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The not-so Artful Dodgers! Networking in post-Thatcher Britain

Published October 23, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Jack Wild as the Artful Dodger in Oliver!, the...
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In brisk, post-Thatcher Britain, we go to a lot of networking gigs

Post-Thatcher Britain, you may know, is an elbows-out sort-of-place.  Everyone is touting their wares like a scene out Dickensian Britain.  Do you remember the song “Who will buy?” from Oliver.  Well, it is like that. Except, people don’t sing so well.

Wannabe Artful Dodgers

There are wannabe Artful Dodgers at every gig.  They are not up to making-off with your wallet and silk handkerchief.  But you can see that is why they joined such a convenient crowd!

Fagin will be unhappy

When they get home, they will be in trouble with Fagin, their conscience, who asks them the wrong questions.

  • How many business cards did you give out?
  • How many business cards did you collect?
  • How much free food and drink did you score?
  • Did you find someone to give you some work?

They need to get a better conscience and a better Fagin to ask them these questions:

#1  Did they promise at least 5 favors to at least 5 different people?

If there weren’t at least 5 people at the gig who needed something they could do with their littte finger, they are sooo at the wrong gig, or soooo under-qualified to eat and drink with those people

If they were the Artful Dodger, they would pick a neighborhood better suited to their skills, or start to behave like the people in the neighborhood they’d chosen.

Or, they were so obsessed with themselves, they found out nothing about the other people there.

If they were the Artful Dodger, they would start to watch the crowd while Oliver stood in the shadows, singing mournful songs!

#2  Did 5 different people offer them 5 different favors?

Hmm, did they look at a lot of gift-horses in the mouth?  Maybe they talk too much and not give the other person even a few seconds to chip in and some assistance?

Oliver got help from all over because he was cute and un-pushy.  The Artful Dodger was admired but never got help from  anyone.

Had he washed his face, people may have helped him.  But then he wouldn’t be the Artful Dodger!

I suppose we really have to decide whether we want to work sooo hard or whether want to let luck find us!

#3  Did the person they help, or the person who took their card, write to say thank you?

Did they just hand out their cards like a free newspaper and walk away?  Or did they stay with the conversation to the point that they could offer to do something specific for the other person? Or ask them to do something specific and useful? Did they take the conversation through the stages of forming, storming, norming to performing?  Or. did they jump from forming to adjourning?

The Artful Dodger knew the endpoint – to hand his pickings over to Fagin.  But he didn’t jump there in one fell swoop. He watched, he followed, he ducked, he dived.  He fell into the other person’s rhythm.  Then he cleanly picked the other pocket and moved the contents smoothly to his own!

#4  Did they write to thank people who gave them their card?

Did they have anything at all to say to the people with whom they spent an evening?  Did they waste more time by sending an automated message when they got home?  Or did they talk to people in sufficient depth to remember them and be remembered?  Does their note reflect something they ‘did’ together?

The Artful Dodger would remember the people he met -more clearly than they would remember him.  He would know exactly how many pockets in each person’s suit, and exactly what is in them!

Which is your next networking event?

Maybe I will see you there!  I hope I remember you and you me!

I wonder what we have in common and what we could do for in each other, right there, in the few moments we share together!

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Puzzled by young Brits? Ask Voicebox and ye shall be answered

Published October 14, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Slurp, analyze, visualize, share

I was delighted to find Vinspired Voicebox this morning.  Young people are collecting data on young people in UK and presenting it online in interesting ways.

And you can share the data on Young Brits too!

  • What questions should Voicebox ask next?
  • What questions could Voicebox answer for you with a tweak or two of their current analysis?
  • What question should we ask other age groups?

This is good news.  Great work Voicebox!

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Masculine cultures into social media don’t go

Published September 28, 2009 by Jo Jordan

A regular trickle of visitors are looking for information on masculine cultures.  It took me a long time to understand this strange term – “masculine culture.”  So what do I understand it to mean?

What “masculine culture” is not

  • It is not an attack on men. Norway has a feminine culture and there is nothing wrong with their men.
  • It also does not mean non-sexist, or even matrilineal. Much of Africa has a feminine culture but much of Africa is assuredly sexist, patrilineal, or both.

What “masculine culture” is

Masculine cultures are based on pecking order.

We all interested in our status, don’t get me wrong.  It’s just that masculine cultures are obsessed by status.   The jostling and thumping of small boys – you have it in one.

It’s not that boys don’t play together. It’s just they find it hard until they’ve sorted out who is “top dog”. And they put everything second to that goal – compassion, beauty, intelligence . . . it all goes by the board.

You can see that women can also have a masculine culture. It is not the preserve of men. Nor is it always bad. It is just very narrowing when everything comes down to pecking order.

Anyway, why does a positive psychologists working in social media write about masculine cultures?

1.  Masculine cultures aren’t positive.

We can get good at winning a race. But the easiest way to win a race is to rig the competition or some other way cheat. We are on a downward spiral.

When we ask the question another way, and ask how quickly we can run, or how quickly we can get everyone over the line, we find more challenge, on many levels.

Life opens up. That is the essence of positive psychology. Does life open up?

2. Social media is about working with others.

Masculine cultures are about individuals or small groups beating other small groups.

My cultural test of the world of social media

I have my new MOO cards now and I am going to repeat my picture test.

Subscribe to my feed (side right column) because I will post the results as I get them over the next two months.

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Create your job – don’t wait

Published September 24, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Unusual ways to find a job

We have to take our hats off to the History Graduate who pounded Fleet Street with a sandwich-board offering himself on a free trial period of one month.

Employers with a sense of humor

We can also hat-tip the guy who hired him.

  • But wouldn’t it have been better if he had a portfolio of his work online before he graduated?
  • Wouldn’t if have been cool if he knew what he wanted to do?
  • Wouldn’t it have been cool if he had had targeted 10 specific people and gone to them with the same offer?

Ways for students to get good jobs after graduation

I suppose telling students to start early and to work on their career path little and often is about as silly as telling them to work consistently throughout the year.
Some do though.  @casperodj, @trudyYS, @dolphonia are well known in the community and they haven’t graduated yet.
None of the three has done anything eye-catching in a celebrity-way.  They’ve just showed up and joined.
I’ll put my money where my mouth is too.  If the History Graduate stumbles over this post, and wants a quick guide of online resources, the trick will be to comment below.  The comment will reach me same day and I will reply.
And for people already doing everything they can, some stunning creative resumes.
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Pithy comments from Social Media Convention, Oxford University, Session 1

Published September 18, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Social Media Convention, Oxford Institute, #oxsmc09

From weblogs to Twitter: how did we get where we are today and what are the main impacts to date?

Panelists:

Dave Sifry, Technorati @dsifry

Bill Thompson, BBC @billt

Bill Dutton, Oxford University @billdutton

Nigel Shadbolt, University of Southampton @nigel_shadbolt

Chair: Kathryn Corrick @kcorrick

Although the dates of the earliest ‘weblog’ are a matter of some debate, the majority of their growth in popularity has arisen over the past ten years. What are the most important milestones in that process of evolution, and what are the factors that have shaped the successes and limitations of social media? Why (if at all) should we expect them to have an inherently democratising or egalitarian effect? Each speaker will be asked to conclude by identifying the most significant ways in which they think that blogs and social media have had any social, political or economic impact.
Dave Sifry

1. Web as library vs web as conversation.  What are people saying about me? [Technical issues].

Question from chair: real-time search?

Search interfaces vs filter interfaces [*]

Bill Thompson.

2.  Social media is not yet taken-for-granted but what has changed is that “I am no longer in charge”.  Permission is no longer need.  The internet is a facilitating service.  A new literacy is developing.  Innovation is possible because we have removed the requirement to ask.  We are waiting for the last 5bn to join the 1bn online.

Bill Dutton

3.  Constant reinvention of the internet day-to-day but it has always been social.  Email is the core application: social and under your control. 98% of people online go their to use email.  2007 17% of Britons over the age of 14 used a social network.  49% today. 22% [?] have created a blog and younger people are the most likely to have done so.  Technology reconfigures how we communicate with people.  Reinforce existing social networks.  But we also meet new people.  35% of internet users have met someone on line that they haven’t met before and many have gone on to meet them in person.

20% of newly married couples met their spouse on line.

Social networks are competing with search engines for referrals.  [?4 sources : adverts, real, social network, search ?]

Nigel Shadbolt

4.  Thirty years ago, it was easy to have a sense of overview of the internet.  The web demonstrates the unreasonable effectiveness of data.  When we have scale, remarkable emergent things happen.

AI has become augmented intelligence.

Semantic web:  infrastructure that is document-centre to something that gets behind into the data.

Why can’t we anticipate this stuff?  Why are we disarmed by what emerges.  See “Websites”.  Cannot understand cause and direction.  Why did blogs take off?  Social interaction scale allows things to take off.  Self-publication has always been there but pings and trackbacks seem to underly take off of blogs.

Why are we mopping up descriptively rather than anticipating what is to come?

Social media have an exquisite balance between enough features and sufficient?  How is this designed?  Or is it simply, Darwinian “try and discard”?

Social media activity in China varies from here [? details].

How do large scale structures like Wikipedia become stable? And will they pay for increasing amounts of oversite?

Or do societal structures emerge anyway?  Does the web support extremism? Or do people get pushed into the most influential part of the space?  Battle for our attention.

Kathryn Corrick

5.  Web is social.  Got more exciting as it got cheaper.  Reinvention and continuity. Emerging and augmented intelligence.  Problems:  How do we find out what is interesting?  How do we find out what is interesting in China and Africa?

Questions

6.  BT (non-twitterer):  Chinese urls will be come available.  Do we need to learn Chinese?  Bill Thompson:  the internet will translate?  The real issue will be our cultural expectations about what is interesting and what we will pay for.

Nigel Shadbolt:  Massive areas of the internet not available to us.  Spanish network is different.  “Bido” the Chinese search engine searchs material that Google doesn’t cover and includes micro-blogging.  We have good translation because stats does a fairly good job of translating.  And how will we communicate with people who are illiterate.

Kathryn Corrick: I only get English results.  Dave Sifry: you need to ask for the languages you want.  Enormous corpus of data has [trumped] rules.  .  .  .  Liberating and dangerous at the same time.  Did WoW expect to create a virtual market in China and India?  Will we encourage open access to tis information?  Democratizing and centralizing.  Globalizing and encouraging xenophobia.  Will the Chinese start building their own protocols?  What will happen to the openness we take for granted.

Questions

7.  ?? : Facebook compresses the space for first names.  Bill Dutton: Net English – unintended consequences.  Multiple identities.  Nicknames.

Bill Thompson:   Having one name is a relatively recent phenomenon.  Imperfections in the tools create serendipty.  Ideas are not linked because they are similar but becuase of deeper conceptual matching.

Nigel Shadbolt:  Structure and typology.  Condensed areas with weak links between.  Unanticipated arrivals in other places.

Dave Sifry: .  . . we don’t like to be challenged.  How easy or difficult is it to get attention to a  meaningful conversation? How can someone with quality ideas become heard without going through money and capital?

KathrynCorrick:  Doesn’t fragmentation make it difficult?

Dave Sifry:  Not sure that is a problem.  The larger issue is trust.  No singular person to [referencing Walter Cronkite].  Don’t have the same level of massive singular change – is that a bad thing.  We will find out from our friends.

Kathryn Corrick: e.g., Iran, difficult to verify.

William Dutton:  Remind everyone that TV/newspapers/mass media still exists.  More flexibility.  Institutional networks.  Individuals – news platforms on line.  Another independent source of accountability.  Not replacing mass media yet.

Bill Thompson:  Not sure I agree.  Something happening underneath.  Trust grows and is broken quickly.  Mass media challenged, checked and undermined.  Indefensible practices.  Is corrosive rather than additive?

Question

??  Can we anticipate stuff better – raise quality of thinking.  Is concept broad enough?  Ppl don’t use tools like ping back etc.  Contemporary social phenomenon of self-expression.  I tweet therefore I am. IS this @Nico_Macdonald.  I find people who agree with what I say [I find people who can explain what I am interested in!] .  Politics is driving the web not the technology.  Is webscience broad enough in its engagement with societ?

Nigel Shadbolt:  Exteme nich opinion get marginalized.  Conversation about intentions drives people to consensual . . . Not a union of everything but more than an intersection – key areas that acccount for what we see.  Small differences in technology influence social interaction and can be invisible to ordinary user.

William Dutton:  Continuity and change.  A few years ago a few experts . . .  internt more central across all sectors and users reinventing the web as dramatically as computer scientists.  Cannot understand the internet except interdisciplinarily ..”{?]

Question

@inkuna Free at point of use.  Does panel think #So.ME revolution spinning into public policy?  e.g. US health care debate.  Is free-at-point-of use (F) becoming the model?

KC: wonder whether anything

Dave Sifry: How related to US healthcare debate?  . . ..  Ah ……..I see!  Never really thought about it in those terms.  Gut . . . not really.  . . . Someone has got to pay . .  for sustainable business that lives beyond you.  In media around for a long time . . . tradeoffs . . . get users then figure out how to monetize . .  . interesting . .

Bill Thompson:  I destroyed the newspaper industry.  I am sorry.  It was a mistake.   . . Guardian  . . . 15 years  later paywalls are futile.  One more nail in the coffin.  If payments had been required earlier, it might have been different.  Businesses changing so fast maybe only investors are concerned.

William Dutton:  If you charge by use on internet, invisible. BBC online doing well. Advertising doing well – distribution of revenue is the issue.

Question

Brian Kelly:   71 people using #oxsmc09.  The bankchannel is no longer private because on screen in front of us.  We know we are successul if we get spam – e.g., taxis asking us if we want a taxi at end.  Are we seeing commercialization of social media?

Kathryn Corrick:  Until technology gets ubiquitous, it doens’t get interesting.

Question

Shane ?:

KC: Brave new world.

Nigel Shadbolt:  Ecology of applications, information types and needs – much richer shape than used to –  typical with [enriching] technologies.  .  Surprising ways that twitter is being appropriated.

Issue is trust -trust in media, content, services “someon not inspecting our packets”[?]

KC?

William Dutton: People who use internet trust it more than authorities.  Trust is based on experience.  More educated more skeptical but trust dependent on experience.

Bill Thompson:  Dream some more dreams.

Dave Sifry:  Clay Shirky – it is not social media if you can’t spam it.

Before: high signal to noise ratio.  The openness of a hashtag # is that it invites spam.

SEO – how to get traffic – have more interesting material.

Is it OK for a taxi cab to enter the twitter stream.  What are acceptable social mores?

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My virtual knight in shining armour – from panic to productivity in less than 1 hour!

Published August 13, 2009 by Jo Jordan

A long time ago when I drove a VW, I got some sound advice.  Always have a tool kit in your car.  Otherwise how else will the shining knight in a Red Ferrari fix my car when he stops to help?

And now I live half my day in a virtual world, I must make sure shining knights on Cross Loop can find me – so they can rescue me from the dragons of my own mis-steps and panic!

And so should you!

Today, Loudmouthman, speedy, nippy geek from Horsham rescued me in minutes, and I live 4 hours drive away.

This is how he did it, and this is what you need to know, because one day you are going to need Nik and you are going to feel so much better knowing he is just over the horizon!

It all began last night

. . . as I tidied up my computer,  I created a new user just to check what standard settings looked like.    All seemed in order.   There were two users, both Administrators, and I was logging in and out of both quite happily.

Disaster!

This morning, I could only log in to the dummy.

Panic!

Send up the distress rockets!

I logged in to the dummy account, got onto Twitter, and fired off a May Day call to no one in particular.

Whew!

@Loudmouthman answered and told me to download Cross Loop and to contact him.

Minutes later, Nik was connected. He took over my machine though Cross Loop, and though other services offer this feature too, most importantly, I could also

  • Send a message to him including my landline number, so he could call me, which he did.
  • See the ratings of his many happy customers.
  • Look at his competitors should I wish to.
  • See his hourly rate.
  • Get a quote.
  • And pay him by Paypal.

My predicament explained

By setting up a second user with admin rights, I was no longer given the option to login in to plain old “Admininstrator”

Client Education

Working remotely, Loudmouthman showed that the Administrator account was still there (C: Drive and Documents & Setttings).

Panic subsided!

Diagnosis

Still working remotely, Nik checked my description of the problem by having me log off to show him that Administrator really couldn’t be accessed from the Login screen (which of course he could see remotely).

Solution

I could hear him looking something up in the background (his keyboard was going noisely).

Then he had me log in again to the dummy account and he went into some Windows Settings and added a line to activate Administrator.

Hey presto, we were done. And it would have been faster if I hadn’t been in a panic.

Final Check & Wrap-Up

I logged out of the dummy account and back into Administrator – and downloaded Cross Loop again which was no longer visible.

I had to make another request for service. Then I asked for an Estimate, accepted it, and then asked for a Final Bill.

A PayPal screen came up and I paid promptly and printed out the receipt for the accountants.

Just the way I like it.

Done, dusted with all the paper work wrapped up.

How to get hold of Loudmouthman?

On Cross Loop as Loudmouthman

On Twitter as @loudmouthman

Through his website, Loudmouthman

On Skype thebutlershouse (Nik Butler)

And to find out what is causing ripples in the Social Media world in the south-east of UK on any one day, Nik’s blog Social Media White Noise is well worth a visit.

Thanks Nik! From panic to productivity in under an hour!

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3 jawdropping facts about Linkedin members in UK

Published August 12, 2009 by Jo Jordan

I’m a member of LinkedIn, the professional networking site. You probably are too. If you live in the UK, you are one of 1.8m members. Around 30m people in the UK are of working age. So about 6% of us are LinkedIn members.

So, is it worth belonging to LinkedIn? And if you are, who are you likely to meet there?

I painstakingly took some numbers off Google Adplanner and I have three surprises that will make you rethink Linkedin membership.

When you’ve whizzed through the headlines, narrative and graphs, tell me what you make of this picture.

#1 College graduates in UK do not dominate Linkedin

That’s a surprise isn’t it?

Check the graph. Linkedin in the UK is dominated by people in the range of “some post-school education but less than a degree”.

Education & Gender on Linkedin from UK (drawn in Chartle)
Education & Gender on Linkedin from UK (drawn in Chartle)

Should we be surprised?

About 25% of people in UK have a degree. 33% of male Linkedin members in the UK finished University. Slightly fewer than 30% of female members of Linkedin in UK have degrees or graduate degrees.

So the facts go in the right direction.  Graduates are more likely to join Linkedin than people with other levels of education, but, because three-quarters of the population have not been to university, even members who have no further education at all outnumber those with a first degree.

This is a salutary lesson for us all. Even on Linkedin, the real world dominates. And in the real world, most people do not go to University.

#2 People who earn 50K pounds a year (or more) dominate Linkedin

I will surprise you again.

In the next two graphs, we see that people whose household income exceeds 50K a year dominate LinkedIn.

Salaries of Men on Linkedin UK (drawn in Chartle)
Salaries of Men on Linkedin UK (drawn in Chartle)

OK, this is not so surprising in itself. After all, Linkedin is a high-end service. Google also reports household income. Average income in the UK is about 20K per person and if two people work, 50K is an average amount. So we shouldn’t be surprised to have Linkedin users from households who earn 50K a year.

(BTW, a 50K salary puts a person in the top 10% of the UK.)

But given that Linkedin is dominated by ordinary people – may be this figure is surprising?

When we look more closely at the graphs, we see that education makes it easier to earn household incomes of 50K+, but there are lots of people out there with ordinary education levels who also have household incomes of 50K+.

To spell this out:

  • If you are a male Linkedin member, with a graduate degree, you probably earn 50K+.
  • This is also true if you have a Bachelor’s degree – but about a third of ordinary degree-holders on Linkedin earn in the 30K to 50K range.
  • If you are in the dominant group, “the post-school but no degree” crowd, you are more likely to be in the 30K-50K range but, there are as many people in this group earning 50K+ as there are degree holders earning 50K+ ! There are also more of this group earning 50K than graduates earning 50K+ – largely, I suppose, because there are fewer people with graduate degrees in the market.  “The post-school but no degree” crowd rule, OK?  Fonzi, still rules!

Burn this on to your brain.  If you find someone with high household income on Linkedin, they could come from almost any education level.

We have two apparently conflicting facts.

  • Education helps us earn money!
  • But earning money telling us little about a person’s education!  There are just as many high earners from lesser education levels (at least on Linkedin).

The pattern for women on LinkedIn is similar. But, it is confused by the over-powering dominance of women in the “more than high school but no degree group”.  They rule even more than they do among men.

Salaries of Women on Linkedin UK (drawn in Chartle)
Salaries of Women on Linkedin UK (drawn in Chartle)

#3 The high earners in Linkedin are young and the younger members of Linkedin are high earners!

This is the really stunning surprise!

See at the next graph.

The 25-34 year old group have high incomes AND they outnumber older people with high household incomes!

Have a good look at that graph and burn it onto your memory –

Who are the big earners on Linkedin UK? (drawn with Chartle)
Who are the big earners on Linkedin UK? (drawn with Chartle)

Now to the interpretation.

It is not a surprise – though nor is it acceptable – that women earn less than men. We should also disentangle the more complicated picture at the the mid-age levels. But we all knew this already.

More importantly, where are the older high earners? Why don’t they join Linkedin? Are they that complacent, or are they outnumbered by young people in real world too?

I did check with the UK Government Statistics Office. And I spoke to a professional statistician. They don’t have numbers going from high salaries to age. They have a 1% sample of taxpayers and they present data from age to salaries in percentiles. Their reports suggest – as common sense suggests – that the workforce is dominated by people in the 40-49 range who also have higher salaries.

So what is happening here?

Because we haven’t any baseline data for the UK working population, we have to work with some sweeping generalizations – never a good idea.

It looks as if Linkedin is attracting younger people who are high earners.

Remember these things.

  • 29% of men on Linkedin in UK who have household salaries of 50K+ are aged 25-34
  • 35% of women on Linkedin in UK who have household salaries of 50K+ are aged 25-34
  • 57% of men on Linkedin in UK who have household salaries of 50K+ are aged 25-44
  • 68% of women on Linkedin in UK have household salaries of 50K+ are aged 25-44

Interpretations?

Possibly, because women tend to partner men who earn more than them? Worth exploring, I think.

So what eureka moments did I have in this time-consuming micro-analysis of Google AdPlanner?

  • The typical member of Linkedin in UK does not have a degree (700K out of 1,8M)
  • The typical household income bracket of UK Linkedin members is 50K+ pounds.  University education makes it more likely you will be in the high earning group but people who finished university are outnumbered by people who didn’t or didn’t go at all.
  • The high earning bracket is dominated by 25-35 year olds!

How will I use this in practice?

  • I am going to find out who are the young (25-34 and 35-44) women on LinkedIn with household incomes of 50k+.
  • I know that less than half will have a degree but I can fine-tune this information AND find out what they do.

What will you do with it?

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17 facts about Twitter and Facebook graph in UK for your PEST analysis

Published August 2, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Facebook is “who knows who” in London?

If you want to find someone in the UK, go to Facebook.  1/3 of the country is there and more than 1/2 of our internet users are there.   3/4 of Londoners are there.

Because so many Londoners are on Facebook, it is also London party.  Just over a quarter people in the UK live in or close to London, but nearly half of Facebook members are Londoners

Almost everyone who uses Twitter is on Facebook.  Its easier to say that 1 out of 7 Twitter users do not use Facebook.

But as 6 out of 7 of their Twitter friends will be on Facebook, they are well connected!

The question is whether you can find the other 2/3 of UK residents through your Facebook network.  It would be work a try, wouldn’t it?  Can you find and meet anyone of the 61 million people beginning with your Facebook network?

The picture

Twitter & Facebook Users in UK
Twitter & Facebook Users in Users

The numbers

I made the diagram using the online chart maker, Chartle, using the numbers below, some of which I got from Google Adplanner on 2 August 2009 and some of which I got from Wolfram Alpha.

1.  People in the UK : 60.8 million
2.  Internet users in UK : 40 million (66%) (2006 – probably higher now)
3.  People in the work force before the credit crunch:  29 million (almost 50%)
4.  Young people 13-16, 16-18 and 18-24 who are not in the workforce but who are active internet users: Unknown (do you know?)
5.  Retired people who are not in the workforce but who are active internet users : Unknown (do you know?)
6.  People in the London : 7 million  (about 13.5% of  UK residents)
7.  People in the wider London metropolitan area : 13 million (about 27% of UK residents)
8.  People who use Facebook in UK : 22 million ( about 35% of UK residents and 55% of UK internet users)
9.  People who use Facebook in the wider London metropolitan area: 10 million (77% of residents, 25% of UK internet users, 17% of UK residents, 45% of Facebook users)
10.  People who use Twitter in UK: 3.5 million (6% of UK residents and 8% of UK internet users)
11.  People who use Twitter and Facebook in UK: 2.9 million (7 % of UK internet users, 13% of Facebook users and 83% of Twitter users)
12.  People who use Twitter and not Facebook in UK:  0.6 million (17% of Twitter users and 1.5% of UK internet users)
13.  People who use Twitter in the wider London metropolitan area:  1.8 million (18% of London internet users)
14.  People who use Twitter and Facebook in the wider London metropolitan area : 1.5 million (15% of London Facebook users)
15.  People who use Twitter and not Facebook in the London metropolitan area : 0.3 million (3% of London internet users)
16.  People from outside London who use Twitter and Facebook: 1.4 million (12% of Facebook users)
17.  People from outside London who use Twitter and not Facebook: 0.3 million (difficult to know the percentages)
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Is UK drifting towards a “nothing allowed” culture?

Published July 3, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Idiosyncracies that we love

I am a serial migrant and one thing you learn “on the road” is that every community has phrases and ideas that are deeply coded.  They simply don’t mean what they sound as if they mean.

When I first arrived in UK, I heard people saying “Bless”, quite a lot.  I even asked someone what they meant.

It was a dumb thing to do, of course. When he said “Bless”, he was saying “Oh sod off, I can’t be bothered with your troubles.”  He certainly wasn’t going to translate accurately.

He said he was commiserating.  And no, he did not follow through on what I was asking him to do and what I though he was obliged to do. Lol.

Legal systems differ

I remember someone returning from UK to Zimbabwe after studying for four years here and he told us seriously that he was going to study face recognition because it was important in jury trials.

I remember looking around the room and thinking, “Who is going to tell him?”   No one spoke up, so I said as gently as I could, “X, we don’t have juries in Zimbabwe.”

And we don’t have juries in Zimbabwe not because of the current troubles but because we have Roman-Dutch law.  So does South Africa, and oddly Sri Lanka.

On the look out for deep differences

Because of this difference, I am always on the look out for things that I just “don’t get” – where I might be jumping the wrong way because I grew up in another system.

Look at this quotation from a famous US lawyer, Newton Minow.

“After 35 years, I have finished a comprehensive study of European comparative law. In Germany, under the law, everything is prohibited, except that which is permitted. In France, under the law, everything is permitted, except that which is prohibited. In the Soviet Union, under the law, everything is prohibited, including that which is permitted. And in Italy, under the law, everything is permitted, especially that which is prohibited.“[9]

Which category does UK fit in to?

It is my understanding that Roman law fits into the German camp.  Unless I am allowed to do it, I can’t.

And it is my understanding, that English law (I am not sure about Scots law) is in the French category.  Do whatever you like.  We will say if you can’t.

An example of how these differences create confusion

This is how confusion arises in practice.

When I read a sign that says “Parking is Permitted with a Permit from 10-11 and 2-3”, my first reaction is puzzlement – followed by a eh? Why would I want to park here from 10-11 and 2-3?

No, it doesn’t mean that at all.  It means you can park here whenever you want, but you must

a) move your car between 10-11 and 2-3

or

b) buy a ticket.

I bet you thought that was obvious.  I am still confused every time I see that sign but as it only costs 40p to park there all day it is a confusion I will put up with.

Does this difference account for the nanny state and other British wonders?

When I heard the Unions negotiating for workers to go to work in shorts during this past very hot week, I got into a Twitter conversation about the nanny state and I started to wonder if this difference accounts for differences in management style as well.

The differences between Germanic and Anglo meetings

Meetings in Germanic countries are brisk.  You go in armed with facts and figures and MAKE DECISIONS, quickly and definitively.

Anglo meetings swirl around this way and that with no agenda and no outcome.  As an American-trained, Indian-born manager used to say in NZ (nudging me with his elbow and whispering out the side of his mouth):  “Sit back and wait. We will be here for the next hour discussing process and there will be no goal”.  Sure enough, for the next hour we discuss who wants what.  What we are trying to achieve collectively is not mentioned at all.  Who knows whate we were there for but we’ve had a spirited discussion about individual preferences.

What does it mean to ‘manage’ in the two systems?

I think I prefer a system where everything is allowed unless it is prohibited.

But possibly when you grow up in  system like that you aren’t used to designing systems or spaces where things happen.

And then you get a profileration of crazy rules.  10 signs per 100 yards, or whatever the figure is for British roads.

And it also means that one of your choices in life is to sit and do nothing.  Though some people are trying to prohibit that too.  This illustrates my point.  Designing and organizing for action is quite different from banning the few things that we may not do. Banning someone from doing X will not get them to do Y.

Alternatives

This thought process is starting to feel like ‘reaching’ to me.  But to try to illustrate my point.

What if you simply told people to drive safely and they will be accountable for what they smash into?

What if you told people to pay their taxes but that we would display online how much they paid?

Life can be made very simple if we choose.

And we shouldn’t have to tell people what to wear to work.  Really. If it is hot, wear shorts.  If it is cold, wear a jumper.

Of course, if you cannot afford a change of clothes, that would be my concern.  I’ve been brought up in system where managers are supposed to make things possible.  We are certainly accountable if people cannot see the way forward and don’t have the resources to get there.

Have a great weekend!

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Use the internet for career coaching and interview preparation

Published June 29, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Image representing Skype as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

Arrgh!  Interview preparation!

The worst thing about preparing for a job interview is the time it takes.  Google “job interview preparation” and it will take you a good half-an-hour just to pick out some good resources.

Then, you have to wade your way through the article.  And you are no better off! It’s like learning to drive from a manual.

Down the right hand side of the screen, Google helpfully lists adverts for career coaches who help you practice for job interviews.  They may save you some time.

Practice your interview over the internet

Hmm, but no coaches who practice over the internet.   I’ll do it for you, if you like.

  • Email me your job description and the “person specification“.
  • I’ll email you back 5 questions to prepare.
  • And I will ask you another 3 questions that you must answer without preparation.
  • We’ll connect at an pre-arranged time through Skype.
  • And I will give you feedback.

Fees?

EXECUTIVE : 100 pounds (for preparation, interview & feedback)

PROFESSIONAL: 50 pounds (for preparation, interview & feeback)

SCHOOL-LEAVER or OPERATIONAL:  33 pounds (for preparation, interview & feedback).

Contact Me

  • Email me with suggested times and your questions on jo dot working2.0 at gmail dot com.
  • I’ll confirm a time and answer your questions.
  • If you are happy, you can send me your job description.
  • I’ll need around 24 hours notice.

Look Me Up

My professional profile is at Jo Jordan on Linkedin.

Let’s get this done!

PS This post was made to test Google Adwords.  If you do need interview preparation, do let me know.  I may be able to refer someone who lives in your area who can help you practice.

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