They’ve got my number

A few weeks ago, I borrowed a copy of Now, Discover Your Strengths from the IBM Almaden library. I found it interesting, but I was disappointed when I realized I couldn’t take the StrengthsFinder assessment, since the secret code was in the book jacket, which I didn’t have.

So I bought StrengthsFinder 2.0 so I could take the test. This evening, I sat down at my trusty Mac to take the test, entered the secret code, and ran into a dead end — the page which asked for my ethnicity offered no “Next” button.

I tried again, and got the same result. So I unlimbered the View Source Chart Firefox extension, which showed me the rendered HTML; there was an <iframe> tag with an interesting URL, so I clicked that, and found myself looking at question 1 of the assessment…complete with “Next” button.

I finished the assessment; it told me that my top theme was “Strategic,” which they describe thusly:

People who are especially talented in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.

I guess that must imply that not everyone would look at the source code of the page to figure out what’s wrong and how to proceed. It takes all kinds….