Feb 17, 2009

CMS Suggestion

Trying to find out if the London office of ePrize is open or closed, I've come to the conclusion that ePrize would really do itself a favor by instituting a CMS across their various sites. ePrize has a lot of pokers in the fire these days -- "The Power of e", the ePrize Blog, eprize.com, eprize.net, etc -- and it would be smart to give these sites a bit of a cohesive look as well as consistent content.

That would probably help prevent differences in the footer from one site to another. For example -- the "Power of e" site still has London in the footer:

An update to the ePrize.com site, overall, is desperately needed. The back end may not run on the same technology (ASP) but it's still a crappy table-based layout with graphical text. Worse, it's the same antiquated front end interface from 2003. Meanwhile, the few updates that are visible leave a lot to be desire. I'm still harping on the slipshod RSS feeds on pages like the portfolio feed which is sorted alphabetically rather than historically, invalidating the whole RSS idea of updates. If anything, there should be a CMS in place for easy updates of news, promotions, contact information, etc. with a simple transform that could make sections into RSS feeds where applicable. Likewise, the blog and other sites could be folded into one umbrella with a cohesive look and codebase.

Regardless... what happened to the London office?


Feb 14, 2009

Facebook?

If anyone's interested, I started a group on Facebook for ex-Prizers. Click here to see. I don't expect the turn-out to be tremendous, despite the growing number of potential members.

Feb 12, 2009

Great Culture!

This video is so great, I had to bring it back. Can someone give me an accurate headcount of hour many exPrizers there are in this video?


Feb 8, 2009

More Job Cuts

Just got this message:

FYI: Round 3 of cuts just hit on Friday (2/6/09). Another 13 people let go. All free pop gone and lunchbox subsidy is canceled. They will of course still have lunchbox to keep the sheep at their desks but now everyone has to pay full price.

I can't wait to find a new job and jump from this sinking ship. What a mistake it was to ever come here.

No word yet if these were more "underperformers" or if Linkner will ever be able to live down his comments about the July firings (20). He managed to keep his foot out of his mouth with the December round (13).

Back in July, 2008, the Oakland Business Review reported:

The company has 350 employees, 275 of which are in Michigan, and the layoffs amount to less than 5 percent of the workforce. Those laid off received severance packages, and there are no plans for more layoffs, Linkner said.

Laid off? Does that mean they'll be called back any time now? There's an interesting discussion of that topic here.

Does this mean that ePrize is down to 324 employees or 304... or have others quit without the press? I doubt (m)any were hired. And, what's the deal with the two sets of firings of thirteen people? It's enough to give someone triskaidekaphobia.

And the idea of severance at ePrize isn't much to sneeze at. Typically it's two weeks pay (at their low rate) and your signature on a document that dispenses of all your rights. I still regret signing mine and encourage anyone who is presented with this document to get it reviewed and amended by a lawyer.