| November 4, 2009 | Should a CEO Take His Burning Man Pics off Facebook? |
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Today I was drawn in by a headline on BNET "A CEO's Dilemma: Should I Take My Burning Man Pics off Facebook?" As someone who has been to Burning Man eight times over the past eleven years and has posted the photos on my own website, as well as on Flickr, and on Facebook (there was even a photo of me at Burning Man 2005 published in "The Economist"!) I have often grappled with the same question as I entered managerial and then executive roles at tech companies. Is it appropriate/distracting for someone in a leadership position to be seen in photos online frolicking in the desert in a tutu? When I noticed that the BNET article's question was the dilemma of Chip Conley, I read it top to bottom to see what he had decided. I have always admired Chip Conley's style of doing business. For those who aren't acquainted with Conley, at the age of 26 (fresh out of Stanford's MBA program) he purchased a seedy pay-by-the-hour hotel on Eddy Street in San Francisco's Tenderloin and against all odds turned it into a cool mecca for musicians and artists which you may know as the aptly-named Phoenix Hotel. When I started hanging out in San Francisco in 1998-2001, the electronic music scene (particularly jazzy SF house) was huge, and I spent countless days/nights watching DJs spin at pretty much every SF venue imaginable -- from DNA Lounge to Kelly's Mission Rock. By far, some of the most legendary parties were the Phoenix Hotel's Sunday afternoon pool parties. The line of people waiting to get in would stretch down the block to Polk Street. The aggressive SF panhandlers had a captive audience who would wait for hours to get up inside the Phoenix Hotel. Conley grew his success with the Phoenix hotel into California's largest boutique hotel chain called Joie de Vivre. All of the hotels have their own unique personalities. In SoCal's Huntington Beach (Surf City USA), they have the surfer-themed Shorebreak Hotel. When I worked at Yahoo and commuted frequently between NorCal and SoCal, I stayed at many Joie de Vivre hotels including Wild Palms in Sunnyvale, Hotel Avante in Mountain View, and Hotel Rex in San Francisco. In fact, Chris and I got engaged this past July while staying at Joie de Vivre's Ventana Inn in Big Sur. One of the best things about staying at the Joie de Vivre hotels is the fun unique spirit and that the hotel employees are willing to go the distance. For example, while staying at the Ventana Inn, Chris and I accidentally slept through the buffet breakfast one morning, and we called the kitchen frantic and hungry they packed up some of the treats and brought them to our room. Conley is a brilliant businessman who also seems to actually be a cool and authentic person. When Conley published a management/leadership book "Peak: How great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow"a few years back, I snatched it up and read it in 2 sittings. In the book, Conley presented theories of running his business that he gleaned from his reading of psychologist Abraham Maslow's self-actualization pyramid. Conley presented his idea of the customer satisfaction pyramid and the employee satisfaction pyramid, and how they fed into each other to create a business ecosystem that brought both customers and employees toward greater (peak) happiness and satisfaction. I highly recommend "Peak." Conley peppers the chapters with anecdotes from other peak-performing companies with unique corporate cultures, including Google and Southwest Airlines. In the BNET article, Conley concludes that he will keep his Burning Man photos up on Facebook as they are not sexually suggestive and he doesn't deem them to be a violation of his company's social media policy. His company's mission statement is "To celebrate the joy of life" and he says that was exactly what he was doing at Burning Man. So far in my online life, I have come to the same conclusion that Conley did. I am leaving my Burning Man photos up. They are not sexually suggestive and I don't believe they violate corporate social media policies in any way. Not to mention, I am well-acquainted with the idea that once something is on the internet, it doesn't ever really "go away" even if taken down. But I wonder if I will ever change my mind on the Burning Man photos? Conley built his company on being true to himself and his own instincts and personality. He defines himself as a rebel. And I see him as perhaps similar to other successful "rebel" businessmen such as Steve Jobs or Richard Branson. As a female leader in business would I feel as comfortable about people seeing me dressed in a tutu at Burning Man? Are there highly successful "rebel" woman leaders in business? Who are they? Tweet to me @p0pvulture (the 0 is a zero) and let me know. I'm almost certain we would never see photos of Carol Bartz, Carly Fiorina, or Meg Whitman in tutus at Burning Man. For female CEOs, dropping F-bombs may be deemed OK (thankfully, we've come that far at least), but having fun and enjoying life may still be off-limits. What do you think? Labels: burningman, california, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 8:14 AM 
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