Technology Woman

PeopleOfWalmart launches with EmptySpaceAds!

Gayle Laakmann — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 04:08:00 +0000

If you haven’t checked out PeopleOfWalmart yet, you’re in for a treat. Pages of entertainment from America’s classiest individuals (yes, mother of mullet-baby, I’m speaking to you).

One of my favorite websites just got a little bit better: it just launched EmptySpaceAds! Move your mouse to the margins of the page and you’ll see the new ads come up.

EmptySpaceAds is the same start-up I was working for before I left to go back to school, so it’s really exciting for me to see this development.

Now, I know ads aren’t exactly exciting for most people – who likes ‘em? They replace regular content and get in your way as a result. That’s why EmptySpaceAds is so great – it’s in the margins, so it won’t replace any “real” content, and it doesn’t get in your way like many pop-up ads.

For publishers, it offers similar benefits. You can increase the number ads you show on a page (and therefore your revenue), or you can replace your ad units with EmptySpaceAds. Either way, you’ll see a boost in your revenue. And, best of all – you don’t have to sacrifice content that brings customers to your page.

Check them out at: PeopleOfWalmart.com and EmptySpaceAds.com.

Outsourcing Your Life in 8 Easy Steps

Gayle Laakmann — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:28:00 +0000

Since discovering the wonder of outsourcing nine months ago, in October 2008, I’ve outsourced approximately 300 hours. That’s 300 hours that I got to spend reading or playing (or working…) while various assistants re-formatted an e-book, researched traffic stats for competing sites, scheduled apartment visits, got price quotes for vacation rentals, designed posters for an upcoming party, performed bookkeeping work, handled support requests, and wrote software. All for a mere $3.50 / hour. (Slave wages? Hardly.)

Life post-outsourcing is much less stressful. Here’s how you can get in on the action:

1. Understand what tasks you need help with: Spend three days figuring what you want. Each time you spend more than 15 minutes on a task, write it down on a list. At the end of the three days, go through your list. Which of these could you hire someone else to do?

2. Categorize the most important skills: What are the core skills that your tasks require? Photo editing, excel, etc? Is there particular software that your assistant needs? How good does the candidate’s English need to be?

3. Post a job opening: I use odesk.com for finding outsourced assistants, because I love its transparency. I can see how many other jobs a candidate has (will they be too busy for me?), how much they’ve been paid (are they trying to overcharge me?), and their scores on a number of odesk-supplied tests. I post a suggested rate, and candidates respond with their own bid. Job applicants usually apply within minutes of posting a job opening.

Note: You might expect that if you post an expected wage of $7 / hour, no one will bid less than that. I haven’t found that to be the case. Because you can see a candidate’s prior wages, a person who’s previously been paid $2 / hour has a hard time requesting $7. Furthermore, andidates are competing with each other to get each position, so they need to post competitive wages.

4. Interview via Instant Message (or Skype): I conduct my interviews over instant messenger. For an assistant, I’ll usually ask the following questions:

What times of day are you available to work?
Are you available on the weekends as well?
Can you make phone calls, if needed, through Skype?
How much experience do you have with excel and photoshop?
[After providing a link to a recent news article] To better assess your English skills, could you please read the following article and provide a short (4 – 5) sentence summary?

You’ll notice that my questions are very simple. Why? Because I don’t think you can truly assess someone’s capability without hiring them. So, I look for their English capability, confirm that they have the requisite software and skills, and then I hire them to test them out.

5. Hire Several, and Look for Quality not Price: You won’t know how good a candidate is until they actually attempt a task and most, frankly, aren’t very good. Hire several people, try them out, and then narrow it down to the best.

Don’t automatically go for the cheapest. Suppose you have a $2 / hour and a $5 / hour candidate applying. If you have to spend even 20 minutes more time correcting the cheaper employee, it may be not worth it. Hire for quality, not price.

6. Clarify Expectations: Do you want an employee to make their own decisions? Or would you prefer that check with you first to see what to do?

7. Let Go of the Bad, Hold on to the Good: Some candidates won’t be very good, but that’s why you hired more than one. Let go of someone if they just aren’t cutting it, but fight to hold on to the best. A good assistant is well worth it.

8. Go For It! Your new assistant will report his or her time to odesk.com, usually automatically using odesk’s software (this software takes screenshots of their computer randomly while they’re working, to ensure that their time reports are honest). Odesk will then charge you each week, giving you a short window of time to contest any charges. You can either IM or email tasks to your assistants. Note that both you and your assistants will be reviewed when you close the assignment, so it’s in both people’s interest to treat each other fairly.

Questions? Post them in the comments or email me.

Supreme Court Ruling on School Strip Searches – And What It Means

Gayle Laakmann — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:25:00 +0000

The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that schools cannot strip search students, with Clarence Thomas as the lone dissenter. In the case, a 13 year old was accused of having ibuprofen by an ex-friend. Though the school never searched her locker or desk, they strip searched the girl. For ibuprofen.

Redding says she was then asked to strip down to her underwear and stood there while the nurse and secretary inspected her clothes and shoes.

“Then, you know, I thought they were going to let me put my clothes back on, but instead they asked me to pull out my bra and shake it, and the crotch on my underwear, too,” Redding says.

Redding says her whole body was visible to the school administrators. She kept her head down so the nurse and the secretary couldn’t see her fighting back tears.

I’ve already discussed why I feel that this was assault, so I won’t go into that again. The ruling, however, was interesting.

Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter, asserting “that the majority’s finding second-guesses the measures that educators take to maintain discipline ‘and ensure the health and safety of the students in their charge.’” What’s troubling here is two points:

He seems to feel that there’s something inherently wrong with second-guessing educators’ decisions. Why? Isn’t a wise to have someone double checking to make sure that people are doing the right thing?
He believes that a strip search helps “ensure the health and safety” of students, when quite the opposite is true. This strip search was extremely detrimental to the health and safety of the girl. She felt abused – which is exactly what she was. In the rare cases when a strip search is necessary, call trained professionals: the police.

The other interesting aspect of the ruling was that only two justices felt that the school administrators should not be shielded from liability. It is no shock at all that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman, was one of those two.

Justice Ginsburg singled out the assistant principal, noting that he had made Savana sit on a chair outside his office for more than two hours in what Justice Ginsburg called a “humiliating situation” when the case was argued.

“At no point did he attempt to call her parent,” Justice Ginsburg wrote on Thursday. “Abuse of authority of that order should not be shielded by official immunity.”

Indeed. You don’t need to know the law to know that the following is completely inappropriate: searching a child’s panties for painkillers – but never, say, searching her locker or her desk – and never calling her parents. And then making the child sit outside the office even though they never found anything!

Unfortunately, only two of the seven judges could understand that the school administrators abused this girl.

This is why we need more women on the Supreme Court. Women will not only be more likely to understand issues like this, but through sharing their experiences, they can help men understand.

Proposition 8: How Wording Made All the Difference

Gayle Laakmann — Wed, 27 May 2009 07:34:00 +0000

In an upsetting – but expected ruling – the CA Supreme Court voted to uphold Proposition 8, which reads:

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

Wording like this would have been torn to shreds by my high school debate team (which once, rather infamously, defined Huckleberry Finn, in the statement “Episcopal Academy should ban Huckleberry Finn,” as the character himself. The team then argued that to ban a character, but not the book itself, is absurd. They nearly won.). But I disgress…

Proposition 8 was awkwardly written, and intentionally so. Consider some intepretations:

Only (marriage between a man and a woman) is valid or recognized in California. Nothing else – nothing at all – is valid.
(Only marriage) between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. Of all legal or other agreements between a man and a woman, marriage is the only one that’s valid.
[No parenthetical equivalent] Pair “only” with “a man and a woman” to imply that no other marriages are valid. This says nothing about other, non-marriage contracts.

Proposition 8 wants you, of course, to select the third option. But should we? Consider an analogy: “Only boys between the ages of 10 and 15 can apply.”

Common sense suggests that we parse the sentence as “Only (boys between the ages of 10 and 15) can apply.” Thus, no girls allowed. Proposition 8, however, would have us pair “only” with “between the ages of 10 and 15″ to imply that no other boys are able to apply. This says nothing about other, non-boy applicants. Girls are allowed, then?

Given the awkward, ambiguous wording, why didn’t Proposition 8 say what it meant? Why wasn’t it written as “ban same-sex marriage” or “marriages between same-sex couples are not valid or recognized.”? Because wording matters.

Proposition 8 almost certainly would not have passed had it said what it meant: ban same-sex marriage.

From National Organization for Marriage’s talking points:

Language to avoid at all costs: “Ban same-sex marriage.” Our base loves this wording. So do supporters of SSM. They know it causes us to lose about ten percentage points in polls. Don’t use it. Say we’re against “redefining marriage” or in favor or “marriage as the union of husband and wife” NEVER “banning same-sex marriage.”

52% of voters voted for Proposition 8; by NOM’s own admission, only 42% would have voted for it had it been clearly written. It should have been a resounding failure, not a narrow success.

So, please, do not let anyone tell you that “the people of California have spoken.” First, the voters spoke, not the people (voters do not accurately represent the people). Second, the voters voted to support Prop 8, not to ban same-sex marriage. There’s a big difference – a 10 percentage point difference.

Wording matters. It made all the difference in passing Proposition 8.

Think Less, Experiment More: 5 Lessons on Entrepreneurship

Gayle Laakmann — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:24:00 +0000

A guest blog post I wrote for Women Grow Business:

Working for Microsoft, Google and Apple, I not only became a better engineer – I became a better entrepreneur. Their successes and failures, encapsulated in these five lessons, provided me with invaluable instruction in how to build a company and effectively compete.

#1. Build a large network.
The “Biggies,” as I like to call them, have an unfair advantage: they have a network of literally thousands of experts. At Apple, I worked with some of the industry’s best designers. Microsoft has people who specialize in every conceivable role. At Google, I could walk down the hall and speak with the inventors of revolutionary technologies.

To compete with the biggies, you’ll need a network of your own. Get out to those start-up happy hours. Grab business cards. Set up coffee and lunch chats. And be open – you never know who might come in handy.

Keep reading here.

New! Affiliate Program for CareerCup

Gayle Laakmann — Fri, 15 May 2009 07:59:00 +0000

Good news bloggers and website owners! CareerCup has just launched its new affiliate program. CareerCup’s affiliate programs allows website owners to post a link / ad for CareerCup’s interview guide and, in return, collect some of the revenue from any sale. Best of all, it’s super-easy to use!

We offer two designs: Horizontal (example) and Vertical (example)

Preliminary tests have shown that it far outperforms Google Adsense ads. Want in on the action? Great! Follow these instructions, or just tweak this code:

When you’ve got it up and running, email me your name, paypal account, and url. You’ll get a 20% cut of the revenue and will be paid each month.

Plan B for 17 year olds: Risky?

Gayle Laakmann — Fri, 01 May 2009 20:00:00 +0000

Mike Galanos wrote an opinion piece for the CNN asserting that Plan B is risky for 17 year olds. His argument, however, doesn’t hold water. Let’s take a look at it, bit by bit:

Think of a 17-year-old girl. Most of the time she’s a high school senior, still living at home with Mom and Dad.

Ok, thinking, thinking… got it: A 17 year old girl, terrified to admit to her parents that she not only has sex (gasp!), but had unprotected sex. Will she take the chance at pregnancy to avoid telling her parents? Yeah, probably.

She still needs her parents in the tough times. But they will be cut out of a traumatic situation.

Wait, what’s traumatic here? The sex? That’s not traumatic. Unprotected sex? Not traumatic, as long as it doesn’t result in pregnancy. So, actually, we’re preventing a traumatic situation.

Now keep in mind birth control pills require a doctor’s prescription, but a drug that is more powerful doesn’t?

Ok – so maybe we should make birth control pills over the counter too? And, also, while Plan B is more powerful per pill, but birth control is a much more serious health concern because you’re on it for weeks, months, years. The depression and other things that can result from birth control isn’t really a risk with Plan B.

Some argue that a girl can get an abortion without parental notification in some states, so why not Plan B? But just because those states got it wrong by leaving parents out of the loop doesn’t mean others should follow suit.

Let’s make sure we can follow his argument here (where the “>” means “more serious than”): Abortion > Plan B > Birth control pills. States allow abortion without parental consent, but that doesn’t imply allowing Plan B. But, earlier, he basically used the opposite logic: if states don’t allow birth control, why would they allow a more serious drug? Inconsistent logic.

In most states, minors can’t get a tattoo, body piercings or go to a tanning salon without a parent’s permission, but we are going to leave them alone to take Plan B.

Well, yes, this makes sense because of the consequences of not providing access to Plan B: pregnancy. What’s the consequence of not providing access to tattoos?

Timing is essential to the drug’s effectiveness, Plan B supporters say, so getting parents and doctors involved would unnecessarily delay the teen’s ability to pop the pill the “morning after.” Does it really take that long to get a prescription?

First, it can take a while if it’s on a weekend (and teens do have this tendency to have sex on weekends). Second, it would unnecessarily prevent the teen from telling her parents. Do you not know teenage girls? They don’t really like getting grounded or barred from seeing their boyfriends.

The New York Times reports that since 18-year-olds were allowed to get Plan B without a prescription in 2006, there has been no evidence of it having an effect on the country’s teen pregnancy or abortion rates.

True, but they also showed no increase in risky behaviors. So, 1 point for each side here.

We’re enabling teenagers to act carelessly with an easy way out.

Yeah! Let’s punish them with unplanned pregnancy! Brilliant!

“Teenagers are known for thinking they’re untouchable and here we are saying that they can continue to do that and that there aren’t any consequences.”

Ah, so you admit that teens tend to think that nothing bad could happen to them? So, given that attitude, if they have unprotected sex, will they tell their parents so that they can get Plan B? I didn’t think so.

The boyfriend will talk his girlfriend into unprotected sex with the promise of buying the “morning after pill” the next day.

Please, show me some data stating that this is a concern. Last I checked, boys were also scared of pregnancy – especially since, as you stated, Plan B is only 89% effective. (In fact, boys might be more scared of pregnancy, since they don’t get any say in abortion.)

Yes, this could encourage unprotected sex and that means a greater risk for sexually transmitted diseases.

(A) Studies have shown that it doesn’t increase promiscuity. (B) Isn’t Plan B like $40 a pop? I don’t think people are going to really rely on this as their sole method of birth control.

What about the 17-year-old girl who may get Plan B for her 15-year-old sophomore friend?

What about it? I’m ok with that, since it’s certainly better than the 15 year old not taking it at all.

Yes, teens have sex and difficult situations will arise, but should we open the door for our girls to go through this alone? That is not what is best for our daughters.

See, here’s the thing: Plan B supporters are trying to make sure your daughters don’t have to go through “this” at all (where “this” is an unplanned pregnancy).

And, allow me to make a few additional points:

The average age in the US for people to lose their virginity is about 17. So to say that parents need to be informed that their 17 year old is having sex is a little extreme. If you have a 17 year old, they’re probably having sex. This is not a crisis that needs to be averted. It’s normal.
When a 17 year old girl has to chose between taking Plan B and informing her parents, and not taking it at all, she just wouldn’t take Plan B. So, the parents won’t be informed that their teen is having sex anyway.
It’s not that I want parents to be uninformed. It’s that I don’t want unplanned pregnancies. Given that, I’ll take uninformed parents and fewer unplanned pregnancies.
In an entire article about why 17 year olds should need a prescription to get Plan B, Galanos never even responds to the core reason why many people disagree. That’s a rather glaring omission.

In Defense of Outsourcing

Gayle Laakmann — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:54:00 +0000

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve started outsourcing. A lot. Most of the outsourcing goes to an (awesome) assistant in the Philippines, who does everything from online research to document editing. She’s great, and she’s quite literally changed my approach to working.

Although most people are merely intrigued by my hiring a remote assistant, a surprising number tell me that it’s unethical, supplying one of these reasons:

Exploitation: “You’re only hiring someone from because they’re cheap. You’re not even paying them minimum wage!”

While it’s true that some people I hire are paid well below US minimum wage (you can find assistants for as little as $1.50 per hour, though mine are paid considerably more), it’s hardly exploiting them. I do believe that employees should be paid a livable wage, but that means a livable wage for their country, not for the US.

It’s surprising to me that so many people would complain about this, when we’re all perfectly accustomed to salary adjustments based on cost of living. For example, Microsoft pays California employees 15% more for the same work than they do the Seattle employees. Likewise, they no doubt pay their India employees considerably less. Exploitative? Of course not.

Now, I’m not an expert in economics, but I would guess that, far from being exploitative, outsourcing is quite good for the target areas. You’re providing the people with work. Doesn’t that boost their economy? Isn’t that good?

Protectionism: “What about the US? You should be hiring US workers!”

Most outsourcing-supporting respond with the following:
1) “By outsourcing to India / Philippines / another country, we can expand our company and eventually hire more Americans.” I don’t know in which cases this argument is true, but I can certainly say that it’s been true in my case. The outsourced workers I’ve hired have been the reason that I’ve been able to generate revenue for CareerCup. It simply would not have been possible without them. This revenue, in turn, enables me to hire Americans for things that do need to be done in the US.
2) “Welcome to a global world. If you don’t operate efficiently, your competitors – who may not be American – will simply out perform you.” This is possibly the most compelling argument. A business has an obligation to its shareholders to operate efficiently. If it doesn’t operate efficiently, another company will. And then, if that happens, how have we helped the US?

In addition to those two points, however, I’d like to make a third:
3) Why are Americans so important? Why is hiring an American inherently “better” (ethically speaking) than a hiring someone from India? Are we not all people? In fact, I could very well argue the opposite: supporting a person in a poorer country, whose children may struggle to eat or to get an education, is more ethical than hiring a comparatively wealthy American. (I’m not saying that that’s true; I’m merely arguing that the reverse isn’t necessarily true either.)

Suffice to say… I feel perfectly at easy with my decision to outsource. I’ve employed some extraordinarily talented people and rewarded them well for their work. I understand that there’s an awful lot I don’t understand about globalization, so perhaps someone will open my eyes to some horrible truths. Until that day, though, I will continue to use outsourced workers to build and expand new projects.

Strip Search at School: Was it assault?

Gayle Laakmann — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:03:00 +0000

I often debate as to whether this blog should be strictly tech-based, but then I read these articles that, well, get to me. To change the statistic that 25% of women are sexually assaulted, people need to start talking about it.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard argument on a case where a 13 year old girl – an honor student who had never been in trouble – was strip searched at school because she was suspected of having ibuprofen. Now, if that doesn’t infuriate you already, listen to the facts of the case:

Redding says she was then asked to strip down to her underwear and stood there while the nurse and secretary inspected her clothes and shoes.

“Then, you know, I thought they were going to let me put my clothes back on, but instead they asked me to pull out my bra and shake it, and the crotch on my underwear, too,” Redding says.

Redding says her whole body was visible to the school administrators. She kept her head down so the nurse and the secretary couldn’t see her fighting back tears.

And all this for what is basically Advil. Ugh.

This was more than a strip search. This was assault:

A young girl was forced to show her private parts.
The school did not search the girl’s locker or desk, but they did search the girl’s crotch.
The harm in traumatizing a girl far outweighs the harm of a couple of students from taking ibuprofen.

When you look at these facts, you see that the school’s search was not conducted in a way to find the ibuprofen (since they didn’t search the girl’s locker or desk), nor did they balance the harm of an invasive search against the risks of mild pain killers. Thus, it seems that the administrators were on a powertrip that ended in assaulting a girl.

I hope that the Supreme Court makes the right decision. While there is a time and place to do strip searches (eg, in jail), school officials are not trained to do so. If you think a student poses that much of a danger that an invasive search is required, then call the cops. Strip searches should never be conducted by school officials.

One Year Post-Google

Gayle Laakmann — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 06:28:00 +0000

Last weekend marked my one year anniversary of leaving Google. So, with that said, here’s my one year re-cap!

What have I been doing?

EmptySpaceAds: I joined EmptySpaceAds as its VP of Engineering, where I helped to relaunch our product. We’ve created a brand new (and pretty fantastic, if you ask me) way of showing ads. Our product helps a website owner actually generate revenue from the margins of their page, while still maintaining a clean and organized page. “Use it, don’t lose it”, we like to say.

CareerCup: When I left Google, I knew that I needed to take some time to re-do CareerCup. The design was a mess, the code didn’t scale and, frankly, there wasn’t even the slight glimmer of revenue. I’m thrilled to say that that’s all changed. I’ve got a brand new design (courtesy of someone I found via 99designs.com), I’ve re-written the code on Google App Engine, and it’s finally generating some revenue. It’s still not everything I want it to be, but it’s getting better.

Seattle Anti-Freeze: Seattle Anti-Freeze is my other side venture that I don’t talk about as much. In short, we organize parties and events for young professionals in Seattle. Shortly after leaving Google (and finally getting some precious free time), I wrote a new online ticketing system. It’s nothing fancy or innovative, but it saves us oh-so-much time.

What have I learned?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last year, it’s that you don’t have to do it all yourself. Yes, I discovered the wonder of outsourcing. I hired an amazing remote assistant, who has saved me precious hours. She does document editing, graphic design, and a plethora of other technical tasks. Why didn’t I know about this before?

Where am I going?

I alluded to this earlier, but I am indeed leaving Seattle to move back to Philadelphia. I will be attending Wharton‘s MBA program at the University of Pennsylvania, where I plan to focus on entrepreneurship.

In the meantime, I hope to finally get the chance to play around with some other projects. There’s still a bunch to do on CareerCup, and I have some new ideas I’m playing around with. I’d like my newest project, PictureMash, to support group accounts, and I’d like to evolve Seattle Anti-Freeze’s site into a general purpose ticketing / event site so that other organizations can use it.

So much to do, so little time!