lonelygirl15

Ah, the storied history of lonelygirl15:

The show focuses on the life of a fictional teenage girl named Bree, whose YouTube username is the eponymous "lonelygirl15", but the show does not reveal its fictional nature to its audience.... Lonelygirl15 first came to international attention ostensibly as a "real" video blogger who achieved massive popularity on YouTube. The show was eventually proved as a hoax by suspicious viewers as featuring a fictitious character played by American-New Zealand actress Jessica Rose.

And then?

After the fictional status of the show was revealed in September 2006, the show gradually evolved into a multi-character show including both character videoblogs and action sequences, with a complex story universe involving "trait positive girls" who are sought by an evil organization called "The Order".

Based on the episodes I've seen, it's nothing more than B-grade filmmaking -- shopworn ideas, overwrought writing, amateurish acting -- without any of the guilty pleasures of a real B-movie. Horror movie (the serial killer John Wakefield) meets thriller (the facile "resistance" opposing a "super-secret cult") meets mindless confessional ("Fun Things to Do in Hiding"). All wrapped in a fractured, hackneyed storyline.

Take "Here's the Deal":



"The Order said they'd kill my mom and my sister." "Danielle, call me, email me, please." "I did what I had to do. I didn't have a choice." The throwaway plot. The tortured monologue. The sarcastic ending. And the videoblog device of having Sarah and the other characters speaking to the camera -- boy, does that wears thin.

As one commenter asked about another video in the series, "What's the purpose of this?" A second commenter opined -- it's nothing more than an excuse to show cleavage. (This in a cesspool of juvenile and/or obscene comments, which speaks to the caliber of the audience.) One can't help shake the feeling that the "creative force" behind lonelygirl15 is a bunch of creepy older guys (a sordid lot of wastrels and flesh peddlers...) pandering to a witless public .

Call it what you will: teen soap opera, sub-CW, a misguided film-school project. I'm left wondering (as I often am on matters Internet related): "Don't viewers have anything better to do with their time?" As for lonelygirl15: Why bother piling on complexity when you don't care about the characters? (Answer: Because it's easier to add another twist or subplot than it is to develop an engaging premise and cast.) One can't help but feel that, with the passing of Bree, they should've let lonelygirl15 RIP.

In many ways, lonelygirl15 is the antithesis of "Making Do," discussed in my prior post. Yes, lonelygirl15 and "Making Do" are both confessional in nature. However, "Making Do" and the other Maricopa videos are impassioned, heartfelt, genuine. Alive with originality and personality. Imbued with an honest, pulsing human core.

As for lonelygirl15.... Contrived. Uninspired. Talentless, titillating tripe. Not "so bad as to be amusing" as "just bad." Not so much Gossip Girl as Twin Peaks without the genius.

A Life in the Desert

For the past few years, Linda Hicks and Rachel Woodburn have been team teaching a Digital Storytelling class at Scottsdale community college...

The fruits of their -- and, of course, their students' -- labor can be found in the digital stories housed at the Maricopa Center for Learning & Instruction. Although I didn't have high expectations glancing over the thumbnails for each piece, when I started viewing the videos, my attitude changed. Again and again, I was impressed.

The pieces cover the waterfront, ranging from tone poems to family sagas. More than snapshots. Statements. A varied collection. Whether fragmented or full bodied, quirky or conventional, each personal and distinct. "Magnetic Attraction" about a woman who drew apart from her beau and then, years later, was reunited.
Or "Going to Clifton," a wordless reflection on a place, and people, important to the author.

Or "Making Do." A video that particularly spoke to me with its tale of a man seemingly rootless, unmoored (each day "unfolds as it unfolds under blasted, infernal heat"). Facing a blank slate, wide-open days, but the prospect more burdensome than beckoning ("I punch the clock and write the book"). Hewing to a self-imposed ritual. Creating a sense of order. Creating meaning.

Rick Stewart, the narrator, recounts his morning routine:

• Walking his ex-wife's dog
• Making tea
• Taking journal notes
• Doing yoga
• Going for a swim
• Preparing a pot of oatmeal, then his daughter's lunch

On the surface, nothing special. A chronology. A list of simple pleasures. But the presentation, and the language, make it something more.

An appraisal. Thankful yet melancholic. Infused with Zen acceptance. The words evocative: "I make the sun rise," "ends in a muttered chant," "before the desolate desert heat unfurls," "luxuriate in the womb of water," "let the Sonoran sun bake my bones dry." Not just a recitation of common moments but moments that are grounding, enriching, refreshingly predictable. Ordinary yet magical.

And a host of details: Itchy the dog, Irish and green tea ("with fresh ginger and honey"), "Tweedle-deedles," Steel Cut Oatmeal, Aunt Effie. Ending with Stewart's daughter -- the apparent (and understandable) centerpiece of his life. (Appropriately, like a photo or keepsake, the video is dedicated to her.)

Although brief, the video achieves what all good writing does -- connecting you with the circumstances, and humanity, of someone else. That shared sensibility. That bond with the author. I felt a kinship with Rick Stewart and that made me feel good.

"The rest is just ordinary day"... but what comes before?

We Feel Terrible

After viewing Jonathan Harris's TED talk in which he describes "We Feel Fine" and some of his other projects, I felt spent and offended. "But his work is so compassionate, so optimistic," you might say. "How could you respond with anything less than delight?"

First, this is not the same Jonathan Harris who played Dr. Zachary Smith in Lost in Space. This Jonathan Harris was born in 1979 and graduated with a degree in computer science from Princeton University.

Second, the mission of "We Feel Fine":

We Feel Fine is an exploration of human emotion on a global scale.

Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved.

The result is a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 - 20,000 new feelings per day. Using a series of playful interfaces, the feelings can be searched and sorted across a number of demographic slices, offering responses to specific questions like: do Europeans feel sad more often than Americans? Do women feel fat more often than men? Does rainy weather affect how we feel? What are the most representative feelings of female New Yorkers in their 20s? What do people feel right now in Baghdad? What were people feeling on Valentine's Day? Which are the happiest cities in the world? The saddest? And so on.

The interface to this data is a self-organizing particle system, where each particle represents a single feeling posted by a single individual. The particles' properties – color, size, shape, opacity – indicate the nature of the feeling inside, and any particle can be clicked to reveal the full sentence or photograph it contains. The particles careen wildly around the screen until asked to self-organize along any number of axes, expressing various pictures of human emotion. We Feel Fine paints these pictures in six formal movements titled: Madness, Murmurs, Montage, Mobs, Metrics, and Mounds.

At its core, We Feel Fine is an artwork authored by everyone. It will grow and change as we grow and change, reflecting what's on our blogs, what's in our hearts, what's in our minds. We hope it makes the world seem a little smaller, and we hope it helps people see beauty in the everyday ups and downs of life.

So we get colorful representations of a phenomenal amount of data. But are the findings truly useful? Here's what the FAQs section of the site has to say in response to "What are some of your more interesting insights?"

There's a bunch. For example, on election day, there was a spiking in the feeling "proud" and "excited". On Valentine's day, people feel "loved" and "lonely" more than on other days. As people get older, they tend to express less anger and disgust. Women express their emotions far more frequently than men, and have a broader vocabulary for expressing their emotions than men do.

But what is even more interesting are the individual stories behind the findings. You can find some of them in the book preview.

(I guess we need to buy the book.) Where I come from, someone would be laughed out of the room for self-evident "insights" like those.

The same questionable value plagues Mr. Harris's other projects:

• The "balloon project" in Bhutan, where folks leading lives of grinding poverty get to make a "crazy face" for Mr. Harris. Their personal balloons then go on exhibit (another photo op for Mr. Harris). This is supposed to underscore our universal humanity? I'm baffled as to how this helps, or humanizes, anyone. Mr. Harris is clearly good natured and well meaning, but -- at the end of the day -- the project seems like a senseless, empty (and, ultimately, gratuitous and self-indulgent) gesture.
• "The Whale Hunt," where Mr. Harris lives with an Inuit family and "documents the annual spring whale hunt." Along the way, he takes photos every five minutes (more often if his adrenaline is running high). The outcome of this exercise? A mind-numbing 3,214 photos, including large swaths where Mr. Harris is sleeping. (Which, for me, recalls experimental filmmakers like Andy Warhol, Michael Snow, or Straub-Huillet, where nothing happens. Sure, this creates a "space" for silence and reflection; sad to say, I get quite enough silence and reflection when I'm lying awake in bed at 2:00 in the morning.) I swear, this is something that Sacha Baron Cohen would parody.

I'm not trying to bash Mr. Harris or Web 2.0 storytelling. And, heaven knows, you don't need another tirade from me. Where some might argue that Mr. Harris is displaying a profound generosity of spirit, to me (with my beer-soaked, blue-collar background) he's just a rich kid slumming it. It's not anthropology so much as Mr. Harris mixing with the "great unwashed" -- unlike his dirt-poor hosts, he can abandon that environment at any moment and return to someplace comfortable.

It's what I call "the luxury of privilege." Mr. Harris's efforts seem like no more than grad school noodlings, a "why bother?" vanity project. All processed through a self-congratulatory filter. That's what makes me grit my teeth.

I had the same disquieting feeling when I heard an NPR interview with Bonnie Jo Campbell discussing her short-story collection American Salvage, a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award (Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin won).

American Salvage is rich with local color and peopled with rural characters who love and hate extravagantly. They know how to fix cars and washing machines, how to shoot and clean game, and how to cook up methamphetamine, but they have not figured out how to prosper in the twenty-first century. Through the complex inner lives of working-class characters, Campbell illustrates the desperation of post-industrial America, where wildlife, jobs, and whole ways of life go extinct and the people have no choice but to live off what is left behind.

Ms. Campbell received her B.A. from the University of Chicago.

The beauty of the web is that it, theoretically, gives folks from all socioeconomic strata a voice (though, as we know, lacking access to PCs, the underclass is still at a disadvantage). It, theoretically, counterbalances the traditional notion that all experience is interpreted by the highly educated and the well-to-do (i.e., the "ruling class").

When I see something like "We Feel Fine," I can't help but ask: "What's the point? What does this tell me about the human condition? What does it teach us?" If it's no more than a gimmick, then I'm mystified. If it's as trite as "we're all alike," then the message seems hypocritical and the purveyor dishonest.

The Solitary Spinner

Stories now are open-ended, branching, hyperlinked, cross-media, participatory, exploratory, and unpredictable. And they are told in new ways: Web 2.0 storytelling picks up on these new types of stories and runs with them... - Bryan Alexander and Alan Levine

Runs with them... right into the ditch. From what I've seen, many of these collaborative endeavors don't work. There's a problem with both quality and quantity (like going to a vast, steaming buffet -- the food's dismal but there's plenty of it).

The round-robin approach to storytelling is like a game -- something you'd find in an improv class or in an elementary schoolroom ("I whisper something in your ear, then you whisper it to the next person..."). I can't (and maybe shouldn't) take it seriously. It's an amusement, a distraction -- often uneven, meandering, clumsy, inane. It's not art.

I realize that, with the web, authorship is being redefined, that there's a blurring between expert and amateur. But, for me, the difference is stark. It's the difference between the published professional and the aspiring acolyte. For the latter, I think of fan fiction and, in an earlier incarnation, fanzines. (When I was growing up, I knew people who churned out fanzines in their spare time -- one guy would laboriously typeset each issue.)

Like fanzines, much on the web appeals to a minute audience. It's easy to access but largely irrelevant (the "long tail" at work). It may be meaningful and pleasurable... to you. But to somebody else (i.e., me, who's studied fiction writing), it's stultifying. It goes against the principles -- the rigor, the commitment, the talent -- that buttress a quality piece of work.

Art is perception -- seeing, citing, shaping. I don't see that in much of what I read on the web. What I do see, to misquote Hannah Arendt, is "the banality of drivel" -- literary evils perpetrated by oh-so-ordinary people.

Millennia ago, when I was in college, I was struck by two things:

• A professor who told me, "Life is about editing." Because we all have limited time, we have to spend it carefully, decisively. With so much else -- responsibilities, errands, demands -- clamoring for my attention, I don't have extra time for material that isn't astute, insightful, and well crafted. (I still can't figure out how guys get away with spending the better part of a day watching sports.) As for anything open-ended or sprawling -- uh uh. I take my entertainment finite and confined. With everything that's going on, I have a hard enough time getting through a magazine article let alone a sprawling, multi-part web extravaganza. (I struggle to sit through a two-hour movie.)
  
• Writing classes in which we had to review dreadful attempts at storytelling. I'm no Dostoevsky, and I'm not trying to sound elitist or insensitive, but sitting through some of those classes is the closest I'll come to waterboarding. That sense of asphyxiation as the class plods through a tortuous line-by-line accounting, debating the finer points of something that has none. Reading amateur fiction on the web triggers a flashback -- hurling me back to those times, writhing, trapped, assailed by a droning dissertation of the absurd.

I also don't understand the anonymous nature of some of these web contributions. Personally, I spend enough of my life living anonymously. If you "own" and stand behind your work, if you're proud of what you're doing, you want credit, a byline. That may betray an antiquated mindset, an old school mentality, but it speaks to one's investment in what you've nourished and birthed.

Certainly, there's legitimate and respectable art produced through collaboration -- filmmaking, theater, a performance piece. By the same token, I have no quarrel with a multimedia presentation or a video essay. All of these can be poetic, provocative, revealing. But when it comes to writing...

To paraphrase Neil Gaiman: "We write and die alone." Writing is not a communal activity, a group project, a mass undertaking. The more, the messier. As the frequently evoked adage goes: "A camel is a horse designed by committee."

When you spin a web, you should do it on your own.

Beatnik Babble Broadcast

Andrea Hiller's Beatnik Babble Broadcast is one of the better blogs I've read. As mentioned in my Oct. 14 post, I look for several things in a blog. To be worthy of a repeat visit, a blog should be intelligent, authentic, unique, well linked, and frequently updated.

To a large extent, Beatnik satisfies all of my criteria. For example, the blog's consistently clever a la SNL's "Weekend Update." In the Nov. 17 post, we read:

Palin says she has no intention of running for president in 2012 (even though we all know the world is ending anyway)...

Or this intro to her Oct. 14 post:

"GET TO THE CHOPPER! NOW!" That's the Arnold Schwarzenegger I remember. But these days he's the almighty governor of California.

Andrea mixes up a colorful and energetic stew. Throughout, her commentary is spiced up with appropriate photos and charts (and plenty of spot-on video). And, to her credit, the site's not only witty but informative. Even though I follow the news/"current events," I learned stuff (like the sneaky things cereal companies are doing in the Oct. 21 post).

Granted, plenty of bloggers comment on the news. But Andrea's (not always light-hearted -- see her Nov. 27 post on Michael Brewer) voice sets her apart. Her posts truly seem improvised... which can have both a positive and a negative side (if the writing seems dashed off/sloppy). On the negative side, there's the occasional typo. For example, the Nov. 16 post has a spate of misspellings:

People who text are less competent on the road that drunk drivers. Doesn’t that make you feel like your in danger basically any time your in a car?

Which may seem trifling in light of how strong the rest of the post is, with revelations like

Not only are text-drivers worse that call-drivers… they are also worse than drunk drivers! What?! Yes, it’s true. People who text are less competent on the road that drunk drivers.

Or asides such as

No wonder Obama and Illinois are trying to get texters off the road. They should put up signs like the “click it or ticket” ones but they would read texting = firery [sic] explosion and subsequent death (I tried really hard to make a rhyme work, but I couldn’t, so if you think of a good one, please share).

Another faux pas for Andrea to avoid -- for her Nov. 27 post on the White House crashers, we have the couple's genders reversed (Tareq is the husband, Michaele the wife):

It's true, Tareq looks like she could probably sneak past anything without being seen, but hey, that's what models do I guess. Michaele on the other hand, has a little more umph to his belly but perhaps he hid under her dress.

Or stating, in her Oct. 12 post, that "self-help author James Ray" is the "writer of the book The Secret" (he was featured in the movie version; Rhonda Byrne is credited with writing the book).

Ditto for her Nov. 10 post in which "As you can see in this video..." refers to a jpg (as does her Oct. 19 post on the Balloon Boy hoax). Or her Oct. 26 post -- "If you have a car in Chicago, you better be weary" (er, wary).

This is not to seem trivial or picky. Mistakes happen... and matter. It would be to Andrea's benefit to double-check each post before clicking "Publish." You don't want errors like these to distract from such intelligent, assured, and entertaining content.

Rebels with a Cause

In my Oct. 14 post, I listed my tips for a memorable blog. The blogs I admire are

• intelligent
• authentic
• unique
• well linked
• frequently updated

I used these criteria in evaluating Rebels with a Cause -- "a little blog dedicated to the big ideas of Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller" -- authored by Caitlin (Caity) Barillas. (Like Professor Schiff, I'm still waiting to see how Sam Fuller figures into the equation. BTW -- Sony just released the Samuel Fuller Collection, containing seven of the director's "lesser known" films.)

Intelligent

Throughout the blog, I was impressed by the writing. Caity's approach is thorough, her points well reasoned. As important, Caity has a way with words. In every post, you'll find an inspired turn of phrase (for example, in the Oct. 22 post on The Lusty Men, Caity states that "there are moments of genius nestled into places where I least expect it").

Authentic

Caity is clearly passionate about/emotionally invested in the subject. In her discussion of In a Lonely Place (Oct. 1 post), Caity remarks

There is one moment that is and will forever be one of my favorite moments in film. When Dixon is sitting at the table in the restaurant after he proposed to Laurel and she walks over to the table, he knows something is wrong. His vulnerability in this moment, that one look, stopped me. It actually hurt to watch and I felt something I’ve never felt in the movies before. It’s unexplainable after that, but I would say it’s one of the most breathtaking scenes I’ve ever seen.

Unique

For me, this is where Rebels stumbles. Each post comes across as an essay for a class -- as something obligatory or required rather than organic. I asked myself if these posts would be better suited for assignments, intended for a course instead of the (much) broader blogosphere.

Also, although I value Caity's experience with and reaction to some important (and not so important) films, there's already a treasure trove of material written about these directors and their works. If I was a casual surfer, I'd have a host of questions:

• Why would I go to Caity's site when I can spend countless hours seeing what film scholars have to say?
• What fresh edge or insights does she have to offer?
• Is she providing a perspective or school of thought unavailable anywhere else?
  

It's the perennial challenge of tackling a well-trod topic -- what new/remarkable info can I bring to the table?

Well Linked

To her credit, Caity includes visuals and videos that complement her content (though I agree with Professor Schiff that uninterrupted blocks of text can get intimidating). I see little evidence, however, that the blog is more than a personal exploration of a director's oeuvre.

Without links, Rebels is in danger of seeming insulated (and uninformed). How is Caity's "take" on the subject reflective of a wider universe, part of a larger critical discussion?

• Did she survey the literature on Ray and Fuller?
• Is she familiar with varied interpretations of their work (how have other critics weighed in, what areas have been traditionally -- or are currently being -- debated, etc.)?
• Are there other themes or issues to consider?
  

In short, did Caity do her homework? This is key to the relevance and credibility of the blog.

Frequently Updated

It seems that, like many of us, Caity came out of the gate strong (with several posts on one day), then settled into a once-a-week schedule (I noticed that there's a two-week gap between the most recent -- Oct. 23 and Nov. 5 -- posts). Speaking frankly, the frequency makes me wonder how committed Caity is to the topic and if she has the diligence/material to sustain her blog.

*****

In closing, Rebels with a Cause shows that Caity definitely has the chops for writing but, after she exhausts the Ray/Fuller axis, may want to pursue a different, less scrutinized subject.

Trip Advisor Is a Trip

"I'm a good worker and a hard worker, but I'm a world-class vacationer." - Woody Harrelson

I'm no world traveler (haven't been on a plane in years) and wouldn't qualify as a world-class vacationer (the PDGF -- Party Down Get Funky -- gene skipped a generation). However, being unemployed and penniless, I am bargain-conscious, which can help when you're planning a vacation.

Not that I'm planning a vacation (we're staying home for the holidays). But if I was, I'd consult TripAdvisor.com.
As the site trumpets, when you join TripAdvisor, you can

Enjoy all the benefits...

• Plan Your Trip. Save hotels, attractions, reviews and more. Customize and organize your trip, then print it and take it with you.
  
• Tell your stories. Share your vacation reviews and local insights on our new Inside Pages.
  
• Join our community of nearly 5 million members. Connect with other travelers in our forums or by asking questions one-on-one.
  
• Stay in the loop: get weekly deals, reviews and news on any destination you choose from our TripWatch newsletter (optional).

All you have to do is register. Which I did (using my now-infamous pseudonym). After registering (a quick, painless process), I received this greeting:

Thank You for Joining

Interested in great travel deals? We recommend...

Airfarewatchdog – Cheap flights from Chicago, IL/O'Hare Change city Change city Save city

From:

TripAdvisor Deals – Weekly specials, late-breaking offers, & last-minute sales

Cruise Critic – The latest cruise deals & news

Smarter Travel – Tips, news, savings, & more from expert travel editors

Family Vacation Critic – Advice, bargains and reviews for family trips

Perhaps foolishly, I passed on these options (as well as "Connect with Facebook") and went "Back to TripAdvisor."

From the homepage, you can Plan the Perfect Trip -- select a destination and find flights, hotels, restaurants, attractions. You can also use/peruse a forum pertaining to your destination. Staying close to home, I chose Madison, Wisconsin.










For whatever reason, the Madison forum isn't very active. There was only one question posed:

Our son wants to check out the University of Wisconsin. So we're hoping sometime in the next few weeks to drive up early on a Saturday and stay until Sunday afternoon. Any suggestions for a reasonable hotel/motel? Preferably with an indoor pool. Would also love restaurant suggestions. Thanks.

... and only two responses (both of which, to be fair, seemed generous and helpful). Unfortunately, this sole "conversation" took place in 2004.

There are Spotlight Destinations. Or you can Browse by Destination. Or, if you're unsure, you can click on Inspire Me. I chose Best Romantic Vacations - Europe ("no other city says romance like Paris"). The top four locales (after Paris) are Venice, the Riviera, Budapest, and the Greek island of Corfu. What surprised me is that Budapest ("Buda and Pest, the two distinct halves of the Hungarian capital, cling tightly together on either side of the river Danube") was the only destination that went beyond the tried and true.









At least in these lists, you have to be content with the "usual suspects." If you're looking for something off the beaten path (like "Skiing in Morocco"), Lonely Planet may be a better bet.

For the heck of it, I tried the site's Search feature, typing in one of my favorite restaurants: Rosangela Pizzeria in Evergreen Park (okay, so my tastes are a bit pedestrian). It got a four (out of five) star rating... but only one review: "This place is great atmoshpere [sic] and better food. Mr. Rizzi is a great host." This is authentic as far as a South Sider speaks but I don't know whether it'd convince a tourist to drop by. If Rosangela's doesn't do it for you, a sidebar lists other decent restaurants in the area. (If you're talking about true Italian cuisine, the restaurant reviews for Tuscany are a little more elaborate and eloquent.)

The site contains a wealth of Traveler Reviews. Unfortunately, these tend to be uniformly positive if not effusive. (Maybe if you search hard enough for a dive...). At least you know what -- and where -- the quality establishments are so you don't end up somewhere that's like an outtake from Hostel or Turistas. (FYI - According to Rotten Tomatoes,"Hostel is a wildly entertaining corpse-filled journey." Turistas doesn't fare as well -- "wooden acting" and a "stale and predictable plot." Yes, hard to believe in a horror movie...)









In short, TripAdvisor offers oodles of information -- photos, maps, deals. It's colorful and comprehensive, with links to a plethora of relevant sources. I'd definitely recommend it as a resource (if I could afford to take a trip). However, it may not be the ideal site for someone who wants more of a man-on-the-street critique. Which brings us to my chief contention -- the site seems more conventional/promotional than distinctive/quirky. It lacks personality. It doesn't have that individual, out-of-the-ordinary twist (like a good horror movie).

I give TripAdvisor four out of five stars (it could be less staid, more eclectic). But take my review with a grain of salt... or a whole rim of grains if you're in that Spotlight Destination -- sun blazing, mariachis playing, margarita in hand.

JobVent and the Politics of Betrayal

Employers that burn and turn their staff: beware!

JobVent.com is just one website in the social media sphere that is changing our understanding of workplaces, employee engagement and the importance of employee relations. It is a review-powered site that allows consumers to rate their employers, and then tallies up all input to provide employers with an overall score.

The site – which has been featured on Good Morning America and msnbc.com – offers a clear indicator that human resources has entered the digital, networked age, and that HR leaders need to become increasingly social media savvy.

This from an Oct. 14 post -- titled "HR FYI: Your Employees Are Talking About You in Cyberspace" -- on Working World Cafe. It was the first I'd heard of JobVent. Naturally, I went right to the site to check out some employers. Here are a couple typical comments:

• "I hate my hours and I don't know how long it's been since I've spent time with my family."
• "[O]nly those who have given up on their dreams stay there."
  

How encouraging!

I was particularly interested in an employer I interviewed with a few months back. Hands down, it was the worst interview I've ever had (and I speak from experience -- I've been on dozens of interviews in the course of my career). On JobVent, the company had garnered a fair number of reviews (15). Of these, 13 hated the company and 2 loved it (what does that tell you?). The more acerbic comments included:

• "The management team lacks competent managerial skills and the CEO views any member of the ... organization as expendable.. It is known throughout the company to whistleblow or question a HR or management practice, to take any autonomous proactive initiative, means you are out the door within 6 months on generally trumped up 'charges'.... employees were regularly encouraged by management to 'rat' on each other... Job seekers beware. Turnover is high and this culture is definitely toxic."
• "What a hateful place. The atmosphere is poison.... they have no idea how to treat people at all. Every week people are getting fired. On average at least 3-5 people get fired every month....
• "I'm glad I got out of there when I did or I would probably be in an institution today. It's like being in a prisoner of war camp. Shameful."
• "Working... at this company for the 6 short months I spent there was the worst employment experience I have ever had.... Most people seemed to quit or be fired for calling in sick within 3 months to a year from starting. Sometimes people would even stand up in the middle of the day and just walk out from the stress. The company could seem to care less about employee retention... The pay was terrible and the lack of respect from management and HR was even worse. I would strongly discourage anyone from taking a job at this company."
• "Turnover is horribly high but doesn't seem to be an issue that management is at all concerned about.... I was denied a day off for a friend's wedding even though I had requested it months in advance. Since no one can get a day off to save their life, people end up calling in sick and then are put on probation or lose their jobs because of the company's ridiculously strict attendance policy."
• "I came into [this company] with a positive attitude and left almost broken. Towards the end I almost quit several times and I believe they almost wanted me to quit. Why? Because I was a whistle blower. I ended up confronting the issue and bringing it to management's attention about the unhealthy culture and poor managerial skills. I felt like once I said something about these concerns that I was targeted. Thankfully I was able to find another job. But while there it was horrible. Several of my co-workers have developed severe anxiety. One woman cried in her cube every day until she could not take it anymore and just quit, another woman was throwing up at work because of stress. My whole team was in the process of searching for a new job and they were all new."
• "I think I am still mentally scarred from my year and a half of working there. This company truly does not care about its employees. Employees are considered disposable and easily replaceable.... we were reprimanded if we were away from the phones for more than a minute and barely allowed to use the restroom. The CEO is touted as an 'expert' on employee burnout and job stress, which is ironic considering the horrible morale and miserable atmosphere. The highlight of my employment was when seven people quit the same week."
• "If you want to be micromanaged and treated like a kindergartner, apply there."
• "Since they pretty much hire anyone, your coworkers won't be the brightest bulbs. You will be lucky if they can use a computer and write client notes without using internet slang. You will develop some closeness with your coworkers since you are crammed in a cube farm and can hear everyone's conversation while you try to work."
• "Benefits are a joke. I received better health coverage at a cheaper rate when I was pandering day-old coffee to college kids. They partner with all these great... companies, but none of that actually trickles down to john & jane doe employees. It's sad when the most remarkable benefit is the chance for a free bagel on Friday -- you just have to be fortunate enough to have enough shmear available after the vultures pick through it to give it some flavor. I was fortunate enough to have a cubicle, but I've seen in some departments how they cram poor people into conference rooms like cattle due to lack of space."
• "Working at [this company] has to be similar to living in a concentration camp. The management uses intimidation tactics to bully you into doing things that you don't want to do (i.e., come in early or on weekends for 'optional' training). I saw numerous people get fired without warning (one guy got fired because he asked to take an entire week off of work when his mother died rather than the 3 bereavement days that the company says is 'standard'). They won't even tell you that you are fired . . . they wait for you to leave for lunch and then they call security and tell them to deny entry to the building. They don't even let you clean your desk out . . . they ship your belongings back to you via UPS!! This company treats their employees like disposable cameras. They use them up until there is nothing left, then they just kick you to the curb. I would never work here again... even if I was starving and homeless."
• "I worked at [this company] for 1.5 years, and was considered an old timer as the turnover rate is upwards around 85%. It is the worst place I have ever worked. There is absolutely no respect for [employees]. During my new employee orientation, the CEO was asked about the high turnover rate and answered that [employees like the commenter] were "a dime a dozen" in Chicago and if we didn't like it, we shouldn't "let the door hit you on the ass on the way out." That is a direct quote. Bathroom breaks were monitored. A co-worker had to threaten to quit before they allowed her to take off 2 days to attend her grandmother's funeral. On September 11, 2001, clinical staff was locked in while the upper management was allowed to leave in order to be safe. None of the complaints on this site are exaggerated -- other than the good reviews."

As you can see: an unremitting drumbeat of misery and disdain. In this morass of negative reviews, what stand out -- like the proverbial sore thumb -- are the rare glowing comments (which one suspects, by their paucity and pep, are company "plants"). For example, we hear:

• "I've worked at [this company] for 6 years -- I think the "vents" on this site are coming from a couple of particular departments that have the most stress (lots of front-line phone work with other stressed people who are calling for help) and who may serve the most masters. My experience has been positive -- good pay, very reasonable hours -- I think even those who are unhappy would have to admit that they don't work long hours -- and my work is challenging but I have good support and interesting people to work with. Every company has its problems, but I think overall the employees at [this company are committed to helping people and are motivated by the challenge of it."
• "Having the opportunity to directly impact the lives of [this company's customers] has been both rewarding and professionally enriching. I get to work directly with experienced... staff and receive regular feedback from professionals who in some cases have over a decade of experience with the company. The organization is growing and if you pay close attention to your work quality and productivity there is the opportunity to take on added responsibility and get recognized for it."

Sure.

Amazingly, the person who wrote the post in Working World Cafe observes that

Human resources specialists need to understand that, good or bad, employees are talking about you. What they say can influence your ability to attract best-in-class talent, investors and even customers. And, it empowers you to fight for better workplace initiatives – because the C-suite cares about its public reputation.

The social media revolution has impacted human resources by creating increased accountability, transparency and opportunity. Heed the buzz: creating a great workplace now has impact on your brand.

For the company cited above, there is a catalog of atrocities, an unbroken string of caustic comments -- people have been complaining about them for years (comments go back to 2007). You'd think the company (and the comments) would have improved if such a chorus of laments and accusations had had any impact on corporate policy or practices. But, no, employees are still being treated horribly (as affirmed by the most recent post, submitted yesterday).

So, if review sites like JobVent are meant to serve as a corrective, they aren't working. (Ironically, a company's unwillingness to recognize/respond to the gripes on these sites merely serves to validate those complaints.) At least in this case -- and possibly at many "toxic companies" -- the offender is indifferent or impervious to scrutiny.

Which leads to the "politics of betrayal." As Timothy Egan notes in his Nov. 11 opinion piece in the New York Times:

It takes quite a bit for Americans to say that the social contract is broken, or look upon concentrated wealth as anything except a virtue. But we may have reached that breach....

The continuous drip of perceived unfairness continues. One day it’s news that Goldman Sachs seems to have stepped ahead of the line of those waiting to receive H1N1 vaccines, prompting questions about why investment bankers were getting doses rather than children or pregnant women. This week, Gallup found one in five parents saying they were unable to get swine flu vaccine for their children.

Another day brings a report that the top banks are raising credit card interest rates – some as high as 29 percent, which would shame a Mob extortionist — even against people who have always paid on time. This is the thanks we get?

If Congress steers through the Great Recession without responding to the thousand points of pain among average Americans, people will see them for what they are in bottom-line terms: an insulated club. Proof, just recently, came from a Center for Responsive Politics report that 237 members of Congress — 44 percent — are millionaires, compared to just 1 percent for the country as whole....

Two things will define which way the rage goes next year: health care, and the fate of the feeble economic recovery.

In an atmosphere growing ever more stifling and fetid, with captains of industry striding the stage callous and unrepentant, with a swelling contagion of affronts and abuses -- what do we do?

One thing I'll do: religiously visit JobVent whenever I'm researching an organization.

LinkedIn or Locked Out?

LinkedIn (in 50 words or less, per the Wikipedia entry) is

a business-oriented social networking site founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003 [that is] mainly used for professional networking. As of October 2009, it had more than 50 million registered users, spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.

Pretty impressive numbers.

I've been on LinkedIn since I began my job search. I currently have over 40 connections (which I realize is peanuts compared to the number of friends and followers some folks have on Facebook or Twitter). How useful has it been to me? Well, I haven't gotten a job yet.

To its credit, LinkedIn lets me:

• Post my resume
  
• Include recommendations (that is, people acting as references/recommending me)
• Connect to colleagues and acquaintances (and see who they're connected to)
• Communicate with them via InMail
• Research individuals and companies
  
• Belong to/participate in various affiliation/discussion groups

In addition, LinkedIn offers a Blog Link application.

For me, LinkedIn is most valuable in allowing prospective employers to review my qualifications and read recommendations that tout my skills. From my end, I can use it to gain background information on people who work at targeted organizations.

A lesser, though still notable, benefit: it's helped connect me to people I haven't heard from in years. For example, I was invited to connect with somebody whose name I didn't recognize. I was stupefied until I looked at the person's profile. Yes, it was someone I knew -- she'd gotten married and changed her last name.

There's consolation in staying in touch with people: the guy you went to school with, the coworker who remembers you, the boss who'll gladly -- and effusively -- recommend you. But that only gets you so far. Not to sound crass, but you want someone to help get you a job. There's no substitute for face-to-face meetings with folks who are in a position to hire you.

LinkedIn's tag line is "Relationships Matter." May sound trite, but there's truth to it. As the old adage goes: it's not what you know but who you know. And "who you know" is more than just a name or a profile. It's more than a solid, iron-clad, time-tested relationship. Ultimately, as any Chicago resident is aware, "who you know" has to be someone with clout. There's the relationship that matters.

Facebook - Satan's Nefarious Tool?

No surprise: Facebook is the most used social network. As tracked in this graph from Compete.com, it's steadily overtaken MySpace in terms of unique monthly visitors:



The most recent metrics (September 2009) show that:

• Facebook had nearly 125 million unique monthly visitors (a 200 percent increase over the prior year)
• MySpace had only 50 million unique visitors (an 11 percent decrease from the prior year)

So, why's it so popular? What's the appeal? Because I'm not a Facebook user, I asked my wife (who is) to give me a tour. She pointed out her Wall and some of the key features of the site -- News Feed, Profile, Photos, etc.

She also stressed the importance of privacy settings. As she talked, the image that rose in my mind was that of a hostess at a party, gliding from one conversation to the next, customizing her remarks based on how well she knew (and trusted) each guest.








I can see the appeal -- if not the insistent, addictive pull -- of having access to a constant stream of tips, anecdotes, and observations from my network of "friends" (no matter how loosely that term is applied). Facebook is a convenient one-stop shop for sending and receiving messages, storing photos, viewing that unwinding ticker tape that is the lives of others.

The challenge I have with Facebook (as with other social networking sites) -- who has hours each week (day?) to devote to them? And what of the depth and quality of these interactions? An article in the Nov. 5 London Times asserts that "The Internet is Killing Storytelling":

The internet, while it communicates so much information so very effectively, does not really “do” narrative. The blog is a soap box, not a story. Facebook is a place for tell-tales perhaps, but not for telling tales. The long-form narrative still does sit easily on the screen, although the e-reader is slowly edging into the mainstream. Very few stories of more than 1,000 words achieve viral status on the internet.

Meanwhile, a generation is tuned, increasingly and sometimes exclusively, to the cacophony of interactive chatter and noise, exciting and fast moving but plethoric and ephemeral. The internet is there for snacking, grazing and tasting, not for the full, six-course feast that is nourishing narrative. The consequence is an anorexic form of culture.

The debate rages on about the value of tweeting, texting, and posting... and there's no shortage of detractors. "The Greatest Generation (of Networkers)," a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, had this to say:

This generation has a gift for multitasking, and because they've integrated technology into their lives, their ability to remain connected to each other will serve them and their employers well. Others contend that these hyper-socializers are serial time-wasters, that the bonds between them are shallow, and that their face-to-face interpersonal skills are poor.

"The unspoken attitude is, 'I don't need you. I have the Internet,'" says P.M. Forni, the 58-year-old director of the Civility Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, which studies politeness and manners. "The Net provides an opportunity to play hide-and-seek, to say and not say, to be truthful and to pretend. There is a lot of communication going on that is futile and trivial."

That's far too harsh an assessment, says Ben Bajarin, 32, a technology analyst at Creative Strategies, a consulting firm in Campbell, Calif. He argues that because young people are so adept at multimedia socializing, their social skills are actually strengthened. They're good at "managing conversations" and getting to the pithy essence of an issue, he says, which will help them in the workplace....

"They know how to optimize and prioritize..." [says Mr. Bajarin] And given their vast network of online acquaintances, they discover people who can become true friends or valued business colleagues—people they wouldn't have been able to find in the pre-Internet era.

Though I can see (and appreciate) the social angle, I'm afraid I'm just too pragmatic/utilitarian. When I get on the Internet, I'm looking for information: the answer to a question. I'm not thinking 24/7 about what my "friends" are doing or what's on their minds. If I want to check in with them, I send an email, pick up the phone, or (can you believe it?) sit down and have lunch with them. (Which is not to say I shouldn't be actively striving to expand my network...)

Also, as with any social networking site, users (especially younger ones) have to be careful about the information they share... and who truly qualifies as a "friend." People have to realize how public, and permanent, postings are. Crazy remarks or compromising pictures could not only prove embarrassing but be extremely damaging (i.e., behave responsibly, actions have consequences).

Unfortunately, the consequences of an online life may be more profound -- and insidious -- than that, as Nicholas Carr proposed in the Atlantic:

For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many, and they’ve been widely described and duly applauded. “The perfect recall of silicon memory,” Wired’s Clive Thompson has written, “can be an enormous boon to thinking.” But that boon comes at a price. As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

I’m not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they’re having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing. Some of the bloggers I follow have also begun mentioning the phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media, recently confessed that he has stopped reading books altogether. “I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader,” he wrote. “What happened?” He speculates on the answer: “What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?”

Fun with Classmates.com - Part 2

"Unleashing Your Creativity While You're Moonlighting," a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, exhorts readers to "build a brand." Among the words of wisdom:

[G]etting your name out there is an important way to drum up business. But for part-timers with less wherewithal to put toward marketing, creating a Web site with work samples or a portfolio becomes even more important in getting business going. Mr. Belsky [Scott Belsky, CEO and founder of Behance, a New York-based company that develops products and online tools for creative industries] suggests setting up a blog, joining LinkedIn groups related to your interest, and using Twitter to get your work noticed by more people. Creating a profile with free-lance job boards like Odesk.com, Guru.com and Elance.com is another way to get your name out.

It's interesting that, at the same time I was checking out classmates.com, I was also looking at these free-lancing sites. What's the connection (besides a temporal one)? Though Odesk, etc., are clearly not social networking sites, both classmates.com and these sites use similar tactics. They all speak to people's (naive? reckless? misguided?) need to connect.

Specifically, these sites (classmates.com included) require:

• Disclosure of -- potentially sensitive -- information in order to register (with little knowledge/assurance of how that information is going to be used/abused).
• A -- potentially significant -- investment of time and money (free-lance sites have subscription fees; you have to scour the site for possible jobs; even if you don't score the work, you still have to draft a proposal for every job you bid on; even if you win and complete the work, there's no guarantee that you'll get paid).

As you trawl through these sites, you get the queasy feeling of being conned. That soft, sweet promise of a big payoff. "Meet old classmates." "Get lucrative work." And when the outcome is (so much) less than you imagined...

As one commenter had to say about Elance:

Elance has enabled some fairly dodgy people to hire desperate East Europeans/Africans/Pakistanis/Indians/Chinese/etc writers, coders, artists, programmers, designers etc for pay so low it really should be a human rights violation.

Funny, but the Journal reporter failed to mention that.