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Google’s 10% Raise: Fostering Talented Employees

This article was written by Flexo in Career and Work. 7 comments.

Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, announced the good news to his employees. Everyone at the company will be receive a 10 percent raise to boost morale in an environment where Google employees are leaving for greener pastures. According to the Wall Street Journal article, internal surveys indicated that employees consider salary to be the most important aspect of compensation.

I agree. Though one’s salary says little more than how well one negotiates and is only tangentially related to how much someone is worth to an employer, salary is emotional. If you feel you’re earning less than your peers or equals, it’s easy to feel under-appreciated. Though motivational speakers would suggest using that as encouragement to perform better and negotiate, that’s not a common reaction.

It’s not only huge corporations that have this problem, but the lesson is that your employees are your biggest assets. Whether you’re a huge corporation or a non-profit with 15 employees, you must take care of your employees if you want to attract, keep, and foster talent.

And believe me, you do want to attract, keep, and foster talented employees. They will find something else to do. And for the talented employees out there: don’t wait to be appreciated.

Here’s the article from the Wall Street Journal or read the employee memo on TechCrunch.

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Quicken Online Users Will Be Migrated to Mint

This article was written by Flexo in Software. 14 comments.

When Mint and Intuit announced the latter would be acquiring the former, the Quicken team and Aaron Patzer, the CEO of Mint, now a vice president of Intuit’s personal finance division, claimed that their two similar online product offerings, Mint and Quicken Online, would continue to co-exist. This made little sense to me.

In fact, I asked, “How long will it continue to make sense to maintain two highly similar services under one roof?”

We now know the answer is, “Not long at all.” The acquisition has passed regulatory requirements and is now official. With this news, Intuit has also announced that Quicken Online will cease to exist within six to nine months. This phase out will move Quicken Online users over to the Mint software.

It makes more business sense for Intuit to consolidate these similar product offerings, and I figured that in time either this would be the case or Mint’s software would be re-branded with the “Quicken Online” name.

I am not a heavy user of either Mint or Quicken Online. I prefer the desktop software. With Patzer heading the development of the desktop software as well, I expect some improvements in a year or so with the next or subsequent yearly release.

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Lie to Yourself for Better Security

This article was written by Smithee in Privacy and Security. Add a comment.

This week, TechCrunch made a big to-do by publishing internal Twitter business documents that they apparently received from an enterprising hacker. The access to multiple networks apparently began when the hacker accessed the GMail account of the wife of a co-founder.

If you, like Twitter employees, store any sensitive information in your Google Docs, or even have other people’s passwords hanging out in your GMail archive, then yes, it’s important to pick a unique password for different services, and make sure they’re all strong passwords. But that still leaves a hole in your security strategy: using the “forgot password?” feature in your Google Account.

1. Log into your Google Account settings (don’t worry, that link isn’t really for your account), and you’ll see an area for “Personal Settings”:

google personal settings

Click on “Change password recovery options”. This is the feature that lets you get your password back when you’ve forgotten it, or when someone who isn’t you wants to get at it.

2. Google will ask you to verify your password for added security.

3. On this screen, there’s an option for “Security Question”:

google security question

If someone that you don’t trust implicitly can guess the answer to the question you’ve chosen, you need to change this. Even if you’re not the spouse of the co-founder of the most popular and secretive company of the last few years. Sensitive personal data is retrieved through social engineering all the time, and if someone has access even just to your e-mail, you’re a prime candidate.

Better Than Your Old Phone Number

More people than I probably know about may have my old home phone number in an address book somewhere. I had that phone number for over 20 years. Anyone could have it. So, instead, I’m going to use the write my own question option:

google question

Here’s the novel part: come up with a fake answer. Even better: come up with an absurd answer to a reasonable question.

For example:

Question: What’s your husband’s mother’s name?

Answer: banana bread

This question/answer combination is memorable, provided that you love your mother-in-law’s banana bread. You know more than anybody about how your brain works, and how your brain will likely still be working in the future. Spend some time on it, and come up with something truly unique, but outwardly ridiculous at the same time.

For what it’s worth: no, I’m not a big fan of banana bread.

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Account Watchers and Account Ignorers Anonymous, Meet Mint

This article was written by Sasha in Reviews. 23 comments.

A review of Mint.com follows.

Seven years ago, you would have found me blissfully unaware of my spending practices and their impact, flourishing my credit card without a second thought as I ran up my tab at restaurants and shops. I defined living life fully as having the things and experiences I desired, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, imagining that I could travel anywhere and do anything I liked.

There was a catch, though. Only through intentional ignorance could I stand to keep it up, refusing to look my finances straight in the wallet. When I was confronted with bills I’d flinch, pay what I could, and hope to straighten things out later.

It was a frightening day when I finally faced my situation. During such “rich” living, I’d not realized the weight that my debt added onto my life. I was tipping the scales way out of balance, and the only way to even begin to fix things was to gather my finances and face the situation head-on.

Now, I watch my finances daily, with a slight degree of paranoia. I suspect that any moment I’m not paying attention, a spending mishap or stock fluctuation will sneak in and alter my financial landscape. I am obsessed with a constant need to know where I stand against my goals, planning strategies and swelling with pride at every small stride forward. I thrive as I watch my debt dwindle.

Besides my mindset, my biggest obstacle to financial awareness was my hatred of math. There, I’ve said it. I despise balancing checkbooks, tallying accounts, and performing almost any analysis involving a calculator. And though I’m starting to get to know them better, balance sheets, cash flows, and other documents which look like corporate financials make my eyes glaze over.

I have outlined my own budget and expenses several hundred times in Excel, only to find I never want to look at them again. It’s just how I am.

While I had high hopes for MS Money and Quicken, I found them to be expensive and somewhat burdensome to work with. I spent hours categorizing things only to realize that I didn’t have the time at home to keep it up, nor did I find the reports all that helpful.

I kept wanting it to be simpler, clearer, cheaper. My finances at a glance, in one place, but accessible online from anywhere without needing to remember scores of passwords.

I found this to some degree in Yodlee’s account aggregation, encountering the service first as Wachovia’s “One Stop” and then as Fidelity’s “Full View“. Some use Yodlee MoneyCenter directly, I’ve heard, but I always access their services via one of my account providers.

Though the service can look and work differently based on implementation, it’s relatively simple. Essentially, there’s a one-time setup phase, where you add your accounts, and then each day you log in and refresh your data to view a snapshot of exactly where you stand financially.

Bank accounts, loans, brokerage, credit cards, 401K and other investments tally up to a neat net worth, with transaction information easily accessible. Even insurance, frequent flyer miles and my billpay service can be added to this view. I set it up once, and now log in every day, sometimes two or three times a day. I told you it’s an obsession.

The problem? It’s great to get such a high-level at-a-glance view, but it hasn’t grown with my needs. There are no analytical tools, no way to categorize and tag items and get different views or reports of the information presented or any helpful tips to improve my situation.

Until Mint.com, that is. Launched last week, this free online money management service features the security and ease-of-use of the Yodlee platform with a host of simple yet effective tools for categorizing, analyzing and ultimately improving one’s relationship with money.

Their web site makes some impressive claims:

Mint is the freshest, most intelligent way for you to manage your money online. Not only is Mint free, it saves you money. While existing personal finance software “solutions” require hours to set up, a passion for accounting (is that possible?) and hours of weekly maintenance, Mint is virtually effortless.

Can it be true? Can it really save you money? Most importantly, can it save me from the things I most dread, mathematics and accounting?

I’ve been beta testing their service for a few months now, and have formed some strong opinions so far. So, let me introduce you to Mint.

Read the full article →

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