POPULATION EXPLOSION

A baby is born every 8 seconds. A new member joins AOL every 3.5 seconds.
—Steve Case, chairman and chief executive, America Online

HELP WANTED (MAKE THAT NEEDED)

On-line recruiting is all the rage—perhaps literally. A study has found that on-line job applications are so confusing that nearly three out of four people bail out before finishing them. Creative Good, an Internet strategy firm that focuses on customer experience, said only 32% of applicants even made it halfway through on-line applications posted by the major companies studied. Some 42% didn’t even manage to get started. The problem? Unfamiliar language, confusing graphics, and badly designed navigation tools.
 

THE BARE NECESSITIES

Wanted: Chief executive for Fortune 500 firm. Must be a great leader, a finance whiz, and an excellent surfer.

Anyone headed through the corporate ranks toward the chief executive’s office had better get wired fast, says Jeffrey E. Christian, chairman of the executive-recruiting firm Christian & Timbers. He says that, right now, about 30% of bricks-and-mortar companies are looking for Internet expertise in their chief executive. He expects that number to grow to 60% in six months. In three years? 100%.
 

NEW MOVIE IDEA: THAT'S IRRITAINMENT

As the world shrinks, and technology takes over, here are some suggestions for new terms that should perhaps enter the language. Or perhaps not. The terms are drawn from a recent e-mail making the rounds.

IRRITAINMENT: Annoying entertainment and media spectacles that you find irresistible. Examples: the O.J. trial and Bill Clinton’s video grand jury testimony.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the heck out of a temperamental electronic device to get it to work again.

ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

GENERICA: Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast-food joints, strip malls, subdivisions. Used as in, “We were so lost in generica that I forgot what city we were in.”

OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you’ve just made a big mistake.

404: Someone who is clueless. From the World Wide Web error message, “404 Not Found,” meaning that the requested document could not be located. Used as in, “Don’t bother asking him. He’s 404, man.”
 

MAY I SEE SOME ID?

As e-commerce market valuations continue their steady rise, the age of the leaders at the helm keeps heading south. The age-challenged may not be meeting resistance from Wall Street, but they’re not yet accepted everywhere. The Comdex computer show tried to deny entrance to the chief technology officer of Matrixcubed.com, a Web-hosting service, because, at 17, he’s too young. Comdex requires participants to be at least 18. The boy’s partner, his father, complained and Comdex relaxed its restriction. It’s a good thing that Matrixcubed’s 14-year-old support manager wasn’t there.
 

MANAGEMENT-BY-WAGER

At an Insight seminar, co-sponsored by Context, computing pioneer Gordon Bell said he has discovered a novel way of testing a start-up’s strategy. He challenges the firms’ executives to make personal, $1,000 bets.

Bell, who developed the Vax minicomputer that made Digital Equipment a success for such a long time, says that if the executives waffle or refuse the bets he knows they don’t have the courage of their convictions. If they accept immediately, then Bell—an active “angel” investor in technology start-ups and the developer of a diagnostic tool that predicts the success of entrepreneurial ventures initiated by large corporations—at least knows that nobody is trying to snow him.

Bell, who also spends time these days as a technology adviser to Bill Gates, says that one start-up’s chief executive recently responded to a proposal of a bet by saying he needed to check with his executive team to gauge their faith in the corporate sales forecast. Bell’s reaction was: Next! Bell, a board member at the start-up, lobbied his fellow directors, and they found a new CEO.
 

HEY, THANKS FOR NOTHING

Presidential hopeful Steve Forbes recently sent an e-mail missive to thousands of his supporters, thanking them for “maxing out” their contributions to his campaign, by donating the $1,000 limit. That was news to many of the recipients, who hadn’t given nearly that much. Apparently, the thank-you message got matched up with the wrong distribution list. Ouch.
 

GREAT STRIDES FOR EUROPE

HOW WIRED IS TOO WIRED?

The theory goes that the spread of wireless communication will make the world a safer place, by letting those in danger call for help from just about anywhere. So much for theory.

When a group climbing Mt. Everest took along some computers and satellite phones, they sent a handful of panicky e-mails and made a few frenzied calls that got blown out of all proportion and led to two search-and-rescue missions. What was really at stake? Bad weather, a climber hampered by a recent back operation, a couple of minor injuries, and the potential for a missed flight back to New York. Well, maybe that last one was a real emergency, after all. The climber might have missed work on Monday.