Casual Friday is a form of mind control

I have a few friends who work for companies that have a "casual Friday" policy. The idea here is that on Fridays, employees can where whatever they want to work - ie, something casual.

Ooooh, hooray! I'm a 33 year old man raising two kids, paying a mortgage, managing a significant budget for your company, and I'm so excited because today I get to where whatever pants I want! You're so awesome boss!

Are you kidding me?

If once a week your employer is saying "hey, you can wear whatever you want to work" - all they're doing is telling you that they have so much power over you that they get to control what you're going to wear on a daily basis.

It's a ridiculous form of mind control.

Stodgy companies of course respond by saying something to the effect of: "but we often have clients visiting" or "there are important meetings to attend with key executives" or some other lame excuse for a ridiculous policy.

The reality is that if your people can't figure out the appropriate attire to wear for a particular event, then you've hired the wrong people. The other reality of course is that people work most effectively when they are comfortable. And clothes have a direct impact on our comfort.

Just talk to a woman who has to wear panty hose every day, or a man that has to wear an upside down noose - I mean tie - every day.

If you want people to wear pleated khaki pants with a checkered button down just because that's what you wear, at least have the wherewithal to realize that what you're doing is telling people they have to wear a uniform.

And if you expect people to wear a uniform, don't be surprised if they're unwilling to take a risk, make a mistake, or do something amazing. Because you've trained them to be so obedient that they can't even pick out their own clothes.

Casual Friday's are nothing more than an exercise in mind control. On Monday, be an adult and wear whatever pants you want.

Twitter is for listening

I'm pretty sure most people that use Twitter for their business in some capacity are using it the wrong way. I say this because it seems most people view Twitter as a way to tell the world about something that they know about - or something they're making, or doing, or selling, or whatever.

And to be sure, this is certainly one benefit of twitter. I make it a point to tweet a blog post I've written, mention something interesting I see, and post the occasional picture of my kids. But the ability to say something on twitter isn't why it's valuable.

Listening is where the real value is at with Twitter.

I had never even heard of Derek Sivers until Jason Fried mentioned his writing. I learned about a whole new way I could make websites by learning to use Perch, something that Ryan Singer tweeted about. I only knew that Andrew Dubber was going to be putting up an idea a day, every day for thirty days, because Derek Sivers linked to it. And because I learned of Andrew Dubber, I now know there is a double distilled whisky-type alcohol called Manx that you can get from the Isle of Man. (There's lots of other great stuff I've learned by hearing of Andrew Dubber too.)

Truly though, the times Twitter has been the most valuable are the moments when I've learned something from someone I respect, or when something I mentioned got noticed - but only as a direct response to something that I heard.

This is why I got so confused when I would see people that were following 3,000 or 4,000 people. How can you keep up with anything that anyone is saying?

These people of course are following others in the hopes that they'll be followed back. Their plan is to basically follow a bunch of people, hope they get followed back, not listen to well over 90% of these people, and lastly, hope that a good percentage of the people that they're ignoring will pay attention to them.

Good luck with that.

I was talking about this with a friend when I was informed that TweetDeck allows users to determine which of the people they follow that they're actually going to listen to. So now, whenever I see someone that's following thousands of people and also uses TweetDeck, I just figure that's exactly what they're doing. And I don't even notice how many followers they have, because all I see is the thousands of people they're ignoring.

Tell me, if you're asking people to pay attention to you, knowing full well that you're going to be ignoring them, why should I give you my attention? Haven't you just built a wall between us before I've even had a chance to listen to what you have to say? Aren't you just telling me that you're probably going to ignore me? How big of a fan of yours can I become if this is my perception?

I use my blog for speaking, but Twitter is for listening.