppose in your context the fact that you are still (for the moment anyway), an ongoing concern that is employing people must mean you are doing something well. Don't grab for too much else here.

4. The people of NSA are loyal Americans with expert skills.

Drop the nationalistic bit if that makes sense for you, and go for the standard and universal 'We only have the best of the best here at ACME' take. We all know that to be the case. Everyone only employs top talent, 'A' players, etc. So what if it is not true. Unless you work for Yahoo, apparently.

5. NSA is committed to increased transparency and public dialog.

Your company has an official corporate Twitter account, right? And probably a Facebook page too. And whatever other associated social outposts that the last batch of summer interns set up for you. Forget that the last post was some inane blather last week about Black Friday, the fact remains that you are an open and transparent organization. And you will prove it the first time someone, anyone tweets at you or leaves a comment on your corporate blog.

And there it is. The much-maligned and reviled NSA has just handed you the recipe for indoctrinating helping your teams share the good news about the work you are doing there at the Widget factory.

Think of it this way, how hard can rallying the staff and goosing morale be if even the NSA thinks it can  do it?

Star employees and the assignment of credit

As loyal readers know, I am all about the fashion and as such, am a subscriber and regular reader of GQ Magazine. 

In the most recent GQ, buried in an interview with journalist and TV personality Keith Olbermann, who as you might know has kind of a checkered career past and has burned lots of bridges with many of his former employers, like CNN, MSNBC, and ESPN, was an interesting take from KO on how star employees interpret and assign the credit for their success.

Here is the take from Olbermann:

So I don't think there are huge divergences between my personality and what they see on TV. And I think that's why I have been gainfully employed doing this. I'll always deliver what an employer wants. At some point they decide the result is more trouble than they want, or they convince themselves that they have created all this success that I created for them. As in my last prominent employer at NBC, which they're learning that perhaps they were wrong about that.

Olbermann has had lots of success, and been a star or high performer (who eventually flamed out) at every stop along the way. But it would be a mistake to only focus on the flame-outs and not on the psyche of the star performer that Olbermann speaks to so candidly.

Look at that part of the quote again - At some point they decide the result is more trouble than they want, or they convince themselves that they have created all this success that I created for them.

While from the outside, anyone looking at Olbermann's career arc would tend to focus on the 'He is more trouble than he is worth' argument, stars like KO usually see it from the latter point of view - that they themselves are driving success, not the company.

I think the quote provides a really useful reminder for any leader or manager or organization that is grappling with one of those similar 'It is worth keeping this guy/gal around?' kinds of conundrums.

Star performers can be prickly. They can demand a lot. They want to be paid more than your salary range says is permissible. Like Olbermann, they can be a real pain in the a$$.

But before you decide to simply cut them loose and be done with their ego and BS, make sure you ask yourself who is really responsible for their success, and if indeed, it is repeatable or transferable.

It's ok to let the star walk if they want too much, or they become too impossible to work with, but be ready to explain to someone in an expensive suit how the drop-off in organizational performance was worth it.

Have a great weekend!

You're not just the product, you're the (unpaid) employee too

With the rise and subsequent IPOs or gigantic acquisitions of the largest social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, an often-repeated observation about the users, (and source of content/value) for these platforms has been, 'You're not the customer, you're the product.'

The idea in the sentiment is simple - the end users of these social networks create all the content via status updates, photos, or in the case of LinkedIn, a catalog of all your professional credentials, and the owners of the networks then package, parse, and sell this information to (variously), advertisers, 'power users', or other services. And as long as the individual value equation for consumers/users remains in balance, i.e. you feel like you are extracting more value out of say using Facebook than your perceived cost of allowing Facebook to sell ad space that shows up in your feed every time you open the app, then you happily will continue to use the service, supply more content/inventory, and keep the machine running.

Remember, you are not the customer, you are the product.

But if you are the product, or more accurately, you are an active contributor to building the product, then would it be too far a stretch to say that you are also the employee?

Take a quick look at this piece on Business Insider about a recent case being raised by some power users of the review site Yelp, that derives all of it's value from the end user comments, ratings, and reviews of restaurants and bars.

A group of reviewers recently filed a class action lawsuit against Yelp, claiming that the company should treat them like employees and pay them for their reviews.

The suit argues that since Yelp's business model and success is dependent on its over 42 million user-submitted reviews, the company technically employs those users and should fork over some cash (wages, reimbursement of expenditures, and damages). The plaintiffs believe that willfully volunteering to share their thoughts about a business makes them employees because Yelp can only make money if it has their reviews.

Yelp, which went public in 2012, told Circa that the case is a "textbook example of a frivolous lawsuit" and said that the law does not support the idea that voluntarily using a free service equates to an employment relationship.

Sounds kind of crazy, right?

I mean, Yelp or LinkedIn or Facebook does not force you to create content for them or to have a profile on their networks.

There really is no hint of an employment agreement or relationship that is established between any of these services and their users. So it does seem on the surface anyway, that the Yelp user's lawsuit doesn't have much merit.

But if we seem to pretty easily accept the entire notion of 'You are not the customer, you are the product', then why doesn't it make logical sense to take it to the next step, in that you as one of the millions of builders of at least an element of that product should not be compensated somehow?

Every time I get an email from LinkedIn pitching me to upgrade to one of their premium, paid accounts of some kind, I have the same reaction (I say this out loud too, although no one seems to listen) :

"Pay for a LinkedIn account? They should be paying me."

And they should be paying you too.