Open source software, including web sites, allow customers, vendors, partners, and other third parties to add onto or customize the software that your firm offers. Think Facebook. Until this past spring, Facebook was closed source so any modifications or enhancements to their web site needed to be done by their developers. Then they moved to open source and within weeks doubled their traffic. Why? Because their millions of users became even more engaged with Facebook because Facebook became even more relevant to the needs and wants of its individual users. Call it mass customization.
Now Google and some partner sites are getting in on the act in an apparent attempt to fight back against the massive traffic moving to Facebook. As amazing as it is, Facebook, which didn't exist just a few years ago, is now the sixth most popular web site in the world. Google and its partners are opening some of their source code to encourage third party developers to create applications that will be able to run on any web site anywhere in the world. So unlike Facebook's strategy, which allows third parties to develop software to run on Facebook, Google's strategy seems to be in line with the adage of a rising tide lifts all ships. The more sites that use these new apps, the more engaged we'll all be with those sites. And because so many commercial web sites, including CollegeRecruiter.com, use Google to sell at least some of their banner advertising inventory, those rising ships will generate more traffic which will generate more ad impressions for Google to sell.
So why do I feel that Gen Y is largely responsible for this? Because they're powerful advocates of transparency. You can see it in how they approach their careers. They're going to post their nasties to their Facebook and MySpace pages and if you as the employer don't like knowing that they get drunk on the weekends, too bad. That just means that you weren't a good fit for them anyway. If Gen Y doesn't like your site or some aspects of your site, they're going to modify it through your open source program or they're going to abandon you. Anyone remember Friendster? While it continues to be popular overseas, it was replaced by MySpace and now Facebook as the social networking site of choice by Gen Y. And that move was due in large part to Gen Y being able to customize their presence on MySpace and Facebook more than they could on Friendster.
Transparency. Scary but exciting. Embrace it or perish.
The State of Maine recently passed 
The Big Four accounting firms of Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte & Touche, and KPMG have all nearly tripled their recruiting staffs and budgets over the last three years. They're using a large chunk of those funds to recruit college students for internship programs and recent graduates for entry level career opportunities by sponsoring campus leadership programs, developing a presence on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, throwing beach parties, giving away spring break trips, and more.
"College graduates are in some of their peak [hiring] years," said John Challenger, CEO of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "It's not just the A students and the engineering or technology grads who are doing well. The benefits of the strong market are reaching out into the B and C students and liberal arts grads. It's a job seekers' market."
Perhaps it was inevitable and perhaps it is a sign of improving work conditions for women, but it appears that the recent domination of college campuses by women is spilling over into the workplace as young, college educated, female adults are now earning more than their male counterparts in many of the largest metro areas in the country. 
What a shock. College students spend a lot of time on the Internet. No surprise there, but some of the details from a recent 
If you think that today’s two- and four-year college students lack solid writing and leadership abilities, you’re not alone. According to a recent study of 431 human resource professionals across the United States, recent college graduates are not ready for the workplace.
According to the newly-released Compensation Data 2007 preliminary results, exempt employees with five to nine years of experience have 14.4 vacation days on average. Non-exempt employees with the same years of service have 13.8 days.
The trend has been there for decades. More and more women have been enrolling to attend college and more and more of them were graduating. Within the past decade, women comprised the majority of incoming freshmen at most schools. There is little doubt that the vast majority of these women and the schools they attended did not regard this trend as a zero sum game. In other words, the gains being made by the women did not need to come at the expense of the men. But could it be that is exactly what is happening?
There is no doubt that parents of every generation have been concerned about their children and have wanted their children to succeed. But what happens when you take probably the most career-focused generation in history – Baby Boomers – and turn them into parents? You get parents who hover over their children so continually that sociologists have begun to refer to these Boomers as helicopter parents.
I had the good fortune of listening to a presentation by