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As AOL Prepares To Downsize Patch, CEO Fires Employee During Meeting
An anonymous reader writes "AOL is closing or plans to sell nearly half of the 900 'hyperlocal' news websites operated by its money-losing Patch Media subsidiary (TechCrunch is also owned by AOL). Hundreds of staff layoffs are believed to be imminent. AOL acquired Patch in 2009, soon after ex-Googler Tim Armstrong took over as CEO; Armstrong was also a co-founder of Patch. During a tough conference call last Thursday Armstrong told Patch editors: 'Something at Patch has been missing for some time and that's leadership – leadership with a capital L'. Armstrong then demonstrated his grasp of Donald Trump's management style by firing an employee during the meeting for taking a picture. At 1:18 of the NY Post's sound clip from Jim Romensko: 'Leaking information Patch isn't going to bother me. I'm not changing direction'. At 2:00: 'Abel [Creative Director Lenz], put that camera down. Abel, you're fired. Out.' Armstrong later explained that 'The reason I fired Abel is I don't want anyone taking pictures of this meeting' and that, much like a sports team, AOL couldn't afford to have people 'giving the game plan away'."
I hope he is treated similarly
I'm sure that meeting really helped staff morale!
Was he not supposed to take pictures? He was the creative director; maybe he was just being creative.
Dude stayed on after AOL bought his gimmick company.
Dude lashed out because he's still stuck holding the bag.
Not that the guy with the camera was being in any way professional, but if this guy wants to make sports analogies, his scull has split down the keel and he just tossed one of the rowers overboard.
1.) you say you're missing leadership, yet you're worried that there's a game plan to give away?
2.) someone takes a picture in the meeting, and you assume it's to upload the game plan to Instagram?
3.) was there a stated rule against taking pictures? If not, you're firing someone for breaking a rule that wasn't stated? If so, is firing the man really the example you want to set for a first offense, instead of requiring that the image be deleted?
4.) you're running a subsidiary of a company whose only asset is its name's association with the 1990's...and your subsidiary is losing money...and you're firing people during a meeting, as if that's going to help matters in the slightest?
Who wants to bet that the next board meeting will involve some chair throwing antics?
Alright so we have two idiots in the same corporate meeting room.
One acted like a d*ck and was taking video clips of a clearly confidential meeting - openly in front of the corporate CEO. The other fired an employee without warning or following a decent process.
Where is the "news" in this? I think the moron making the videoclip was the bigger idiot but none of them really showed their best side that day. As it often happens in corporate meetings.
Move along. Nothing to see here ..
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
is named Abel Lenz? Too good.
... "circle the drain" is not a game plan...
If I worked for AOL, I would try my best to get fired and move on.
This shameless staged plag for AOL and associated media properties brought to you by the dumbasses who believe shameless staged events like this are real.
Thought AOL rotted on the vine and blew away years ago. Last time I dealt with them was to help a retired person get rid of an AO account. It wasn't needed, they had cable with internet but believed they had to go to AOL first to sign on. The AOL help line never explained the only thing they were providing for the last several years was another monthly bill on a fixed income retired person's credit card.
there is no picture of that meeting. It was confidential and shit. But, apparently, audio totally A-ok. Is this a clown-company or something?
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Who's to say the guy didn't do this so he wouldn't be downsized later?
After watching a friend be pressured to VQ after having an arguement with a manager he'd worked with for two years (One of those touchy feel we're all family type crappers), in order to avoid having to pay him unemployment, I could certainly see this as being a better way for said employee to get some cushion time before the next round of layoffs happen, or they turn the job into a shithole in order to try and up their VQ quota to avoid paying, like above.
Yea, it's Amber Lamp's BF.
I wonder where I've been. I've never heard of Patch until I read it here just a few minutes ago.
Also, the CEO was an unprofessional cock. There were 9000 other, better ways to handle the firing of that employee. This was the wrong way.
Okay, I can answer that myself after a little Googling. But the larger point is - I'd never heard of this. Maybe they were missing "capital L Leadership", maybe they weren't; but if someone who's actually interested in local news (I subscribe to the local paper) hasn't even heard of your so-called hyper local news organization... You're doing something wrong.
Also - who whips out a camera during a meeting unless it's already established that's what he's supposed to do? At some level, this in-meeting firing doesn't pass the smell test. Could it have been some kind of bizarre pre-arranged theater?
#DeleteChrome
He got his MBA from Donald Trump himself, and the course work consisted of watching the reruns of Apprentice.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
They killed it months ago. Now they are just dragging the corpse through the streets instead of giving it a proper burial.
Last year there was an actual reporter posting actual news relevant to and about our town. Readers posted comments - sometimes hundreds on a single article. There were lively discussions about school issues, traffic safety and other local issues with generally one to three new articles every day.
Then they announced "exciting upgrades." The look and feel of the site went from OK to awful. Our local reporter has been "reassigned to a regional area." The local news is an irregularly updated mish-mash of cut 'n' paste police blotter info posted well after it has already been available on Nixle, reposts from other news sources (and not very local), and "reporting" consisting of things like a brief listing of the city-council agenda followed by an "article" saying "Were you at the meeting? What are your comments?" And still they sometimes can't get any news posted for days. Really?
They have added lots of "sponsored" Patch localities advertising Planes, Smurfs and the like.
The "local" reporters are now, if you look at their profiles, all over the country and making errors in articles that just make them look like idiots to anyone actually living here. Reviews and articles about places that closed a year or two ago do not make for credibility.
Much of the supposedly local news is just repackaged national stats. "How is unemployment in YourLocalTown compared to the rest of the country?" and the like. Other stuff is somewhat local looking blog stuff that turns out to be identical on all the sites.
It's sad. The site used to be fun and interesting. Too bad they couldn't make it a successful business.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
don't know about everywhere else, but the NYC edition sucks. Gothamist, dnainfo and some of the local blogs are a lot better. AOL and this google genius should have bought them out or just put Patch under Huffington Post when AOL bought them
Even the most primitive form of leadership starts with setting an example. An example of self-control makes the leadership more functional.
A more advanced form is setting clear expectations and communicating them, for example by having a "no photos" rule. One person I read about enjoyed Marine boot camp because unlike his family, the rules were the same from one day to the next.
Then comes raising new leaders, which is done by mentoring and assigning increasing responsibility. Intimidation creates followers, not leaders.
If this incident is typical then as a leader I consider him a total loss with no insurance.
It's going down at a slightly faster rate now.
This is amazing on so many levels. First of all, Abel was taking pictures for the company intranet blog. Like he did on the previous meeting and the meeting before that.
Second: does Armstrong genuinely think there are people out there, outside of AOL, who actually give a shit what their "game plan" *IS*?
I am surprised that this company has survived this long.
Also+just+a+test.+
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Honestly this guy is a joke, he is no longer at google because he was about to get the boot himself. In order to try and look tough he stages some theater in a meeting.
AOL has been dying for a while now and keeps dying, this "patch" 90% of the planet does not care about nor has ever heard about it. All he is going to do is make the ride down as profitable for himself as possible.
This is only a test as well
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What is AOL?
The good in Patch was that it put a few extra bucks in the pockets of somebody I know. It really was local, and seemed to be building genuine community. The bad was their e-mail alerts that were not timely or meaningful. I eventually turned them off. Alas, the web site itself just wasn't interesting enough to pull me in on a daily basis. I'm not sure why. The free dead-tree local papers continue to be my source for "the skinny" on stuff that's too local for the biggies (e.g., the bowling alley and the strip club being demolished to make way for condos, that kind of story).
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I think he was trying for a different capital L.
I don't get why this is even newsworthy, people are fired for stupid shit everyday. I will say this, he has balls that clank to be doing that in a corporate meeting.
The CEO, AKA the leader, tells all management that its missing leadership with a capital L. Im sure he showed real leadership impulsively firing someone in-front of everyone else. O ya, id follow that guy... no where
As with most CEO's his ego is bigger then his brain................alot bigger.
This is news how?
WTF! Stop destroying the English language!!!!
http://www.englishforums.com/English/PluralSubjectAllowed/ndgb/post.htm
Firing someone during a meeting in front of everyone is not only unprofessional, but is in most cases illegal, as it creates an openly hostile work environment for everyone else. I hope Abel has the sense to hire an employment attorney and sue the pants off of Armstrong and end up owning what's left of Patch.
Such as, laws which prevent your boss being to able to act a medieval king, firing people to 'make a point', a passing whim or simply for shits and giggles.
The creative director has usually posted photos from meetings to the intranet before. Now, all of a sudden it's an instant dismissal offense? Surely, Mr CEO, there's enough work for lawyers. Moreover, the stock price will not be helped by making it look like you're a mercurial manic-depressive.
An internet communications company is expected to blog in 2013, you twat.
Thanks for demonstrating in one easy step that you're not the right man to head this company.
Actually, the negative morale could be improved when there's no one left....
Just sayin'
In my experience there is never just one cockroach. This sort of short tempered thing is rarely done in the public eye. Even if the guy were an serial abuser he would still keep it hidden from the public. Thus I suspect that he fits a long pattern of CEOs who do this sort of public stress related nonsense only as they are cracking under unimaginable stress. Rarely this stress is caused by their own imminent firing as that is usually hidden from them until the trap door is sprung. This sort of stress is caused by really bad numbers. Numbers so bad there is just no spinning them. Numbers that not only say things are bad now, but numbers that say, there is no recovering from this. Normally these CEO types are able to delude themselves through screwing with the numbers but at a certain point the numbers are rotten no matter how much tempura you dip them in.
I saw this just before Air Canada did their bankruptcy, I saw this before Nortel went busto, even Sun before its long hard slide started having upper management go a bit off.
My favorite one was a tiny corner store when I was a kid. We went in and a friend of mine each had around $1.50 I paid for something but my friend asked how much a certain product was, The owner said, "$1.70" My friend said, "Oh that is 20 cents more than before" and put it back. The guy started screaming "Are you begrudging me 20 f*****g cents?" He then picked up a bat from behind the counter and chased my friend out of the store. The next day there was a big red notice on the door saying that the locks had been changed and that he could get back in his store when he paid the last 6 months rent.
So when I see CEOs acting insanely I see that stressed-to-the-max store owner from all those years ago. So if I were playing the stock market I know I would bet hard against AOL.
Or maybe the guy is a dick 24 hours a day and this just leaked out for the world to see. I'm betting.... both.
Confirming his recent departure from AOL Patch, here
Have they tried "sucking less?" I hear that's a pretty good game plan! Try sucking less as a human being, as a CEO and as a company and maybe you won't bleed customers like that scene from The Shining!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Turns out, AOL still exists. I should Google to see if there are also quaint and entertaining Netscape meetings going on.
When Does Lenz post the pictures he took?
And where are they?
They're now the most interesting pictures on the net. But he better be quick and post them, because the internets will have moved on by tomorrow.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Why does AOL even exist today? I know my next door neighbor was told he had to have AOL in order to use his Roadrunner cable isp account.
Did firing the guy prevent us from finding out that they are going to can Patch? Nope, looks like they invoked the Streisand effect.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
"The problem is that those most able to leave are the first to do so."
You can't get more able than Abel,
"Abel, put that camera down. You're fired. Out," Armstrong said. After a pause of about five seconds, he then continued the call as though nothing had happened.
There is one problem, we don't know if it was said before the start of the meeting (or during) that it was not allowed to take pictures, because if it wasn't it's clearly a case of wrongfull termination as the CEO states it's the reason he fired the person..
What if it's a con? Guy A fires guy B in a blatantly illegal way. Guy B sues the company for a bazillion dollars. Guy A and B split the money.
If%20you%20can%20read%20this%2C%20the%20app%20in%20my%20sig%20can%20post%20comments.%20
One more test, now it should work for real.
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Am I the only one who remembers when AOL created Digital City to get that exact same hyper-local news and content? And then in less than two years, they severely reduced funding, didn't pay attention to local ad sales and eventually killed it, laying everyone off. I just checked - the domain now goes to Mapquest, another brand that AOL reduced funding from just in time for Google to take the mapping crown.
AOL's culture is to reinvent itself over and over thinking that's a good response to fast-changing times, but it comes at the severe loss of consistency and stability. And the results speak for themselves over the past 13 or so years.
Can you say sociopath?
I thought you could.
Not for wrongful termination, but for defamation of character. And that will make the CEO personally liable.
New Economic Perspectives
Perhaps you simply misunderstood the GP's use of the word "virtue" to mean "moral superiority," whereas all he meant was "positive trait." In no way did the GP suggest that one should simply accept someone who claims wisdom at face value. He simply said that if you have the needed strengths and skills to tackle a problem, you should not sit idly by and let someone without those skills do it instead and produce worse results. That would apply even in your "saint" and "serial murderer" scenario.
(Besides, you speak about the need to recognize the value of the message over the messenger, and yet you open with an appeal to authority "Speaking as a Scientist." Kind of undermining your message, there.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I wasn't aware that AOL gave bonuses to staff for proving there are more horses asses than horses.
1) Why do we believe that the person was fired because of taking pictures? Why can't he be fireworthy material anyways? And if the person is the most useful person in the company who the CEO of the company didn't know about - then he needs some career skills to ensure that his next CEO knows his utility.
2) Sure the CEO is an ass as a CEO, but why is somebody powerful automatically guilty of everything?
So you are claiming HuffPost is as right wing as Fox News or Stormfront?
New Economic Perspectives
FTFA:
This is the best thing to happen to Lenz since he got hired: GTFO before more water leaks into the "watertight" compartments. As the bow dips lower and lower, more panic will ensue and three classes will emerge:
* the delusional who irrationally believe the ship isn't going down/can be saved,
* the desperate who will seek any way off (including sacrificing their fellows) before they are pulled under, and
* the catatonic who will find a seat on the promenade to listen the orchestra while quietly waiting for the sweet, sweet embrace of death.
Unlike certain other ships, the "Captain" of this doomed vessel has a helicopter waiting for dustoff. No way is he "going down with the ship."
No just the left wing strain of antisemitism
are real things which justify the crap out of this firing. There's a difference between information that deserves to be leaked, and tabloid-style gawking.
Is AOL an irrelevant dinosaur? Yes. Does that mean it needs to reshape its business practices to cater to the Internet's wants for dumb shit to mischaracterize for giggles? No.
The digital world need AOL about as much as fish need banjos. Thats the real problem.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
What a stupid troll. I rate that 0/10. Fail Troll is FAIL!
Guys like that are usually hiding incompetence behind aggression
Our little community really relies on our local Patch to know what is going on. This is a huge disappointment to me and my neighbors. Our Editor, Jeff Rosenfeld, is a great editor and the Patch is a vital part of our community.