Quixotic Quixey Pinup Pitch Is Perfect Publicity Ploy

Sticking a Help Wanted sign in the window works for your dry cleaner, so, who knows, maybe Quixey, a Mountain View, California, startup, might be on to something. It’s using its Castro Street display window to pitch jobs, putting a little different spin on pinning.

The mobile app search engine company has (for now, anyway) a storefront presence on the downtown main street of this Silicon Valley community. With developers as hard to come by in America’s tech heartland as pirate gold, Quixey is used to a little guerrilla recruiting. The company already hosts a monthly programming contest where engineers compete to solve three problems. Winners get $100 and Quixey builds a pipeline.

Clever Quixey, even if no one walks in to apply, its quixotic pinups are getting the kind of attention that an IT recruiter has to love.

Thanks to Amy Rabinovitz for taking the picture and Facebook posting it.

Just Call Me J

Want to make more money? Shorten your name. Look what it’s done for Beyonce, Bono, Halston, Dr Dre (who just sold a house for $35 million), Penn, Rihanna, and Banksy, to name a few. It may help to have talent, though Charo is on the list of one name celebs.

There’s some actual fun data behind this short name to riches thing. The Ladders once did a little data mining of its 6 million registrants. Correlating their first names to some of the items in their resumes, The Ladders discovered that the shorter the name, the more they made. Steve did better than Stephen and Debbie beat out Deborah. (No mention of how well Deb did.)

For every word added to a shortened version of the full monty, income dropped $3,600. Before you go changing Thaddeus to Tad, remember what every student learns in statistics 101 (which how many of you took? I see, no one. Thank you for your honesty): Correlation is not causation.

Will Barbie Become B?

Now Barbie (see what I’m doing here transition-wise?) has always been just Barbie and she’s always been Mattel’s money machine, even if she’s had more jobs than Mike Rowe.

Now she’s Entrepreneur Barbie, and as befits her latest career, she has a Twitter hashtag, a soon-to-launch LinkedIn profile, and enough press to rival Hillary Clinton. She also comes accessorized with smartphone, tablet, and briefcase.

After something like 150 different careers, Barbie’s now in the big time, taking lunches with VCs and networking with her new BFFs, who Mattel says are Barbie’s Chief Inspiration Officers. These CIOs are the women entrepreneurs who started companies such as One Kings Lane, Rent the Runway, Girls Who Code, and Sugarfina. They are Barbie’s spokeswomen and Mattel’s role model champions for the young girls who are the doll’s primary buyers.

Poor Barbie, though. Despite her new power suit — in pink and a size 0 — like every hard-charging entrepreneur she’s already come under attack. Time‘s Jessica Roy wrote, “Much like many real-life entrepreneurs, Entrepreneur Barbie seems to have little idea of what her company actually does. Given the current climate for women at startups, perhaps next Mattel can craft ‘Silently Enduring Sexual Harassment With the Hope I Will Get a Raise’ Barbie; ‘Making Less Than My Male Counterparts’ Barbie; ‘Getting Turned Down by Investors Because I’m Pregnant’ Barbie; or ‘I’m Going to Die Eating This Sad Salad at My Desk Alone’ Barbie.

Forbes headlined its post, “Why Entrepreneur Barbie Missed The Mark.” The criticism? She’s not wearing jeans and flats.