

A CEO’s Dilemma: Should I Take My Burning Man Pics off Facebook?  - mseebach
http://www.bnet.com/2403-13058_23-358555.html

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jonmc12
I think his problem of persona mis-matches is a temporary problem we all will
face. Are you a leader of your organization or are you a burning man guy? We
all have limited time to understand your true personality, so we have to rely
on our best generalizations and stereotypes.

However, not too long from now we will all either be a) so exposed that our
simple notions of persona will break down. We can just be people and we can be
judged in context instead of these pseudo-personas, or b) we will all be so
scared about breaking our personas that we will just withdraw from expressing
ourselves honestly.

In the meantime, yea its a broken system. If you want to express the persona
of a successful business person, it might just mean you don't get to express
yourself as burning man dude until you retire or something. Its a sacrifice
because the rest of the world just is not ready to see you as both.

~~~
veemjeem
There are successful companies out there that don't adhere to the typical
structure, and I'm glad to add another company to that list. For example, the
20,000 employees at Gore-Tex have no bosses, you're on a team.

[http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/89/open_gore.html?page=0...](http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/89/open_gore.html?page=0%2C1)

Also, Tony Hsieh sits in a cubicle among employees -- he's just one of the
guys, even though he's the founder & CEO of a giant company recently purchased
by Amazon. His cubicle office isn't near any windows either. He's also very
approachable in the office, just as any other employee would be.

~~~
jmackinn
Awesome article. To nit pick though, it states that there are 6,300 employees
at Gore. Still, no bosses for that many people is an incredible
accomplishment.

~~~
catch23
Well, the article was written in 2007, so maybe there are more now, but then
again in 2007 the economy looked strong. So maybe there's less than 6300 now.

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jamesbressi
This guy is a genius.

I never heard of him before. I never heard of his company. I never heard of
his book(s).

Now, I know about all this and he sucked me in to like him personally and made
his brand much more human and likable.

This guy is a genius.

~~~
eli
I stayed at the one in SF. Very nice. Smallish room, but well decorated and
reasonably priced. Free wifi.

~~~
jamesbressi
Funny, I didn't expect to hear reasonably priced after he mentioned that a
concern with social media and his employees is that they don't take pics of M.
Fox and other celebrities that stay there.

Not that if it wasn't reasonably priced I wouldn't have given it a shot, but
he definitely sent a clear message about his clientele with that line, lol.

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runinit
I think we need more CEOs doing stuff like this. CEOs are real people too.

~~~
jamesbressi
Don't tell Steve Jobs that ;)

But yes, I agree.

~~~
tsally
I'm pretty sure Steve doesn't think of himself as superhuman; that's just how
everyone else views him. His commencement address at Stanford seemed quite
human to me.

Text: [http://news-
service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-06150...](http://news-
service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html)

Video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc>

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Dove
Social media jumbles all our social circles together, where we used to keep
them separate by physical location. Every application seems to assume I have
one list of friends. In reality, I have friends among gaming contacts, friends
among political junkies, friends from work, friends from the internet, friends
from college, friends from church, friends from my old apartment building.
They may have nothing in common with each other, and indeed may indeed be
offended by mutually exclusive behaviors on my part. Interacting with all of
them at once is awkward at best.

Perhaps an ability to organize and tag friends (and posts) by circle would
help.

~~~
lehrblogger
I've been thinking a lot about how tags might be used to organize
friends/contacts. Ideally I'd have a way to tag everyone I knew, perform basic
set operations with the tags, and then synchronize the resulting lists with a
variety of social websites. So I could be "friends" on a new site with, say,
my 'friends among political junkies' and 'friends from college' but none of my
'friends from work' who were not also 'close friends'.

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markbao
Employees were pissed off that their CEO was an actual person that likes to
have fun like themselves?

The day that a picture of Bill Gates headbanging at an Iron Maiden concert
gets leaked is the day that the internet will appreciate him in a "wtf, he's a
real person" way.

~~~
mhd
I don't think Bill Gates has problems as being accepted as real. He might not
be the everyman, but the 'nerd/dork' persona is certainly more accesible/real
than the usual bland, anonymous, conservative CEO suit.

~~~
markbao
Good point. Replace Bill Gates with Michael Dell or some other suit-type.

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mseebach
I really don't see how he's setting double standards -- unless his trip to
burning man was a business trip?

The rules, as I can deduce from the article, are that you can't compromise the
privacy of guests. Was anyone at the company ever reprimanded for being
shirtless on their Facebook profiles?

~~~
acgourley
Yes, but towards the bottom he admits he also wouldn't want his employees to
post any picture making the company look bad. Such as a picture of them
wearing a company shirt while engaging in illegal activity. That's the gray
area he is referring to.

~~~
Tichy
Going to burning man is not illegal, though. But I agree, he shouldn't do
stuff he wouldn't want his employees to do. Doesn't he say he wouldn't even
mind SM pics of his employees?

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Tichy
Who is to say that all clients prefer a CEO in a suit? Some might prefer the
other CEO, so one can not just claim that pictures like that damage the
company. Maybe there are just 100 potential customers who like suits, and 1000
who like half-naked men.

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vaksel
that's why you have two facebook accounts. One under your real name that's
proper and has your business contacts. And one under some fake name that only
your close friends know.

~~~
gaius
Or Facebook for friends and LinkedIn for business associates.

~~~
vaksel
the problem is that facebook is so mainstream that people basically expect you
to have a facebook account. If you tell them you don't have one, you look
weird.

If you tell them your facebook is for friends, they wonder why they don't
qualify. + there are "friends" and friends. One you have no problems showing
pictures of you getting wasted, for other it will make you lose face.

~~~
gaius
Facebook was much better for this in the old days when they had a concept of a
"restricted profile". You can still do something like it with groups, but it's
much more administrative overhead, I wonder how many people bother.

~~~
kolya3
It's not that bad... keep a "safe list". Every time you add a friend either
add them to the safe list or don't - it's right there on the add friend
dialog. The "safe list" gets to see everything, the other list gets to see
nothing but the basic info on the profile. This way you can friend anyone
without offending them a rejection but at the same time keep professional
contacts at arms reach.

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fjabre
It depends.

If you're more like a Richard Branson type then keep em up.

If you're more like Steve Jobs then take them down..

~~~
derwiki
I don't understand the difference, could you elaborate?

~~~
tsally
Sure. Richard Branson has pictures taken of him waterskiing with a naked woman
on his back. Steve Jobs, on the other hand, is an intensely private person.

Richard Brandon photo results:

[http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=safari&...](http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&um=1&sa=1&q=richard+branson+photos&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&start=0)

Steve Jobs photo results:

[http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=safari&...](http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&um=1&sa=1&q=steve+jobs+photos&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&start=0)

However I don't think the point of the original poster holds. Steve has said
he's done LSD, for example.

~~~
AmericanOP
For the record, Branson's equipment is for the much trendier kiteboarding, not
wakeboarding. I say this because I'm sure photography has a coolness threshold
before it's no longer plausible.

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teeja
I thought CEO's went to Bohemian Grove ??!

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daniel-cussen
> Should a CEO be held to a different standard? Let me know what you think is
> right.

I don't know, dude. Aren't you also the owner and proprietor? I think that you
can do whatever you feel like. But you should figure how much different things
should cost you.

