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Here’s a thing I wrote for Medium on the dreaded question “What do you do?”: 

Among the niceties and travails of meeting people for the first time, there’s no more loaded question than “What do you do?” I would almost prefer to respond to “What is your favorite sexual position?” or “How do you feel about your mother?” because people would be less likely to read into my answer.

I have European friends who loathe the question because they think it’s coded language that only means one thing: How much money do you make? But that’s only part of it. It means that, and several other things. 

I’m sending out my once-a-month-or-less newsletter at the end of the week, so if you have job listings you’d like included, please email me at espiers AT gmail, subject line SpiersList by EOD Wednesday. You can subscribe here. 

I’m looking for a social media analytics tool that will tell me how many referrals are coming into a site from a specific Twitter account. Everything I’ve looked at so far just has top line numbers and individual instances of mentions (with no indication of how many referrals that specific mention generates.) Does anyone know of an off-the-shelf product or service that does this? If so, I’d love a recommendation. espiers AT gmail. 

paulbogaards:

The Executive Vice President, Director of Publicity and Media Relations for the Knopf Doubleday Group (@paulbogaards) is seeking a Publicity Assistant to provide day-to-day support in a fast-paced, internal/external facing, detail and data driven environment working with authors, agents, booksellers, legacy media professionals, and other half-crazed publishing desperados.

This position will support the EVP in the daily grind that is 21^st century book publishing and corporate communications, including general admin (calendar management and scheduling with the first rule being nothing gets booked on Friday EVER), phone coverage (no calls should ever get through unless they are from Sheryl Sandberg), email and other written correspondence (making the EVP look smarter than he is), generating reports (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Bookscan, etc.), research (the EVP is on a constant hunt for information about golf courses), and interactions with press. The assistant will also have an opportunity to support high-profile authors (read: NEEDY) and their campaigns by writing press releases and pitch letters, creating other content (an author video!), assembling press kits, putting things in the mail, scheduling author tours, and rebooking hotels that the author deems unsatisfactory (“I had specifically requested 600 thread count sheets”).

The ideal candidate will possess exceptional diplomacy (“I’m sorry that we were not able to work with you on the exclusive but no one reads your fucking magazine”), writing (“Please please please book my author on your podcast before their editor accuses me of sabotaging another one of their P&L’s”), communication (WTF? AYKM?), and social media skills (must be proficient on all platforms because the EVP has been known to say things like “WE SHOULD PIN THIS ON SOMETHING”); be able to manage multiple tasks in a frequently stressful environment (“I have no idea why your book isn’t selling”); and be a stickler for detail. Previous experience providing administrative support in a corporate environment where your superior was frequently under investigation by the authorities helpful but not required. Absolutely no whiners. Knowledge of IPAs a plus.

I have never met Paul Bogaards, but I love him. 

I’m still on the Groupon beat for Fast Company (and will be till this feature comes out) so I went back to Groupon HQ in Chicago on Monday to talk to the new CEO Eric Lefkofsky. Here’s how it went: 

As he and I chat, Lefkofsky struggles to find the right metaphor to describe the four-year old company’s struggles in the last 18 months since going public. “You have a company that’s four years old, right?” he says. “It’s a like a toddler in many ways—and yet it’s got 11,000 employees in 48 countries, so it’s a big global company and…”

He changes his mind about the toddler analogy.

“It’s like flying a plane,” he says, “and you’re trying to find the right altitude and you’re doing it with a four-year-old company and four-year-old processes and four-year-old systems.”

Groupon’s problem, of course, was that the stock market perceived the company’s situation as neither plane nor toddler, but toddler flying a plane. The stock was down more 80% since its November 2011 IPO, and the market didn’t react well to Mason and CFO Jason Child’s Feb. 27 explanation of what had happened, which was in keeping with its ongoing reaction to the company’s post-IPO performance. Mason, while generally regarded as a brilliant product developer and visionary, had been unable to effectively communicate to Wall Street what the company was doing right or get in front of its mistakes, of which there had been many…

Mason was gone the next day. Lefkofsky former and former AOL president and board member Ted Leonsis were appointed co-CEOs.

Fast Company Exclusive: Eric Lefkofsky’s First Interview as Groupon CEO

I wrote an op-ed for The Verge on Sheryl Sandberg, Marissa Mayer and double standards for women at the top: 

Just look at Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. Her recent book, Lean In, has provoked hostile criticism by many people who haven’t read the book, but find it offensive because the advice it offers doesn’t work for all women everywhere — and worse, think that Sandberg herself must represent all women to offer such advice…

Has anyone ever anyone ever analyzed a business book made by a male CEO using the same criteria? When’s the last time someone picked up a Jack Welch (or Warren Buffett, or even Donald Trump) bestseller and complained that it was unsympathetic to working class men who had to work multiple jobs to support their families? When’s the last time anyone called Welch an elitist jerk for suggesting that his relationship with his family was not incompatible with work? And who reads a book by Jack Welch and defensively feels that they’re being told that they have to adopt Jack Welch’s lifestyle and professional choices or they are lesser human beings?

With zero scientific evidence, I think I can answer that. No one.

Beware of Broken Glass: the Double Standard for Women at the Top [TheVerge]