rant
It’s job interviewing season, but don’t let this happen to you. But am I talking to interviewees or hiring companies? A Twitter user, theconnor {now set to private} offered up the following tweet:
“Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.”
Then, Tim Levad, a Cisco “channel partner advocate” chimed in:
“Who is the hiring manager[?] I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.”
Ugggghhh. Cringe. Almost immediately, there was a frenzied deluge of critical posts and Internet sleuthing. A website was even created based on a new meme, Cisco Fatty, and Helen A. S. Popkin wrote a MSNBC article blathering on-and-on about theconnor’s faux pas and how this is a cautionary tale. Really? Maybe MSNBC and Popkin should try to tweet news stories under 140 characters & get to the point more. Speaking of which…
“Cisco never did anything to me. I have no complaints about the company and apologize for any damage this situation has done to their image in anyone’s mind. What started as one individual calling me out quickly escalated into a major schadenfreude event, which in turn has quickly escalated into a media bandwagon.”
I saw this story evolve and I must admit I was irked by MSNBC’s snarky coverage of it. The story is all about tapping into readers’ insecurities about the current job market and warning employees about how they really need to be mindful of Web 2.0, so they’re not the subject of the next epic fail. It served to fan the flames of anger towards theconnor, as one of the “haves” who not only has a job, but one that makes bank. Popkin chastises theconnor:
“It’s like virtual Darwinism. The ‘Cisco Fattys’ of the world are damned by their own senselessness.”
but what are the real implications here? Senselessness? Well, Popkin has committed to the web a bunch of senselesness of her own, but, oh, wait, she’s a journalist…who needs to do more frackkin’ journalism. Here’s 1,070 words by her on Twitter that totally misses the point and offers up no insights.
- There is no such thing as privacy
- Perceptions are volatile & are hard to control
- Perceptions can be shaped by those with pageviews
- Media and journalism are often about pageviews, not about good content, let alone good journalism
- Web business processes like commenting/responding need to be articulated into policies
/rant
Comments 18
Kenneth M. Kambara — March 28, 2009
In my in-class discussion, I focused on the implications for Cisco. In my opinion, Tim exposed Cisco due to the latter not having a web 2.0 policy or by Tim not following it.
Word-of-mouth can have a powerful effect, which can reflect badly on Cisco. Word-of-mouth is peer-to-peer and is often seen as trustworthy. Here's an example (slightly edited to protect the poster)::
"Go ahead and blacklist the guy, Tim. I still do some network consulting while I’m ___ and had been recommending Cisco products. Thanks to your need to publicly meddle in someone’s life, I’ll recommend a different vendor. Sure, all I do is implement small networks with cheap routers and switches, but that still might be a couple hundred bucks a year in profit that your “advocacy” skills just cost Cisco. And rest assured that I won’t be putting Cisco gear in my own ___ office.
The professional thing to do would have been to contact the guy privately to express your concern, instead of showing the Internet how cool and ballsy you are. Bravo, Tim!"
Kenneth M. Kambara — March 29, 2009
So, here's a prime example of how to be in the pack of jackals and then after the fact, reframe and backpedal about your actions. Popkin had a follow-up to her article, including an interview with Connor Riley, AKA Cisco Fatty. Well, at least Popkin fessed up::
"Trolling netizens reacted like the juvenile jackasses we know them to be, quickly revealing Riley’s personal information, calling her names that would make a sailor blush, and at least one opportunistic jerkwad erecting CiscoFatty.com. Even Technotica (link to Popkin's original article on Cisco Fatty)had a go, using her as yet another excuse to bash social networking."
I love this quote of Connor::
"It’s kind of amazing how … all of these blog posts came out and a depressing number of them didn’t read what I wrote at all."
Indeed. Why read when you can just skim & react with the emotional equivalent of a 12-gauge with double-aught buck.
Apparently, Cisco has a policy on not commenting on employees, so we won't hear anything about Connor Riley or Tim Levad from them. I still wonder if they have a policy about talking about the company in public fora. If not, I'll bet they will.
It might go something like this.
Robin — March 29, 2009
Is it possible to frame somebody online?
What if a jealous colleague wants to ruin your career by misusing your name? What if they want to make you look bad to future employers?
Kenneth M. Kambara — April 22, 2009
Robin,
I think you make an excellent point. I think this is a dicey area, where people can easily construct identities, but the law is moving towards saying you cannot co-opt an existing "real" identity.
------------
This blog post http://bhc3.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/breathe-reflections-the-cisco-fatty-story has an excellent graph of how a blogger's post saw incredible traffic when the CF story went viral.
ThickCulture » The Culture of Optics & The Politics of Facebook — April 23, 2009
[...] Cisco Fatty meme served up a cautionary tale for all the denizens of Web 2.0. It might be me, but I think people [...]
ThickCulture » The Culture of Optics & The Politics of Facebook — April 23, 2009
[...] The Cisco Fatty meme served up a cautionary tale for all the denizens of Web 2.0. It might be me, but I think people need to lighten up. The Ketchum v. FedEx incident is a good example. In this one, a VP tweeted this candid gem on his impressions of Memphis, where FedEx headquarters are located:: “True confession but i’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say ‘I would die if I had to live here!’–James Andrews [...]
ThickCulture » Whither Twitter, Where are You Taking Us? — June 18, 2009
[...] youth or youth culture, I tend to look for ad hominems and finger-waving. Damn, fool kids. The Cisco fatty meme brought out a bunch of such anger. So, when it comes to Twitilliteracy, JRB offers his 2¢:: [...]
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