[Most Recent Entries] [Calendar View] [Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
BTRIPP's LiveJournal:
| Monday, February 8th, 2010 | |
| 2:15 pm | Finally, one that makes sense …  As those of you paying attention here may have noted, I've started going through a lot of “business” books, much against my historical reading patterns. Obviously, most of these have been in the “job search” or “career management” vein, relating to my own in-search-of-employment endeavors, reinforced recently by my penning the Chicago Tribune's “Chicago Now” blog, The Job Stalker, which has both caused me to buy books suitable for coverage there, and recently to be offered review copies.Gary Vaynerchuck's Crush It! Why Now Is The Time To Cash In On Your Passion is one of the books that I bought, having seen it referenced so frequently in other books and on Twitter, that I figured that I really needed to add this to my reading list. I've been focusing a good deal of my recent attention of Social Media, as, frankly, there is a lot more call for it in the current Web than Virtual Worlds. I am very glad that I picked up Crush It!, as it “spoke to me” in a way that many of the other books in the “future of work” or “personal branding” niches haven't. Perhaps it is Vaynerchuk's style, he's talking about how he did what he did, why he did what the did, and how he saw what he did in context of the wider economic landscape, in a very “conversational” mode (indeed, he mentions that he pretty much just talked about this into a recorder, and then sent it off to a writer to pull together into a book). As opposed to a book like Finding Work in the 21st Century, which pontificates on the “new world” of no jobs, but independent contractors, this shows what that could look like, not as some dystopian future but as a current exciting, engaging, and rewarding career path today. As opposed to a book like Me 2.0 this is also not an attempt to set up a “system” for the most driven young professionals to reach the early and gaudy success, but a look at how one (equally driven) guy made this work with the tools and resources he had in his life. Having read the other two books certainly made me appreciate this more, as (while firmly in that world-view) it's a very real and vivid illustration of not only how this can work, but how it can be a great adventure rather than an oppressive grind. While utilizing most of the specifics that Schawbel preaches in Me 2.0, Vaynerchuck isn't advocating an obsessive drive to super-successes, being very clear on what steps would be necessary to replace an average drag-into-the-office-everyday salary with income from activities linked to what one knows well, and what is one's passion. Also, this is more “ethically based” than most, with the author constantly framing activities within the context of how actions effect those around us. Where the other books mentioned above might be a white paper on how the work world as we've known it is doomed, and a “manual” for devising a personally-branded career, this gets far more into the “why” while still detailing the “what” and “how”. While the style is easy to read, the book is quite dense with material (probably a good thing, as it is only a slim hundred and fifty pages!), neglecting step-by-step instructions for descriptions of broad-stroke processes and lists of needed activities. A reminder, however: this is a book for the “driven”, which is fine for an obsessive-compulsive fellow like me, but a lot of the world is not wired that way … here's a bit of a caveat Vaynerchuk presents: … I can't help but wonder what the “future” is for the folks who just punch the clock for a paycheck and spend the rest of their lives in search of distraction.You will do (those steps) over and over and over again as long as your brand exists. If that sounds tedious or repetitive, just close this book and go do your best to enjoy the life you've got because you're not cut out for this. My regular readers are no doubt tired of my habit of rolling through chapter headings to give a sense of the book, but this is one of those books where it is a useful approach. I'm going to highlight and paraphrase to an extent here, however: “Passion is Everything” … “Build Your Personal Brand” … “Create Great Content” … “Choose Your Platform” … “Create Community” … “Make The World Listen” … “Start Monetizing” … “Legacy Is Greater Than Currency” (oddly, this list is pretty much every other chapter). The main message here is to identify your passion, play to your strengths (he talks about the difference between text, audio, and video), and staying true to your vision. Again, if you have an interest in Social Media, and "Web 3.0", you really need to pick up a copy of Crush It ... it has to be "essential reading" for the evolution of the new economy. Needless to say, you should be able to find copies of this anywhere, I got mine through Amazon who had it at about 1/3rd off of cover (and, interestingly, the used guys don't have copies for much less than that). Highly recommended!  |
| Sunday, February 7th, 2010 | |
| 11:15 pm | Who dat won da SuperBowl?  Wow ... that was a pretty good game! I was rooting for the Saints because I still haven't quit hating the Colts for beating my Bears in SuperBowl XLI, and since we had to go through the Saints to get there then, I figured I owed them some serious rooting. Looks like Mardi Gras is coming early this year!There's been interesting Twitter traffic about the commercials. Needless to say, that Boost Mobile thing with a 25th anniversary version of the Super Bowl Shuffle caught my attention, but it seems that the only ones that were even half good were the "geezer" ones, the '85 Bears, the one with Betty White and Abe Vigoda playing football, and the reunited Griswolds (heck, you could even count the sad story of Montgomery Burns being brightened with a "Mean Joe Green" Coke moment). I think it's interesting that all the women hated the GoDaddy.com ads, where I found them at least the least contrived of the ads (not that they're trying to go for "big concept" there, but the extended versions are a hoot). I don't know how much money Denny's threw at the game, but the screaming chickens were "old" about 5 seconds into the screaming ... and the link was tenuous at best (it wasn't like they were adding chicken patties or something to the breakfast, just giving away a lot of eggs) ... very irritating. I also read a lot of buzz about the Doritos costume ... unless I missed a commercial in there, it was on-screen for about 1 second, whoop-de-do ... although the little kid slapping his mom's date and telling him "no touching my Doritos or my Mama" was cute in another spot (again unfocused message). The house made of (full) beer cans was amusing, but it seemed a set-up for more chaos than what was played out. Glad that the game was better than the ads this time. This was quite a day, though ... hit my desk about 9am and worked through till gametime ... was about 6 hours "behind schedule" when I started, only about 3 hours "behind schedule" now, so that's pretty efficient. I still need to finish up a book review that I mostly got knocked out while The Girls were up at Dojo yesterday, but the "pressure" on that was off as the "Author Interview" that I'd hoped to have for tomorrow's The Job Stalker isn't going to happen until later, so I didn't need to have the review up today. Still have to figure out what I'm going to write about next week. Speaking of The Job Stalker, over there ===> is the latest (albeit from Friday), with another bunch of links. I wish my efforts on that were "more appreciated", as it really is the product of a buttload of research time, and I can't even get people to comment to let me know if they'd like to see an on-going document with all that stuff in one place. Bums me out. This weekend was a hard-sell on getting clicks there too ... at least as I can see from the bit.ly figures ... they STILL haven't gotten things set up on Chicago Now so that I can see my stats, which should have been coming to me in a daily e-mail for four months now! Grumble, grumble, grumble. |
| Saturday, February 6th, 2010 | |
| 11:35 pm | I'm not that kind of Boomer, I guess ...  I have something of an annual ritual now, thanks to being on Barnes & Noble's mailing list. The past several years, they have had a significant clearance sale after the holiday clearance, the post-holiday clearance, and the post-post-holiday clearance, where in the stores a couple of big tables of books are just $2, and on the web site there are sections for $1.99, $3.99 and $5.99 clearance books. On the web site there were nearly 800 clearance books for $1.99 … and I set about finding enough (13 – mostly hardcovers) to get over $25.00 and score free shipping (which was a good thing as the shipping on the order would have been about seventeen bucks!). Obviously, in this shopping mode, there were things selected because they “sounded interesting” rather than being things I had a burning desire to read … this is one of those.I only knew the broad strokes about Harry H. Harrison Jr.'s 1001 Things It Means to Be a Boomer Now: (Well, It Is Time to Grow Up) when I added it to the cart, but after reading a few things rather “Gen Y”-oriented, I felt like delving into something “my generation”, the ancient, aging Boomers. Frankly I had expected something more of a “joke book” … and being in the desperate career impasse that I have been for the past year or so, I was looking forward to something that was heavier on the humor. Unfortunately, this is more a collection of wry, bordering on cynical, jabs at the Baby Boom generation, focused more on the cliches than on what has been my generational experience, making this a bit more of a stressful read than I had anticipated. The book is, as one would expect from the title, a collection of 1001 observations on Boomers, generally directed to boomers with the tone that might typically accompany “you have some spinach stuck in your teeth” or ”you've got something all over the back of your coat”. These are divided into thematic sections: Generation Gap, Getting Physical, Forever Young, Working For The Man, Financial Security, Surviving The Sexual Revolution, Husbands And Wives, Home Is Where The McMansion Is, Growing Up, Single Boomers, Technical Details, Our Children Ourselves, Your Parents Sill Don't Understand You, Rock And Roll Never Died, Boom Times, Everything Is Spiritual, Boomer Men, Boomer Women, Boomers In Midlife Crisis, Boomer Grandparents, You And Your Pets Are One, and How Boomers Think. Generally speaking, the author seems to have a mental image of the Boomer being an ex-hippie, Rolex-wearing, technologically-challenged, over-paid professional who lives in the suburbs in a house substantially beyond his/her means, is on their third marriage, and has only a very tenuous grasp on reality. While the last point may be applicable, I found it hard to relate to any of the rest, despite being a boomer. Attempting to summarize this beyond the descriptions above seems somewhat pointless, so instead, I guess I'll just pick out a few things that seem illustrative: Needless to say, “your mileage may vary” on how this stuff reads … I found the book, while wry, generally depressing, but that's likely due to my own personal situation. Also, it turns out this is from a "preachy publisher" so there's a lot of more of "the G word" (and I don't mean gangsta) in here than one would anticipate from a mundane press. 1001 Things appears to still be “in print”, as it is only a couple of years old (despite going out via clearance at B&N), and Amazon has it for 42% off of cover, and their new/used guys have "like new" copies for as little as a penny, so if this sounds like a laugh-fest to you, you're likely to be able to find a copy.22. Being a Boomer means you think wrinkles are optional. |
| Friday, February 5th, 2010 | |
| 9:13 pm | Sucky day ...  Man, what a day. I hit my desk at 8am this morning with 4 concrete goals to achieve and have managed one of them. One thing after another got in my face and distracted me from what I needed to get done, AND nobody that I needed to get a hold of for time-sensitive information bothered to e-mail me back, so (for instance) I have NO FREAK'N IDEA if I'm going to have an "author interview" to run on Monday (to go along with the freak'n review I haven't managed to write, one of two that I was planning to have done four bleeding hours ago), and if I DON'T I'll have to figure out something else to do for The Job Stalker on Monday. Stupid me for doing FOUR posts this week, should have left it at 3 and floated yesterday's thing on keeping timesheets till next week. Damn it. The link over there ===> is for that, I thought it was useful but nobody seems to have bothered to check it out. I'm still not getting reports, but an off-hand comment from my section manager over there led me to figure that in the 4+ months I've been doing this, I've earned maybe a whole thirty dollars, less than a buck a post. I should just go sell damned Streetwise outside the El stops ... those guys make 75¢ a copy! On a somewhat less angsty (yet still angry, I'm having a "90% rage" day today) note, I ran into this fun web amusement, the Batman Comic Generator which lets you put in snarky text for this particular tender moment between Batman and Robin. As I was in the midst of my Twitter reading (and so into fresh hatred of all things FourSquare), I came up with this ... which is probably obscure if one isn't familiar with the damned automatic Twitter posts from FourSquare users about where they are, or just became "mayor of". But, hey, it wasn't just a "let's hate FourSquare" day, I also had one of the on-air "talent" from the Evanston TV project crawl up my ass about why the links weren't working to her goddamned Facebook page. Number one, there was just a text placeholder for a link to Facebook on her page (one that *I* didn't code), two nobody told me that we were ADDING these links, and #3, she only has a personal page up, and not a "fan" page. In her initial bitchy e-mail she also mentioned Twitter, to which I countered that the last time I checked only Antony and I even had Twitter accounts, let alone were using them. This stuff is easy enough to set up, but it looks like I may have to hijack their project e-mails and set all this crap up myself. I've been trying for over a month to get new photos from them (none seemed to be able to figure out that Ning crops a center square area out of a portrait or landscape shot, so ALL their "promo pictures" look like crap, so I'm figuring that if they can't simply e-mail me a file, doing anything more complex ain't going to happen from their end any time soon. Grrrrrrrrrr! On a much, much better note, both of The Girls came home with straight-A report cards again, and Daughter #1 had (on this standardized test for 8th graders) five sections at 100% and 2 at 95%. It is so rewarding having smart kids ... just like I planned when I married their (mathematically optimal IQ-offset) mother. I just hope that somebody hires me before I totally go off the deep end from the frustration of the damn job search. I am so SICK of working 16 hour days at this crap with so little to show for it. Last night on the Pagans Tonight radio show I even asked the guest reader if she was "picking up anything" about any of my recent phone interviews, and she indicated that she felt that this most recent one (the one with the university) was going to be the one to hire me, although she said she thought I was going to have more than one job offer in the next month or so. I hope she's right. I don't know how much longer I can keep up this pointless, soul-crushing grind. |
| Thursday, February 4th, 2010 | |
| 12:37 am | and more ...  I know that I've probably bitched about this in here previously, but I'd run across a blog post by a newspaper guy who was strongly encouraging journalists to "stand together ... to reassert the stature of their profession", specifically in freelance and project work. As those of you who've been following along at home know, I've tried to get assorted writing assignments over the past year, and have been horrified to find how little quality writing is valued in the current market. Anyway, the combination of that blog post and my pent-up frustration with this all ended up in a somewhat more personal The Job Stalker post than is usually the case (not, of course, that it wasn't a useful post, as the guy I was talking about had put together a rather handy system for making a case for what one should be getting paid in those situations). I argue in the piece that these concepts are transferable to other project/freelance work situations (which seem to be "the future of work" according to some of the authors I've covered), but at heart, this is my railing against a market that's paying a dime on the dollar (or less) for professional writing services. As always, the half-cent generated by your clicky-clicky over there ====> is appreciated (even though I still have not been able to extract any sort of a report out of the Trib).I finally got nearly caught up on things tonight, at least clearing the jobs I had in my tab bar (I still have about 50 from the past week or so on a .txt file), and knocking down a couple of things that I've had hanging. I am a bit behind on getting back to folks on some e-mail things, but I'm no longer "six hours behind" ... albeit this coming at the cost of my missing a couple of networking events that I'd planned on attending this week. It also helps that Evanston Today has suspended doing the show "live" until they can work out the technical issues with LiveStream (we have not been able to access five of the last 10 shows we did in January ... they appear to be in the system, but we can't access them to get the embed codes). Instead of my having to spend 3-5pm every day at the computer whipping up links and other web stuff, I can more or less "at leisure" get those added to the video pages (heck, the last segment today didn't get up on the site until 8:30pm), which is a lot easier to be doing other stuff at the same time! |
| Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 | |
| 3:18 am | Well ...  I guess the author or "Me 2.0" didn't like my review or the set-up to the interview, as I haven't seen a single tweet or retweet of the info on it from him, despite his being very active over on Twitter. Hmph! Traffic to that post, though, has been higher than usual, though, so I guess some other folks have been pointing at it. I had an interesting "lab" going on with it ... for each of my The Job Stalker posts I typically have my TJS Twitter account tweet 4 times, six to ten hours apart, each with a slightly different "spin" within about 100 characters (leaving space for RT's). I had one version that got several RTs, which led with "Gen Y reinventing themselves for the job market", making me think "Gen Y" might be something that folks have searches set for.Anyway, if you'd like to see what Dan Schawbel has to say about himself (maybe the reason that he didn't seem to like this was that I wasn't kowtowing enough, but come on, at 24 he's achieved some amazing successes, but let's see where he's at in a decade or two!), do the clicky-clicky over there ===> ... the review, of course, is a few posts back in here. I'm getting slightly miffed at the Tribune. It turns out that I should have been getting daily e-mail updates for my traffic figures and I've seen nothing, and I've aksed and asked, and bounced around between several folks over there, and STILL have no clue (except the tracking I get from the bit.ly links) how these things are "performing". I've had some contact with some additional authors and publishers, which should result in my getting some more books along these lines to review. However, I gotta tell ya, I'm pretty sick of reading job search, career management, and "personal branding" books at this point. I wish somebody would HIRE ME so I could go back to blithely reading occultism, archaeology, and physics! Speaking of which, I had what I felt was a very good phone interview for a position with a University here on Monday ... it would be a very cool gig, so I have my hopes up again (despite having that Agency that I'd talked to several weeks back tell me they didn't have any slots that were a "fit" for me at this time, and the other agency that I'd done some work for end of last year tell me that the parts of the new business that they'd thought they'd pull me in on didn't materialize). At least I'm finally having folks talking to me, eh? |
| Monday, February 1st, 2010 | |
| 4:29 am | How depressing ...  A college buddy who occasionally appears on our doorstep arrived this weekend to attend a show down at Navy Pier. Last night we decided to go off to what has been, for nearly 30 years, my favorite Indian place, Standard India up on Belmont. I'd been worried as they had been "closed for remodeling" a few months ago, and had been surprised and relieved when they did, in fact, re-open. Unfortunately, in retrospect, it would have been almost better had they not. The old fellow who ran the place (who I'd first made acquaintance with back in the 80's when they had a location down in my neighborhood) had been having some health issues, but had been seemingly in much better shape the last time we'd been in ... but it turns out that he died soon after (we were last there the end of September, and the fellow that was running things there tonight indicated that he had passed away about 3 months ago). This, of course, explains the closing. I can only guess that the restaurant was sold by his family (the fellow running things tonight was a non-Indian guy in his 20's), as (except for the lay-out and decor), nothing was the same, even the buffet was set up oddly. The worst part was that the old Standard India had fabulous food, with every dish being a beautifully executed example of its kind, and tonight ... well, it was like being in some place that had heard of Indian cuisine, and maybe seen it on TV, but had no feeling for it. If the food at the old place was consistently an A-/B+ the food tonight was in the C- to D- range. There was one dish on the buffet that was plausibly like its previous version, and the only other thing that was not seriously degraded was the soup, which was different and far less interesting/complex than its predecessor. On top of this, it appears that there is no longer anybody who can run a Tandoori oven there, as both the Tandoori Chicken and the freshly-made breads had disappeared (the breads replaced by grocery-store imitations of the real thing). Dish after dish lacked depth, subtlety, and even competence (most of the bean and dal dishes ended up looking like refried beans rather than things in sauce). Very sad. I'm certain that the old guy would have been mortified at having this parody of Indian food being served in his name. To add insult to injury, the price of the now far-lesser buffet (in both options and quality) had been jacked up as well. All this and no gulab jamnun!As you may have noticed, I've been falling behind a bit in passing along new The Job Stalker posts in here ... the one over there ===> is Friday's big dump of links. I have a new review/interview (well, you saw the review in here yesterday) going up tomorrow, so give this a clicky-clicky and look for that upcoming. Very sad night tonight ... |
| Sunday, January 31st, 2010 | |
| 12:15 pm | You ... going from 1.0 to 2.0  Well, this is the first time that I've really felt that I needed to make obsequience to the invasive scrutiny of our vile governmental masters, but in the interest of staying on the right side of the FTC's ridiculous regulations I figured I should note that the copy that I have of this book came from the publisher at the request of the author in order that I would have a copy to read and review. As regular readers are no doubt aware, I've been getting review copies from other sources (LibraryThing.com's Early Reviewer program, the Chicago Tribune, etc.) for quite some time, but this is the first instance of my being directly contacted by an author for the purpose of having me do a review. Obviously, we have always been at war with Eastasia. Needless to say, my recent tenure as the writer of The Job Stalker blog on the Trib's “Chicago Now” site, and my now-regular review/interview feature for books about the job search and related subjects, has begun to draw some attention to my long-obscure scribblings (I have been doing these reviews in this space for several years at this point), and we wouldn't want to have the FTC fine me for receiving a free copy of a book, would we?Anyway, the book which has led me across this particular Rubicon is Dan Schawbel's Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, a book about Schawbel's own “brand” of personal branding. In retrospect, it's no surprise that I had “some issues” with this book, as it is explicitly targeted to “Generation Y” or “Millennials” (which I was shocked to find includes my grade-school-aged daughters!), and pretty much only deals with aging Boomers like myself in a sense that we should go ahead and die to make room for the new, hipper, generations. As I was only reading this as a part of my OWN job search, I found this both irritating and unsettling, as, within the context of the book, people my age are pretty much regarded as obstacles to be tossed aside in the path of the favored groups' career advancement! Fortunately, most of that stuff is contained in Part 1 of the book (“The Rise of Personal Branding”), which is focused fairly firmly on the Gen Y audience (with 30 years of professional experience, the “extracurricular activities” of my college days rarely come to mind, let alone find a way into my “personal brand”). The “meat” of the book commences with Part 2 (“Command Your Career In Four Steps”), which presents some very useful (even for geezers like myself) materials for creating what Schawbel describes as one's “brand”, divided in sections “Discover Your Brand”, “Create Your Brand”, “Communicate Your Brand”, and “Maintain Your Brand”. Again, for somebody who has been “organically” developing (however unconsciously) a “brand” for a few decades, some of the steps involved in here are either in the “been there, done that” category, or “that horse is already out of the barn” zone, but over-all the materials presented in this part of the book are very well thought out, “systematic” (in the sense that a network marketing program is a “system”), and reasonably applicable to anybody at the point of focusing on their career (it did cross my mind that my 14-year-old daughter could benefit from reading this). While much of the initial material is extremely basic (what's appropriate business dress, etc.), it certainly seems to be comprehensive, walking the reader through such foundational skills as business writing, verbal presentation, confidence building, constructive persistence, developing technical competence, how to make a sales pitch, etc. Again, the examples given here are generally that of 20-year-olds with minimal work experience, trying to differentiate themselves in the entry-level (or not, he adds in examples of numerous folks who had reached upper-level jobs by 24) job market. The same level of detail is exhibited as the book moves to web sites, blogs, and social networks, giving step-by-step instructions on how to conceptualize, execute, develop, and market these vehicles, with (and here's the part I found most useful, personally) fairly extensive notations of on-line and other resources for doing this. The tone of the book is somewhat uneven, vacillating between specific instructional segments, and Schawbel pontificating on his own (admittedly, rather remarkable – he's only four years out of college at this point) experience. On this latter point (if you'll excuse a jaded late-Boomer bit of attitude), he does point out that this sort of success only comes with ”The right combination of skill, determination, networking, and timing”, to which I might add luck in being in the right place at the right time with a message specifically in resonance with the Zeitgeist. Needless to say, Schawbel is an “outlier” who achieved remarkable success in an amazingly short period of time (and he details several others who have been similarly unusually successful). This brings me to my main criticism of the book ... while it does have a “system” that should be applicable in its general outlines to anybody reading it, it is very likely not going to result in finding oneself in “C-level” positions by age 24 unless one has extremely high levels of both skill (and the ability to “pick up” things with little very little study and practice) and determination. On this latter point, in a section on “tenacity”, Schawbel says: “(entrepreneurs) get very little sleep because they realize the opportunity cost in sleeping instead of getting things done”. While I certainly agree with this statement (and for decades have lived my life according to that pattern), I'd submit that the percentage of the population that is willing to drive themselves to the extent that the book suggests is vanishingly small. So, going in, one has to realize that if you don't have the ability to pick up skills quickly and effectively, and if you're fond of watching TV, hanging out with friends, or having much of any “free time”, you're probably not going to create the sorts of success on which the book focuses. Again, this is not to say that there isn't a whole lot of useful information and advice in here (indeed, there were many “new tricks” this “old dog” is likely to be taking from reading it), only one needs to keep in mind what one is bringing to the table. Much like most network marketing pitches, this is long on what could happen, while avoiding much consideration of what an “average result” would be. The “personal branding” meme may have actual application in the evolving work force, but for most people, jumping though the hoops of developing one's “brand” is only likely to have subtle benefits (confidence, focus, etc.) and not land one in the executive suite, with media stardom, or on lucrative lecture tours. Me 2.0 should be available at your local brick-and-mortar book vendor, although Amazon has it for about 1/3rd off. This is certainly a “your mileage may vary” sort of a book, if you're a Gen Y kid looking to break big in the business world, this might just be your “user manual”, but for Boomers looking to maximize what's left of their careers, maybe “not so much”. |
| Friday, January 29th, 2010 | |
| 11:05 am | A brilliant response from the LP ... Maybe the "fruit and nuts" era is over in the Libertarian Party ... Libertarians respond to State of the Union address Sure, it's an ant-vs.-dinosaur fight, but it seems more and more that the only sane voices are coming from the L.P. these days (and that certainly hasn't always been the case!). I hope that Bob Barr is only the first of many reasonable politicians to bail on the main parties, and move over to the L.P. ... having that Barr/Root ticket was a great step forward for the Libertarian cause. |
| 10:40 am | OOOH! More ink!   Lookie here ... it's a TribunePalooza of links today! As I no doubt mentioned when I did the review of that UFW book, I'd gotten it as part of the Tribune's new "Signature Club" program, which invites the paper's readers to do reviews. When you click through over <=== there you'll see that the format they use is a "questionnaire" template with specific bits of info being collected. Some of these are pretty basic, some of them are trying to be "Chicago-oriented", and the odd ones only start to have some sense when taken in volume (poke through the Printers Row blog's Reviews listings to find the various Signature Club reviews and see how folks have handled those, it becomes amusing). Needless to say, I'm so thrilled to be "in the Tribune" (there's an outside chance this could sneak into the print edition this weekend) with one of my reviews that I can hardly control myself. In terms of self-image and "bucket lists" this is a big deal for me, even though it wasn't in the form of one of my "review" reviews (they did link back out to my review site, however, which is awesome).I did a quick turn-around earlier in the week on The Job Stalker, and didn't get a chance to post in here ... over there ===> is the one from Tuesday which was dedicated to the new "JobDeck" mash-up of the "TweetDeck" Twitter client with the "TwitterJobSearch" web service. Basically these let anybody who sets up the program do 90% of what I've been doing with Twitter in my job search, as it sets up specific columns within the main TweetDeck module to display anything with the #jobs hash-tag, and various "lists" (of job writers, etc.). It's a great idea, and a fabulous resource for anybody looking for a job. I had another big week of networking this week, with very productive events on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday ... the Social Media Breakfast, Publicity Club of Chicago tweet-up, and Social Media Club meeting, respectively. At each of these I got to spend time chatting with folks that I'd known (and in some cases have already been connected with on LinkedIn), but only through Twitter, and it was great getting to know them "in person". Last night was especially amazing, as I ran into dozens of folks that I knew from various contexts, some that I'd not had a chance to chat with in months. Keeping up this "social schedule" is exhausting, but it feels like it's helping out. Oh, and speaking of things in the job search, in my last post I mentioned the phone interview I had the other day, well, the next day I got another call, this one setting up a phone interview for Monday. It's nice to have some of this stuff coming through, especially since the current things "on the table" are all very cool jobs. There, I got through a post without bitching and moaning. Such a deal! Do make clicky-clicky, though, as I need all the half-pennies I can get! |
| Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 | |
| 11:51 pm | A better day ...  Well, today was a bit of a better day. If you want to read me bitching about all the rip-offs and scams in the world check out my The Job Stalker post over there ===> I still wasn't able to bring myself to "name names" (although I did put several in the tags for the post, leading to a ton of traffic according to bit.ly). Conveniently another job industry blogger did a major broadside at The Ladders (the grand-daddy of that particular family of sleazebags) today, and I edited in a link out to that post!I had one of those "must be being psychic" days ... I had a breakfast networking thing down in the west Loop this morning, and was sorely tempted to stop at 7-11 for a beverage on my way over to the bus, but the "vibes" were saying "press on!" and I got to the bus stop only a block ahead of my bus ... and I would have been very late (and massively upset) had I missed that. Score #1. I had initially thought that I'd head up to Evantson today as my WSI buddy was meeting with my EOL buddy, and I figured I'd touch base with them and then go sit in on Evanston Today Live (I'm doing most of their web work, but rarely show up on site). However, yesterday I got way behind on what I'd hoped to have had done, so I contacted them and said that I wasn't going to be able to make it up there. This was a Good Thing, as right about 2:30 I get a call from a recruiter for a major medical association, wanting to do a phone interview (she and the Hiring Manager had already met about my resume and wanted to check me out). We spoke for about an hour, and I think it went very well, and I'll be very surprised if I'm not called out there for a face-to-face interview in the next week or so ... for an extremely cool gig. Score #2. This morning I also got a promo e-mail from Barnes & Noble, which had the announcement of their "after holiday sale", which is a serious clearance, featuring books as low as $1.99 ... I got thirteen (mainly hardcover) books for $27.22 including tax, books whose cover prices nearly came to two hundred bucks (heck, the shipping would have been nearly $17.00), so that was quite the deal! Score #3. So, today was a better day ... amazing how much better it feels to have somebody at least considering hiring me! |
| Monday, January 25th, 2010 | |
| 9:21 pm | "The Goat"  The other evening, in my never-ending search for "networking" events that might eventually lead to my finding a job, I attended a TweetUp hosted by @ColonelTribune in honor of the lauching of the new "TribNation" venture under the aegis of @JamesJanega. While the scope of the the "TribNation" concept is still a bit hazy to me (it seems to involve one-on-one contact with readers via assorted Social Media vehicles), the Trib certainly had an eye on history and continuity in opting to have the bash at Chicago's fabled Billy Goat Tavern, a long-time watering hole and refuge for the "ink stained wretches" of the Tribune (and other papers, most now gone). The party, which ended up being quite a smash, involved having us wearing jaunty newspaper hats (as has been recently modeled by the Colonel himself in his Twitter icon), and circulating between groups of folks, some from the paper, some from Twitter, and some from the extended blogosphere (I ran into folks that I'd known from assorted other networking events, other Chicago Now bloggers who just popped into The Goat for a cheezborger, and got to meet various editors, managers, and columnists, such as the noted writer of the Ask Amy feature). To top off the festivities, "door prizes" of Rick Kogan's A Chicago Tavern: A Goat, a Curse, and the American Dream were awarded, my getting one (I take it) for having been the first to arrive.A Chicago Tavern is one of those books that feels almost accidental, as though the writer (who I discovered is a product of the same Chicago high school that I graduated from) had started to do a feature story about The Billy Goat and found the subject getting away from him, as its length (115 pages with about 25 of those being extremely charming photographs) does not suggest a "I'm going to write a book about The Goat!" genesis. As one would expect from this, it is a quick, but quite entertaining, read. The book weaves various histories together, the stories of the Sianis family, immigrating in waves from Greece, first William (Billy), then his nephew Sam (who still presides at the saloon, and was around for the party), and their various relatives; the story of the newspaper business in Chicago, and how The Goat was a favorite of not only the writers, but the pressmen and other laborers from the half-dozen or so newspapers that used to publish within blocks of the bar; and the story of the mass-media attention, of the old Saturday Night Live crew, and how the homage to the Billy Goat was no cynical ploy, but rooted in John Belushi's Albanian immigrant relatives who also operated "Greek diners" when he was growing up. However, as the sub-title indicates, this is ultimately a story of the much-tarnished American Dream, centered on the Sianis family, and what Billy and Sam were able to build over the better part of a century after coming here with nothing (Billy arrived with $5.00 which was scammed off of him even before he got out of Ellis Island, only to be recouped many years later, as detailed in a remarkable reminiscence). All sorts of fascinating bits and pieces come out here. Sam Sianis was interested in "getting the real story out" and worked extensively with Kogan to get the information right. For instance, the whole "goat" angle came about by happenstance, but Bill Sianis saw the possibilities and re-shaped his own image to the "billy goat" iconography, and how the whole "Cubs Curse" was invented to help sell papers long after the initial snub of Billy and his goat (although it would appear that the Wrigleys were extremely opposed to allowing a goat into the stands, whether or not it had a ticket). Also touching is the tale of how newspaperman Mike Royko and saloonkeeper Sam Sianis came to be extremely close friends, "better than a brother", and much of the decor in the bar is memorabilia of the late Chicago scribe. Needless to say, I greatly enjoyed A Chicago Tavern and would highly recommend it to all and sundry, and especially those with an interest in Chicago history, newspaper lore, immigrant stories, and cultural memories. As a "small book" its cover price is fairly low, and Amazon has it as a discount, but those of you who are either in Chicago or are planning on coming here can also get a copy (along with some awesome cheezborgers) at the Billy Goat! |
| 1:54 pm | Heh ... Skip Bayless just named Jay Cutler the MVP of yesterday's NFC Championship Game ... suggesting that if Cutler hadn't beat the Vikings in OT here the Vikings-Saints game would have been in Minneapolis instead of New Orleans, and without the deafening crowd noise Favre and the Vikes would have won by 3 TDs! Sometimes I love seeing what I'll run into on TV while nuking some lunch. |
| Sunday, January 24th, 2010 | |
| 1:59 pm | (sigh)  I'm suspecting that it might be the lingering effects of computer chaos, but it might also be Xmas angst, but I've not been in a good place emotionally for the past several weeks. Everything looks "doomy" and I can't get much enthusiasm generated for anything.I have been "pushing on" despite this (I finally got the new HD but have not had time to "deal with it" yet), but everything feels like I'm using retro thrusters but still spiraling into a black hole. Over there ===> is the most recent post for The Job Stalker ... another dump of links. Always appreciative of the half-cent I get for folks taking a look at it. Today's been real hard on me. Daughter #2 is wanting to "re-do" part of her room, including getting rid of the "under the windows" cabinets. Now, two things are in play here. #1, those cabinets (and the similar ones in her big sister's room) used to be my record cabinets in my old apartment. I had five of them going across the whole extent of my living room (they were very conveniently exactly the height of the bottom of the window, so almost looked "built in". At one point they were briefly in a similar spot up here, but eventually The Wife exiled my extensive record collection into my office, to fight for space with everything else that used to be in my old 1-bedroom (which is part of the reason that it looks like THIS in here). Four of the five cabinets were re-purposed for The Girls' rooms, painted white and with white "marble" shelf paper stuck on over the "wood" tops. These have been doing that duty for at least 8 years at this point, and the cabinets have been "part of my home" for nearly 30 years, and I'm not very happy about seeing them scheduled for the big bye-bye. This brings me to thing #2 that's stressing me. Part of Daughter #2 working on her room is (at the instigation of her Mother), having her get rid of "a lot of stuff". Now, I have deep psychological scars in this area. First of all, my Dad, with whom I understand that I was very close, died when I was 2 years old. I don't think I've ever gotten over that sense of vulnerability of having what you love ripped from you from that experience, and this was only deepened when I was 8 or 9 years old and had pretty much all my most cherished stuffed animals thrown out while we were on vacation (my Mom told our housekeeper to "get rid of those baby games", meaning, I believe, things like CandyLand and Chutes & Ladders, but which got translated to a total purge of surviving items from my "babyhood"). To this day, this is an open wound in my emotional make-up. So, needless to say, having Daughter #2 load what I'm perceiving as her "cherished childhood friends" into a big black garbage bag (destined, fortunately, for the Salvation Army and not the trash shoot like mine had been), it messes me up. Of course, I have terrors over the concept that these "cherished friends" are not going to end up being loved by other, less fortunate, kids (which is, obviously, the "angle" being played to have them be given up), but are going to be dumped (once out of our hands) onto the "rag trade". I can just not handle the image of some cute fuzzy friend that my daughters delighted in (and who had a name and a whole "backstory") being used as a chamois to wash a truck somewhere. Heck, I'm literally in tears typing this. Anyway, that's where I'm at ... unemployed, with no prospects, and an emotional wreck. Nothing like "going to Hell in a handbasket", eh? Sucks to be me. |
| 3:02 am | If it's not about "Thriving", then ...  Sometimes books that I really want to like just don't connect with me, and I find the reading somewhat uncomfortable. This is a prime example of this scenario. I got Sandra Ingerman's How to Thrive in Changing Times: Simple Tools to Create True Health, Wealth, Peace, and Joy for Yourself and the Earth via LibraryThing.com's "Early Reviewer" program last month (the third month in a row that I'd "won" a book there), so there was that slight disconnect anyway (in that I hadn't really reached out to acquire it, only indicating that I'd be willing to review it), but the book wasn't really what I was expecting.Ms. Ingerman is, apparently, a "newage shaman" and does workshops and is involved in assorted "trade associations" along those lines. This book has the "feel" of something that would accompany a workshop program, but really addressing "soccer moms" or the like, as it relies very little on the reader having any background in esoteric subjects. Now, as long-term readers of this space will recall, I've both been studying various forms of Shamanism for over a quarter century, and have very little patience for "fluffy bunny light working". The combination of these two factors probably "sets me up" for having a difficult time attempting to productively interface with this book. Now, this "thriving" concept is something that I've seen cropping up more and more in various contexts, and I'm not sure if it's a legitimate cultural meme or simply the "concept du jour" among the newage crowd. Unfortunately, there's not much specifically about "thriving" (at least on a personal basis, the author keeps coming back to a concept she calls the "healing the earth quotient", which might be where she envisions this happening) in the book, but a lot of "small exercises" that are sort of "shamanism lite" which would, admittedly, serve as a functional toe-dip into the mystical for the cliché bored suburban housewife. As I kept reading, I kept getting more irritated, wanting her to "get to the point", only to realize that there was NO point she was "getting to" here, only a process, an introduction, and something of a guidebook for somebody who'd attended a weekend workshop (or something of the sort) to continue on with on their own. It also seemed to me that Ms. Ingerman spends a lot more time than most authors I've read promoting her organizations, friends, and websites in the book. I can't say if she's doing this as "presenting her credentials" or simply flogging a marketing opportunity, but it's something that stood out to me as being "above and beyond" even the newage norm. And, speaking of "newage norms", the book has a lot of that "if we just think bright shiny thoughts the whole world will be new and nice and there won't be anything bad in it anymore" vibe to it, and I was bumping up against that with some good solid cynicism over and over again. Given the above, you might well think that I ended up hating the book, and this is (oddly enough) not the case. Frankly, there are several substantial bits of information, from the existential (avoiding negative inputs like the news, avoiding presenting oneself in ways that will generate negative social vibes, etc.) to the esoteric (looking at the dynamics of "group action"), to the practical (a fabulous exercise to develop a visceral sense of "attraction" using strong magnets). Some of the stuff in here is a bit on the fringe (I was wondering if she'd attempted any double-blind experiments on some of the physical things she claims to have been able to effect), and a lot of it is off in the fluff-bunny zone, but there are enough "solid bits" that reading the book was at least worth the time I invested in it. Again, I was probably looking for one thing in the book, and the author was presenting another. I would have much preferred this if it was about Thriving on a conceptual and/or philosophical basis, bringing in concrete examples as needed to illustrate and bolster the main material. Instead this is a workbook which feels like it's targeted to folks with little or no mystical/occult background, framed in "Green" contexts to make it palatable. If one is in this "target audience" then How to Thrive in Changing Times might well be a great introductory book to start doing work of this kind, but if one is simply looking for insight into, well, how to thrive in changing times, you might find yourself as disconnected from it as I was. Obviously, as an "Early Reviewer" book, this has just come out (it even has a 2010 copyright date), so is likely to be at your local brick-and-mortar book store, although Amazon has it for less than ten bucks (reasonably priced for having less than 200 pages). This really wasn't "my cup of tea" but it did have enough solid material in it that it wasn't a waste of time ... obviously, I'm a bit of an "outlier" on the "esoteric reading" scale, so (in the immortal jest of Dennis Miller) "your mileage may vary", and I suspect that most folks wouldn't have the same points of irritation that I was finding with various aspects of the book! |
| Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 | |
| 5:42 pm | Not quite a tragedy ...  As readers of my main blog are certainly aware, I've been penning one of the Chicago Tribune's "Chicago Now" blogs, The Job Stalker (detailing the course of my own job search) for the past several months. Out of contacts made through that, I was recently invited to be a participant in the "Signature Club", a feature of the Trib's Book Section's Printers Row blog that brings in "reader reviews" from the public. This was how I came to be reading Miriam Pawel's The Union of Their Dreams: Power, Hope, and Struggle in Cesar Chavez's Farm Worker Movement (which had been, oddly enough, also a feature of the LibraryThing.com "Early Reviewer" program).I must admit, The Union of Their Dreams was not something that I would have been likely to have picked up in "free range" book shopping, but I'd suggested that I'd probably do a better job reviewing a non-fiction book, and this was what the Trib sent. I was relieved to find that this book was largely a historical approach to the United Farm Workers rather than a doctrinal screed. As I worked my way through the book, I developed quite an admiration for the research that author Miriam Pawel had done to produce this document. As opposed to being an external view of the United Farm Workers, with information collected from news stories, etc., or a "personal" view, this was an internal look at the "la causa" through the stories of various participants. Notably absent from this list is Cesar Chavez, while being the pivotal figure for the ultimate story arc, this is a look at the lives and involvement of numerous key players, from Mexican lettuce cutters and irrigators who moved from the fields to be top union figures to "idealistic" White kids looking for some "meaningful experience", like one who is described as: The book is broken into six "themed" blocks of time which present different phases of activity, from the initial grape strike in 1965 to Chavez's death in 1989, each further divided into chapters on specific events and issues. What makes the book stand out is that, within these chapters, the narrative follows various players' activities in those contexts. That the author was able to dig up enough source information to make these individual sections read plausibly as part of a historical overview is quite impressive, and that at no point does the tone waver from the over-all flow of the book is quite a testament to Ms. Pawel's writing skill.Ellen was looking for a meaningful experience before heading to graduate school in social work. She knew nothing about the lettuce boycott and wasn't too sure of the difference between Cesar Chavez and Che Guevara. But the internship sounded in line with her career goals, and she was eager to see California. While clearly being the story of Cesar Chavez's movement, the book is a story about a dozen or so individuals. There is Chris Hartmire, a young "activist" minister; Elisio Medina, a grape harvester who joined the union as a teen; Jerry Cohen, a navy brat turned counter-culture lawyer; Sabino Lopez, a second-generation irrigator in the lettuce fields; Ellen Eggers, the social work student in the above quote; Sandy Nathan, a draft-dodging anti-war protester turned lawyer; Gretchen Laue, a kid who was looking for temp work and ended up with the boycott office in Boston; and Mario Bustamante, a top-ranked lettuce-cutter from Mexico City (as well as several other "recurring characters" who did not get their own sections). The story moves from vignette to vignette of these people's experiences, and in the process weaves the general tale of the union. It is not a pretty story, nor, ultimately, particularly flattering of Mr. Chavez. All of the key players end up "purged" eventually. Chavez, while claiming "loyalty" as a prime virtue, showed little of it himself, as long-time close friends are shed in alternating cynical and paranoid organizational shake-outs. Chavez envisioned himself as some sort of near-messianic figure, reading about Gandhi, but associating with the likes of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and Synanon cult leader Chuck Dederich (aspects of which Chavez attempted to install as a "new religion" within his "movement"). The core "tragic" element in the book is that gulf between what was, initially, an extremely effective "roots" labor movement which truly revolutionized the state of the farm worker and what Chavez envisioned as his grander "poor people's movement". Somehow the latter always managed to trump the former, and any disagreement with Chavez was framed as "treason", so time after time, contracts were left unfinished, programs not actualized, even checks uncashed due to random re-allocations of staffing resources. If you have an interest in labor, agricultural, or political issues, this book should appeal to you. It also provides an interesting window on a certain area of counter-cultural activities from the sixties, seventies, and into the eighties. As The Union of Their Dreams is new, your local brick-and-mortar book vendor should have it, although Amazon has it at 34% off and there are already copies at deeper discounts in the new/used market. Again, this is not something that I would have been likely to read "on my own", but it certainly rewarded my attention with a fascinating tale of a notable time in our history. |
| Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 | |
| 11:34 pm | Clicky-clicky ...  So, nobody commented on my brilliant review of "How To Self-Destruct" over the weekend (at least I thought it was brilliant to have come up with the "Goofus & Gallant" angle on that!), so I don't suppose that you're all chomping at the bit to read the author interview that I did with Jason Seiden about the book, but that's the main focus of the current The Job Stalker post ... you know the routine ... a click over there ===> earns me half a cent, so 220 unique clicks will be enough for me to get a McDouble or a McChicken or maybe buy my babies a Hot Apple Pie each (with tax).I've had several Very Bad Days in a row. As noted we (actually I ... nobody wanted to help) took down the Xmas tree over the weekend, and I was convinced that this was the last time I was going to see it ... feeling certain that I'd be dead before next Xmas. The job search has sucked massively, with no follow-up on any of the contacts or interviews, and I've hit an endless stream of "scam postings" which has me on edge. I actually broke a door off its hinges over the weekend, it's getting that bad for me managing my rage. It doesn't help that my main computer is STILL broken. I ordered this new HD a week ago and it's still not here yet, so I'm having to make due with a half-broken much older system that just won't let me get done what I need to get done. I'm supposed to be doing these projects for Evanston Today Live, but the damn streaming signal totally freezes up the old computer, leaving me frustrated, angry, and having to make excuses. Of course, I had planned to have had that HD in by last Thursday, and had time blocked out over the weekend to deal with it ... now I don't have any time to work with it, even if it DOES come in tomorrow. The only positive thing that has come of this week was the networking event I was off at tonight ... which was at a bar that had a $2 grilled-cheese & fries special, so I was able to buy myself dinner. I didn't make a lot of new connections there, but had a chance to chat with folks I'd not seen in a while. I was in such a vile mood heading out tonight that I was worried that I would be incapable of "schmoozing", but I was at least able to have some significant conversations. I am SO sick of this god-damned job search. {edit} P.S.: I don't know if I mentioned that I'd gotten a book to review for the Tribune's "Printers Row" blog's "Reader Reviews" feature. I'm going to get around to that in the next few hours (I hope), but was shocked by the questionnaire that they'd sent me when I'd indicated I was done with the book ... questions like if I thought the main characters (the book's a history of the United Farm Workers) would be Cubs or Sox fans! Arrrgh! Needless to say, I'm going to do my real review and then do their questionnaire (as best as I can). |
| Sunday, January 17th, 2010 | |
| 11:39 pm | Football ... OK, so my Bears aren't in it, but I figure I need to keep up on the playoffs or I'll get confused later (frankly, my "time stamp" on years tends to be along the lines of "oh, you know, the winter that so-and-so played against such-and-such in the AFC championship"), so I made myself watch all four games both last weekend and this weekend. I'm not a sports bettor (I hate losing money, so I don't enjoy gambling much at all, limiting myself to $1 twice a week to "keep the probability window open" on the Big Game lottery), but I might have done pretty well this weekend as 3 of the 4 games went the way I wanted them to, despite being against the consensus picks of both the Tribune and most of the TV guys. The only one that didn't was the Ravens/Colts ... and you can't tell me that a Jets/Ravens AFC Championship game wouldn't have been a better match than Jets/Colts. I'm pretty happy with the prospect of Vikings/Saints, although I did have massive amounts of cognitive dissonance rooting for a) Favre and b) The Vikings, individually and in combination. Hmmm ... I used to make ONE sports bet a year "back in the day" ... there was this old Chinese guy who occasionally came into "my local bar" and we'd make a $10 bet at the start of the season on the Bears eventual W/L record. I seem to recall my winning most years on that. I had one of those "Oh, no they didn't!" flashes this weekend, however. It has struck me as somewhat odd that The Who was going to be featured on the SuperBowl half-time show ... I mean, c'mon, they're icons and all, but half the band is dead, and it's not (as far as I know) like they have a new album or tour to promote or anything. Then it hit me. The SuperBowl is on CBS this year. And what it CBS' hottest franchise? The various CSI shows, right? And, whose music features as the series themes of the CSI shows? Yep, The Who. I really wish it didn't sound so plausible, but the scenarios of a bunch of sleazy Network Suits sitting around deciding that getting The Who for the SuperBowl would be a smashing way to promote the CSI shows is now stuck in my head, making me "throw up a little in my mouth" every time I hear the SuperBowl mentioned! Too bad CBS isn't trying to flog a bunch of Charmed spin-offs ... I would have deeply appreciated the irony of them throwing Morrissey on stage for the SuperBowl half-time! |
| 11:12 am | So ...  I'm very frustrated that my new hard drive isn't here yet. I had really anticipated it showing up on Thursday and my being able to get it installed and the "restore" thing done by now. I was very pissed when I checked the package room yesterday and realized that if it wasn't there yet, the EARLIEST it would be here would be Tuesday. I'm just hoping that there won't be any "glitches" with at least getting the computer up and running with an HD and OS operating as soon as that drive's available. I can cut some slack on really "restoring" it with trying to pull in what's on the "save" on the external HD ... I'm hoping that the software that came with the drive will be good about that that and it will just be a couple of clicks and then a few hours of data transfer.Had another piss-poor week on The Job Stalker last week, but did end up with a long list of links to share which are on the other end of the clicky-clicky on that image there ===> I have an interview ready to roll to go with the review I put up here a couple of days back ... I'm always bummed when I don't get any response to those ... especially when I was brilliant (I thought the "Goofus & Gallant" comparison absolutely nailed the book!). Now, I thought I'd updated you all on my recent networking activities, but I see that was part of Friday's Job Stalker post. Had an interesting mix last week, including a get-together with a lot of the Tribune staff that was very interesting, and hopefully useful. Do give that a click and check that out, OK? This is our "taking down the Xmas tree" weekend. We have become very regimented on the Winter Holidays due to the birthdays of The Girls. Daughter #1's b-day is right after Thanksgiving (actually, her due date was Thanksgiving, but she seemed to want to hang out and have some turkey before coming), so no Xmas stuff goes up in the house until we have fully celebrated her birthday. Daughter #2's birthday is right before Valentine's day, so we need to have all of Xmas down before it comes around to her b-day, and can't do any VD decor until we get past it (which sometimes means no real effort for VD since it's just a couple of days later). So, mid-January is the ideal "pack up Xmas" time, and the Divisional Playoff weekend in the NFL gives me four 3-hour "distractions" which I can have running in the background while we pack everything up, so this has become the defacto weekend for it. Unfortunately, it looks like it's all falling to me this year, as The Girls were out most of the afternoon yesterday and are going to be out again today. |
| Saturday, January 16th, 2010 | |
| 12:28 am | O.K. ...  For somebody who, until just recently, never read any "business" books, I find myself in an odd situation of being on the receiving end of numerous offers to get review copies of various job search and career management titles, due, no doubt, to my recent penning of The Job Stalker blog on the Chicago Tribune's "Chicago Now" blogging site, and my more recent inclusion of book reviews and author interviews there. The current book, Jason Seiden's How to Self-Destruct: Making the Least of What's Left of Your Career came to me through an unusually convoluted route, not being something that I bought, or got from Library Thing's "Early Reviewer" program, or even had come from the author (@seiden on Twitter), but came from another Twitter user, Melissa Cooley of The Job Quest blog (@TheJobQuest) who had obtained a number of his books and was doing a give-away of them on her blog.Needless to say, How to Self-Destruct is not your average career-management book. Nominally targeted to those who would want to have the least amount of career success, it speaks to the voice of counter-intention within us all, and (one supposes) uses this in a "reverse psychology" subterfuge to shake up the reader on a rather reflexive level. The book has 14 main chapters broken into four general sections: Taking Down Your Career, Kicking Your Career When It's Down, Laying Waste to Your Personal Environment, and Mastering the Self-Destruction Process. Each chapter is in two parts, the main part, and pages with a red tint called "Surefire Masochistic Alternatives" for whatever style of "success seeker" is the flip side of the main chapter's focus (i.e., "for Rookie Success Seekers" in the "Falling Down On You First Job" chapter). Frankly, I felt the book worked best in the first half, as the chapters pretty much follow along a typical career path there, and the back-and-forth between "nightmare advice" and the far more hard-nosed suggestions in the "masochistic alternatives" are in very clear parallel ... almost like a career-guide version of the old Goofus & Gallant morality plays in Highlights for Children. The second half of the book is more general "lifestyle", uh, advice, and gets a bit hazier in its good/bad mirroring, and thereby feels less effective than the parts which are essentially showing Goofus doing the wrong things for a successful career, then showing hard-working, considerate Gallant doing all the right things. Also, both sides of the "lifestyle" equation come across as a bit "naggy", lacking the "case by case" presentation of the work scenarios, and having a very "judgmental" feel (oddly in both the approaches) which serves to just make the reading uncomfortable, as opposed to ironic or instructive. While, obviously, the book should be asked to stand or fall on its own merits, it is helped by a wander through Seiden's web site which repeatedly asks the reader to "dare to fail spectacularly". Within the context of Seiden's other material, the "fade away" of How to Self-Destruct is less dramatic, as the book sort of blends towards other things that Seiden "is on about", but it would certainly be a far stronger work had it maintained the mirroring of the early chapters. His site is, however, a rather rich source of similar material, so if the book speaks to you (my wife snagged this while I was reading it and was a good deal more enthusiastic about it than I have been), there's a lot more to dig into there. This is currently in print, so you should be able to get it at your local brick-and-mortar book vendor, but Amazon has it at a discount, and if you combine it with some other stuff to get up to the free-shipping promised land, you'll do better than even going with the used guys. Again, this is a "whole different approach" to a career book, and it could certainly be seen to be pushing past the bounds of "ironic" into the realm of "sarcastic", but if you're in the mood for something along those lines (some time spent on Seiden's site should give you a "feel" for this), do go get yourself a copy. |