Harry Joiner is wrong.

Executive recruiter Joiner is telling people to Skip This Post. Surely he’s leveraging some reverse psychology to entice the reader (that’s my guess); otherwise, he’s being far too soft on us all.

I normally try to respect a reader’s time by providing only my favorite excerpts from a book, article, or blog post I like. In this case, I find that difficult to do. Instead, I urge you to read EVERYSINGLEWORD of Harry’s post and the pragmatism in Motor City article. It’s tough medicine for some, but good for everyone’s long-term career health. (Even if you’re familiar with the post’s message, read it anyway — repetition can only help ingrain the all-too-important lesson.)

My question: Which established industry is next in line to receive the globalization wake-up call?

(Thank you, Harry, for your advice and the link.)

Danah Boyd is a PhD student at UC-Berkeley and a researcher at Yahoo! Research Berkeley. She delivered a talk at the O’Reilly Etech conference earlier this month titled “G/localization: When Global Information and Local Interaction Collide.”

Two concepts in the rough crib for the actual talk I found particularly interesting:
1. embedded observation
2. design for reinterpretation

Here’s a paragraph on each (thanks to Kathy Sierra for the link):

The designers of [Craigslist, Flickr and MySpace] are engaged in embedded observation. They are living in the culture that they are helping to frame. They are aware of the others living in that culture and constantly engaging with them to really understand the emergent behaviors. They recognize their power as designers and try to use it to benefit the collective rather than their own personal goals. Their design process is stemming from this embedded observation, producing a state of “flow” to use Cziksentmihalyi’s term. The designers love what they are doing and infuse their passion into the systems. This is a very powerful way of doing design.

Don’t design for perfection - design for reinterpretation. No matter how perfect you see your design, it will be modified, altered or manipulated in use. If you design for perfection, you will be disappointed in what people do. Design conscientiously but plan to react immediately after something goes out.

I spoke last week with the CEO of a small midwestern marketing consultancy. I asked him what skills he seeks in new talent for his firm. His answer (in the order he provided):
1. strong attention to detail
2. good MULTI-TASKER
3. brilliant writer

I think he’s missing a few — the critical few that would differentiate his firm and make it a flat-out fun place to work. My top-of-head thoughts:
Passion for connecting with people.
Obsession for making the complex simple.
Love for telling a story (à la Godin).

Do you have any POLs in your job descriptions?

(Ha! Thought that might get your attention. I will relieve most of you – and disappoint the rest of you – by saying that you won’t likely find anything offensive in this post.)

“I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I’ll know it when I see it.”

Eric Bonabeau of Icosystem calls this the obscenity principle. Earlier this month at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, he introduced a new tool for doing search based on this principle.

Here’s the concept: Computers crunch lots of data quickly, but are still relatively poor at pattern recognition, where people excel. Icosystem’s Hunch Engine enables a sort of guided natural selection which combines the strengths of both parties (computer & human). Wired magazine has an article about it here.

I met Eric a couple of years ago at Argonne National Laboratory. This guy is “wicked smart” — and I don’t use that label lightly. He’s also got a mind for practicality and a knack for taking something complex and making it simple(r). I wouldn’t be surprised if he creates (or has already created) something world-changing in the years to come.