interview

This is What Mark Zuckerberg Had to Say to the World

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FB data

Facebook has been in the news a great deal this week, so much so that I found myself writing blogs two days in a row. And now in this third day, I will give it up to Zuck himself. The guiding mind of Facebook made the rounds of talk shows and interview tables to shed some behind the scenes looks at how the-powers-that-be at FB came upon and addressed the recent data theft (mis-use?) by 3rd parties.

You may have seen some of the sound bites on TV or heard on radio. Or read in the media. Here is a transcript of a 20-minute interview, which was conducted by Kara Swisher and Kurt Wagner of Recode. (Thank you Recode!) See for yourself if you are satisfied with Facebook’s response.

Swisher gets quickly to what I think is the point of all this, that these geniuses at Facebook wanted to play in the real world but didn’t expect the bad guys to target them. She brings up the idealistic theme at Facebook.

KS: Open and sharing, and it was helpful to growing your platform, obviously. What’s in the mentality of your engineers of Facebook where you didn’t suspect this could be a problem?

Zuckerberg deflected that the engineers were solely at fault.

MZ: You know, frankly, I just got that wrong. I was maybe too idealistic on the side of data portability, that it would create more good experiences. And it created some, but I think what the clear feedback was from our community was that people value privacy a lot more. And they would rather have their data locked down and be sure that nothing bad will ever happen to it than be able to easily take it and have social experiences in other places.

KS: I get that. 2014 you absolutely did that. But I’m talking about the … You know — and I’ve argued with [Facebook executives] about this — this anticipation of problems, of possible bad actors on this platform. Do you all have enough mentality, or do you not see … I want to understand what happens within Facebook that you don’t see that this is so subject to abuse. How do you think about that, and what is your responsibility?

MZ: Yeah. Well, I hope we’re getting there. I think we remain idealistic, but I think also understand what our responsibility is to protect people now.

Do you feel safer now? I don’t. Read the entire interview and decide for yourself.

Peter Parker/Spiderman said it best (well, Stan Lee…): With great power comes great responsibility.

I think Facebook continued to think of this all still being a giant frat party. Time to grow up boys. Some bullies outsmarted you and took away your lunch money. The whole world is watching how you handle this.

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Can You Wear Sweatpants to a Job Interview?

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Does the question need to be asked? Apparently sweatpants at interviews is a topic.

Thumbs down sweatpantsWhile I have been writing blogs and tweets for others over the past six months, this blog has been dormant as I dealt with multiple family & work situations at once. Something had to be sacrificed. Now in preparing to start up again, the search was on to find the “right” topic to say “I’m back!” But today realization hit me, just pick one and get back on this treadmill.

The sweatpants question was something I tweeted before leaving the house.

I had just written a blog, decided to walk around and came upon a musical performance in the town square. I shouldn’t have been surprised as I had tweeted about it for one of my accounts several hours earlier. But it had slipped my mind. Anyway, I pulled out the cell and shared a live stream Periscope of it.

That’s when it hit me. Just as I had decided to broadcast the event in front of me because it seemed like a Periscope event, I should just pick something I had thought interesting enough to tweet and write about it.

This blog’s major purpose is to help Small Biz navigate and utilize social media; the minor purpose is to help new writers improve their writing skills so they can secure employment, most notably in social media.

And there’s the connection to the sweatpants topic. Business owners and potential employees. Where do they intersect? The job interview.

Earlier, I had entered “job interview questions” in Google search and this jumped at me:

I have a job interview today at 1:30 at WalMart, but I have nothing nicer to wear, I’m broke with no job. On the phone he never did tell me what dressing type he is looking for. So. I was thinking a plain T-shirt and sweatpants. would it be ok?

Update: I’m sorry for being overweight and not being able to fit into jeans. I do have a pear of black cargo pants but I can’t find them. And I cant find the belt to it. And I can’t afford to go and get any.

While initial reaction might be “poor guy, give him a break,” let’s look at the facts.

He took the time to apply on-line to WalMart. Was he not serious? Did he not consider that they would call and invite him down for an interview? WalMart is not a speedy responder due to a heavy load of applicants. There would have been ample time to at least find the cargo pants and belt. Time to see if a friend or family member could lend him pants. Time to go to a thrift store to buy something for $5.

And— time to walk into a Salvation Army, Goodwill, St Vincent de Paul, or Catholic Charities to tell his tale of woe where quite possibly somebody would have said, “go pick something off the rack kid. If you get the job, come back later and pay for it.”

I would have. The guy was making an effort to get a job. I would have paid for the $5 pair of second hand pants for him.

But the fact that he even considered wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt for something as possibly life-changing as a job interview is frightening. And apparently as this next link shows, not all that singular.

As I said, I tweeted the question and marked it for three people in business for their reactions: @DawnCatherine CEO & Founder of La Bella Vita Cosmetico/Radio Show; @BudLaRosa Chief Business Performance Officer and Chief Financial Officer; and @DrJRogers Social Media Marketing Professor.

Bud was speechless in his retweet, and he usually is quite talkative in his responses.

Granted, clothing codes have been relaxed; I used to work at a company where dress shirts & ties have been replaced now by polo shirts. But the job interview is still the place to look and act professional. The place to sell your brand. The place to say to your potential employer “I will work hard and will represent your business in a professional way to your customers.”

The answer to the question is no. And so ends my first blog back. The treadmill awaits.

(Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net)