Comic relief

I applied to a job posting for a (software) product management consulting company last week. As near as I can tell, their product managers swoop in on clients, develop requirements documents and hand off to developers to build and install.

Rinse and repeat.

I like consulting and I really enjoy collecting, writing and prioritizing requirements, because it involves developing a deep understanding the business problem and the people who use the system, and then advocating on their behalf. So I thought this was worth a shot.

As part of this company’s “talent acquisition” system, I have to complete a short questionnaire that includes such issues as:

·         What do you love about requirements? Why?

·         Have you worked with use cases?

·         What is the point of using use cases?

I was a little disconcerted when one of their questions began, “On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is the best”, and another started, “On a scale of 1-10, where 10 is the best”. You’d have thought that a group of people who want detail-oriented employees would have settled on one convention. In a single document. Five questions apart.

Plus, they sent a document for me to complete, instead of directing me to an online system, which seems weird for a company specializing in software requirements. Why would they use what’s essentially a manual input device?

But as I was squinting to read the questions, I realized that the questions and answer spaces are set in 10-point Comic Sans.

They just lost about 30 points on the competitive scale of 1-100, with 100 being best.

Workers of the world strike back

Well—this is timely. In my post Tuesday about how companies turn to crowdsourcing for creative work, particularly design and what they call “content” (meaning, you know, words that tell their story), I did not touch on one dirty little fact.

Well, perhaps dirtier, seeing as to how it’s dirty enough that corporations (and, actually, federal agencies) go to great lengths to extract the lowest possible price from their creative vendors.

(In the case of the feds, they actually have the chutzpah to open “design contests”, inviting designers to spend scores of hours designing departmental logos for risible “prize money” and the glory of being able to say that you designed the logo. E.g., Department of Interior last year put out the call for a new logo; total available: $1000. You should have heard the discussions on my various tech downloads on that when some woman posted the “great opportunity” to the list. Professional design guilds estimated that the job was worth $20K-$50K, approximately the amount of money the GSA paid for one breakfast at their recent taxpayer-funded Vegas bacchanal. One large wouldn’t even have bought cocktail napkins for one of their many team-building activities.)

Okay, so as if expecting people with years of training and experience, not to mention God-given talent to provide you with highly creative, professional branding material, that’s going to tell your corporate story at a single glance, for a fee that amounts to an hourly rate below minimum wage isn’t enough of a Scrooge for you, client companies often…just don’t even pay the niggardly amount they agreed to.

It’s appallingly easy to screw designers, developers and “content” creators. Take their work and just stop replying to their emails or taking their calls. And as for writing a check—fuggedaboutit.

For most of us, the only recourse is bad client ratings on the crowdsourcing site and small claims court. But here’s a designer who took the street-justice route. Here's what you see if you go to the offending website:

Evidently the client is in financial straits and there’s no one around to try to take back the site. Their difficulties are so great that perhaps they never will.

But it’s a lovely site to see someone from the corporate “job creators” class named and shamed.

Power to the people!

The subject is TV

So, it seems that the Military/History Channels don't have a lock on dysfunctional communications. You can't tell from this pic, but here's a bit from a promo for USA's In Plain Sight series, which is ending on Friday:

Apologies for the blur. But trust me: this is what USA Network thought appropriate in terms of subject-verb agreement.

But, back at the Military Channel, we have yet another disconnect in terms of where Mickey's hands are and what constitutes an hour:

I wonder if any of their execs ever watch their own programming?

I wonder if any of their execs can tell time?

Workers of the world

Today being International Labor Day, I’m going to tell you about a recent experience trying to get a logo designed for an organization I’m helping out.

It’s a really great group, dedicated to helping the unemployed find jobs by connecting them with people who know people in companies all over the Bay Area. I volunteered to be product manager and to lead the revamping of their website, because—although they call their connections concept Networking 3.0—their website harkens back to Web 0.5.

Maybe even Web 0.25.

I won’t even tell you their URL. It’s that bad.

(The current functionality isn’t much better, either, although the executive director keeps referring to the features as “apps”. They’re not “apps”; they’re lists of members, of companies and jobs, with some links you can click on.)

But I digress.

As part of actually making this outfit look what I call “web real”—like a viable, professional entity that has both gravitas and technological credibility—I created a full-on design specification, with positioning, organizational background, use cases, etc. I also finally persuaded the ED that we need a logo. We can’t get the site actually designed & built until we have some sort of brand around which to, you know, design it.

This being a non-profit, our original email blast for a pro bono designer didn’t net anyone. And we have two events to attend this weekend, so the production of a logo became a priority. The ED therefore opened an account on elance, posted an excerpt from my design spec and then handed it over to me to deal with.

Within 12 hours we had 16 proposals, and here’s where the issue of international labor came in.

I already had issues with the idea of crowdsourcing, because it essentially reduces every commission to a freefall to the lowest bid. For a while I was part of Guru, a similar site; but I realized that if I put forth a bid that was fair compensation for the talent and level of expertise I bring to the job, I’d always be underbid.  I wasn’t being outrageous, either; I was estimating the amount of time a job would take and what I would get if I worked at an agency to do it.

Sites like these pit creative vendors against competitors in third-world countries who will always underbid. And for many, many “clients”, getting something for next-to-nothing is the most important consideration. (Like people buying air travel tickets who’ll go with the carrier that’s $5 less. The result being that airlines compete for the lowest airfare and the lousiest service. Or the entire Wal-Mart business model.)

Keep in mind that, by my estimate, designing a logo will take a minimum of four hours of work: absorbing what the client’s business is all about, their market, their ethos, their competitors, etc., developing appropriate colors (in our case, since we don’t already have them), designing several possibilities; getting client feedback; editing the designs; and finalizing. It took me eight hours to go through the 16 vendors’ listings, look at the work they’ve done before, start sifting them out and supplying the winners with information about our organization.

We got bids from designers in the US, Pakistan, Mexico, Yemen, Colombia, Argentina, Trinidad/Tobago, Bulgaria and the UK. The highest was $383.56; the lowest, $45.

This is our global economy in a nutshell—corporations are doing this on a grand scale, offshoring jobs (and tax payments) to places where they can pay workers a pittance and not worry their heads about safe working conditions and extraneous stuff like that. And I was essentially being asked to participate in this in a very personal way.

Made me very, very uneasy. And not just because on something like this I prefer to sit down across a table from someone to tell the story and answer questions.

In the end, I chose two designers, one with a bid of $170 and the other at $80. Both from the USA. I filled out detailed questionnaires about our organization Friday morning; both replied that they had enough information to produce designs. I’ll get initial output from one today, from the other tomorrow.

I worry, though. I worry that without the actual human contact (not even a phone call—strenglich verboten in the elance model) my questionnaire answers don’t give the full idea of what this organization does so it can be represented in a logo. I worry that I’ve helped support a system that turns everything into a sweatshop. I worry that I’ll get useless designs back and we won’t have anything for the two job fairs this weekend—so I’ll have a crappy web site and no logo to give job seekers any confidence in our ability to help them.

I worry that the Internet, instead of opening real opportunity, just reduces everything to the lowest common denominator.

Theory of relativity

If you’re looking for something to put your life into perspective, I give you this site where it’s all laid out for you.

I have to say that your ordinary laptop display isn’t really adequate for the visuals, so if you’ve got a real monitor, definitely make use of it.

Where's Sam Wo?

The story about the San Francisco health department closing a Chinatown fixture was interesting to me. Seems the Sam Wo restaurant’s owner couldn’t afford to bring the place up to code, so they served their last egg roll last week.

You’re probably wondering, so what? And, pretty much, so do I; I’ve never been there, although it’s purportedly been around since just after the 1906 earthquake. And I certainly wouldn’t have gone there to be insulted by “The World’s Rudest Waiter”.

It would have to be exemplary food indeed to prompt me to pay for the privilege of being the butt of the help’s rudeness. Frankly—I can get that sort of abuse from my employer, who actually pays me. (Not much, but still…)

I also don’t find it inviting to eat at a place where the health department finds “rodent activity” anywhere on the premises, much less in the kitchen. I’m not all that squeamish, but I do have some standards.

What I’m kind of wondering is why it took so long to cite the place, and why the owner doesn’t seem to have the money to make the improvements, since it’s apparently never short of customers?

But what this joint reminds me of is other institutional dives—restaurants that have been around for donkeys’ years, with large helpings of attitude as a major part of the cachet. The one that immediately comes to mind is The Original Pantry Café, in downtown LA.

It’s another place with a rep, and waitstaff that came over on the Lusitania. You don’t dare ask for any kind of special cooking or substitution, unless you like a huge helping of dissing with your pork chops. (And it’s not just one rude waiter; they all trained with Don Rickles. But you only get stick if you step out of the clearly demarcated menu lines.)

I’m thinking that TOPC stays ahead of the health department. Although now I'm going to wonder.

Verse for the best

April is National Poetry Month. I did not know this.

And today is Poem in your Pocket Day. Which I also did not know. But I fully support the concept.

Really—no purchase necessary. Write, download, type, draw a poem on a piece of paper. Put it in your pocket. Then share with colleagues, friends, family, people in the supermarket checkout line, etc.

This is apparently a very Big Event in Charlottesville, Virginia. Which is to be expected from the home of Mr. Jefferson's Academic Institution. Go, Wahoos!

I realize I’m getting this to you on the day, but not to worry—it doesn’t take but a minute to recall, research, write or ask someone for a much-loved poem. You can even post one to your FaceBook page.

Anything that gets people talking or thinking about verse.

Here’s one of my very most all-time favorites, from e.e. cummings:

plato told

him:he couldn't
believe it(jesus

told him;he
wouldn't believe
it)lao

tsze
certainly told
him,and general
(yes

mam)
sherman;
and even
(believe it
or

not)you
told him:i told
him;we told him
(he didn't believe it,no

sir)it took
a nipponized bit of
the old sixth

avenue
el;in the top of his head:to tell

him

What’s yours?

It's a goose/gander thing

I was interested in Peggy Noonan’s latest philippic about how (American) society is going straight to hell, not passing GO and not collecting $200.

Don’t get me wrong—I agree that beating tourists, mass thievery and, frankly, any participation in prostitution is not a good thing. And posting videos about it is even worse.

As for that whole GSA thing—well, words fail me.

But what I find interesting is that Noonan is apparently not shocked, utterly shocked to find that Wal-Mart de México not only paid millions in bribes to do business with one of our biggest trading partners, but when the corporate HQ became aware of it they devoted all their effort to sweeping it under the serape.

How come Noonan hasn’t said there’s something wrong with that picture?

Or, for that matter—why isn’t she excoriating Bank of America, Goldman Sachs or any of the other corporate criminals whose actions have brought the world economy to its knees and ruined the lives of tens of millions?

If, as determined by the Supreme Court, corporations are people, shouldn’t they be held to some level of standards of character too?

Peg? Hello?

Magic Kingdom beans

Well, the wicked stepmothers, evil lions & wearers of puppy fur must be dancing in the Main Streets today, for they and all the Dark Side have triumphed at the Magic Kingdom.

Yes, Starbuck’s is invading the Disney ecosystem, starting with California Adventure in June. According to the Disney Parks blog the beachhead will be on Buena Vista Street, “a place that transports guests to 1920s Los Angeles, when Walt Disney arrived in California and a cup of coffee was the perfect way to jumpstart a busy day.”

Well, fine; but I’m guessing the 1920s cup of coffee was considerably different from what the Fiddler, Fifer and Practical Café (I swear I’m not making that name up) will serve. Not to mention that your venti triple-shot caramel macchiato will cost about 500 times more than the one penny price of a cup of joe 90 years ago.

But what I’m really wondering is: do the little princesses and midget Davy Crocketts really need one more source for a sugar high in that environment? Are they not already wound up tighter than a cheap watch (well, a cheap watch from the 1920s, when you had to wind one up) and ready to pitch wobblies at the least provocation? Do they really need "jumpstarting"?

No, I just cannot think that Mickey and Minnie are sleeping well these days.

Around town

Okay, here are a couple of things—unrelated (I think), except that they fall into the category of what-the-hell-are-these-people-thinking.

First, the past few times I’ve been driving around the Valley and heard the sirens of emergency vehicles, I’ve ascertained what direction they’re coming from and if they’re on the same street as I, headed in either direction (assuming it’s not a divided road), I put on my right indicator, pull over to the right and come to a stop. Like always.

Whereupon, like as not, some buffoon in a Lexus, BMW or SUV swerves around me and keeps on going—as though I were somehow behaving completely unexpectedly.

Is that make-way-for-fire-engines-ambulances-and-cops thing no longer the rule? It was in the California DMV regs when I took my test less than two years ago. Has it been repealed? Or is there an exemption for the Head Up But (HUB) driver?

The other thing I’ve noticed is people bringing bottled water into church services. What’s up with that? You can’t go 60 minutes without rehydrating? (And for the one today who came in late—you can’t go 50 minutes?)

What’s coming down the road—cups of latte and blueberry scones?