Transparency at its finest - Glassdoor.com

Many readers of this blog stumbled upon my take on life at McKinsey & Company. Those entries continue to be my most visited posts, so there appears to be enduring interest in life on the inside.

I would imagine that this curiosity extends beyond the consulting world. To satisfy this interest, check out glassdoor.com, an online forum for anonymous exchange of job experiences and salary information in a variety of companies.

The site is still in beta mode and the community is still building up its database. If you'd like to check it out, it takes just 5 minutes to contribute to the cloud and gain full access to reviews and data.

Self-improvement, book publishing and gurus

When my ability to focus on non-baby activities come to me in 30 second spurts, I can't expect myself to craft a meaty blog post. In truth, I've only started getting back to blog reading. Blog post writing is a ways off.

Instead, I'll point readers to a few links of interest:

1. Marshall Goldsmith's simple take on self-improvement

2. Seth Godin reacts to The NY Times' comments on eBooks

3. The WSJ has ranked the top 20 business gurus of 2008. A lot of these guys (and yes, they are all guys) have blogs and podcasts. Are you tapping into the free, snack-sized delivery of the gurus' ideas?

Two months can fly by

It's been 2 months since my last blog posting. Some of you may have wondered to where I disappeared. Others (those who know me outside this blog) probably unsubscribed their RSS feeds weeks ago.

On Friday, April 25th, my daughter was born. In the weeks leading up to her birth, I was too preoccupied to blog about life in the fast lane. (Who am I kidding? I was living life in the "waddling" lane.) Since becoming a mom, I haven't had much to say that would qualify as a "young executive's shared experience".

I wish I could tell you what the future holds for this blog. I may return in a month or two to prattle on in my usual fashion. Or I might redirect you to a new venture, something that I've had bouncing around in my head for the past year or so.

Either way, I'll keep you posted and thank you in advance for returning to this space on occasion. In the meantime, read the archives, keep working hard and update me on your adventures.

Information design and the power of visuals

Lately I've come across a couple of mural artists who capture an event or meeting's content in a visual form.

1. Sunni Brown recorded her intrepretation of SXSW sessions, including the now infamous Mark Zuckerberg interview.

2. A couple of "visual cartographers" interpreted the TED conference's memorable quotes, questions, and connections. The result has been turned into a 200-page book, available for download as a pdf.

A few years back, McKinsey Toronto used a talent graphic artist to illustrate discussions at the firm's annual Values Day, a day dedicated to reflection on the firm's guiding values and purpose. The resulting mural was a tangible and lasting record of the experience. Unfortunately, I think it hung in the office for all of 2 days before folks went back to their usual routines. Clearly, these visual illustrations are only as useful as we choose to make them in the long run. Used correctly, however, I have no doubt that the results can be powerful - certainly more impressive than a stack of PowerPoint slides.

Scrabulous: I'm going cold turkey

I'm a Scrabulous addict. On any given day, I have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 5 games going at once.

When I first heard of Mattel and Hasbro's threatened legal action against the makers of Scrabulous, I was distraught. If the two plunky brothers from India were crushed by the nasty corporations, how would I live without my Scrabble?

It turns out that brothers are more than just plunky - they are downright greedy. Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla have refused Mattel and Hasbro's attempts to settle the mess because they want more money. Specifically, north of $10 million to sell their interest in the game.

A few months ago, the brothers' monthly ad revenue of $25,000 didn't offend me. They had invested time developing something special and deserved compensation for bringing something so special to my life. Now that they want to apply a valuation multiple of 30+ times revenue, this no longer feels right.

I've always known that Scrabulous violated copyright, but I turned a blind eye. Given that I make my living protecting and promoting authors' intellectual property, I should not have been so casual. Accordingly, I cannot condone the Agarwalla brothers' actions. I cannot play Scrabulous anymore.

So as to avoid punishing my current opponents, I will finish playing games that are underway. After that, I'm going cold turkey until the matter is resolved fairly. Fingers crossed that IP will be respected again soon and that I can go back to hitting the triple word score.

Presentation glitches, technical and otherwise

A few weeks ago, I suffered through what was likely the most painful morning of my professional life. A couple of consultants, retained by a colleague and me, were floundering their way through a positively dreadful presentation. Picture 25 senior and mid-level executives, watching a very smart, but poorly prepared, dude waving his hands about, knocking over water bottles, and putting the crowd through a mix of boredom and confusion.

The poor guy didn't know how to use the slide changer remote thingie and didn't realize that he was flipping through a million slides a minute as he spoke. When he somehow managed to open his email application for the audience, one of my colleagues denounced loudly, "You have to stop doing that right now. Give me the remote."

Shortly thereafter, I started wondering how I might piece together a career after that workshop. "It's going to be fine...I'll just go have my baby and people will have forgotten about this by the time my mat leave ends. If they haven't forgotten, I'll just go work somewhere else. Surely I can find a job faster than this story can travel through Toronto's corporate urban mythology."

At one point, our chief legal counsel passed me a note that read, "Is this going to pick up or can I leave?". The page now hangs on my office bulletin board, reminding me to prepare and then prepare some more.

Looking back, what went wrong? Firstly, I didn't vet the consultant's final presentation. They had shown me drafts, but things changed a lot in the days leading up to the big show. In addition, I trusted the experts to know my organization well enough to run a productive workshop. Clearly, they didn't and I should have imposed more structure around the time. Next time, I'll be the high-maintenance, know-it-all client that I used to hate. And I won't think twice about pulling the plug when a workshop has gone off the rails.

It turns out that even the presentation pros have trouble once in a while. During the TED conference this week, the BBC left a hundreds of people waiting through technical difficulties. Fortunately for the audience, actor-comedian Robin Williams was on hand to entertain the crowd. Now that's 10 minutes of video footage I'd like to see on the TED website.

Potpurri

Job seekers and MBA school applicants might want to check out Razume. It's an online resume review community that allows users to anonymously upload their resume, seek feedback, and browse other users' attempts to summarize their greatness in a tidy page. Although still in beta mode, it might be worth a look.

In unrelated news, another TED conference kicks off today. This year's theme is "The Big Questions" and gives participants a chance to contemplate our place in the world, how to effect change, and what the future holds.

A good friend of mine recently started working at IDEO, one of the TED conference participants. IDEO has created a desktop widget that highlights some of the big questions we face. You can download it here. If I'm sufficiently inspired, I'll post my reaction to a few questions in the coming days and encourage your comments.