Social Media Finds (and the Challenges of Facebook)

Pinterest (Photo credit: stevegarfield)Just a year ago I was talking about Facebook versus Twitter, and concluded that there was a place in our online lives for both of them. Shortly after that I learned about Google+ and did absolutely nothing about it for quite a while. I didn’t (and still don’t) see the value that it provides.

In the past few months I have created a Facebook fan page to connect with food allergy fans and promote my new book, I have joined Goodreads, and I have started my own pin boards at Pinterest. Whew! It’s a lot.

And even more recently, Facebook forced me to the timeline layout, and my only beef is that it appears I never had a life before 2008. According to Facebook, there’s no proof I was born, went to college, or did anything for the first four decades of my life. Facebook very kindly prompts me to add photos for those periods, but conveniently forgets that we not only didn’t have digital cameras in 1970’s, we didn’t even have compact cameras. At least I can prove (with photos) that I had my children, but not until 2011, and only due to a nifty little photo scanner.

But let me spend a little bit of time on Goodreads and Pinterest, which share the concept of being for a more targeted audience. Goodreads, while not new (just new to me) allows you to create bookshelves with books you’ve read and books you want to read. It also allows you to review books, and see what your friends are reading and saying about books. It’s a reader’s dream for finding great goodies (not just the same top bestselling authors). Goodreads is focused for a very specific purpose.

I was leery about Pinterest at first, and completely unsure what to do with it, until I realized that people were pinning my photos and recipes. Pinterest allows you to create photos boards (or vision boards) and pin pictures from all over the web. (One exception I’ve found is Facebook – you can’t pin from Facebook – despite the fact that Facebook users like to post photos).

Having played with if for a bit, I have concluded that Pinterest is a dream site for a food writer/recipe developer/food photographer, like myself. I can create boards of recipes I’ve developed, recipes I want to try to make, photos I love, photos from my new book – anything that suits me. I can follow other people or their boards, and I can re-pin! The best part is that anything pinned from my website gets pinned with a link back – so there’s a great deal of linky love going on there!

While my blogs continue to be the hub for my online life, for me, Twitter is where it all comes together. I can tweet my blog feed, and I can tweet what I post on Facebook.

What’s your favorite social media tool or find in the past year? What do you like best, and why?

Eeeny Meeny Miny Moe…

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeI hated playing that game when I was a kid. It went on forever, no one ever really won, and it was too darn boring. And that is precisely how I feel about the Republican presidential primary. I was hopeful that Super Tuesday would finally end the game and land us an actual Republican candidate who could go about the business of becoming (ahem) presidential, but alas, that does not seem to be the case.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a registered Independent, and (for me at least) that means that I will vote for the best candidate, I rarely make up my mind until the last minute, and I have no loyalty to any party. What I say here in no way means that my vote is pre-destined for Obama. However, there are a number of reasons why I think this prolonged game is hurting the Republican chances of winning in November.

Even high school athletes know that when you’re on the practice field with your own team that you challenge but you don’t injure your fellow team players. The longer the candidates keep duking it out on their own turf, the less likely it is that any one of them will be able to be cleaned up, patched up, and made presentable for the real battle. They will go into the race wounded and worn down.

What’s said in Kansas no longer stays in Kansas. It is no longer possible to play to an ultra-conservative Bible belt town one day, and sound like a libertarian the next. The era of “that’s so 20 seconds ago,” is here. Everyone is a journalist, everyone is a videographer, and we are as likely to hear the news on Facebook or Twitter as we are through traditional media. That gives a candidate with an unwavering position on all things an advantage… sort of. But the idea that all political ideals fit into one of the two cookie cutter molds is simply not realistic. So that same unwavering position may play well in one state and bomb in another.

The Republicans are creating a deep hole with women voters. A very deep hole. I cannot remember when so much of the discussion from our political candidates centered on issues that matter to women. At times it seems that they’d like to see us all barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Don’t we have more important issues to tackle than reproductive rights? (And didn’t we settle that already?) It just may be too late for any of the Republican candidates to dig their way out of that hole and earn back a respectable amount of the women voters.

What do you think?

Does the Difficult Boss Always Deserve to Be Fired?

I have been fascinated by the media coverage about Steve Jobs, since he passed away late last year. It is virtually impossible to watch a show about his life without hearing that a) he was a brilliant visionary and b) he was extremely difficult to work for.

Anyone who has spent time in the working world has run into difficult people. It’s inevitable. (The same applies to families and just about any group you can imagine.) When the difficult person is your boss, the complexities of dealing with that person rise tremendously. After all, he or she is your boss – holds the cards, has influence over your career, and can make your daily life miserable.

Interviews with team members and employees that worked with (and for) Steve Jobs inevitably mention that he was difficult. They mention impossible schedules, impossible requirements, and (of course) yelling and ranting.

By all accounts, Jobs was maniacally focused on his vision to change the world. But even as these employees discuss how difficult Jobs was to work for, they say it with reverence – as if they would have had it no other way. That was the man, and the way you worked with the man.

Many of you reading this will have a story about a difficult (or even impossible) boss. I have my own stories. Many of us would argue (as Robert Sutton does in The No Asshole Rule) that these bosses should be fired.

But is that always true? Is it possible that there is a place in the business world for difficult bosses? Is it possible that the best bosses need a little bit of crazy to be successful? Is it maybe even necessary to break (almost) all the rules when you are striving to create something entirely new? Is there some quality (perhaps it’s the visionary brilliance) that tempers the difficult behaviors, making an otherwise unacceptable boss okay?

Or, is it possible that Jobs could have been just as effective a boss, without employing the tactics that have branded him as difficult to work for? What do you think?

The NAFE 50 Report Signals a Stall for Female Executives

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My copy of Working Mother magazine arrived this month, with a report on the NAFE 50 – the National Association for Female Executives Top 50 companies. The list, which includes technology giants HP, Cisco, Intel, and IBM, also includes financial services firms (20%) such as Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase.

Companies are selected based on female representation at key levels – and especially roles with profit and loss responsibility. Key programs for advancement of women and company culture are also considered.

It’s important to note that this list is meant to represent the top companies for females pursuing executive roles – and does not necessarily represent the top companies pursuing technical careers.

Earlier this year, I posed the question – was 2011 a good year for female leaders? Because I’m a data junkie, I always like to look at the numbers, so let’s take a look at the data in the NAFE 50 report, to see if it can help us answer that question:

53% of the employees across these companies are women. 33% of senior managers are women.

22% of the corporate executives in these companies are women (compared to 14% of Fortune 500 companies), but 37% of the profit and loss executives are women.

The boards are comprised of 23% female directors (compared to 16.1% at Fortune 500 companies).

10% of the NAFE 50 companies have a female CEO (compared to 3.6% of Fortune 500 companies). That is a drop from 14% in 2011.

When I look at the data presented, I am able to see a clear connection between focus on the advancement of women, and the impact that programs like mentoring, leadership training, and coaching have on the company gender profile. That’s good news.
And yet, I still feel like it’s not enough. While 10% of women as CEO sounds great – more than double the Fortune 500 – keep in mind that the numbers we are looking at here are for the top companies – the ones who do the very best in identifying and promoting women leaders.

If we look bottom to top, 53% of the employees at the NAFE 50 companies are women, 44% of the managers are women, 33% of the senior managers are women, 22% of the executives are women, and 10% of the CEOs are women.

Lest you think I only care about the women, let’s take a look at the men in these same companies. 47% of the employees are men, 56% of the managers are men, 67% of the senior managers are men, 78% of the executives are men, and 90% of the top executives are men.

Now, how do you feel about that? You can find the entire report here.