• Police Auctioned Mobile Devices – Complete with Illegal Data!

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Imagine, if you will an identity thief caught in the act by law enforcement. As part of the evidence collection, they find a mobile device with a whole bunch of stolen credit cards, driver’s licenses, and other data that was in the process of being used by said thief, to steal the identities of dozens of people.

    That evidence sits in the property room until such a time as the law says it’s safe for the law enforcement agency to get rid of it, at which time the device is put up for auction.

    You would think that before auctioning off these devices with illegally-gotten and dangerous information on them, the various agencies would have wiped them clean, no?

    According to the University of Maryland, you’d be completely wrong.

  • Do You Know Why Employees Leave? Do You Know Why They Stay?

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 4 minutes

    My point isn’t to toot my own horn. It’s to give you a concrete example of what a difference sitting and talking to your employees can make in terms of understanding what works for them, or doesn’t work for them in the workplace. A survey has a purpose, especially when you realize that meeting one on one with all of your employees doesn’t scale very far. If you really want to know what’s going on, though, don’t wait for someone to leave so you conduct an exit interview. A stay interview might prevent them from leaving in the first place.

    And for god’s sake, conduct exit interviews too, and be willing to act on them. These people are telling you what went wrong, why wouldn’t you want to know that?

  • |

    Employees and Employers Have Roles to Play in Career Development

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

    It is in your best interest to have employees who are growing and advancing in their careers. One is because they continue to become more valuable to the organization, which you need. Secondly, as they grow and become more valuable they are also more likely to stay. Turnover is costly. The organization can provide mentors and other resources that would be more difficult to do on their own. In return, they get employees who grow with the organization. Who wouldn’t want that?

  • |

    Congressional Think Tank Sees the Problem with Age Verification – Members Not so Much

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Proving your identity and your age eliminates the ability for anyone to remain anonymous. You might argue that is a good thing, but I’ll take the opposite side. There are plenty of reasons for someone to remain anonymous online, and why we’d be worse off eliminating that. Whistleblowers, political dissidents of fascist governments, victims of childhood and spousal abuse, people dealing with mental health issues, women, the LGBTQ community, and many others have legitimate reasons to fear being identified. Do we want to eliminate them all from the public space?

  • Linked – Research: Asynchronous Work Can Fuel Creativity

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Have you ever been in a brainstorming meeting, in person or on Zoom, and walked away thinking it was great? The ideas were flowing, and people were expanding on each other’s ideas, professionally disagreeing constructively, and bringing energy to the discussion. It was great, all of our meetings should look like that.

    Except that’s not really what happened. At least it’s not the whole picture. Yes, perhaps there was a good exchange of ideas, and perhaps some of the folks on the call brought their energy and passion to the discussion. The key word there is “some”. The important thing to remember is that those people who did bring that energy also probably made it really difficult for other voices to be heard. The science would tell you that the straight white men on the team probably spoke up, while others did not speak up. (In the experiment that is detailed in the article, it was men and women singers who were compared.) In my experience, it’s a little more complicated than that. Yes, a small group of white guys can absolutely drown out all of the other voices, but so can a small group of extroverts.