“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.”  – Ellen Goodman

Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do? wrote the below rights we should have for the Internet (source):

“I. We have the right to connect.
This is a preamble and precondition to the American First Amendment: before we can speak, we must be able to connect. Hillary Clinton defines the freedom to connect as “the idea that governments should not prevent people from connecting to the internet, to websites, or to each other.” It is this principle that also informs discussion of net neutrality.

II. We have the right to speak.
No one may abridge our freedom of speech. We acknowledge the limitations on freedom of speech but they must defined as narrowly as possible, lest we find ourselves operating under a lowest common denominator of offense. Freedom is our default.

III. We have the right to speak in our languages.
The English language’s domination of the internet has faded as more languages and alphabets have joined the net, which is to be celebrated. But Ethan Zuckerman also cautions that in our polyglot internet, we will want to build bridges across languages. We will want to speak in our own languages but also speak with others’.

IV. We have the right to assemble.
In the American Bill of Rights, the right to assemble is listed separately from the right to speak. The internet enables us to organize without organizations and collaborate and that now threatens repressive regimes as much as speech.

V. We have the right to act.
These first articles are a thread: We connect to speak and speak to assemble and assemble to act and that is how we can and will change the world, not just putting forth grievances but creating the means to fix them. That is what threatens the institutions that would stop us.

VI. We have the right to control our data.
You should have access to data about you. And what’s yours is yours. We want the internet to operate on a principle of portability, so your information and creations cannot be held prisoner by a service or government and so you retain control. But keep in mind that when control is given to one, it is taken from another; in those details lurk devils. This principle thus speaks to copyright and its laws, which set the definitions and limits of control or creation. This principle also raises questions about whether the wisdom of the crowd belongs to the crowd.

VII. We have the right to our own identity.
This is not as simple as a name. Our identity online is made up of our names, addresses, speech, creations, actions, connections. Note also that in repressive regimes, maintaining anonymity — hiding one’s identity — is a necessity; thus anonymity, with all its faults and baggage and trolls, must also be protected online to protect the dissenter and the whistleblower. Note finally that these two articles — controlling our data and our identities — make up the right to privacy, which is really a matter of control.

VIII. What is public is a public good.
The internet is public; indeed, it is a public place (rather than a medium). In the rush to protect privacy, we must beware the dangers of restricting the definition of public. What’s public is owned by the public. Making the public private or secret serves the corrupt and tyrannical.

IX. The internet shall be built and operated openly.
The internet must continue to be built and operated to open standards. It must not be taken over or controlled by any company or government. It must not be taxed. It is the internet’s openness that gives it its freedom. It is this freedom that defines the internet.”

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TechCrunch has a great article by Vivek Wadhwa on Why America Needs To Start Educating Its Workforce Again.  I’ve quoted my favorite section of the article below:

“…Large corporations do offer some employee training programs, but managers often discourage their workers from participating in them. Why invest in workers when there is no clear payback? After all, training requires time off, and costs the department money. And bosses fear that once their subordinates gain new skills, they will be more likely to jump ship — to a better-paying competitor. That’s the common belief.  But as lessons from the unlikeliest of places show, these assumptions are wrong. Workforce education increases productivity, decreases turnover, and leads to greater corporate growth. I was myself surprised to see this correlation when I researched the secrets of the success of Indian industry.

Recruitment: When you’re looking for a job, what’s the first thing you do? Create a good résumé. What does a good résumé tell about a person?  Simply the ability to write a good résumé. The résumé doesn’t reflect skill, potential, or aptitude. Indian companies figured this out long ago. So they started putting applicants through batteries of psychometric tests and rigorous interviews. They hire for general ability and aptitude, rather than specialized domain and technical skills. Indian companies also learned to cast a wider net when looking for people with potential. Instead of hiring only from elite engineering colleges, technology companies such as Infosys, HCL, and TCS recruit from second- and third-tier colleges all across the country, and also in arts and science schools. India’s largest call-center operator, Genpact, has set up branded storefronts in 19 cities, where applicants can learn about the company and apply for a job; no resume required.

New-employee training: Companies in India assume that new recruits will have to be trained practically from scratch. So most large companies have built dedicated learning centers, and some employ hundreds of training staff. The Infosys Global Education Centre at Mysore can train 13,500 people at a time. New recruits attend a 16-week boot camp that strengthens their technical, communications, and management skills. For its arts and science recruits, TCS provides an additional three months of training. That’s right: fresh recruits get four to seven months of training before starting work.

Continuing training: Employees are typically required to participate in a wide range of education programs, including not only technical and domain training but also a wide range of soft skills and management skills encompassing training in quality processes; communication; and cultural, foreign-language and personal-effectiveness skills. It is common for companies to mandate one to four weeks of yearly training for employees. That is more than the vacation time that many Americans get. And these workers get rewarded for improving their skills: career advancement and salary increases are usually tied to the completion of training.

Companies don’t just offer online courses. They have programs of mentorship by senior executives; peer learning and knowledge sharing; and job-rotation programs. Take the example of Cadence India.  Its CEO, Jaswinder Ahuja, instituted a “leaders as teachers” program under which every manager is required to spend one to two weeks teaching internal classes. Not even the CEO is exempted from this rule. Training is considered so important that the most senior executives do their part. Trainers are often the most skilled and successful employees rather than those who couldn’t cut it in customer engagements.

Performance management and appraisal: Companies use ERP-like systems to manage the human-development process. Employees usually get reviewed at the end of every project. They are prescribed training if found to have weakness. (Yes, the performance review is used to guide development, rather than to protect the company from lawsuits in case they need to fire you).

Mechanisms such as 360-degree reviews (wherein you review your bosses and peers) and balanced-scorecard reviews are widely used. Managers are evaluated on a variety of non-financial measures, including employee satisfaction, attrition rates, and mentoring.”

Some images from last week visiting Cisco.

I won’t have Tyler next weekend so we celebrated Easter this weekend.  Here are a few pictures and a cute video after hunting for Easter Eggs.