The Frustrated CFO

Can't You See? Google's Hummingbird, or the Monopolization of Information

Every time the proverbial wool is pulled over the masses' eyes, this question materializes in my mind in a very specific way: Can't you see?  Pumped with drugs, submerged into the water, and literally attached to a supposed crime-fighting machine, the main precog Agatha (Samantha Morton) pleads with Tom Cruise's John Anderton to see the truth: to clear his mind and look behind the foggy wall of deceit; to figure out what is right and what is wrong, who is a victim and who is a real criminal, where is the true justice and where is the pure greed for power and domination? 

Can't you see?  With their latest search-engine revamp (aka the Hummingbird offensive), Google is trying to deprive you of your basic rights (particularly those guaranteed by the First and the Ninth Amendments) and turn the last bastion of freedom, the Internet, into the same corrupt mess our tangible world has become - the wasteland, where the bigger your teeth and claws are the larger the piece of the pie you will grab.

Even though the implementation of the "hummingbird" algorithm was publicly revealed on the day of Google's 15th anniversary, it had been enacted several weeks ago.  I noticed something new a month back:  Like everyone else who writes, from time to time I go online to look for the best choice of words.  For years, Thesaurus.com has been the first-listed result.  It still is, but right above it (above everything) appears a lightly-bordered box with a Google-provided selection of synonyms, word origin, etc.  Even on the 21" screen it dominates most of the initially visible space - you have to scroll down to see other results.  If all you need is basics, you don't need to go to any other dictionary site - it's all right there, in the box. 

Now, try to google, for example, Advil and you will see the same (only larger) box at the top, filled with medical information on this over-the-counter drug.  Type 3D Printing in the search field, and you will get featured ads (powered by Google's AdSense) at the top and the hummingbird's box on the right with the top four choices for 3D printers from Google's Shopping.  And don't be deceived by the fact that many of your searches don't bring back the ghostly box just yet - the knowledge base will self-educate and expand with incredible speed, just you wait.             

They are not too shy about it either: In the midst of listing all the "innovative" features of the hummingbird algorithm, they freely speak about their strategy to squash the other online information purveyors.  During the unveiling ceremony, Google's search executive Tamar Yehoshua constructed his demonstration specifically around queries related to nutrition.  The first results were long lists compiled by Google and shown on Google's own site.  No need to go to WebMD - one of thousands of online businesses dependent on the Internet users' ability to "find" them. 

Wow!  First, they started tracking your web patterns in order to "suggest" ads and rank search results according to your "tastes" (how are you supposed to find, buy, learn anything new, if Google keeps polluting your visual field with old, familiar shit all the time?), and now this?!  They want to monopolize the Information Superhighway; they want to own your mind and hinder your psyche!  This is much worse than anything Snowden has revealed about Big Brother.  Can you imagine the breadth of opportunities for manipulations?

How about the unlimited possibilities for murky dealings?  Just think of the fees you can charge a company for the right to be a part of Google's knowledge database, to be included into that top-of-the-page box.  Judging by the experience so far, we will never know how much exactly:  While making the basic AdSense pricing available to everyone, Google makes sure that it is impossible to find out how much it costs to guarantee that your ad or product always appears in the featured boxes, bypassing hundreds of others. 

For many, Google's true intentions of global domination are obscured by gimmicks, oh, so attractive to the techno-savvy Internet users.  You've got complex, multiword queries; you've got voice recognition with detectable accents - Google pretty much promises to come up with search results in response to your mumbling something in your sleep.  Everybody's like, "Oo-la-la! Symantic search capabilities!"  That's all great, except don't lead me straight to your own websites, bro, let me make my own choices!   

What happened to Sergey Brin, who came here from the Soviet Union in 1979, at the tender age of 6?  Didn't his parents teach him anything about the importance of personal freedom and the dangers of totalitarianism?  And why?  What,  $24.5 billion is not enough?     

I don't really know if the algorithm's nickname is an unabashed display of gall and an inside joke hinting at Google's true intentions, but I find its selection uncanny: Hummingbirds, pretty and quick, are essentially omnivores - sucking out flowers's nectar and praying on insects' protein, all in the course of one meal.

I sold my Google stock as soon as they monopolized the online advertising, and I wish I could tell you that I plan to stop googling, or use Maps.  Unfortunately, I am not able to take such a pledge: no matter how hard other search engines try (and I would like them to try harder), as of this moment they cannot match Google's speed and range.  Yet, I refuse to give into their tricks: I will not be boxed out neither by the AdSense tracking my Internet movements nor by the hummingbird's hijacking the top spot of the informational ladder.  I will continue to exercise my freedom of going to the search results that I believe are relevant.  What about you?  Can you force yourself not to be lazy and bypass Google's conveniently positioned traps?  Can you brush off that wool and see?       

Economic News Flash: Another Dinosaur Bites the Dust

In case you didn't hear, during the past 4-5 days BlackBerry Ltd. (formerly known as Research in Motion, or RIM) has announced that they (1) have generated a $1 billion loss (!) in the last fiscal quarter alone; (2) plan to lay off 4,500 "staffers" (35% of the company's employees); (3) will become private again if the intended $9/share stock buy-out by a Canadian hedge fund Fairfax Financial goes through.

So, after allowing a healthy company (modest $300 million volume in 2002-2003; respectable and still okay $3 billion before the introduction of the iPhone in 2007) to get unmanageably huge ($20 billion in 2011), the mastodon got crushed under its own weight.

Well, first of all: Dah!  I thought it was obvious to everyone that sleek iPhones will keep pushing BlackBerries into the proverbial corner - when you stop being "the cutting edge,"  you can only go this far on the price incentives.  In fact, not only iPhones, but also Google's Androids and Microsoft's Windows Phones surpassed BlackBerry's devices in their service capacities.

I do have some questions, though, regarding the etiology of this grand failure.  

How did the company get so stagnated in less than 30 years since it was formed and mere 14 years since it introduced its first email pager?  Where were all those Ivy-League graduates who were hired to manage innovations, operations, marketing, finance and human resources?  Where were the $700/hour consultants and public accountants?  What did they do with all those expensive Business Analytics and Performance Indicators organized into pretty dashboards?  Why didn't they regroup, contract, reinvent, restructure?

I'll tell you where and why?  The dumb asses, greedily preoccupied with the value of their personal stock options, were staring at the market ticker instead.

When a company grows with an exponentially increasing speed, like cancer, the sensible management by capable people becomes impossible, simply because their supply is too short.  To fill the gaps, a trivial approach is adopted, i.e. hiring according to the laundry list of garden-variety requirements.  Unfortunately, conceptual thinking and understanding of fundamental principles cannot be substituted by expensive diplomas, high test scores, and flowery resumes.  If you go the standard route, all you get is a bunch of highly-presentable empty suits with steely eyes, strong voices, unsubstantiated self-confidence, and not a single original thought in their heads.  Thus, the entrepreneurial brilliance that made the company possible in the first place completely disappears.    

Real business is not a multiple-choice test or a text-book case study.  It's far too dynamic and complicated to be approached with basic school techniques, no matter how ivy the school is.  And the world doesn't slow down for a creature too big to coordinate its own movements.  There are unproven theories that giant dinosaurs, such as Stegosaurus, had a "second brain" - an additional nervous center responsible for the movement of their hind legs and tails.  Makes sense to me, because an ogre with no brain power at all, is not able to coordinate any of his movements; let alone quickly react to changes around it. 

Even more important question for me personally is why wouldn't people let this diseased monster die its very natural, evolutionary death of being stomped out by the stronger competitors?  Why pour almost $5 billion into this carcass?  Has Fairfax Financial been bribed by the Canadian government into preventing even larger job losses?  Did US Treasury, so keen on protecting the stock-market investors, participate in this scheme as well?  Unless the hedge fund is seating on some miraculous technological break-through, politics is the only explanation I can come up with for this waste of money. 

Maybe if BlackBerry were let to die, the other members of the dinosaur herd would've taken notice and treated their gigantism with some surgical partitioning.  Maybe they would've even stopped hiring according to the bullshit diploma-ranking and personal connections and started looking for the real spark of an intellect in their management.  Alas, we probably will never know.    

CFO Folklore: Mortal Kombat - CEO vs. Outlook, FIGHT!

I am the biggest advocate of an entrepreneurial CEO's freedom from any administrative, technological, and infrastructural minutiae.  They must not busy themselves with making their own reports or calculations in Excel, devising organizational routines, catering to bankers' demands, nurturing relationships with customers, etc.  They have functional executives and senior management for that - CFOs, COOs, CIOs, Controllers, Sales VPs, etc. 

An effectual CEO should be focused almost exclusively on the strategic development of the business and the tactical decisions pertaining to the company's survival and prosperity.  Therefore, he may be, but  doesn't need to be an Excel pro, an IT geek (unless, of course, that's the business), a bullshitting ace, or a financing maverick.  He must be a visionary - that's all.  I stated my position on this issue multiple times and dedicated an entire post to the defense of CEO's limited scope of responsibilities.  I even wrote about it in CFO Techniques.      

I have to say, though, when it comes to technology, for most CEOs outside of the high-tech industry, it's not even the result of division of labor -there's some sort of a pervasive impairment.  Most business owners I know personally or have heard about from other people are not very technologically advanced, to put it mildly. 

There are CEOs who call for help every time they need to insert a column in a table; are incapable of  logging onto a network; and wouldn't touch scanners even if they stand right on their desks.  And that's Ok.  As I said, they don't have to trouble their valuable heads with these things as long as they attend to their primary job and manage to be brilliant at it. 

However, we do live in the second decade of the 21st century and some level of sophistication in the ways of contemporary communication is simply required.  It has nothing to do with being a small business owner, a big-time CEO, or The President.  This is one area of technological advancement, where everyone at a certain point had to overcome their innate resistance to novelties and get on with the program.  Radio, telegraph, telephone, video transmission, cellular connection, etc. - they have simply become mundane tools of every-day existence.   

Nowadays, using electronics as a means of organizing your life and exchanging information is as elementary as turning the pages of an old-fashioned desktop calendar.  And if you don't know how to do it, it makes you look silly and inadequate; it's simply unbecoming for a business leader. 

I currently have a client who comes to the office on Saturdays and Sundays because he cannot follow instructions on how to access his business emails remotely or push them through his iPhone.  His partners, employees, and commercial associates laugh about it behind his back.  It's likely that these inadequacies have an impact on their overall attitudes towards this business owner.

But I am particularly annoyed with those CEOs who are not able to utilize Outlook beyond the most primitive actions of receiving and sending emails.  I mean, for businesses operating in the PC environment, the program has become one of the most vital cross-functional tools since 1997!

I am currently exposed to one of these.  At this point I've already resigned myself to the sad fact that she will never learn how to accept or reject meeting invitations.  I wouldn't even dream of her creating one herself.  She will never get rid of her humongous appointment book, which, due to its instrumental limitations, is incapable of reminding her of important events or tasks at hand.  However, emails are her life, she lives and breathes them.  Wouldn't she treat them with proper care?  Guess again.

The other day she comes over to my office and asks if I still have "that email about..." (the subject matter is irrelevant).  Of course, I do.  She is standing right next to me looking at my screen, prepared to read the email with me when I find it.  I switch to Outlook, which is opened, as always, on the Inbox.  There are maybe 10 emails there, which arrived in the last 30 minutes.  "Where are all the emails?!" she is utterly surprised, "I keep all important emails.  I've got hundreds of them."  "So do I," I reply, "But not in the Inbox, of course."  I slide to my Navigation Pane, go straight to one of my 30 subject folders.

She is not stupid and she is a pretty good CEO.  She understands the importance of time-saving tools.  But she is too proud.  She will not ask me or any of her employees how to do it.  And so, she continues searching through hundreds of messages in her Inbox.             

SOPA, PIPA and "CFO Techniques"

The inner conflict many intelligent people experience over Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), is an old problem for me. For many years before the pharmaceutical and media lobbies brought the issue of proprietary rights infringement in the Internet age to Washington DC, I've been torn between two firm believes of mine: (1) that content creators (writers, musicians, artists, designers, etc.) are entitled to get paid whenever their creative products are used for commercial purposes (i.e. to make money), and (2) that the information available on the Internet cannot be restricted by any means.

That's why more than 10 years ago, I thought of Napster as a violator of musicians' rights to financially benefit from their products. It was obvious to me that the whole purpose of the "file-sharing service" was Sean Parker's publicity stunt to show off the Fanning brothers' technological platform with a purpose of selling it and profiting from it (which is exactly what happened).

YouTube, whose owners obviously always intended to capitalize on the advertising, is also at fault when it lets the users to upload copyrighted material without paying the content owners royalty out of their revenues. On the other hand, I don't see anything wrong with YouTube being a promotional portal for young artists, musicians, filmmakers, and such (including the crazy exhibitionists catering to voyeurs), who upload their own creations knowingly in hopes of receiving the tangible benefits of being noticed.

Of course, the most conflicting entity is Google. On one hand, we cannot exist without their search engine (I am well aware that there are geeky alternatives out there, but let's face it - Google dominates); on the other hand, when it comes to the Internet advertising they are the closest example of a monopoly we've got in our screwed up economy. Moreover, Google attains its riches by using every single one of us, the information-seeking users. Ultimately, it's in their interests to tag counterfeiters and bootleggers, because users are looking for them. And I guess they know that their hands are not exactly clean. Why else would they settle with the Department of Justice to pay $500 million for allowing Canadian Pharmacies' advertisement?

Presently the issue of the online copyright infringement hits very close to home for me. A bunch of unlicensed eBook-hacking sites are offering "CFO Techniques" downloads for free. Neither me nor my publisher is getting a single penny out of this, while the sites' owners get advertising income, revenues on sales of their users' information, and ability to pollute the hapless freeloaders' computers with the spyware invisibly attached to the plug-ins required for viewing the books. They profit unfairly using MY PRODUCT. And that's not fair.

Still, even this wouldn't force me to support the half-assed anti-constitutional laws like SOPA and PIPA. Why? Because if these laws are passed, I could go to jail for offering my readers a clip from "So, I Married an Axe Murderer" within my post about The Best Boss in Cinematic History , even though I derive no material benefits from this blog (none at all). I'd rather people steal my shit than go along with freedom of speech violations in the name of copyrights protection.

Yet, I am all for fighting piracy in an intelligent way that doesn't take our civil liberties away. And the "financial benefit" criteria seems to my CFO mind like a sensible approach. If a site takes any form of payments or generates advertising revenue through deliberate peddling (not just illustrative usage) of unlicensed and unpaid for content, the enablers of payment processing and advertising portals should stop providing their services to this site. This would be not much different than YouTube's actions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA): they get a notice and remove the violating content.

Money is the key. I always said that the best way to fight terrorism is going after the financial sources. The now supposedly dead Osama Bin Laden without his multimillion wealth would've been just a thug on the street. Facebook without the advertisement revenue would be just a well-designed electronic hangout with no prospects for an IPO (expected in May this year).

Marc Cenedella Freaks Out: "Privacy is for old people says LinkedIn founder"

Marc Cenedella is upset! He is so upset he is lashing out at something Reid Hoffman said nearly a year ago at World Economic Forum in December 2010 (the Ladders' researchers must have been working on digging something up on him for months):

Privacy for Old People Says LinkedIn Founder

And I understand - LinkedIn went public and made X amount of millions in cash for Mr. Hoffman (I hope my readers understand that, like the rest of the public-stocks billionaires, he cannot really turn the $1.6 billion of his shares into liquid assets overnight). Mr. Cenedella, who started The Ladders barely two months after LinkedIn was launched in 2003, had wet dreams about being exactly in Mr. Hoffman's position by now.

I have no fucking clue why would he be dreaming those dreams. It's not that he created anything original. There were already other job boards with premium memberships and listing fees before The Ladders. The only differential he had was the $100K+ executive appeal (which, as you know, they just dropped - see my September 24th post). Did he think that those minute bells and whistles would be sufficient to build his value as an attractive investee?

You didn't really think that Marc was upset about your personal privacy, did you? Well, he did at some point - he was a man of ideals. When he started his company he did the right thing - he declared in the Terms & Conditions that he will not share, sell, etc. members' information. And indeed, I don't know anybody who gets spammed because of their usage of The Ladders. It's the other job boards that got their emails too: Monster, CareerBuilder, HotJobs, etc.

But big bucks are big bucks - they manage to bend out of shape the purest of idealists. And now, when Marc is alone in his office or his kitchen writing his blog, he is jealous, devastated, and desperate to kick himself in the nuts for not doing what all other amoral Internet moguls do, namely selling every single shred of your privacy in exchange for a golden bonanza Hoffman experienced on May 19th this year, when LinkedIn's IPO closed at the double of the entering price. (By the way, now it's at four times of the initial offer.)

So, he is upset and the post linked above is his way of letting the buildup of negativity out. Well, Mr. Cenedella's motivations aside, Hoffman's remarks in Davos are wrong on so many levels, it would take me several more posts to break it all down( don't worry, I am not going to). This is exactly what I would expect from someone who "made it" in the way Mr. Hoffman did, though. What's the implication here? Even if you are 18, but is concerned with your constitutional rights for privacy, you are "old" and square? And if you want to be perceived as young and hip, you should disregard all privacy concerns?

Statements like that don't upset me because they are "politically incorrect," as Marc Cenedella claims - I don't care about that shit! They upset me because they are politically dangerous and stupid. How intellectually limited one should be to mix up the teenagers' exhibitionism with privacy issues? Are you that confused? You don't see the difference between people, on their own accord, making decisions to disclose information about themselves and your selling their connectivity and interests profiles to third-party predators for an enormous gain? This proves once again that nowadays success, even in business, has nothing to do with intellect.

Job Search: Altogether Now! Say, "Bye-Bye, Ladders!"

As some smart people predicted, TheLadders are not for $100K+ job seekers anymore.  In his newsletter last Monday (presented in its entirety at the bottom), Marc Cenedella announced that now his job board "takes all salary levels" (for shame, Marc - subpar writing!)  Well, he definitely can say, "Bye-bye" to many premium members who are paying annual fees on the premise that they belong to an "exclusive club" of six-figure-salaried people (Dear reader, I agree, it's absolutely pathetic, but people are people). 

But I am more interested in the speculative assertions we can deduce from this:

1. Marc Cendella thought that some investor would come along and he would be bought out by now and retire in the..., where he wanted to retire.  I understand very well the whole thing with the book's publication, etc.  There is no fame or fortune in writing the books (trust me on this one, I should know), because nobody buys or reads them.  You invest your precious time into writing endeavor for other reasons.  In his case - self-marketing.
   
2. The job market is so bad that there are not enough 100K+ postings to cover their expenses.
3. He needs more revenue both to boost the dwindling cash flow, and attract investors.  For that he needs contracts with large employers and recruiting agencies, who don't have too many six-figure positions anymore either.  So, the only way they will deal with him is if he opens the doors to all salary levels.
4. Now, even the premium members will start receiving laundry lists with salaries all over the place - it's not like there are no $40K a year controller positions out there.  Who wants to pay for that kind of service?
   
5. I am not an oracle: it's possible that Cendella is a lucky person and it will all work out his way, but it's my opinion that the near-future probability of TheLadders saying bye-bye altogether is very high.

"Bye-bye!

September 19, 2011

From MARC CENEDELLA

We're expanding, and today we say "bye-bye" to helping only those over $100,000 and "hello" to helping all career-minded professionals. TheLadders now takes all salary levels and shows the right jobs to the right person. So while we're saying goodbye to our narrower segmentation, we are not saying "goodbye" to keeping your job search on TheLadders relevant, focused, and targeted.

So, for example, you won't see jobs that pay half (or double) what you're currently making. You won't see jobs outside of your field — we still won't show sales jobs to finance professionals, or marketing jobs to technologists. And we won't be letting in scammy jobs, work-from-home schemes, or commission-only opportunities — we'll still be vetting every job and every recruiter before we allow them into our community.

So what's the big change for you? Should be not too much… on the surface.

You'll still be seeing great $100K+ jobs, and the recruiters who post them.

Behind the scenes, though, by making it easier for companies and recruiters to fill all of their professional jobs at TheLadders, you'll find that we're getting more, and an even wider variety of, jobs at the right level for you.

We've been out talking to our friends in HR departments and recruiting shops across the country these past few months talking about our expansion and we've found widespread enthusiasm and support. The standard ways of doing things are too expensive, too time-consuming, and too frustrating for them, too.

This expansion has been a long time in the making. From the beginning in 2003, when we set out to become the "Society of the Nation's Top Talent" to our first appearance in the New York Times in 2007, we've talked about preparing for the day when we would expand to cover all professional jobs.

We've worked hard at becoming experts at modern recruiting. We've underwritten research at universities. We've spent over a million dollars re-writing the playbook for job search advice. We published our Amazon Top 100 best-seller: "You're Better Than Your Job Search". And we've studied the history of the job search through the past two centuries.

We also launched Signature, our historically unprecedented program that guarantees you a job offer — or your money back — when you follow our program of weekly or bi-weekly calls over six months.

And based on our expertise in understanding what employers want, we've built the largest resume writing service in the country.

It's that excellence in helping job-seekers like you that has propelled us to become leaders in the business, and it's one of the reasons why we've tripled the number of recruiters and HR professionals in our community this year alone.

And so now that we've grown to almost five million members in the United States and 43% of high-end professionals used TheLadders in their job search last year, we're expanding to serve all career-minded professionals and all professional jobs in the country.

I thank you for your support these last eight years and look forward to eight, or eighteen, or eighty more years helping you succeed in the job hunt!

I'll always be rooting for you,


Marc Cenedella, CEO & Founder"

Case Study: The Marketing of Fear

In my consulting practice, I have a client who has a family-ran business.   It has been established several generations back.  He is doing well.  Yet, one of his sons wants to be an entrepreneur of his own stature.  He wants a complete independence - something I very much admire.  The young man has a pretty fascinating idea worthy of at least trying to attract venture capital.  Of course, he wants to do everything himself.   I know the boy for a really long time - when he embarked on figuring things out, I told him he could always count on my advice if he had any questions.

He came to me a few days ago, his model  clearly formulated and ready to be formalized in a business plan.  But he was all out of sorts about the business plan.  His original intent was to buy a PaloAlto's Business Plan Pro (still a #1 business plan software on the market) for $199.99 and work within its framework.  But then somebody told him that he can go cheaper and "easier" with a Growthink's Business Plan Template - only $97 for a pre-written, fill-in-the-blanks, Word document/Excel spreadsheets.  Excited, he went to look at the company's website and ended up having a panic attack.

I went to see for myself what could possibly spook him like that.  Let me tell you right away that I have nothing against Growthink, a 10-year-old consulting company, specializing in business planning and investment brokerage.  They appear to be quite successful in their core business of charging high-rate fees to moneyed clients looking for more funds, expansion or exit strategies.

The thing is, though, that in their daze of success they also decided to "reach out" to the general public.  According to their Special Announcement, they

"regularly receive requests from entrepreneurs who want to hire Growthink but cannot afford our consulting fees. For this reason, we have developed a business plan template that allows entrepreneurs to quickly and cost-effectively develop professional plans."

How about that?  They charge their conventional clients tens of thousands of dollars for their services, but here it is - for $97 you can have exactly the same thing.  Well, that's nothing new.  Consumer beware!

What caused the young entrepreneur to go into a frenzied mode was something else - it was the brutal, fear-fueling tactics that Growthink uses to market their side products.  I don't know how they talk to their conventional clients, but their online lingo is nearly unethical.

You take a vulnerable group of people setting off on a scary quest of entrepreneurship and you tell them,  "You don't know anything.  We are the only ones who know all the secrets.  Here, we tell you 4 out of 10 things you must know and then you will have to buy more products to know the rest.  If you don't do it you are doomed.   Here is another set of products with secrets from Venture Capitalists that were revealed only to us.  Everybody else do it wrong and so will you, if you don't buy this," etc, etc.  And it all enhanced with a rapid-speed audio. 

By the time they are finished talking, the poor young entrepreneur feels he MUST SPEND $1,200, or there is no hope for him.  And all he wanted to do is to spend two hundred bucks on the best business plan software on the market.      

The funny thing is that the template has only three reviews.  Do you think that the $1 billion of venture capital, Growthink claims their clients raised, was attracted by a ready-made generic template?  I don't think so.  Plus, if you are a creative person, capable of original brilliant idea, would you really want fill in the blanks and have somebody else's words expressing your aspirations?                 

Job Search: Lessons from AOL Resume Contest

Not that my stories are usually bright and sunny, but in this case I feel obligated to apologize in advance for the accentuated feeling of gloominess the visitors may experience reading this post.   This particular topic is depressing on three levels. 

First of all, it deals with the fact that there are millions of well-qualified people out there, who are classified as "long-term unemployed." 

Secondly, it highlights the problem of plunging work quality we can see everywhere.  I am not saying everyone, but it seems like the majority of people  just don't want to try hard anymore.  

Thirdly, it disparages our illusions about the impact of "internet exposure."  Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and web-powered Social Networking are even more popular mantras nowadays, than Dashboards.  Everybody and their mothers are writing about it.  People believe that if they get their name on a high-traffic site, they are going to be noticed.  The reality is that unless you write about sex, celebrities or electronic chachkis, nobody will care.  And before you bring up Huffington Post, let me tell you - Arianna Huffington was a political powerhouse and a decent memoirist way before she went on the net. 

So, here is the story.  In January AOL Jobs announced a Resume Contest and offered job seekers to submit their CVs and photos.  The winners were "to be selected by AOL Jobs career experts."  The incentive to participate was boldly formulated:

"Each winner will have their resume featured on AOL.com for millions of prospective employers to see..."  

AOL Jobs never revealed their traffic information to support this claim of tremendous exposure.  But of course, people are desperately unemployed and ready to grasp at straws; plus, the internet exposure illusion...  Resumes were entered into the contest.

Here comes the funny part.  Afterwards, the organizers did not even bother to announce how many resumes were submitted.  Like, it did not even matter.  However, in addition to the original 12 winners,  AOL Jobs announced 24 runner-ups, claiming that "there were so many amazing... entrants" (no actual numbers).

I happened to know personally one of these runner-ups.  Guess when these poor saps were featured on AOL Jobs...  The first group on Saturday, January 29th, at 7:57 AM, and the second group on Sunday, January 30th, at 4:42 PM.  Who was looking?  Recruiters?  Employers?  None of these 36 winners got any job offers through this "wonderful" campaign.

The personally -known-to-me winner did not receive a single phone call or an email.  Well, that did not really surprise me.  What shocked me was that nobody from AOL cared to follow up with her.  There were no emails asking if she got any leads, nothing...  Weren't organizers interested at all in the results?  As I say - low quality of work everywhere.   

So, I have a constructive suggestion, which at the very least will have a quality-improving effect.   How about, AOL Job's management actually pursues their "Employing America" mission and replaces the incapable staff, who developed this failed contest, with some excellent winners of the Resume Contest?