Have a conversation with me on Plurk

A couple of months back @kevyn tried to convince me to join Plurk. I wasn't convinced... Twitter was where all my friends were, so why would I switch?



@kevyn made a passionate argument that on Plurk, "you can have real conversations." Technically, that's true. But I wasn't all that motivated to switch because, clearly, while I could have the means to have a conversation on Plurk, I didn't have anyone to have a conversation with. Also, I was busy.

Still, Plurk interests me with the promise for what it can do for conversations on the web. So, right here, right now, I'd like to ask you: if you have a Plurk account, please add me: davidlian as your friend. See you soon.

Jobs 2.0: Ever thought of collaborating with your employees?

Edit: In order to avoid unnecessary speculation and consternation, I would like to clarify that the below post does not reference any company's I've worked in or work for. I will have it on record saying I thoroughly enjoy (and am still enjoying) working for both agencies I have had the pleasure to work with. Said friend works for a totally separate industry and was never a colleague. Said friend is not me. Don't ask if I'm looking for a job.

P.s. Erna says this is a good post, so I'm leaving it up. :)

A friend on the verge of leaving his company is being blamed by his boss for undermining the company's delicate pay structure and causing unrest in the entire office. I think it's laughable that bosses have to shake and quiver with fear when their employees "finally figure out what they are worth."

Was the whole business model to hire staff as cheaply as possible in the first place and then sell their services to the highest bidder? Sounds like a workable business model? Yeaps, in the old days perhaps. But, today it's just not a sustainable business model. Mainly because employees will "finally figure out how much they are really worth."



Thanks to the internet and social networks, everyone knows what their worth now...sort of. Just run a search on 'salary survey' on Google and you'll know what I'm talking about. Or, better still, if you're connected, post on a forum of like-minded professionals (don't ask them what they earn, ask them what they think you should earn - provide years of experience, field and some idea of your current job scope).

What does this mean for you, the boss? If I could sum it up into two words, they would be - transparency and collaboration. (My friend disagrees, he thinks it should be three words - big, fat, paycheck.)

First, be transparent about how you arrived at what that employee should be paid. Obviously, its tied to his / her job-scope and how that contributes to the company's profitability or ability to function. If your employee has a clear view of her role and how that translates into her pay, you're 50% there for the next step of the way. Remember, your "survey" of the "industry" is not the end-all of the conversation.

Secondly, collaborate. As a boss, you're always going to fight an uphill battle to keep employees if your goal is to "keep them at the lowest wage possible for as long as possible." Understand that people have financial responsibilities too and the oil prices hit everyone. Help the employee understand why the company can only pay them so much for what they do, and offer solutions (additional roles they can fill, perhaps?) to help them meet their personal goals. If the employee is unreasonable, sack them - you have my permission.

Notice I haven't mentioned a word about company culture? I feel that's a word that's often trumped up too much, so much so that there are actually companies who feel "great company culture™" is a substitute for proper pay and benefits. Hello! Pay and benefits ARE part of the company culture. No one's saying we should go overboard like these people, but please realise that rousing motivational talks from the boss don't fill stomachs.

Capiche? A great employer would make the employee feel that he / she is key part of the organisation and is being rewarded as a co-owner and co-driver of the company's success. Transparency and collaboration.

Okay, I guess I should clarify in case this post gets taken the wrong way that I am not writing this to target any particular company. Half the content in this post should be credited to my friend (who shall remain anonymous), but I felt echo in many people I have met, worked with or chatted with about work-in-general over the past 5 years.

The concept of job has evolved. I think it's worth re-evaluating.

How I know the economy is in bad shape...

Edit: Have been too busy these past coupla' days to do a proper cerebral post, so bear with me on a coupla' brainless ones first.

So back to the post, this is the effect of the recession on Mamee:

Outside:



Inside:



I know, I was surprised too.

Toilet humour

Most of Malaysia's best jokes can be found in our lavatories.

Needed: Photo-tags standard in EXIF?

Was having a discussion with some techno-nerds yesterday about photo management. Yes, we all know, it's pretty painful.

My ideal photo management system would be to have all the tags stored in the picture file's EXIF data so that I can easily transport photos and not have to re-tag them in each device / service.



For example, take the picture above. If I had tagged it "bird", "parrot", "Wildlife" in Flickr and then moved it to ShareOnOvi, I'd have to retag it again. Similarly, while Windows Vista lets you tag photos, it loses all its tags once you moved it to an online service. Now, even the new Symbian S60 3 FP2 devices allow you to tag photos which can then be searched in-device. But all that is lost once you've saved those pictures to your Vista PC.

[Okay, for the unsavvy, a tag is essentially a word / category you can associate with a file (not necessarily a picture) that will help make searching for the file easier. So, if I tagged the picture above "bird", the next time I or someone else searches for "bird", this picture will come up.]

With devices becoming so connected, and content often stored on the "Cloud", what would really work is to have tags stored within the EXIF data of each picture file. This is similar to the idea of ID3 tags that audio files get. This way, no matter where I push, import or move the file, I can easily search for it using the same familiar tags I use, and without having to re-enter all those tags again.

What do you think? Will a smart company out there start working on this (if you haven't already?)