creative briefing

So they finally made a movie based on the YouTube phenomenon that triggers the voyeuristic individuals inside most of us that enjoy watching seemingly real and uncut footage of, well, just about anything.

And they called it Cloverfield.

Note: The following is a rant. And if you’ve caught on to anything about me on this site, you’ll know that it’s not about me. But let’s call it an after-thought to something that I have had experience with, and have recently been reminded of. Lastly, remember that just because it’s a rant, it doesn’t mean there isn’t an important message that comes with it.

Being a new graduate, most of the people I surround myself with have either recently gone through the job hunt or are currently involved in the process. And it’s definitely a grueling one, to say the least - resumes and cover letters flying out of holsters and networking events filling up your calendar, leaving you just enough energy to smile and keep a firm handshake as you make your valuable first impressions.

Getting the interview used to be half the worries. You’d get the phone call or email and half of you would jump for joy while the other half faints out of panic as you try to pick the best time slot (the whole primary vs. recency effect thing). You’d prep your ass off on situational questions and you’d walk into your interview with that same smile and firm handshake. On your way out, you may or may not still be holding that smile, but even if you did, you’re still going to meet that other half of the worries as you wait for the verdict. And if you thought that was tough, think again.

Most modern corporations today are moving towards multi-round interviews. That’s right, so you can expect to have everything described above done up to 3 times - if you’re lucky to get past each subsequent round. Standard procedure usually begins with a phone interview. If you make the cut, you’re granted the opportunity to visit the office and have a face-to-face interview with a panel of scary people. If you make that short list, then you’re invited back once again to write a case and do a presentation (or in some cases, a simulation of some sort). Following that, you may be grilled again in another interview.

No matter how many questions you ask in a single 30-minute interview, you’re always taking a bit of a risk when you decide to invite that individual to join your team. The truth is, you can’t learn everything about a person in 30 minutes. And that’s why doing these multi-round interviews make sense. It throws the candidate into different stress environments and lets you see them under different lights. Many aspects, like the case competition or simulation demonstrate the candidate’s ability to think on their feet, giving you a glimpse of how they’d survive if they were to be tossed into the fast-paced environment that is your company culture. It’s a great way to really judge the adequacy of your candidates and put their loyalty to the test.

And now jump onto the other side of the desk for a moment and consider this: after the stressful, grueling, and torturous month of tests, interviews, and other superhuman tasks a candidate has done to try to prove that they are worthy of your company’s acceptance, how do you think it makes your company look when after all’s been said and done, you send them a generic and impersonal email that says “after careful review of your qualifications, we have chosen to pursue other candidates at this time”? Firstly, like crap. But secondly, and most importantly, like they wasted a month of sleepless nights on a company that doesn’t care enough about their people to give them a personal call to tell them that they didn’t make the cut.

Here’s the lesson (and sorry it took so long to get here): take care of your people, even those you don’t hire. Because if you don’t, sooner or later, you won’t have people to hire anymore. They say a negative impression spreads ten times faster than a positive one, so for your own sake, tie up those loose ends. 

Be human, and most importantly, remember that your candidates are all human as well. Yes, even those you don’t hire.

/rant.

Watch the opening sequence of Antitrust (sorry, the page has since been taken down). As typical programming cliches go, lines of syntax run down the screen, flashing complex functions and protocols, and alluding to, in this case, an advanced and scary language that supposedly sets the dark and diabolical tone of this movie’s premise.

… unless you pay attention to it and realize it’s just HTML. Well, everything but the <trust></trust> tags. Those are a bit scary.

You might have noticed that the site was down for a good part of the day. It caught me by surprise this morning as well, and only after submitting a ticket in the afternoon to my host midPhase was I alerted that:

At 9:45AM CST we experienced complete connectivity loss with our upstream providers. While most of that connectivity has been restored at this point, we are still working to restore connectivity to a few cabs.

You’d think that as a customer, you would get a notice of something like this without having to submit a ticket. midPhase would probably also save themselves a lot of trouble from answering all the tickets by just sending out a mass email to its affected customers.

It’s funny (or sad) how so many companies, who would otherwise be considered exceptional, often forget the importance of customer service. You can offer a guaranteed 99.9% uptime, but it’s during that 0.1% that your customer service really matters.

In any case, your regularly scheduled blogging will now resume. :)

In my periodic search for musical inspiration, I came upon this clip of John Mayer performing in a music store somewhere for a small crowd. John combines two of my favourite songs in this clip, and whether you’re a music/John Mayer fan or not, I guarantee you this will leave you in awe.

It takes some time before it starts, but he gets into things around 5:00 (counting down). The real magic begins at around 1:15.

Besides showcasing what a phenomenal musician John is, this video truly was an inspiration to watch. When he gets to the solo, you can really tell John leaves the music store for about 20 seconds and hits musical euphoria. Caught in his own moment of glory, doing only what he does best - create music.

These moments are pure, rich, and rare. They are moments that define exactly what you’re made of. These are moments you should strive for, whether you’re a designer, a writer, a strategist, or in this case, a musician. These are your moments of brilliance.

Have you ever experienced one of these moments?