Salary disclosure

A few years ago, Charles Fishman wrote a fantastic article on Whole Foods for Fast Company. There’s a lot of information on and insight into their philosophy and business practice.

I want to draw your attention to one thing:

Each store had a book in the office that listed the pay of every employee for the previous year. The book was available to anyone — and was especially valuable if you were promoted or if you relocated, and wanted to see how your pay compared with your colleagues’. The pay book, surprisingly little used, set a tone of what Mackey called “no secrets management.”

It’s too bad more companies aren’t like this. Randy Cohen, The New York Times Magazine‘s “Ethicist” columnist also thinks salary disclosure is a good idea:

The one who benefits most when such information is suppressed is your boss, not you or your colleagues. It can help an employee to know that the person at the next desk makes twice as much money for performing the same task. If salaries are reasonable, employees will understand and accept them. If they are not, secrecy helps only to sustain that injustice.
…
In money matters as in many others, knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Thieves are the ones who operate under cover of darkness.

When marketing attacks

AOL’s marketing is so pervasive, it has snuck its way in to their bounce messages:

: host mailin-02.mx.aol.com[205.188.155.89] said: 550 We
    would love to have gotten this email to [email protected]. But, your
    recipient never logged onto their free AIM Mail account. Please contact
    them and let them know that they're missing out on all the super features
    offered by AIM Mail. And by the way, they're also missing out on your
    email. Thanks. (in reply to RCPT TO command)

Music business takes a few steps in the right direction

While the big four record labels are still stuck in the previous century, technology continues to democratize the music industry. Not only do we have cheap multitrack recording software and online distribution, but we’re seeing some interesting funding models as well.

In September, Wired covered Nettwerk‘s return to good-guy status, helping the Barenaked Ladies break free of their label (and make $6 per CD instead of under $1).

TechCrunch ran with news of SellaBand, a German company that brings the distributed funding model (of, say Prosper or Kiva) to music.

And this week, my friend Travis reminded me of Amie Street, which introduces demand-based pricing (get in early to get cheap music). And it’s all MP3s, no DRM.

(See also my previous post on recommendation services.)

How to fix a newspaper

Jim Romenesko over at Poynter forums explains how to “reenergize readers” — that is, how to fix your newspaper, including:

  • Go out in street, see news, write it up.
  • Yank all columnists who write with the word “I” or cutesy variation thereof; run no column that contains not an ounce of new reporting; hold public execution in town square of any columnist who writes “searching for a column topic” column.

…if only.

Banana bread

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter
1.5 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 cup sour milk (3/4 tsp. lemon juice in a 1/4 cup measuring cup and add regular milk to fill it to top)
1.5 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 cup mashed ripe bananas

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease 8″ square pan.
  2. Beat butter, sugar and eggs until light an fluffy.
  3. In a separate dish, mix the baking soda & sour milk together. Then add it to your batter and beat well.
  4. Mix baking powder into flour.
  5. Alternate putting the bananas and the flour into the batter. Mix only until blended.
  6. Bake for 45 minutes. Check if it is done by inserting a toothpick into the banana bread. When it comes out clean, it is done.