• Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg urges women to 'lean in' in new book

    Gregory Bull / AP

    Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's new book, "Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead," will be released on Monday.

    By Barbara Ortutay, The Associated Press

    NEW YORK - For a book that has yet to be released, Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In" — part feminist manifesto, part how-to career guide — has got a lot of people talking.

    In the weeks leading up to the book's release on Monday, pundits and press hounds have been debating its merits. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd called Sandberg a "PowerPoint Pied Piper in Prada ankle boots," and countless bloggers have suggested that Facebook's chief operating officer is the wrong person to lead a women's movement. 

    "Most of the criticism has to do with the position she is coming from," said Susan Yohn, professor and chair of Hofstra University's history department.

    Sandberg, 43, hopes that her message of empowerment won't be obscured by the lofty pedestal from which she speaks. But is the multi-millionaire with two Harvard degrees too rich to offer advice? Too successful? Does her blueprint for success ignore the plight of poor and working-class women? Does the book's very premise blame women for not rising to top corporate positions at the same rate as men?

    And just how big is her house?

    The questions keep coming largely because few people have actually read the book. But in it, Sandberg seems to have foreseen much of the criticism. The book acknowledges that critics might discount her feminist call to action with an easy-for-her-to-say shrug.

    "My hope is that my message will be judged on its merits," she writes in the preamble.

    Sandberg recognizes that parts of the book are targeted toward women who are in a position to make decisions about their careers. Still, she writes, "we can't avoid this conversation. This issue transcends all of us. The time is long overdue to encourage more women to dream the possible dream and encourage more men to support women in the workforce and in the home."

    Published by Alfred A. Knopf Inc., "Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead" will be launched Thursday with a reception in New York City hosted by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Arianna Huffington.

    It's true that Sandberg is wealthy. She also has a supportive husband. Mark Zuckerberg is her boss. And, yes, her home in Menlo Park, Calif., has 9,000 square feet.

    But as a woman in Silicon Valley, Sandberg hasn't exactly had it easy, and her tale shows she's no armchair activist. After all, not many women would march into their boss' office and demand special parking for expectant mothers. But Sandberg did just that when she worked at Google. Company founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin complied.

    After Sandberg moved to Facebook in 2008, she became even more outspoken on the issues facing women in corporate America. At a time when other executives, male or female, have largely stayed quiet, Sandberg has delivered speeches on topics such as "Why we have too few women leaders."

    And she's no workaholic. In an age of endless work hours, Sandberg is famous for leaving the office at 5:30 to spend time with her family. She does admit, however, to picking up work once her kids have gone to bed.

    Of the many inspirational slogans that hang on Facebook's walls, her favorite asks "What would you do if you weren't afraid?" "Lean In" is about pushing past fear.

    "Fear is at the root of so many of the barriers that women face," she writes. "Fear of not being liked. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fear of drawing negative attention. Fear of overreaching. Fear of being judged. Fear of failure. And the holy trinity of fear: the fear of being a bad mother/wife/daughter."

    Sandberg peppers the book with studies, reports and personal anecdotes to back up her premise — that for reasons both in and out of their control, there are fewer woman leaders than men in the business world and beyond. For example, the Fortune 500 has only 21 female CEOs. Sandberg is among the 14 percent of women who hold executive officer positions and the 16 percent of women who hold board of director seats, according to Catalyst.org.

    For minority women, the numbers are even bleaker. Women of color, she writes, hold just 4 percent of top corporate jobs and 3 percent of board seats.

    "A truly equal world would be one where women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes. I believe that this would be a better world," she writes. "The laws of economics and many studies of diversity tell us that if we tapped the entire pool of human resources and talent, our collective performance would improve."

    At less than 200 pages, plus a good chunk of footnotes, "Lean In" does not purport to be the end-all solution to inequality. It deals with issues Sandberg sees as in women's control.

    "Don't leave before you leave" is one of her catchphrases, aimed at successful women who gradually drop out of the workforce in anticipation of children they may someday bear. "Make your partner a real partner" is another. She says everyone should encourage men to "lean in" at home by being equal partners in parenting and housework.

    "Lean In" is, by and large, for women who are looking to climb the corporate ladder (which Sandberg calls a jungle gym), and ideally their male supporters. She hopes it's the start of a conversation. To that end, Sandberg plans to donate all of the proceeds to her newly minted nonprofit, LeanIn.org.

    Sandberg's book shares personal details that reveal a fair share of stumbles and lesser-known tidbits. Did you know she was an aerobics instructor in the 1980s —big hair, silver leotard and all? The book paints a picture of an exceptionally successful woman who admits to lacking confidence at various points in her career.

    Sandberg writes about the "ambition gap" between men and women in the workplace — that while men are expected to be driven, ambition in women can be seen as negative. She writes about parents' gender-based approaches to child rearing that teach girls to be "pretty like mommy" and boys "smart like daddy," as she's seen on baby onesies sold at Gymboree.

    And she writes about "feeling like a fraud" — that insidious notion, felt largely by women but men as well, that success is due not to one's own merit but to some sort of gross oversight or accident.

    Sandberg's book comes half a century after Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique," which identified "the problem that has no name" among largely white, suburban housewives who felt unhappy and unfulfilled in their roles at home. Friedan, too, was criticized for focusing on a privileged swath of womankind.

    In a recent critical piece on Sandberg's movement, Michael Kazin wrote in the New Republic that, like Friedan, Sandberg, "also seems primarily concerned with the economics of gender. But there's a key difference: Friedan didn't share a view from the corporate boardroom."

    Kazin's barbs echo most of the book's pre-release criticism. But some writers have gone further. In a Washington Post op-ed, Melissa Gira Grant dismissed Sandberg's "Lean In" movement as "simply the elite leading the slightly-less-elite, for the sake of Sandberg's bottom line." Dowd wrote that she believes "Sandberg has co-opted the vocabulary and romance of a social movement not to sell a cause, but herself."

    In the end, "Lean In" is a call to action to make it easier for women to become leaders. It's a call for women to take space at the table, raise their hands, speak up and step up. It's a personal account of a woman who, through a mix of talent, luck and ambition, but also with plenty of internal and external obstacles along the way, managed to do that.

    Feminist icon Gloria Steinem, whom Sandberg thanks in the acknowledgements and cites as inspiration, praises "Lean In" on her Facebook page, saying that it "addresses internalized oppression, opposes external barriers that create it and urges women to support each other to fight both."

    She adds that even the book's critics "are making a deep if inadvertent point: Only in women is success viewed as a barrier to giving advice."

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  • Taco Bell responds to teen's request for a custom Speedo

    YUM Brands

    Taco Bell's slogan could take on a whole new meaning.

    By Martha C. White

    It sounds like a setup for a joke: Hey, did you hear the one about the high school swim champ who got Taco Bell to make him a customized Speedo?

    It’s not a hoax, though — more of a lesson in the power of social media marketing and teenage chutzpah.

    The week before Christmas, 15-year-old Ryan Klarner posted on Taco Bell’s Facebook page, introducing himself with a rundown of his swimming and diving achievements before making an offbeat request.

    “[I]s there any way you guys could make me a customized Speedo that says think outside the buns on the back of it? If you did, that would mean the world to me,” the Illinois teen asked.

    Taco Bell, a division of Yum! Brands, Inc., is quick to respond to gripes as well as kudos on its Facebook page. It also isn’t afraid to dive into the silly or the weird in the running conversation it has with its 9.5 million fans, but a request for a customized swimsuit was a new one, said Tressie Lieberman, director of digital and social engagement.

    Klarner said he first came up with the idea a couple of years earlier and decided last month to go ahead and ask, even though he never had asked a company on Facebook for anything before. “I did not expect it to blow up as much as it has. I didn’t really expect to get the Speedo out of it, either,” he said.

    But last Wednesday, the social media team at Taco Bell wrote back. “What size do you wear? And what’s your address?”

    “He really wanted something and he went after it,” Lieberman said. When we think people are really extraordinary... then we want to reward them.”

    Klarner said he was “really surprised” and “ecstatic” to hear back from the company after nearly two weeks. (The reply took as long as it did because the Taco Bell team was trying to track down a purple Speedo and come up with a design.)

    “Beyond what we’re putting out to the masses, we want to engage with everyone individually,” Lieberman said. “It’s tough to respond to every single person... but we definitely want to make sure people know we’re listening.” When the company discontinued its fire-roasted salsa last year and fans protested, Lieberman said her team rounded up the final shipment and mailed out individual packages to those who posted the most vociferous objections.

    In general, Taco Bell’s Facebook fans aren’t shy about asking for stuff: free food, branded merchandise, even jobs — but Lieberman said Klarner’s request, which racked up thousands of “likes” from other fans, caught her team’s attention.

    “We’re seeing a lot of engagement with posts put on our wall by other fans. We really wanted to show Ryan we listened to him,” she said.

    Since another element of social media is its immediacy, a quick turnaround was also a priority; even with the difficulty of tracking down a purple Speedo, Lieberman said Klarner will be getting his wish granted this week.

    Klarner is actually getting two Speedos — since his request incorporated Taco Bell’s old tagline, “Think Outside the Bun,” Lieberman’s team also decided to give Klarner a second swimsuit with “Live Mas,” the slogan it adopted last year, printed on it.

    Rules against corporate sponsorships will prevent Klarner from wearing the suits in competitions, but he said he’ll wear them to practices, where the rules are looser and his teammates have a tradition of wearing funny Speedos.

    “But this is just way bigger than that,” he said. “I already loved Taco Bell to begin with... now it’s even more of a favorite." He said the chain's status had risen in his friends' eyes, too. "No one thought Taco Bell was this cool.”

    From a marketing perspective, that scores a perfect 10.

  • Prepare for the fiscal cliff by 'cleaning house' on Facebook

    By Martha C. White

    You may have a huge roster of Facebook friends, but that’s not going to help you if the fiscal cliff plunges the United States back into recession next year.

    If your social network is made up of hundreds of people you haven’t had a real-life conversation with in years, you’re worse off if the economy tanks than people with just a handful of close friends.

    Emoticon-based friendships aren’t strong enough to act as a safety net in an unstable economy, University of Virginia psychology professor Shigehiro Oishi wrote in “Optimal Social-Networking Strategy Is a Function of Socioeconomic Conditions,” a study published last month in the journal Psychological Science.  

    “In unfavorable economic conditions, under which individuals often need serious practical and material help from others, having a large number of friends might drain all of your time and resources,” he wrote. In other words, you’re not going to lend money to or offer to babysit for someone whose interaction with you largely consists of “Like" this post, and they wouldn’t do these things for you, either.

    Using a computer model and a survey of nearly 250 people, Oishi and co-author Selin Kesebir of the London Business School found that investing in few, deep friendships is beneficial when money is tight and you have little chance of moving somewhere better.

    In the survey, respondents rated their current sense of well-being and the nature of their social network, which Oishi and Kesebir compared to the income level and the degree of mobility in their zip code of residence. They found that people living in high-income environments, regardless of how often they move, benefit more from having loose ties with a lot of people. They also are better off with these shallow, broad networks when they move around a lot, whether in wealthy or poor situations. 

    In contrast, lower-income households that didn't move as often were happier with a small circle of close friends than with a large number of more superficial relationships.

    Americans used to move roughly once every five years, but that has fallen to every nine years, said Jed Kolko, chief economist at Trulia.com. The rate of mobility had been dropping bit by bit since the 1980s, and it really took a hit when the economy went south.

    “Mobility goes down when the economy does worse,” Kolko said. “When the economy’s in recession, people tend to move less. There are fewer jobs available for people to move to, and if home prices fall, people can go back underwater or be more underwater and be less likely to sell.”

    "If we fully go over the fiscal cliff, it’s likely to slow down or even reverse economic growth," Kolko said. When it comes to housing, "it would definitely slow down and possibly reverse. It would severely affect demand," he said, which means people are more likely to stay put.

    Even the people who are moving these days are sticking closer to home, which presumably undercuts the benefit of a far-flung social network. Compared to a decade ago, the number of people who move but stay in the same town is roughly flat, but the number of people relocating across state lines has dropped by 35 percent.

    “Having narrow, deep ties is more advantageous in residentially stable environments, particularly if crisis probability is high...," Oishi wrote. "In such a condition, investing in a small number of friends seems sensible and adaptive.” These hypothetical parameters would be reality if economists’ worst-case predictions for the fiscal cliff come true.

    So, don’t just tweet this story or post it to your Facebook wall. Pick up the phone and tell your closest friend about it — it could help you survive a fall off the fiscal cliff.

  • Facebook makes you spend more, research suggests

    Valentin Flauraud / REUTERS

    New research suggests that use of Facebook and other social media can lead to less self-control.

    By Herb Weisbaum, TODAY contributor

    Most of us use social media every day. Research shows this online networking makes people feel better about themselves. But could that positive feeling have a negative impact on behavior, making you spend more or even eat more? 

    As strange as it sounds, a new study suggests the answer is “yes.”

    Two marketing professors say their research shows – for the first time – that using online social networks can influence behavior by reducing self-control. They conclude that Facebook and other social media can have significant effects on consumer judgment and decision-making.

    "People who use Facebook more tend to have a higher body-mass index (BMI), increased binge eating, carry more credit card debt and have lower credit scores,” said Andrew Stephen, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh. 

    Stephen and Keith Wilcox, an associate professor at Columbia University, believe these “unintended psychological consequences” of Facebook use are related to the ego boost people get from social media. And they found that effect is greater if you have a high percentage of close friends online. 

    "Simply browsing Facebook makes people feel better about themselves and momentarily enhances their self-esteem," noted Wilcox. “It’s that enhanced self-esteem that ultimately lowers your self-control.” 

    The loss of self-control, they suggest, can result in self-indulgence. When you feel good, you can rationalize ordering dessert or buying something you don’t really need. “I feel good today,” you tell yourself. “I deserve a treat.” 

    Experiments verify the Facebook effect 
    Wilcox and Stephen did an online survey with 541 Facebook users in the U.S. 

    They asked the volunteers about their online habits: how many hours they spend on Facebook each day and how many close friends they have on the site. 

    They asked about their financial situation: how many credit cards they had, how much debt was on those cards and their credit score.

    They also asked for height, weight and how often the person engaged in binge eating. 

    The survey showed that for those with strong social ties, Facebook use “is a significant predictor of a range of behaviors that are consistent with poor self-control.” 

    These findings were consistent with what the professors found when they did a series of experiments: Being on Facebook for even a few minutes can make people have less control over the spending and food decisions they make afterward. 

    In one experiment, volunteers browsed the Internet or went on Facebook for five minutes. Then they were asked to take part in an online auction for a new iPad. Those who had been on Facebook and who had a higher percentage of close friends on Facebook submitted higher bids than the volunteers who simply browsed the Internet before heading to the auction. 

    Is there really a cause-and-effect here? Or is it that people who have less self-control (i.e. more credit card debt, lower credit scores and higher BMI) tend to use Facebook more? 

    Some may doubt the conclusion of this report, but Professor Stephen said he is “absolutely convinced” Facebook use “is causing people to have reduced self-control in a variety of situations." 

    What can we learn from this?
    Wilcox and Stephen believe the Facebook effect is subtle and develops over time. The impact would seem to be more pronounced with heavy users. 

    "Ultimately, the way you counteract this is by raising your self-awareness,” Professor Wilcox told me. “It's not about don't spend time on Facebook, but just be aware of what it might be doing to you." 

    Professor Stephen believes these psychological repercussions are not limited to Facebook, but take place on any social media that promotes relationships and sharing with friends. 

    "It's the strong connections that really trigger this boost in self-esteem which has this commensurate reduction in self-control," Stephen said. 

    Both professors would like to see more research done in this area. But they conclude their report with this caution: 

    “Given that self-control is important for maintaining social order and personal well-being, this subtle effect could have widespread impact.” 

    This study, Are Close Friends the Enemy? Online Social Networks, Self-Esteem, and Self-Control, will be published next year in the Journal of Consumer Research. It is currently available online at the Social Science Research Network.

    Keep up-to-date with the latest on consumer news at www.consumerman.com. Follow me on Facebook  and Twitter 

     

  • Your absence on Facebook may be holding you back

    By Tanya Mohn, TODAY contributor

    When it comes to Facebook and other social media, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. At least that’s some career expects are saying.

    Job applicants long have known that what they post on social networks can hurt their chances of getting hired. But a lack of a social media presence also can be an obstacle.

    “If you don’t have a social media page, are you now identifying yourself in a way that suggests you’re outside the mainstream?” said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a global outplacement firm.

    In today’s world, where many people are permanent job seekers, “social media presence is basically a must in managing one’s career,” he said. “Not doing so will cause many to question why and will raise red flags about your candidacy. What do you not what people to know? What are you hiding?”

    “And if you don’t have an online identity, companies can’t find you,” said Challenger.

    Dennis J. Garritan, a managing partner of private equity firm Palmer Hill Capital and an adjunct professor at Harvard Business School, didn’t take quite such a hard line. He said his consideration of social media presence when assessing applicants depends in part on their age and the kind of work they do.

    “Not all social media are equal,” Garritan said. “LinkedIn is required. If they are not on LinkedIn, I’m wondering why not, because that is the vehicle for professional networking.” Twitter is important, too, he said, for serious job candidates.

     “I like to get to see how people think on their feet,” Garritan said. “How they react to situations spontaneously is a highly prized commodity in the workplace.”

    So he said age might be a mitigating factor.

    For people 50 or older, for example, he said not tweeting is understandable, as they may be unaccustomed to the technology. If a 40-something doesn’t use social media, it would be a little worrisome, but not critical.

    “But if a job candidate is a Millennial and doesn’t have Facebook, you’re wondering, is this person with it, or out of it? It’s certainly a question to ask in an interview,” Garritan said. And for people who work in marketing and public relations, “they have to be invested in social media to be state-of-the-art professionals.”


    Certainly there are valid reasons for job candidates to avoid social media, said Garritan, who has a Ph.D. in organizational psychology. And, he noted, there other ways to evaluate candidates’ social skills, including old-fashioned resumes.

     “Profiling is bad science, especially when done by people from an armchair,” he said.

    Surprisingly, an August 2011 survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management concluded that “only a small number of organizations are using online search engines and social networking websites to screen job candidates.”

    Only 18 percent of organizations indicated using social networking websites. Conversely, 71 percent have never used these websites to screen job candidates or used them in the past but no longer do so.

    But Garritan and other human resource professionals were skeptical of those results.

    “Every company I know does it,” said Garritan.

    Accenture, the management consulting company, aggressively recruits through social networks, said John Campagnino, senior director of global recruitment. But he added that if a serious job candidate has limited or no social media presence, it would in no way hurt his or her chances or being hired.

    Ed Hannibal, a partner at Mercer, an international human resources management consulting firm, had a similar take. He said he couldn’t comment on company policy, but he and his immediate staff have used social media tools to recruit and prescreen prospective candidates, though he said that he is not on Facebook himself.

    “I’m so connected personally,” through numerous professional groups on LinkedIn and a BlackBerry, “I didn’t feel the need.” He surmised others may feel the same way.

    “There are a lot of factors why individuals may not take part in social media,” Hannibal said. In cases where there is no social media presence, he might rely more heavily on references. “It would not necessarily make or break why I interview or recruit someone,” he said.

     “I don’t necessarily think this is a red flag,” said Hannibal, referring to candidates who avoid social networking. “You can’t jump to conclusions.”  

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  • Want a job? 'Tweet' 'In' a recruiter's 'Face'

    By Eve Tahmincioglu

    Lots of you aren’t tweeting, facebooking or linkedin-ing, and that could spell doom for your job search.

    Today, a majority of recruiters are using social networking sites to find job candidates so your aversion to these cyber communities may end up keeping you out of the happily-employed community.

    According to a survey by Jobvite released this week, 92 percent of recruiters said they now use social media to find talent, up from 89 percent last year, and 83 percent in 2010. And the most compelling data to come from the study, which polled more than 1,000 human resource and recruiting managers online this month, was that 73 percent of those surveyed said they hired a new employee via social media.

    Jobvite

    Percentage of recruiters using social networking sites to find talent.

    “We continue to see social recruiting gain popularity because it is more efficient than the days of sifting through a haystack of resumes,” said Dan Finnigan, president and CEO of Jobvite, a recruiting technology company.

    When it comes to the particular social networking sites, LinkedIn remains king among recruiters with 93 percent of respondents saying they use the site to find job candidates.

    In second place is Facebook, with two-thirds of those polled saying they use the site, up substantially from 66 percent last year. And Twitter is also gaining traction, with 54 percent saying they look for talent on the site.

    While it may seem everyone and their sister is already social media and tweet crazy, think again. Only 15 percent of adults who use the Internet used Twitter as of February, according to a Pew report. And overall, only 66 percent of online adults are using social networking sites, another Pew study found. 

    If you’re in the job market, your anti-social media aversion may not be a good thing.

    "Don't expect someone to hand you a job the minute you jump on Twitter or start using Google+, but it is possible to make good connections quickly, and you never know where they will lead," said Miriam Salpeter, author of "Social Networking for Career Success."

    "It's also important to try to figure out where your industry people are spending time," she advised. "If there are a lot of your colleagues on Twitter, be sure to see if you can make use of that. Search to see who is posting and where they post and then see if you can engage on those same platforms."

    Clearly, just having a social media presence won’t guarantee you a job, and actually could hurt your employment chances if your page isn’t up to snuff.

    The Jobvite survey found nearly three out of four hiring manager check candidates’ profile page, and here’s how it shakes down when it comes to what you post:

    • 80 percent of respondents reacted positively to seeing memberships to professional organizations, while two-thirds like to see volunteering or donating to a nonprofit.
    • Content that recruiters especially frown on includes references to using illegal drugs (78 percent negative) and posts of a sexual nature (67 percent negative).
    • Profanity in posts and tweets garnered a 61 percent negative reaction, and almost half (47 percent) reacted negatively to posts about alcohol consumption.
    • Worse than drinking, grammar or spelling mistakes on social profiles saw a 54 percent negative reaction.
    • However, recruiters and hiring managers tend to be neutral in their reactions to political opinions (62 percent neutral) and religious posts (53 percent neutral).

    OK, if you haven’t taken the social networking plunge, I’m here to help you put your toe in if you’re game. Follow me on Twitter and we can start a dialogue.

    Want advice on how to use social networking to land a job? Join us for a live web chat today at 10:30 am ET with Dan Schawbel, author of “Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future”, and a personal branding and career expert. He’ll be on hand to take questions from readers about social networking and the job hunt. Sign up here.

     

  • Sheryl Sandberg first woman named to Facebook’s board

    By msnbc.com staff

    Facebook has named Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg to its board of directors, making her the first woman on the company’s board, which includes seven men.

    Sandberg joined Facebook in 2008 and she has played a key role in leading the social network as it has moved to become a public company with a $16 billion IPO in mid-May.

    Her promotion comes as Facebook, a company started in a Harvard dorm room in 2004, seeks to promote a more mature image

    The composition of Facebook’s board attracted the attention of the California State Teachers' Retirement System, the second-largest largest pension fund in the United States, which in the past has criticized its lack of diversity.

    It applauded Sandberg's promotion to the Facebook board as a good first step toward greater corporate leadership diversity, but also urged the social network to “continue diversifying the board toward greater independence and representation of the Company's user base.”

    Click here to check Facebook's share price.

  • How Facebook is friendly to its employees

    CNBC's Carl Quintanilla and Julia Boorstin discuss the many "perks" Facebook offers its employees, including three meals a day, free dry cleaning, and multiple bars with beer on tap.

    If you just bought shares in Facebook or are considering doing so, you probably want to know what the company is doing to keep its employees happy.

    At its new headquarters in Silicon Valley, CNBC reports that the social media giant goes beyond just free food and on-site drycleaning (that's so Google).

    Facebook employees also can use a treadmill while taking conference calls, walk or bike the faux streets of the complex, get a beer on tap and write something on a literal Facebook wall.

    Employees also apparently named the conference rooms, which gives you an insight into the geekdom at work here. Got a meeting? Put on your hoodie and head down to Jar Jar Drinks or Mai Tai Fighter.

    Do the employee perks at your office compare to the ones at Facebook HQ? Tell us in the comments section below. 

  • Are you interested in buying Facebook stock?

    CNBC's "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer weighs in on whether it's the right time to dive into Facebook's IPO. His advice: "Everyday people shouldn't buy this stock."

    Facebook shares are expected to begin trading Friday at 11 a.m. ET on the Nasdaq stock exchange, giving the general public a chance to buy shares of the social network company for the first time.

    Of course those shares will come at a price. Facebook priced its initial public offering at $38 a share Thursday, a price granted mainly to wealthy investors and well-connected fund managers. The price values the eight-year-old company at more than $100 billion and easily could go higher when trading begins.

    Should you buy a few shares for your portfolio? CNBC’s “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer (above) says no.

    (You can check the current stock price by clicking here.)

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  • Where are all the powerful female nerds?

    Mike Segar / Reuters

    Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg delivers a keynote address at a Facebook's marketing event in February 2012.

    By Eve Tahmincioglu

    IBM recently named Virginia Rometty as its the first female CEO, and Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg is on her way to becoming one of the richest women in technology when the company goes public.

    But despite these noteworthy feats by these female leaders, the number of women chief information officers at U.S. corporations has declined for the second year in a row. It hit less than 10 percent this year, and about one-third of CIOs report they have no women in management positions working for them, according to a survey released Monday by Harvey Nash, a recruiting firm.

    “There’s an overall skill set shortage in U.S., across men and women, as far as the IT space,” said Anna Frazzetto, Senior Vice President of Technology Solutions, Harvey Nash USA. But, she added, this has become even more pronounced among women, creating a growing underrepresentation problem for women in technology.

    A number of factors are contributing to the dearth of women, she said, including that the industry isn’t thought of as the most social or exciting out there, and that not enough young women are choosing to study technology when they go to college.

    Discrimination and preconceived notions about women’s commitment to their jobs also is contributing to the problem, she added.

    The lack-of-women dilemma isn’t just a corner office issue. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women comprised only 25 percent of all computer-related occupations last year, pointed out Jenny Slade, a spokeswoman for the National Center for Women & Information Technology. Women represented about 25 percent of computer and information systems managers; 38.6 percent of web developers, and 19 percent of software developers. 

    Have you and your spouse ever competed for the same job?

    In 2011, women made up only about 18 percent of those getting bachelor's degrees in computer and information sciences, a percentage that's held steady for the past four years, she said.

    “Unconscious bias” against women in IT is a big problem, she said, and “women don’t always know what the trajectory is to obtain a leadership role.”

    A study done by the Center in 2010 found that “56 percent of women in technology leave their employers at the mid-level point in their careers.”

    There are a number of factors causing women to leave, said Slade, but the top reasons were bad relationships with supervisors; feeling they were not on the fast track to promotion; feeling they don’t get credit for their work and a hostile work environment.

    One women who made it to the top of the IT biz is Patricia Andersen CIO at Apartments.com. She said she was lucky to have worked for companies in her career, including Waste Management, that didn’t discriminate against women when it came to women and technology roles.

    “I really haven’t worked at a place where gender was an issue in moving up,” she explained.

    Apartments.com, she added, is looking to get even more women in management and one focus of the strategy will be mentoring.

    “I’ve had several mentors through my life,” she noted. The mentors helped her learn one of the most important skills you need when it comes to climbing the ladder of success, she said, “how to handle political situations.” 

  • Your boss wants you to doodle

    By Eve Tahmincioglu

    Van Gogh would be proud. Companies across the country are trying to inspire employees to find their inner artist, or at least their inner doodler.

    It’s doodle mania at companies such as Facebook and Zappos, as employers search for ways to transform complex business issues and concepts into easy-to-digest drawings, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article.

    “Firms are holding training sessions to teach employees the basics of what's known as visual note taking,” the story explained. “Others, like vacation-rental company HomeAway Inc. and retailer Zappos, are hiring graphic recorders, consultants who sketch what is discussed at meetings and conferences, cartoon-style, to keep employees engaged.”

    Is this just the latest dotcom gimmick?

    The Journal article cites a study that was published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology saying doodlers are able to retain more information than their nondoodling counterparts. But maybe it’s just because doodlers aren’t as busy as their coworkers who don’t have time to doodle.

    The idea of bringing the doodle into the workplace has been gaining traction since doodling guru Sunni Brown’s Ted Talk on the benefits of workplace doodling last year. “Doodling has a profound impact on the way that we can process information and the way that we can solve problems,” she said during the speech.

    Brown, who's the author of the forthcoming book “The Doodle Revolution," teaches people on how to use doodling in the workplace.

    Here’s an excerpt of her speech:

    “Under no circumstances should doodling be eradicated from a classroom or a boardroom or even the war room. On the contrary, doodling should be leveraged in precisely those situations where information density is very high and the need for processing that information is very high.”

    It’s safe to say the doodling business strategy will probably be relegated to profitable web-based firms that have enough workers and time on their hands to draw up a storm while they're brainstorming. Most employers who have cut their workforces to the bone during the tough economy will be hard-pressed to send their limited staff to workplace easels.

    “In my opinion, this has limited use,” said Cassi Fields, an organizational psychologist and owner of business training and assessment company Fields Consulting Group. “At the end of the day, if you have to make a serious presentation and have to have serious output in most situations you’re not going to present a doodle.”

    And Fields is concerned about employees potentially doodling inappropriate images or doodling a coworker or manager in an inappropriate way. "This could become the next inappropriate thing on Facebook," she quipped.

    Indeed, art is in the eye of the beholder.

    That said, it’s never a bad thing to bring more creativity and art into the world, and employers have to be rewarded for thinking outside of the box on this one. But the question is, if a worker ends up cutting off his or her ear, can they collect workers’ comp? 

  • Your Twitter feed may be costing, or landing, you a job

    Chris Newton / Getty Images stock

    More than one-third of employers are snooping social networking sites before hiring a candidate.

    By Allison Linn, NBC News

    Attention jobseekers: You probably want to clean up your Twitter feed, lock down your Facebook profile and gussy up your LinkedIn page.

    There is a good chance your prospective employer is snooping around about you on social networking sites.

    A new survey from CareerBuilder finds that 37 percent of human resource managers are using social networking sites to research potential job candidates, and another 11 percent plan to start.

    What’s more, they’re using social media to make hiring decisions.

    About one-third of hiring managers who are using social networking sites to screen candidates say they didn’t hire someone because they found something online that raised an issue about the candidate. The most common red flags were inappropriate or provocative photos or information, or something about the candidate drinking or using drugs.

    The findings don’t mean you should shutter your social media life completely. A good social strategy could land you a job.

    A little less than one-third of respondents said they had found something on social media that caused them to hire the candidate. Those hiring managers said social media gave them a good feel for the candidate’s personality, conveyed a professional image and supported the qualifications they had been given.

    CareerBuilder surveyed about 2,000 hiring managers and human resources professionals for the study.

    The findings come as more companies are getting aggressive about screening candidates via social networking, even going so far as to demand a candidate’s Facebook password. The state of Maryland recently became the first to ban that practice.

    In the CareerBuilder survey, 15 percent of respondents said their employers prohibited using social media to screen candidates.

    The issue is coming up with current employees too. A Library of Congress employee recently accused his employer of firing him after learning via Facebook that he was gay.

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