STAND AND DELIVER

Tuesday Weld wants you to hand over the loot, see?



Goog morning. It’s Monday.

Or rather, it’s Tuesday.

Or Tuesday on Monday.

Or ...

Oh, YOU know.

Highway robbery,

This is dF

WE’D HIRE YOU, BUT THE COMPUTER SAYS WE’LL JUST REGRET IT LATER

ITEM: A California startup company called Social Intelligence is offering a new service to companies – a social network data-mining service that constructs profiles of prospective employees to see if they’re worth hiring.

Think of it as a social-network background check:

Using automation software that slogs through Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, blogs, and "thousands of other sources," the company develops a report on the "real you" -- not the carefully crafted you in your resume ...

The reports feature a visual snapshot of what kind of person you are, evaluating you in categories like "Poor Judgment," "Gangs," "Drugs and Drug Lingo" and "Demonstrating Potentially Violent Behavior." The company mines for rich nuggets of raw sewage in the form of racy photos, unguarded commentary about drugs and alcohol and much more...

The company also offers a separate Social Intelligence Monitoring service to watch the personal activity of existing employees on an ongoing basis...

The service provides real-time notification alerts, so presumably the moment your old college buddy tags an old photo of you naked, drunk and armed on Facebook, the boss gets a text message with a link...

If that sounds creepy, you should see the marketing. According to the article, the selling point of Social Intelligence is not to know about what you’ve done in the past, but what you might do in the future:

What happens if one of your employees freaks out, comes to work and starts threatening coworkers with a samurai sword? You'll be held responsible because all of the signs of such behavior were clear for all to see on public Facebook pages...

So basically, Social Intelligence is urging clients to use their service to decide who to hire based on what they might do in the future.

It sounds far-fetched, of course. On the other hand, companies are already learning to pay attention to social networks to gauge how their customers feel about them and use that data for their own advantage. Perhaps their HR depts may be encouraged to get into the same habit.

Either way, it’s yet another good case for using social networks carefully and anonymously whenever possible, and being careful about what you do post about yrself.

Hide it all away,

This is dF

LISTEN TO IT #19: THIS TIME IT’S PERSONAL

One of the highlights of my stateside trip was picking up the new Thermals album, Personal Life.

bedsitter23  hipped me to The Thermals a few years ago when they released The Body, The Blood, The Machine, and it’s such a great album full of such raw and contagious emotional energy that the band have had trouble topping it since then.

Personal Life has the same basic problem, and comes with the double-edged sword of being both quieter and more focused on relationships than previous albums. It’s great that they’re varying the formula, but the toned down energy also means the album seems to run out of steam about 60% through. Maybe a few more listens will help fix that.

That said, though, there are plenty of good Thermals moments, including the current single.

Listen.

PRODUCTION NOTE: Yes, that is Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney fame. Bonus indie points if you also recognized the singer from Modest Mouse at the end.

In the shed,

This is dF