Do you eat your own cooking?

The old adage that you should ‘never trust a chef that doesn’t eat his own cooking’, or in fact a ‘skinny chef’, is due an update in my opinion. With the rise of celebrity chefs, a nation obsessed with obesity and the dubious contents of the McDonalds secret sauce – it just doesn’t make sense in the 21^st Century.

So what would be today’s equivalent? Based on the recent news surrounding Google+ the phrase ‘never join a social network where even the management aren’t even members’ could catch on.

Last week, 3 months after its launch, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has finally gotten the message and joined Google+. I understand he’s an extremely busy man, he’s running one of the biggest companies in the world and retweeting Ivanka Trump’s promotion of “Snow Flower & The Secret Fan”, but surely someone might have mentioned it?

However, the fact is that most of Google’s management team aren’t much better. Only 3 of the 12 people listed on Management Team page have ever posted on Google+ since launch, with a total of just 29 posts ever and only 6 in September.

With a recent press release from the company stating the social network has over 40 million users, perhaps the company doesn’t believe a few rogue management users will make much difference, and yet a rogue software engineer could.

Steve Yegge, a Google Software Engineer, recently hit the headlines after describing the site as  “a knee-jerk reaction” and “a pathetic afterthought.” Only certain members were meant to be able to view the post, using Google+’s Circles feature, but it instead ended up going out for the whole world to read, showing even employees are struggling to figure out how to use the service.

With recent research showing that activity levels are on a continued downward trend, the newest social network contender needs all the help it can get as it continues to force its way on the agenda.