I wish I could make these documents public so you could give me your two-cents worth too!
Oh boy, I feel like I’m in a tough spot. After reading all the comments on my website, through Twitter, Facebook, and the IslandReefJob Ning forum, I was going to provide all the information I received from Mason Horvath on my blog. That way, most of the questions would be answered and I could provide my two cents about it all at the same time.
I posted the e-mail invite I received from Dean Horvath on my site yesterday because it didn’t contain any information that would be harmful to his company or campaign. If anything, it only helped spread the word and increased the number of hits to his site. Though several media outlets in Vancouver received the news, the only one I’ve come across that bothered to write about it was The Vancouver Sun.
However, I don’t think I can post Dean Horvath’s reply to my request for more information without being charged with slander or at the very least scolded rather badly for it. It wasn’t a mean e-mail by any means — he was quite polite and sounds like a fun guy. But, there was a lot of fine print and legal jargon in the attachments that made it sound like I’d be put in jail if I made anything public. Plus, I don’t think people would be all that impressed with the grammatical errors either. I know I wasn’t. Oops. Was that too much information? Am I not allowed to say that either?
Sorry, I’ll usually let grammatical errors slide if they’re in an e-mail from a close friend or whatever, but when it’s an e-mail from the head of a million dollar company (according to BC Business Online, Mason Horvath generated $8 million in revenues last year), I expect there to be someone on staff who can proofread.
This is grumpy me talking. I don’t like being silenced by fine print. Actually, I don’t like being silenced at all. I also don’t like feeling like I’m being controlled or used. This is another reason why I’m not sure this is really the “next best job.” According to the Terms and Conditions (which is readily available on the website, and therefore according to item 10, I am allowed to re-publish and comment on)…
7. You and your partner each agree that all designs, plans, inventions, discoveries, improvements, software, copyright, know-how or other intellectual property, whether or not patentable or copyrightable, created by you and/or your partner, during the course of the provision of the Services or pertaining to any service, matter, thing, process or method related to the provision of the Services, or that may be useful or of benefit to Mason Horvath (collectively, the “Works”), and such Works created during a six (6) month period after termination or expiry of your provision of services to Mason Horvath (regardless of the circumstances for such termination or expiry), shall be the sole and absolute property of Mason Horvath. Without limiting the forgoing, you and your partner each hereby irrevocably waive all moral rights in the Works and the assigns and transfers to Mason Horvath the entire right, title and interest, domestic and foreign, of you and your partner in such Works, or, at the option of Mason Horvath, a lesser interest therein.
I understand the need for a legal clause stating that anything created within the six-month contract that relates to luxury travel and is a direct product of work in the “next best job” position would be the property of Mason Horvath. But for six-months following the contract too? Zellie commented on this clause on the IslandReefJob forum as well. I agree that it seems unreasonable to claim rights to everything produced after the contract has expired, particularly if your partner is a creative person, software engineer etc.
And then here’s the part where I said to myself “Are you serious?? Do you know how much time it takes to create a good quality video?”:
1. You and your partner must be available to provide the following services (the “Services”) to Mason Horvath or its nominess:
© produce and submit to Mason Horvath a minimum of two videos per week, such videos to be a minimum of two minutes in length, reporting on each Destination and/or Activity you and your partner have visited or participated in (as the case may be), such video to be prepared according to the guidelines and criteria maintained by Mason Horvath;
(d) produce and submit to Mason Horvath a thirty-second video on a daily basis from each Destination and/or Activity you and your partner have visited or participated in (as the case may be), such video to be prepared according to the guidelines and criteria maintained by Mason Horvath;
This is in ADDITION to the research of each destination and activity, “continuous updates” and daily blog posts, media interviews, and “other services.” Oh, and don’t forget you still have to create a video about a luxury activity in your hometown (which you have to source yourself) to even be considered for the Top 4. And then you have to go through a process of elimination “consist[ing] of challenges over one week that will require the contestants to search out and report on luxury experiences [ie more videos!] in this exotic location.”
Yes, I do realize a lot of this sounds like the original Best Job in the World. But, with the original campaign the successful applicant will have had four months to prepare video ideas, not have to source and negotiate deals for the activities on his / her own, have a home to go to at the end of the day to edit the one required video each week, and be paid twice as much.
I did the math. You can do it too. John from Channel Whitsunday had asked the Top 50 candidates a series of questions, one of which was “How many hours would you estimate that you have put into your campaign?” Not counting the time it took the applicants to create their video, or any work that they do on weekends, take the average amount of time each applicant spent per day on their campaign.
My application video, with the help of my sister and brother-in-law, took 14 hours to film and edit. This was a continuous 14 hours and does not include the time spent researching the Best Job in the World or creating the storyboard or background props. 14 hours per 60 seconds. You can take a different ratio if you like. Use whatever you think is a reasonable amount of time to create a good quality 60 second video. Now calculate how much time it would take to make seven 30 second videos and two videos that are each two minutes long.
If you add this to the average number of hours the successful applicant would spend on blogs and interviews each week, what do you get? How much time is left to plan, research and negotiate deals on activities at various destinations? How much time is left to enjoy the activities? Now calculate how much the successful candidate ends up earning between him/herself and his/her partner per hour and then take into consideration that anything created six-months after the contract is up is no longer his / her intellectual property. How much does each person earn during that year?
By my calculations, it really doesn’t sound like the “next best job.” And here I was thinking about how bad it’d be for the environment for someone to take this job!
PS Mason Horvath, there’s a grammatical error on your ‘Application and Selection Process — Video Submissions’ document as well. You’re missing ‘as’ in the paragraph after the Resume Evaluation portion of the Quality Assurance section, right before “personality testing.”
It’s a pity since business would likely have picked up during this campaign for the Best Job in the World. Anyways, the lady who answered Australia Fare’s phone number said 
