Well, of course there was no actual hanging of a person. Just want to get the disclaimer in straight away. However, the downsizing of staff at Yahoo certainly seemed to take on the look and feel of a public hanging.

First there were the victims, being carried on horse drawn carts towards the town square in preparation of the deed.  The town crier advising the rest of the population was heard within the community. A successful hanging depends on eager public participation.

The public’s task in these events is to comment, throw abuse either at the victims or at the hangman and his henchmen and participate physically by hurling the odd bit of rotten organic matter. So how did this manifest in our modern time? As already mentioned no physical blood was shed.

But just because there were no actual corpses, this past week’s lay-offs at Yahoo had all the elements of a public hanging. Of course one could understand that the lay off of 1 500 member’s of staff at Yahoo during the past week would create a stir. But what might not have been anticipated was the massive spotlight focused on the event. With other words the extent of the public participation was unusual.

In the most public way ever, the happenings at Yahoo were broadcast via Silicon Alley Insider, Valleywage, VentureBeat, CNET and Search Engine Land. Bloggers kept cyber space burning. But what seems to have kept the whole situation on the boil, by far,  was Twitter.

Via a maximum of 140 characters, the tragedy of Yahoo and its biggest asset, its people, unfolded over several days. It was as public a hanging of both Yahoo and its talented people as there ever was. We are talking the execution of software engineers that are the best of the best by a company that lead the way in innovative ideas and products to explore those ideas.

Of course by virtue of the fact that Yahoo operates in the land of computer geeks and early adopters of new ideas such as Twitter, it would be understandable that the buzz in cyber space would rise to such levels. However, Adobe a software giant working in the same space of computer geekdom, laid off 600 people a week ago and there was not the same level of heat.

It seems that one of the reasons behind this public display was the fact that Yahoo has always encouraged its people to maintain high profiles by promoting themselves publicly. This would mean that Yahoo staff would have many more web followers than for instance staff at Adobe and other digital media companies issuing pink slips.

Be that as it may, Yahoo’s layoffs made a huge noise.  With so much attention it is a pity that this energy is not harnessed to point out to the folk inhabiting cyber space and the world at large that many of the layoffs are not entirely necessary.

The reductions in staff are often in response to the stock market and shareholder demands that high profits are posted.  Public companies need to be able to offer higher returns on investments in the form of rising share prices and by paying substantial dividends.  As an example see Adobe’s earnings here. And yes, the economic climate has worsened since March 2008 but still the point is valid.

In order to deliver on the demands made by investors, companies and their leadership have to prostitute themselves. Regrettably the workers have such little voice that they are made to feel the brunt of these demands. They are removed, actually more likely terminated, at the whim of the profit gods.