10 random things to learn on February 5th

10 random things to learn today:

Nine Questions to Ask during a Job Interview

I've been a hiring manager (in R&D) as well as a hiree, and I can say that from the standpoint of the hiring manager it is always refreshing to encounter a candidate who has interesting questions to ask. In fact, the quality of questions an interviewee asks is something I always paid close attention to in interviews. A good candidate invariably asks good questions. You can tell a lot about a person's preparedness for the job (and overall enthusiasm level, not to mention the degree to which the person has done some homework on the company and the position) by the types of questions the candidate asks during an interview.

How IBM Uses Social Media to Spur Employee Innovation | Social Media Examiner

“Be yourself.” It’s one of the rules of social media. If you’re blogging, tweeting or Facebooking for business, be real—or you won’t be followed.

Yet, how do you pull off “authentic” while maintaining the company brand message?

It’s tough enough for a small business. What if you’re #2 on Business Week’s best global brands list, with nearly 400,000 employees across 170 countries?

In China Underworld, Hacking for Fun and Profit

Internet security experts say China has legions of hackers just like Majia, and that they are behind an escalating number of global attacks to steal credit card numbers, commit corporate espionage and even wage online warfare on other nations, which in some cases have been traced back to China.

Three weeks ago, Google blamed hackers that it connected to China for a series of sophisticated attacks that led to the theft of the company’s valuable source code. Google also said hackers had infiltrated the private Gmail accounts of human rights activists, suggesting the effort might have been more than just mischief.

In addition to independent criminals like Majia, computer security specialists say there are so-called patriotic hackers who focus their attacks on political targets. Then there are the intelligence-oriented hackers inside the People’s Liberation Army, as well as more shadowy groups that are believed to work with the state government.

Adam’s Family Jewels

Zevit, author of the forthcoming What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden?, argues that, etiologically, “rib” doesn’t make much sense in a story pregnant with sexual innuendo; nor is there precedent in ancient Near Eastern mythology for it to feature as an instrument of creation. Instead,tsela was likely a euphemism for the baculum, or “penis bone,” found in the males of most mammals. The Bible uses various euphemisms for male genitalia but never a specific word: two of them, “bone” and “flesh,” in the pertinent verse may be double entendres when Adam welcomes Eve as “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23).

Steve Jobs and the Economics of Elitism

The more, the better. That’s the fashionable recipe for nurturing new ideas these days. It emphasizes a kind of Internet-era egalitarianism that celebrates the “wisdom of the crowd” and “open innovation.” Assemble all the contributions in the digital suggestion box, we’re told in books and academic research, and the result will be collective intelligence.

A special report on social networking: A world of connections

THE annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, currently in progress, is famous for making connections among the global great and good. But when the delegates go home again, getting even a few of them together in a room becomes difficult. To allow the leaders to keep talking, the forum’s organisers last year launched a pilot version of a secure online service where members can post mini-biographies and other information, and create links with other users to form collaborative working groups. Dubbed the World Electronic Community, or WELCOM, the forum’s exclusive online network has only about 5,000 members.

The Economist on Social Networking

What joy. This week, The Economist, every Capitalist’s favourite magazine, has published a special report on on social networking.

A World of Connections, provides an excellent overview of the current state of social media for those still trying to get to grips with it. You can download a free pdf of the report here. Or check out my summary of key highlights below.

Why men use prostitutes

Research published in 2005 found that the numbers of men who pay for sex had doubled in a decade. The authors attributed this rise to "a greater acceptability of commercial sexual contact", yet many of our interviewees told us that they felt intense guilt and shame about paying for sex. "I'm not satisfied in my mind" was how one described his feelings after paying for sex. Another told me that he felt "disappointed – what a waste of money", "lonely still" and "guilty about my relationship with my wife". In fact, many of the men were a mass of contradictions. Despite finding their experiences "unfulfilling, empty, terrible", they continued to visit prostitutes.

10 resume mistakes that turn off employers

There is no such thing as a perfect resume. This is particularly true when changing industries, functionalities, or upgrading a job role. Career transitions require a higher-level targeted approach. The best resume, employers say, is the one that portrays the candidate as a solution-provider. Prove you can make their problems go away and you'll get hired.

Randolph L Stevens, president and CEO of career marketing and outplacement firm R.L. Stevens & Associates Inc., offers these 10 resume mistakes that may keep your from getting the job you seek.

The Book of Body Language

Everyone knows someone who can walk into a room full of people and, within minutes, give an accurate description about the relationships between those people and what they are feeling. The ability to read a person's attitudes and thoughts by their behaviour was the original communication system used by humans before spoken language evolved.

Before radio was invented, most communication was done in writing through books, letters and newspapers, which meant that ugly politicians and poor speakers, such as Abraham Lincoln, could be successful if they persisted long enough and wrote good print copy. The radio era gave openings to people who had a good command of the spoken word, like Winston Churchill, who spoke wonderfully but may have struggled to achieve as much in today's more visual era.

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