If you haven't checked out PeopleOfWalmart yet, you're in for a treat. Pages of entertainment from America's classiest individuals (yes, mother of mullet-baby, I'm speaking to you).
One of my favorite websites just got a little bit better: it just launched EmptySpaceAds! Move your mouse to the margins of the page and you'll see the new ads come up.
EmptySpaceAds is the same start-up I was working for before I left to go back to school, so it's really exciting for me to see this development.
Now, I know ads aren't exactly exciting for most people - who likes 'em? They replace regular content and get in your way as a result. That's why EmptySpaceAds is so great - it's in the margins, so it won't replace any "real" content, and it doesn't get in your way like many pop-up ads.
For publishers, it offers similar benefits. You can increase the number ads you show on a page (and therefore your revenue), or you can replace your ad units with EmptySpaceAds. Either way, you'll see a boost in your revenue. And, best of all - you don't have to sacrifice content that brings customers to your page.
Since discovering the wonder of outsourcing nine months ago, in October 2008, I've outsourced approximately 300 hours. That's 300 hours that I got to spend reading or playing (or working...) while various assistants re-formatted an e-book, researched traffic stats for competing sites, scheduled apartment visits, got price quotes for vacation rentals, designed posters for an upcoming party, performed bookkeeping work, handled support requests, and wrote software. All for a mere $3.50 / hour. (Slave wages? Hardly.)
Life post-outsourcing is much less stressful. Here's how you can get in on the action:
1. Understand what tasks you need help with: Spend three days figuring what you want. Each time you spend more than 15 minutes on a task, write it down on a list. At the end of the three days, go through your list. Which of these could you hire someone else to do?
2. Categorize the most important skills: What are the core skills that your tasks require? Photo editing, excel, etc? Is there particular software that your assistant needs? How good does the candidate's English need to be?
3. Post a job opening: I use odesk.com for finding outsourced assistants, because I love its transparency. I can see how many other jobs a candidate has (will they be too busy for me?), how much they've been paid (are they trying to overcharge me?), and their scores on a number of odesk-supplied tests. I post a suggested rate, and candidates respond with their own bid. Job applicants usually apply within minutes of posting a job opening.
Note: You might expect that if you post an expected wage of $7 / hour, no one will bid less than that. I haven't found that to be the case. Because you can see a candidate's prior wages, a person who's previously been paid $2 / hour has a hard time requesting $7. Furthermore, andidates are competing with each other to get each position, so they need to post competitive wages.
4. Interview via Instant Message (or Skype): I conduct my interviews over instant messenger. For an assistant, I'll usually ask the following questions:
What times of day are you available to work?
Are you available on the weekends as well?
Can you make phone calls, if needed, through Skype?
How much experience do you have with excel and photoshop?
[After providing a link to a recent news article] To better assess your English skills, could you please read the following article and provide a short (4 - 5) sentence summary?
You'll notice that my questions are very simple. Why? Because I don't think you can truly assess someone's capability without hiring them. So, I look for their English capability, confirm that they have the requisite software and skills, and then I hire them to test them out.
5. Hire Several, and Look for Quality not Price: You won't know how good a candidate is until they actually attempt a task and most, frankly, aren't very good. Hire several people, try them out, and then narrow it down to the best.
Don't automatically go for the cheapest. Suppose you have a $2 / hour and a $5 / hour candidate applying. If you have to spend even 20 minutes more time correcting the cheaper employee, it may be not worth it. Hire for quality, not price.
6. Clarify Expectations: Do you want an employee to make their own decisions? Or would you prefer that check with you first to see what to do?
7. Let Go of the Bad, Hold on to the Good: Some candidates won't be very good, but that's why you hired more than one. Let go of someone if they just aren't cutting it, but fight to hold on to the best. A good assistant is well worth it.
8. Go For It! Your new assistant will report his or her time to odesk.com, usually automatically using odesk's software (this software takes screenshots of their computer randomly while they're working, to ensure that their time reports are honest). Odesk will then charge you each week, giving you a short window of time to contest any charges. You can either IM or email tasks to your assistants. Note that both you and your assistants will be reviewed when you close the assignment, so it's in both people's interest to treat each other fairly.
The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that schools cannot strip search students, with Clarence Thomas as the lone dissenter. In the case, a 13 year old was accused of having ibuprofen by an ex-friend. Though the school never searched her locker or desk, they strip searched the girl. For ibuprofen.
Redding says she was then asked to strip down to her underwear and stood there while the nurse and secretary inspected her clothes and shoes.
"Then, you know, I thought they were going to let me put my clothes back on, but instead they asked me to pull out my bra and shake it, and the crotch on my underwear, too," Redding says.
Redding says her whole body was visible to the school administrators. She kept her head down so the nurse and the secretary couldn't see her fighting back tears.
I've already discussed why I feel that this was assault, so I won't go into that again. The ruling, however, was interesting.
He seems to feel that there'ssomething inherently wrong with second-guessing educators' decisions. Why? Isn't a wise to have someone double checking to make sure that people are doing the right thing?
He believes that a strip search helps "ensure the health and safety" of students, when quite the opposite is true. This strip search was extremely detrimental to the health and safety of the girl. She felt abused - which is exactly what she was. In the rare cases when a strip search is necessary, call trained professionals: the police.
The other interesting aspect of the ruling was that only two justices felt that the school administrators should not be shielded from liability. It is no shock at all that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman, was one of those two.
Justice Ginsburg singled out the assistant principal, noting that he had made Savana sit on a chair outside his office for more than two hours in what Justice Ginsburg called a “humiliating situation” when the case was argued.
“At no point did he attempt to call her parent,” Justice Ginsburg wrote on Thursday. “Abuse of authority of that order should not be shielded by official immunity.”
Indeed. You don't need to know the law to know that the following is completely inappropriate: searching a child's panties for painkillers - but never, say, searching her locker or her desk - and never calling her parents. And then making the child sit outside the office even though they never found anything!
Unfortunately, only two of the seven judges could understand that the school administrators abused this girl.
This is why we need more women on the Supreme Court. Women will not only be more likely to understand issues like this, but through sharing their experiences, they can help men understand.
Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.
Wording like this would have been torn to shreds by my high school debate team (which once, rather infamously, defined Huckleberry Finn, in the statement "Episcopal Academy should ban Huckleberry Finn," as the character himself. The team then argued that to ban a character, but not the book itself, is absurd. They nearly won.). But I disgress...
Proposition 8 was awkwardly written, and intentionally so. Consider some intepretations:
Only (marriage between a man and a woman) is valid or recognized in California. Nothing else - nothing at all - is valid.
(Only marriage) between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. Of all legal or other agreements between a man and a woman, marriage is the only one that's valid.
[No parenthetical equivalent] Pair "only" with "a man and a woman" to imply that no other marriages are valid. This says nothing about other, non-marriage contracts.
Proposition 8 wants you, of course, to select the third option. But should we? Consider an analogy: "Only boys between the ages of 10 and 15 can apply."
Common sense suggests that we parse the sentence as "Only (boys between the ages of 10 and 15) can apply." Thus, no girls allowed. Proposition 8, however, would have us pair "only" with "between the ages of 10 and 15" to imply that no other boys are able to apply. This says nothing about other, non-boy applicants. Girls are allowed, then?
Given the awkward, ambiguous wording, why didn't Proposition 8 say what it meant? Why wasn't it written as "ban same-sex marriage" or "marriages between same-sex couples are not valid or recognized."? Because wording matters.
Proposition 8 almost certainly would not have passed had it said what it meant: ban same-sex marriage.
Language to avoid at all costs: "Ban same-sex marriage." Our base loves this wording. So do supporters of SSM. They know it causes us to lose about ten percentage points in polls. Don’t use it. Say we’re against “redefining marriage” or in favor or “marriage as the union of husband and wife” NEVER “banning same-sex marriage.”
52% of voters voted for Proposition 8; by NOM's own admission, only 42% would have voted for it had it been clearly written. It should have been a resounding failure, not a narrow success.
So, please, do not let anyone tell you that "the people of California have spoken." First, the voters spoke, not the people (voters do not accurately represent the people). Second, the voters voted to support Prop 8, not to ban same-sex marriage. There's a big difference - a 10 percentage point difference.
Wording matters. It made all the difference in passing Proposition 8.
Working for Microsoft, Google and Apple, I not only became a better engineer - I became a better entrepreneur. Their successes and failures, encapsulated in these five lessons, provided me with invaluable instruction in how to build a company and effectively compete.
#1. Build a large network. The “Biggies,” as I like to call them, have an unfair advantage: they have a network of literally thousands of experts. At Apple, I worked with some of the industry’s best designers. Microsoft has people who specialize in every conceivable role. At Google, I could walk down the hall and speak with the inventors of revolutionary technologies.
To compete with the biggies, you’ll need a network of your own. Get out to those start-up happy hours. Grab business cards. Set up coffee and lunch chats. And be open - you never know who might come in handy.
Gayle Laakmann is a Wharton MBA student and owns two businesses, CareerCup and Seattle Anti-Freeze. She has previously worked for Microsoft, Apple, Google and, most recently, EmptySpaceAds.
If you haven't checked out PeopleOfWalmart yet, you're in for a treat. Pages of entertainment from America's classiest individuals (yes, mother of mullet-baby, I'm speaking to you).
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