Before you call you will want to have a list of questions ready. As I mentioned in “Preparing for the Interview,” among the questions you might ask would be to find out their salary needs. You will also want to ask if they can get to work on a timely basis (don’t ask if they have a car – that could get you in trouble).

Once you ascertain whether he/she is a viable candidate, set up a time and place to meet. Make sure you are in a quiet area with minimal distractions. It would be best if the area where you inteview has windows or is open enough that there are no concerns on the candidate’s part. Give yourself enough time for the interview and try to schedule a few back-to-back so that it will be fresh in your mind as you compare candidates.

Finally, have your questions ready and ask each candidate the same questions so you can compare apples to apples. Feel free to contact me for a list of questions.

Once the interview is set up, there are a few basic rules that you will want to adhere to:

• Pick an area that has minimal distractions.
• Have a time frame that you are comfortable spending with the interviewee and stick to it.
• Put the interviewee at ease when he/she arrives. Start out with a couple of minutes of small talk. Find something in their resume that you can discuss.
• Always, always, always let the interviewee do 75–85% of the talking. This meeting is for you to learn about them, and in order to get the most out of the interview you need to listen.
• Take notes so you have can keep the candidates straight.
• When the interview is over, thank them for their time and let them know you will get back to them whether you hire them or not, and give them a time frame. You don’t want to lose a good candidate because they think you forgot about them.
• If you have any interest in the candidate, ask for references.

Post-interview:

• Once you have completed the interviews, call the references of the candidates you are interested in. It is very hard to get most folks to answer questions, but don’t let that keep you from calling. Most good employers will go out of their way to give a good reference for an employee that did a nice job for them.
• One question I like to ask is, “Would you hire this person if they come back?” I am looking for a very quick, “Absolutely.” If they are slow in answering and they don’t use glowing adjectives, it could be a tip off that they are not very enthusiastic about their answer.
• Once you have made your decision, call all of the candidates and let them know your decision. For those you have haven’t chosen it is best to thank the candidate and let them know you have chosen another person. Do not get into a discussion as to why not. It is best to say that you appreciate their time and wish them the best in the future. Some will ask what they were missing. If it is a specific skill, like typing, and the job requires quite a bit of that, you can respond to them, but if it is just a feeling (which many times it can be), then you just want to let them know that you felt another candidate had more experience or was better qualified, but again, keep it short. You could also respond by letter if you are uncomfortable getting on the phone.
• Finally, call the candidate that you intend to hire with their orientation time and place. Ask if they have any questions and let them know how they should dress and what they need to bring with them to the orientation.

Next week: The Orientation

This post was written by Wayne Harris

Originally from Chicago and a graduate of the University of Illinois in Chicago. Worked 13 years for McDonald's Corporation, starting as an assistant manager, working way up to director of field service and operations for the Chicago Region. Spent 15 years as a multi-unit franchisee of McDonald's. Headed up Forward Wisconsin and served on the Governor's Cabinet. Currently president of Glowac,Harris,Madison,Inc., a full service marketing and web agency who specializes in consulting and strategic messaging.

Now that you have done a bit of prep, you need applicants. There are a number of different resources that you can use to attract new employees. One is your existing staff. If they like your business they will be glad to recommend that their friends work with you also. A few others include: Craig’s List, your web site, the newspaper and of course your outlet. Really, the list goes on and on and I can tell you, I have tried them all.

Once you review the applications and resumes, it is time to get on the phone and set up interviews. If it is a management or salaried position, I like to ask their salary expectations during our phone conversation. I once went through an hour and a half interview only to find out at the end that we weren’t even close on salary. It was not good use of either of our time. I also learned that when folks accept less than what they really need or expect, that I was simply hiring turnover. They might take the job if they are desperate, but they will continue looking for a job that comes closer to their actual salary needs. When they find that job, you can kiss all of that training and investment time goodbye.

Let’s recap:

-   Know how many people you need to hire

-   Know what skill level you are looking for and the job description of each. If you don’t have a job description you should write one.

-   Have legally approved applications available

-   Place your ad or sign

-   Make phone calls and pre-screen candidates

-   Set up appointments

Next week: The Interview

This post was written by Wayne Harris

Originally from Chicago and a graduate of the University of Illinois in Chicago. Worked 13 years for McDonald's Corporation, starting as an assistant manager, working way up to director of field service and operations for the Chicago Region. Spent 15 years as a multi-unit franchisee of McDonald's. Headed up Forward Wisconsin and served on the Governor's Cabinet. Currently president of Glowac,Harris,Madison,Inc., a full service marketing and web agency who specializes in consulting and strategic messaging.

How does this relate to a solid hiring plan? Quite simply, before you start hiring, you need to have a plan, a target. So, the first step in having great people working in your business is to establish a needs analysis. How many people do I need and what skill levels are going to be required to deliver an outstanding experience to my customers. Here is one suggestion for planning your needs for the coming year. I would set up a spreadsheet with the following:

Month:   J   F   M   A   M   J   J   A   S   O   N   D

Need:     40 40 45 50  55  60 65 70

Have     35

Turnover 3

Need to hire 8

Simply, if you need 40 people and you have 35 and you know you usually turn over 3 people in January, then you need 8. Do this for the whole year. However, when putting this grid together, there is a trick. In order to give great service you need well trained employees. So you really need to hire what you need 30 to 60 days before you need them so they are trained to handle the business coming in the door. If you are hiring January’s need in January, you will have several people who are not quite ready yet to give great service. Remember to also think about the skill levels you need. You need to anticipate what roles you will want your new hires to fill. This is not always easy because when you are replacing turnover, you may not know which slots you will need to fill. But a plan will get you closer than no plan.

One last thought. Keep track of who is doing the hiring and do exit interviews when folks leave. By doing both of these you can see if extra training is needed for the person doing the hiring, the trainer or the management. You always want to solve the problem and not the symptom. That will be a subject for later.

Recap – Have a plan, know who you need, hire in advance of that  need, and review exit interviews

Next: Taking applications and preparing for an interview

This post was written by Wayne Harris

Originally from Chicago and a graduate of the University of Illinois in Chicago. Worked 13 years for McDonald's Corporation, starting as an assistant manager, working way up to director of field service and operations for the Chicago Region. Spent 15 years as a multi-unit franchisee of McDonald's. Headed up Forward Wisconsin and served on the Governor's Cabinet. Currently president of Glowac,Harris,Madison,Inc., a full service marketing and web agency who specializes in consulting and strategic messaging.

Your brand position is who you are in the minds of the marketplace as compared to your competition.  If you are actively managing these perceptions you are helping shape your brand position. Whether it’s a person, place or thing — if you have a name, you have a brand position.  You either control your positioning or it is controlled for you.

One of the most powerful concepts is positioning is distilling your essence down to one word.  Think of your favorite brand.  What is its one word?

Google — Search

Mercedes — Engineering

BMW — Driving Performance

FedEx – Overnight

Revlon — Hope

Hallmark — Caring

Nike — Personal Performance

Volvo — Safety

Starbucks — Coffee Experience

OK, I know some of these are more than one word but I think you get the idea.

As you consider these terms you please notice that many of them describe more than just a single attribute.  That’s what makes them so powerful.  Overall, attributes are the most common elements used in advertising and frankly, they are the most forgetful.  Great positioning represents a true benefit and sometimes something much more powerful — an emotional or cultural value.

What’s your one word?

This post was written by Wayne Glowac

Wayne Glowac is CEO of Glowac + Harris. He is most proud of helping successful companies become more successful sooner. Wayne's passions include his family and teaching at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Along with Dean Halverson, Wayne published Healthcare Tsunami, a primer on health care consumer marketing. Wayne & Laurie live in Cross Plains and are the parents of 3 Sons and 2 Yellow Labs.

Whenever I wrote a performance review for one of my folks, it was always broken down into four areas: People, Profit, Sales and QSC (Quality, Service and Cleanliness). These four components, if executed properly, will almost always equal a well run, profitable business. In order to be successful, they must be addressed in a specific order. That does not mean that you only address any one of these at a time. It does mean though, that you can not get to the bottom line unless they are prioritized correctly. Let me quickly walk you through the continuum and over the next several weeks, I will address each of these in detail and I promise to throw in an interesting story or two along the way.

In order to be successful, I would suggest that you align the pillars in the following order as you are planning your way to a great bottom line.

People —–QSC —–Sales —–Profit

Let me briefly explain – start out by hiring great people, train them well, follow-up, praise, promote and take good care of them (benefits). If this is accomplished, the result should be great QSC, which will lead to more sales, which should lead to more profit. Pretty simple. However, many businesses don’t make it because somewhere along the way they did not have a plan to make this simple formula work for them.

Over the next several weeks, I will discuss each of the pillars and how you can make each one of them a part of a strong foundation for your business.

Next week – Hiring Plan

This post was written by Wayne Harris

Originally from Chicago and a graduate of the University of Illinois in Chicago. Worked 13 years for McDonald's Corporation, starting as an assistant manager, working way up to director of field service and operations for the Chicago Region. Spent 15 years as a multi-unit franchisee of McDonald's. Headed up Forward Wisconsin and served on the Governor's Cabinet. Currently president of Glowac,Harris,Madison,Inc., a full service marketing and web agency who specializes in consulting and strategic messaging.

This post was written by Wayne Glowac

Wayne Glowac is CEO of Glowac + Harris. He is most proud of helping successful companies become more successful sooner. Wayne's passions include his family and teaching at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Along with Dean Halverson, Wayne published Healthcare Tsunami, a primer on health care consumer marketing. Wayne & Laurie live in Cross Plains and are the parents of 3 Sons and 2 Yellow Labs.

Like a guy getting ready to call a woman for a first date, I sat next to my phone for what felt like an eternity rehearsing what I was going to say. Finally I got the courage to pick up the receiver and call. When the operator picked up the phone and said, “McDonald’s, how may I help you?” I meekly responded, “May I speak with Ray Kroc, please?” I was put through to his assistant, sweat was now pouring from my brow. She said Ray was expecting my call and would be right with me. That was the cruelest thing that could have happened. I now had a couple more minutes to feel sick to my stomach. Finally, that oh-so-familiar voice said, “Wayne is that you?” I responded, “Yes Ray, it is me.” I decided to take the offensive and quickly followed that up with, “Here is what happened and here is what we are doing about it.” Ray said, “Great, thank you for taking care of it so quickly.” This time it was Ray who hung up quickly. I sat at the end of my bed still sweating but relieved that I still had a job. So went my first day as an area supervisor. Needless to say, when I started my new job the next week, I was the butt of a lot of jokes.

I am sure that there are others of you that have had interesting experiences your first day on the job. Feel free to share with us.

Next week:  The Four Pillars.  What needs to be done to have a well run restaurant and make money.

This post was written by Wayne Harris

Originally from Chicago and a graduate of the University of Illinois in Chicago. Worked 13 years for McDonald's Corporation, starting as an assistant manager, working way up to director of field service and operations for the Chicago Region. Spent 15 years as a multi-unit franchisee of McDonald's. Headed up Forward Wisconsin and served on the Governor's Cabinet. Currently president of Glowac,Harris,Madison,Inc., a full service marketing and web agency who specializes in consulting and strategic messaging.

Installing the PHP Client Library

We’ll be using PHP for server-side scripting. Facebook provides developers with a complete platform client library to interface with their API. You can find a link to it here. Unzip the tarball and copy the contents of the php folder to your server. That should amount to four php files along with a jsonwrapper directory and contents. When you are done, your server directory should look something like this:

Connecting to the API

The next step is to make your index file dynamic. Rename index.html to index.php. Now open it in your favorite source editor, adding the following at the beginning of the file:

<?php
require_once 'facebook.php';
$appapikey = 'XXXXXXXXXXXXX'; // USE Your API Key Here
$appsecret = 'XXXXXXXXXXXXX'; // USE Your Secret Key here
$facebook = new Facebook($appapikey, $appsecret);
$user_id = $facebook->require_login();
?>

Your API and Secret keys were issued when you created the app with the Facebook Developer app. Substitute them where indicated. If you need to retrieve them, you can get them by browsing back to your app’s developer control panel.  (You can get to that from here.)

The code above authenticates your app on Facebook, and allows it to interact further with the API. If you run the app now, you’ll see that Facebook now requires your users to agree  to allow the app to access their data before proceeding:

With that out of the way, we can actually pull some data!

Pulling data with FQL

The Facebook platform provides a language based on SQL called FQL to query profile data. With this and an API call or two, we can poll the user’s profile for information.

This snippet included after the code shown above, will populate a PHP array with up to 10 images from the user’s facebook photos:

$query = "SELECT src_big FROM photo WHERE aid IN
   ( SELECT aid FROM album WHERE owner=$user_id ) LIMIT 10";
$result = $facebook->api_client->fql_query($query);

if($result != NULL)
        {
	foreach($result as $p)
                {
		$picUrls[] = $p['src_big'];
		}
	}

To learn more about the FQL tables you can query, see this page.  You can build test queries and see the results in real time by going to the handy API Test Console. To do so, select fql.query from the list of Methods dropdown, and entry your test query in the box provided. Hint: your user id is helpfully displayed in a box at the top of the console panel — coy and paste this into your test queries that require a user id (most do). The console will return results in a variety of formats, and will also display error codes when something goes wrong.

Communicating Facebook results to the Unity webplayer

At this point we have results in a PHP array. All that is left to do is to somehow pass this to our webplayer so it can do something neat-o with them.

Unity provides for communication back and forth with the browser via Javascript. Therefore we need to convert our PHP array to something that Javascript can use. There are many ways to do this, but for illustration, we’ll modify the code above to accomplish this with brute force:

$query = "SELECT src_big FROM photo WHERE aid IN
( SELECT aid FROM album WHERE owner=$user_id ) LIMIT 10";

$result = $facebook->api_client->fql_query($query);
if($result != NULL)

    {
    foreach($result as $p)
        {
        $picUrls .= "\n".'"'.$p['src_big'].'",';
        }
    $picUrls = substr($picUrl,0,$picUrl.length-1);
    }

Instead of holding an array, $picUrls  now is merely a string of  comma-separated urls encased in double quotes. We can use this string to populate a Javascript array:

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
    var picUrls = new Array(<?=$picUrls ?>);
</script>

Now to get this into our webplayer. Unity provides a pair of mechanisms for implementing communication with the browser. To talk to the browser from your webplayer, use

Application.ExternalCall( "functionName", "parameter" );

The Unity webplayer listens for the Javascript function call ‘SendMessage.’ You pass the name of the game object you want to talk to, a function name within a script attached to that object, and a parameter. Unity’s standard detection code includes a shortcut function to the webplayer within the DOM called GetUnity(). Put it all together and this is how you talk to the embedded webplayer from your web document:

GetUnity().SendMessage("MyObject", "MyFunction", "Hello!");

Next: putting it all together

We now have all the pieces we need for our embedded app to interact with the Facebook platform. In the next installment, I’ll show you how to put this to work.

<previous installment

This post was written by Bo Monroe

In his spare time Bo enjoys spending time with his family and dogs at an undisclosed location. He also enjoys fooling around with and occasionally restoring, his small collection of ancient Italian automobiles.

Create the Webplayer Build

There actually isn’t anything terribly special that you need to do in order for your Unity project to run in Facebook. One thing you will  need to do, however, is adjust the output dimensions of your webplayer. Facebook limits the width of the canvas to 760 pixels.  It seems the real limit is somewhat less due to iframe borders and such.  I find 720 pixels wide works well.

To adjust player output settings in Unity: Edit > Project Settings > Player. You can leave all the other settings at default values. Build the project as a webplayer. I built my project without streaming, however, for larger projects that is something to consider.

Optionally, edit the HTML file that Unity created with the build. Leave the headers and embedding/detecting scripts — they’ll work perfectly right out of the box. The rest is up to you.

Next, create a directory on your web server. This directory should be dedicated solely to your app. For instance, I created mine on our glowacharris.com server and called it unity-facebook-demo. Rename the html file to index.html and upload it, along with the .unity3d file. Test it in your web browser to make sure it works as expected.

Creating The Facebook Application

Now we will “install” our application on Facebook. Log in to Facebook, and go to the developer application. Find the Set Up New Application button and click it. You’ll be asked to name your application and agree to the terms of service. Do all that.

The next screen is the applicator editor interface. This is where you control how Facebook interacts with your application. There are several navigation tabs on the left allowing you to page through the settings. On the first page, there is not much to do– except to note the Application ID, API Key and Secret. These keys are used to authenticate your application with Facebook. We’ll come back to the keys in the next installment.

For now you can skip down to the Canvas tab. Here you need to fill in the Canvas Page URL. This is a unique sequence of letters (only) that forms the base URL for your app on Facebook. Not surprisingly, the good seem to be taken. This might be the hardest part of the set up!

You also must supply the Canvas Callback URL. This is the web address of the directory you uploaded your files to. (In my case, it’s http://glowacharrris.com/unity-facebook-demo.) Facebook uses the Canvas Callback URL to populate the Canvas Page URL. Get it?

Finally, you need to be sure that IFrame is checked under Canvas Settings/ Render Method. Save Changes. Your app is ready to test.

Testing

Now you can test your application by going to the Facebook URL you created a couple of steps back. In my case, it’s http://apps.facebook.com/ghmunitydemo. You should see your player embedded in the Facebook chrome. W00t! Didn’t work? Read the error message, and go back into the Application control panel to see where you went wrong. Check the spelling of the directories.

Next: Interacting with the Facebook API

That covers the basics on embedding your app with a Facebook Canvas page. My next installment will show you the tools you need to get your Unity-built application to communicate with Facebook profiles.

< previous installment next installment>

This post was written by Bo Monroe

In his spare time Bo enjoys spending time with his family and dogs at an undisclosed location. He also enjoys fooling around with and occasionally restoring, his small collection of ancient Italian automobiles.

This is the first of a series of tutorials showing how you can integrate an application built in Unity with Facebook. I’ll show you how to make your application accessible to Facebook users, and how to pull in and use data from your users’ Facebook profiles to enrich your application.

This tutorial assumes you are familiar with the Unity 3D platform, and are comfortable with web technologies such as PHP and MySQL. However even if you are not a Unity user, but simply interested in building an FB app with PHP, you should find most of this information useful.

Basic Concepts

Facebook applications are essentially web sites that run inside the Facebook chrome. You host the application on your server; the Facebook API allows access to your users information based on Facebook’s policies of information sharing.

Facebook apps come in two flavors: iframe and FBML. FBML is a markup language based on HTML with some limitations, but with extensive support for interacting with Facebook data. The iframe flavor is the ordinary HTML iframe but with its own set of limitations. In each case the limitations are designed to allow integration with the Facebook platform while still protecting users from unwanted intrusion.

It should go without saying that respect for privacy is an important tenet when building a social media app. My application will illustrate how to use the Facebook API so that only friends can see any of the user’s information (in this case, pictures).

The Facebook Platform

Facebook provides developers with a rich set of tools — multiple libraries as well as several languages with which to interact with the site. The documentation can be a bit daunting at first.  I spent a lot of time trying to find answers to simple questions — like “where in the heck does this file GO?,” while having no trouble learning the intricacies of really complex ones. As is often the case, my problem was mostly a matter of not fully grasping the paradigm. I’ll try to help you not get stuck in the same places. Before going any further, though, you should read Anatomy of a Facebook App to understand the scope of what  is involved.

About Unity

Unity is a development environment and engine for creating rich and robust 3D interactive content. To call it merely a game engine is selling it short. The engine provides 3D rendering and lighting, simulated physics, terrains, a rich GUI system and much more. The entry level version is free! Projects can be deployed to Windows or Mac, as well as web via the webplayer plugin. There are companion licenses available for creating iPhone and Wii apps.

The Demo

The demo Unity project is about as simple as it can get: it displays a rotating cube with differently colored faces. I added a cheesy particle effect just for fun. The goal is to replace the colored faces with images from the Facebook user’s profile.

You can see the starting point here. Note that you will need to grab the Unity webplayer plugin if you don’t already have it installed. You should be prompted with a button if that is the case.

End of Part 1

In part 2 I will show you how to get the player to work within the Facebook application framework.

This post was written by Bo Monroe

In his spare time Bo enjoys spending time with his family and dogs at an undisclosed location. He also enjoys fooling around with and occasionally restoring, his small collection of ancient Italian automobiles.