Check Facebook to Hire Successful Employees

A recent study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology shows a strong relationship between characteristics revealed on Facebook profiles and success on the job.

Researchers asked two students and a university professor to spend 10 minutes going through the Facebook profiles of employed college students. They looked at comments, photographs, friends and interests and then answered a series of personality-related questions about the student workers. (e.g., “Is this person dependable?” “How emotionally stable is this person?”)

A large number of friends and a wide range of interests demonstrated agreeability. The researcher also found that photographs of employees partying were seen as positive because they showed the person was sociable and extroverted.

Six months later the researchers obtained supervisors’ performance reviews of the students’ work and compared them to the earlier Facebook evaluations. They found a strong correlation between high scores for traits including curiosity, agreeability and conscientiousness and successful performance at work. The researchers believe the Facebook evaluations proved to be more accurate than traditional personality tests that employers often use to gauge potential employees. “Your Facebook profile ‘can help predict your job performance,’” www.economictimes.com (Feb. 23, 2012).

Link HERE to read full article in Chubbworks.

Would You Give Your Facebook Password to Your Future Employer?

An increasing number of employers are requesting that job applicants provide their Facebook passwords in order to review the applicants’ private Facebook profiles as part of the hiring process. Even a cursory review of an applicant’s profile page can provide an employer with a wealth of knowledge about the potential hire and often plays a role in the hiring decision.

In response to this growing trend, several state legislatures, including Illinois, Maryland, Connecticut, New Jersey and California, have introduced or plan to introduce laws prohibiting public and/or private employers from requiring applicants and current employees to disclose or provide access to online social media accounts, including Facebook. Federal lawmakers have also indicated that they intend to propose federal legislation that would prohibit the practice, and two U.S. senators recently asked the Attorney General to determine whether the practice violates the Stored Communications Act or the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

In addition, Facebook has taken a stand against the practice, stating that it is a violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities to share or solicit a Facebook password. In a blog post on March 23, 2012, Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan states, “As a user, you shouldn’t be forced to share your private information and communications just to get a job . . . we don’t think employers should be asking prospective employees to provide their passwords because we don’t think it’s the right thing to do.” The Facebook blog posting further provides, “We’ll take action to protect the privacy and security of our users, whether by engaging policymakers, or, where appropriate, by initiating legal action, including by shutting down applications that abuse their privileges.”

. . .

If an employer chooses to require applicants to disclose their Facebook passwords, it should ensure that the employee acknowledges and consents to the disclosure in writing and require such information from all applicants. As always, employers should base all employment decisions on legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons.

To read all of the article by Kimberly F. Williams in Insurance Broadcasting click HERE.

What Do High Tech Algorithms Have To Do With Crop Insurance?

New farm technologies brought in by Silicon Valley are bringing high tech to the last frontier in farming “How to Control the Weather.”

Louis Wischmeier oversees 5,300 acres of farmland near Columbus, Ind., and spends much of the winter trying to find the perfect “prescriptions,” as he puts it, for his fields. A large, soft-spoken man, Wischmeier pores over weather data, takes soil moisture readings, and studies the latest news on seed hybrids with the aim of maximizing crop yields. Over the past few years that meticulous planning has been undermined by unusual weather. Heavy rains fell during the brief five-day planting windows, then scorching temperatures cracked seeds and suffocated crops. “Sometimes we have to replant two or three times to get a crop up and started,” Wischmeier says. He refuses to utter the words “global warming” or to complain, saying only that “the excessive weather events seem to have a huge impact on our success.”

To fight back, last year Wischmeier turned to a surprising place: Silicon Valley. He bought crop insurance from Climate Corp., a startup founded by two former Google (GOOG) executives and funded by $60 million in venture capital. Staffed by an army of data scientists, the company is bringing data analytics to rural America and helping farmers reap more consistent profits from their fields. It’s an example of how cloud computing, modeling, and other technologies that have reshaped the Web and business are now revolutionizing more traditional industries. “Software is going to fundamentally change how the world operates,” says David Friedberg, Climate’s chief executive officer and co-founder.

Historically, farmers have relied on crop insurance sold by the federal government. The program is rife with all the red tape bureaucracies are famous for. Farmers must plant their fields on a schedule determined by the government and consent to inspections. To estimate crop value, they have to record and turn over years’ worth of data about yields. When disaster hits, claims take months to process, and the payout often only covers costs, not lost profits.

Climate Corp. has a different approach. The 130-person company includes a dozen PhDs in fields including applied math, statistics, and neuroscience. They’ve harnessed decades’ worth of data from the National Weather Service and other sources to come up with a picture of rainfall, temperature, and soil conditions in farmland across America. The data sets are fine-tuned enough that Climate Corp. knows how the average weather at one spot differs from another 2½ miles down the road. It uses this information, along with historic crop yields, to predict how next year’s haul is going to look. “We’ve got a bunch of quants going over 30 years of daily weather data,” says Friedberg. “For each location, we have simulated the weather for the next 730 days, 10,000 times.” The data let the company customize insurance prices according to each farm’s risk factors and offer protection that supplements the federal offering, covering weather events including excessive rain and heat.

Climate Corp. approaches crop insurance with the typical Silicon Valley emphasis on speed and automation. Farmers log onto the startup’s site, input a few details about their planting plans, and an algorithm dubbed the Farm-Level Optimizer spits back policy options. Because its servers are always recording weather data, Climate Corp. knows when a policy is triggered by, say, a drought and automatically issues payments to the affected farmers. Climate Corp. also opens up its data trove to its customers, showing them the range of yields and profits they can expect based on likely weather conditions. Friedberg says thousands of farmers have insured millions of acres through the startup, though the company won’t divulge revenue details.

Friedberg studied astrophysics at the University of California at Berkeley before starting a career in finance in 2001, and he joined Google a few years later as an early member of its corporate development team. He got the idea for Climate Corp., originally called WeatherBill, after driving past a bike rental shop. “This guy rents bikes to tourists, and when it rains he just shuts down,” Friedberg says. “I started thinking about all the businesses affected by the weather, like ski resorts, festivals, and baseball games.” He co-founded Climate Corp. in 2006 and took a crack at insuring these types of businesses but ultimately found a more receptive audience among farmers.

Friedberg has hired dozens of recent graduates from agriculture-focused university programs to make sure the 10,000 agents selling federal insurance know about the Silicon Valley option. It’s not always easy persuading people accustomed to a formulaic government program to push a newfangled, data-driven product from Silicon Valley, even though they get a commission. Nor is it simple for them to persuade farmers to pay for additional insurance. But George Bercaw, an agent at Water Street Solutions, has taken a Climate Corp. training course and says the high-tech approach fits well with what the farming industry calls the Age of Precision Agriculture. “We work with progressive growers, and I need something to bring to the table,” he says.

Wischmeier likes the added peace of mind Climate Corp.’s insurance provides. Every year he spends millions of dollars during the planting season, including an annual purchase of three massive John Deere (DE) tractors equipped with $15,000 computing systems. (Wischmeier sells the old ones because he likes to have the latest technology to minimize the chance of a breakdown during the short planting window, when farmers work around the clock.) If excessive rains damage his crops in May, Climate Corp. will pay him quickly enough to buy more seed and replant; the federal insurance doesn’t pay out until after the season.

The government also bases its payments on yield averages established over many years, so it tends to trail advances in farming technology that boost yields and doesn’t cover so-called specialty crops such as avocados and blueberries. With Climate Corp., there’s no such disincentive. “This gives us a huge chance to feel comfortable targeting high-profit, specialty crops,” Wischmeier says.

Agriculture isn’t the only industry that stands to gain. Friedberg says Climate Corp. shows what Silicon Valley can do when it steps away from its maniacal focus on building social networks and advertising companies. “Doing yet another app just because everyone seems to be into it is not the right reason,” Friedberg says.

The bottom line: Some farmers like Climate Corp.’s supplemental weather insurance because claims are processed quickly and automatically.

Link to the full article by Ashlee Vance of Businessweek HERE

Diversified Openhouse

We finally finished our remodel and invited all of our clients, friends, and partners over for a bit of NCAA Madness and good food during the NCAA games last Friday.