impossible to ignore

I suppose I should probably write about The Beast, especially since The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, NPR, The Today Show and a bazillion other media outlets have covered it.

Also, today I made two trips to the FedEx/Kinko's store and spent three hours in a meeting all for the sake of determining the top 50 candidates. Therefore this topic is foremost in my mind.

Narrowing down the field of hundreds upon hundreds of applicants hasn't been easy. I can't tell you how many questions I've gotten from job hopefuls -- queries about music (what's a copyright infringement and what's not), if it's OK to submit a video they created for another purpose (um, not if you actually want this particular job), why YouTube occasionally craps out, etc. etc. People have also e-mailed me their resumes (which is not what you're supposed to do; according to the directions, you can only apply via the Web site, not via me). People have also contacted me to "report" that so-and-so other applicant is cheating because he/she has too many votes compared to the number of views his/her video has actually gotten. (Dear applicants: The "votes" are only there to show you can create a Web following. They aren't the determining factor. This isn't a contest; it actually really is a job search. You don't "win" if you get the most votes.)

I do my best to help. I try to give people answers or connect them with the IT support they need. But when it comes to choosing the top dog, the truth is I have very little say. We have an HR team that is overseeing selection. I don't envy them that job; the head of said team told me today that she has spent at least 16 hours a day reviewing applications since Friday, which was the deadline for submissions. Ouch.

So today we sat down to talk about the top 50 candidates, which are going to be announced Friday. Honestly, I feel like this thing has gotten so huge (in fact, there was this curve ball when another company tried to ride the PR) that no matter who gets chosen, there is going to be a debate in the blogosphere. Some people will feel like some applicants got mistakenly passed over, that others didn't deserve to be chosen.

It is impossible to make everyone happy. At first, this seemed like a pretty bleak conclusion. But the more I think about it, the less awful it seems. The debate, the dissent, the discussion, even the conspiracy theories -- isn't that the whole purpose of Web 2.0? You want to have these kinds of conversations. You want everyone to be able to voice their opinions, whether they agree or not.

Anyway, my two cents on The Beast.

Sadly, Ashley and I did not get to keep the viking helmets.