blahgKarma

Random musings, observations, squeaks, whimpers and perhaps the ocassional rant. About what, I'm not sure.

Sunday, February 27, 2005

Testing BlogJet

Harry picked up on my not-so-subtle Blogger frustration and recommended BlogJet – a desktop blog client.  Admittedly, I’ve done zero research, but I’ve learned that even a mention from Harry makes software worth checking out, so I am.

I’m hoping this will help me address Blogger’s voracious appetite for eating posts, but I’m also expecting it will greatly improve my posting workflow… Hello still craps out in its current version on my machine (its a known problem, but I don’t see a known solution).  Manually FTP’ing pics one place and then manually having to refer to them in Blogger is a pain, so if BlogJet helps there, too, all the cooler.

The company has free 30–day demo available at http://blogjet.com.  I’m not sure the software will be worth $40, but I’m giving it a whirl to find out.

Magic Carpet Ride on an F-18



Cool media of the day - video of a Navy pilot flying an F-18 Hornet, all filmed in the cockpit, takeoff to landing - courtesy of David at Ripples and grouchymedia.com. You gotta see this...

Things I Love About Blogger... NOT!

Blogger has had a downright annoying tendency to suck witty posts-in-progress off my screen and into the bit bucket lately. Just wrote a great one (hey, they're all great, aren't they!), went to post it, got a nonspecific posting error and *poof*. Gone, just like that. Second time today. You'd think I'd learn.

I suppose I could devise a system of editing posts (in or out of Blogger), saving them locally and THEN posting them, but that would, well... suck. So, I think the search for a new blog host or tool is on. I have a variety of web hosting accounts I can easily implement (something); I've just found it so easy to pop into Blogger - no maintenance, no upgrades, etc.

Unfortunately, today, I'm getting exactly what I'm paying for the service.

Avoiding Work...

I've spent this dreary, rain-filled Sunday morning reading the local papers (analog style, although I do enjoy them electronically here and here, e-mailing, surfing and blogging, as opposed to editing someone else's PowerPoint deck which I a) I don't want to do and b) will be a pain 'cause I hate the deck (good ideas; bad presentation).

Since I have to present it on Tuesday, I'd better get to it, but a few more thoughts before I go...

Always Posting Cool Stuff

If you're not reading the Josh Rubin Cool Hunting blog, you should be. The tagline is "Stuff from the intersection of design, culture and technology". And its truly that - an eclectic mix of all kinds of stuff. Categories include:

  • Art
  • Design
  • Devices
  • Food
  • Future
  • Mobility
  • Music
  • Sneakers
  • T-Shirts
  • Travel
I enjoy the Design, Devices, Food and Travel postings the most; I tend not to get the T-Shirt and music posts. No surprise there, I guess. I haven't been able to find separate feeds for the categories, but I'm looking. Josh - Rubin or Spear (there are two) - if you're reading this, that's a feature request).

Saturday, February 26, 2005

Tanya is Famous!

Tanya, a co-worker of Harry and Norman, is famous! Tom Peters wrote about Wabi-Sabi on his blog a few days ago. You can check it out here... Wabi-Sabi is Tanya's Blog!

OK - time for a little honesty. Tom didn't REALLY write about Tanya's blog (which is OK - Tanya's not writing much about Tanya's blog - get with it sister!), but her blog is called Wabi-Sabi. He was writing about the concept, which in Tanya's words is "the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is the beauty of things modest and humble. It is the beauty of things unconventional. "

Well said. Hope to read more, Tanya.

Countdown to Roofdom - Not Soon Enough...

Probably not a big deal for those of you with roofs, but I still don't really have one. The Army Corps. of Engineers blue tarp roof is tattered in a few places - thankfully all over the garage, where I guess it doesn't matter much if the damned drywall ceiling gets ruined a bit more.

I should start a Countdown to Roofdom website, where folks like me can publish the date they think the roofer will actually come and do the job. Maybe even start a little pool/lottery of some sort based on roofing dates. I've been looking for an online business - maybe hosting Sharepoint ISN'T the right idea...

UPDATE: this post lost something in the translation when I changed its original title to the pithy "Countdown to Roofdom". Would this have sounded a little less like random roof-ranting if I'd kept the original - "Its Raining Like a Sonofabitch"? Probably.

Moss Grows on blahgRolling Stone...

Damn, I'm monitoring over 100 RSS feeds now thanks to NewsGator - I'll bet some of you monitor hundreds or even thousands. Great source of info, but I'd better start organizing them into categories or I'll never get them all read as the number continues to grow.

I see my blahgRoll needs serious attention, too. The Blogrolling service is working great, and thank dog its idiot-proof (that's not just a marketing claim - I've actually proven it) - I'm just too fickle to pick what I want to list there, and too lazy to change it. If you want to be listed, post a comment - no one's tried shameless self-promotion for that yet (grin).

Some Folks Just Get It...

Here's a brief e-mail exchange with someone I've never met, and had no idea existed before today. Extends my comments below on evangelism and getting a kick out of offering ideas and seeing them implemented in the real world:

Hi Michael,

I'm enjoying reading your blog – I picked up the Guy Kawasaki reference (I'm bugging him to start a blog). I was going to make a mention to that effect on your blog, but noticed you're not using Trackback. With the "internet marketing" comment in your site description, I'm surprised – Trackback is a great (free) way to generate additional traffic for your website.

I use Blogger for my site, too, and Haloscan provides a free service you can implement in about 5 minutes to do comments and Trackback. I'm not affiliated with either company – just trying to get more blog owners to implement some Trackback system so its easy to have web
conversations that span blogs.

If you'd like more info, either on how to implement or the concept, feel free to reply. I have nothing to sell to you, and nothing to gain from the conversation.

Regards,



Chris


Chris,

Thanks for your email. I have put in the Trackback system now.

Thanks for the tip your blog also looks very interesting. I am also amazed by the "power of the internet" how just one link somewhere can boost your traffic.

Thanks,

Michael


Some folks just get it - they look at an idea, and just fricking do it. A fancy term might be "A Bias Toward Action" (Covey). This exchange start to finish was one suggestion, one implementation - 4 hours elapsed. Amazing, especially considering the conversation spanned the globe!

More on Trackback some other time, but between now and then, the blog referred to here is "Retire Young and Wealthy" (don't worry - its one person's observations, not some cheesy Internet get-rich-quick site), and its written by an Australian living in Japan. Stop by and tell Michael I sent you...

Rejection American Style

Funny post from John S. at peregrine.blog:

DETROIT - Detroit is a chilly town — in more ways than one.

The Motor City produces the most calls to the Rejection Hotline, a free telephone service that allows uninterested objects of affection to blow off come-ons.

It works like this: You're asked for your telephone number by someone in which you have no interest. You might sound receptive by responding, "248-262-6861."

When that number is dialed, this is what they get: "The person who gave you this number did not want you to have their real number. Maybe the idea of going out with you just seems as appealing as playing leapfrog with unicorns . ... Do your best to forget about the person who gave you this number because, trust us, they've already forgotten about you."

The Detroit line has logged more than 1.2 million calls since it was launched last year, making it the most dialed of the 29 hotlines.

What a great idea! Wish I'd thought of it...

I wonder if there's one that answers "Your product or service sounds looks like it/sounds like it/actually sucks pond water, so you got this rejection service instead of the poor guy/girl you're trying to bother about it". I could certainly sell a service like that to CIOs... or, come to think of it, I have gotten a few telemarketing calls lately...

Off the RSS Radar...

Once in a while I'll realize a blog I'm used to reading isn't showing up in Outlook anymore. It doesn't seem to be a NewsGator problem - maybe something changes in the way content is fed, or more likely changes in feed URLs (HINT: if you're a blog owner changing feeds and you'd like us to keep reading, PLEASE post on the change BEFORE changing the feed!)

One blog I was really enjoying a month or so ago was re:invention, by Kirsten Osolind. Realized I hadn't seen anything lately, looked for the folder (it was gone) surfed on over and sure enough - lots of great new stuff. One recent post I liked is on women entrepreneurs doing business with giants (I didn't agree with the suggestion that national PR placement is necessary/effective, but hey - I don't have to!), and another I responded to on Conversation Capital, which was very, very interesting.

I read Kirsten's stuff for two reasons - one, I'd like to better understand the world of business and entrepreneurship from a woman's perspective. If I'm going to mentor/consult for early-stage companies, better knowing key issues for women entrepreneurs will be helpful, although I don't expect to focus in this area. Second, much of what I've read, while packaged and targeted to Kirsten's primary audience, is great advice widely applicable to most businesses.

Changing the World, One Visionary at a Time...



The power of the web never ceases to amaze me. I know how trite that sounds, but its true. Check this out...

About a week ago, I posted feedback to Tom Peters' website suggesting Tom and his marketing machine publish some of his stuff in Manifesto format at ChangeThis. So imagine my surprise when I found this post from Tom's "Dispatches from the New World of Work" in my NewsGator inbox:

ChangeThis Spreads the Word
Tom's word, in this case. When we posted pdf files of Tom's success tips here, a reader urged us to develop more viral distribution of Tom's ideas. Our first step in taking that advice was to turn to
ChangeThis, a source of "thoughtful, rational, constructive arguments about important issues." They've added the first half of Tom's 100 Ways to Succeed to the manifestos at their site, where users are encouraged to email, blog or otherwise share what's there. It's all thought-provoking and it's all free. You can subscribe to their newsletter for a heads-up on new manifestos every two weeks (or so). Check it out.

How cool is that? (Tom, if I'm not the ONLY one who suggested this, I'm sorry to take credit for it. Its a cruel world, but not so cruel that I should steal a couple of seconds of someone else's fame, so if that's what I'm doing, let me know and I'll retract.)



Tom Peters isn't the only visionary I'm offering (unsolicited) advice to these days. I've had a brief running e-mail dialog with Guy Kawasaki where I've been trying to guilt him into writing a blog. I think I'm almost there, but he doesn't think he has time (c'mon, Guy - no performance pressure, just write some shit down, or even better podcast or audioblog it).

Guy spends a lot of time and effort on e-mail, as I can attest from his quick replies. So, if you agree he should get off his butt and Start something Revolutionary like a blog, send him some feedback (be nice or he'll kick my ass, and none of us wants that!).

Guy, I promise it won't be much effort - especially if you do the Team Blog thing - and you can do it from the comfort of your own Garage if you want to.

Revealing Oneself Online...

I have to admit my previous post on Tom Peters and Guy Kawasaki reveals at least four aspects of my personality:

  • I am a wealth of ideas (notice I didn't say "good ideas" - ohers will surely comment on that!). An arrogant wealth of ideas, but a wealth of ideas nonetheless (grin).
  • I'm not shy and don't expect I ever will be when it comes to evangelizing good products, services or ideas.
  • I constantly see synergies and opportunity and shamelessly promote them, whether they benefit me or not.
  • I get a kick out of seeing ideas - mine or someone else's - flourish in the real world.

Its nice when you don't get the door slammed in your face - whether an idea is well received or not - and nicer when ideas are considered. When asked how he learned or came up with good ideas, Einstein once said "I like to polish my mind off the bright minds of others". I've been really fortunate to have been able to do a lot of this, personally and professionally, and I think offering ideas and taking the risk of ridicule or rejection helps do that. But lets be realistic - I mean, what advice to I really have to offer to Tom Peters or Guy Kawasaki or any other luminary/visionary?

Guess we'll have to see if Guy starts that blog...

Friday, February 25, 2005

WOW! 3 Boys Productions Goes Mainstream...



For the past several weeks, Pat has been cramming to finish his new Indie movie, Milk Maids (a short horror flick), for an exclusive almost-done showing tonight in Orlando. Actually we've both been cramming - I'm Pat's computer guy so that means we've been editing our collective ass off on Final Cut Pro. The movie's coming along, but I'm sorry to report that despite the numerous late-night edit-fests, we still have way too much ass left for my liking.

OK - enough of that. Little did I know this morning, as I browsed around my inbox full of traditional media stuff delivered electronically, I'd see a reference in the Orlando Sentinel's "Orlando City Beat" e-zine.


MegaCon's Indy Film Expo - 3 Boys Productions and their new comic anthology "Students of the Unusual" are proud to host MegaCon's Indy Film Expo. Independent films, animation and cutting edge horror! Guest actors, distributors, filmmakers and great films that you might not see anywhere else. $5 donation to benefit ACTOR. 5:10 - 7:10 p.m., Room 224 D & H

Damn! Mainstream media attention for a couple of guys doing Indie films, and hosting a mini-indie film fest at MegaCon - a massive comics convention in Orlando (Terry got the gig and is hosting it - these guys get into some interesting stuff. Great teamwork!). The MegaCon Indie Film Fest is profiled here, and starts at 5:00 pm. Be there.

And chill out, Pat. Remember - out of the thousands of folks who say "I think I'd like to make a movie", you're one of the guys that did. More than once.

If you see Pat and Terry there, tell them I can't wait to hear how the screening goes!

Thursday, February 24, 2005

3 Boys Update

This just in from Orlando... the Indie Film Fest at Megacon went really well! Several films were shown to an audience of maybe 100. Best of all, the audience laughed in all the right places in Milk Maids. The movie is intended to be schlocky, so if the humor didn't play, the movie wouldn't play well...

Pat said he couldn't stand to be in the room when the movie started, but by the time the shower scene started (sorry for the little spoiler) he had snuck back in. Its a nail-biting experience seeing your own film in front of audiences - I understand why some filmmakers won't don't do it.

I wish I could have been there, but I'm kind of shy and wouldn't have enjoyed having 100 people to talk to about the film (grin). Actually, I would have loved to have been there, and would have been especially anxious to get a couple of quotable sound bites from the MegaCon producers about the Indie Film Fest and/or the film, but hey - you can't be everywhere, now can you?

Way to go Pat. Sláinte, and have a cold one for me!

Technology Lust is a Many-Splendored Thing


Me like. Must have.

In Orlando this week, Canon announced the new Rebel XT digital SLR. 8 Megapixels. Coming to stores near you in March. For a grand.

Mommy

If this thing even feels halfways good in the hand, as opposed to the cheap plastic feel some of the dSLRs have, I'm buying one of these. I have a Canon D30 which has worked great, but I'm starting to need bigger prints, and 3 megapixel won't cut it for that.

This stuff keeps getting better and cheaper. Way to go, Canon.

Friday, February 18, 2005

Smart Blogging Babe Says Start Pissin'em Off



I guess I'm in a pissed off (grin) and pissing-them-off mood tonight, and then I come across a cool post on similar subject at the Small Business Branding blog. I'm not one of the Top Ten Smartest Blogging Babes (lucky for everyone I don't even aspire to this), but in reading the post, I see a parallel between the writer's thoughts and some of mine on business. Here's the most pertinent part:

"Creating passionate users is NOT about finding ways to make everyone like you. It's about finding ways to use your own passion to inspire passion in others, and anything with that much power is bound to piss off plenty of status-quo/who-moved-my-cheese people. Bring it on."

True. Not just in finding relation to creating users, but I think this is a business maxim.

Some would argue I like this idea too much. Whats much more true is a belief in the following equation:

In any business, [love for status-quo] = [death((slow) or (quick)) and painful)]

I don't believe in Change for change's sake. I do believe strongly in a bias toward action - something friends in various places in Washington State helped me understand a few years ago (thanks Paul).

I recently had a conversation with an associate about the difference between a culture of loving the status quo, and a culture of continuous improvement. These two cultures in an organization are largely mutually-exclusive; you can't live in both. While I'm not an advocate of polarization for its own sake, either, I do believe in what a friend calls the rule of thirds:

"At any given time at [insert organization name here], one third of the folks are going to love you and your ideas. One third will hate you and/or your ideas. One third will be on the fence, so convince them".

I love this, and whether its just coincidence or some largely unknown physical law, I've seen the numbers play out plenty close in the last year. Some folks are always in the "hate you/hate your ideas" third, and I don't know that that will change. Maybe its a case of not having the right people on the bus - or just human nature; I don't know which.

Came across the reference thanks to Halley... sure wish she used Trackback; so easy to implement, and so handy. Halley - I'll help you with it if you'd like.

Blogging or Flogging?

This is funny...

The Blogger spell-checker doesn't recognize the word Blogging, suggesting the properly spelled word Flogging as the replacement.

Wonder if that's global, or just in blahgKarma...

Better Pissed-Off than...



Alright. Enough is enough. Tonight, I've reached my breaking point. I'm downright pissed-off at Harvard at the moment. Specifically Harvard Business Online. These folks gall me... what nerve! Here's the deal:

  • I signed up for a mailing list of interesting HBS stuff (luckily there were only 31 electronic alerts I could choose from).
  • The e-mail me on a regular basis as a result.
  • The stuff they e-mail me is so damned targeted, I wind up buying.
  • OFTEN.
  • A LOT!


I swear, I'm going to send a letter. Here it is; tell me what you think:

Dear Harvard,

Lets make a deal. E-mail me some crap that I'm not going to want to read or listen to or pass on or apply, so I don't impulse buy everything you tell me about. I hate to feel like a mindless gnome, being twisted in the wind by your only-too-effective marketing behemoth. I know, I know... I asked for it, and I give you great feedback on your stuff and how you tell me about it, but jeez...

Sincerely,

Chris


See what I mean. You'd be pissed off too... right? I mean, first, these folks really know what I like (just like Amazon). Second, they communicate with me on a pathway I chose (like Amazon). Third, their stuff is mindlessly-simple to order (like Amazon). Fourth, they have great customer service (I've never had to use Amazon's, but I'll bet its great). Hey... are these folks AMAZON?

Oh, and don't forget that I can download PDF reprints of a gazillion articles and other publications for around $4 - $6 a piece. And, that they keep copies of them in a little electronic library for me, so when I lose the downloaded PDF I can just hop back on and download it again.

Damn these people!

Thanks again, Harvard, for taking my hard earned money (or, my company's money). You should be ashamed of yourself.

Monday, February 14, 2005

Groovin' on CafePress...



A couple of years ago, Harry turned me on to a little tool/service/website a bunch of teams inside Microsoft were using to do project tchotchkes. The service is called CafePress, and although I've only dabbled with it before, I'm preparing to unveil a whole slew of web-available products supporting one of my projects.

CafePress is awesome. Its basically a totally outsourced company store, in my case. For free, you can:

a) set up an online storefront (in less than 5 minutes, and with no technical expertise),
b) identify products I want to sell, c) personalize those products (in less than a minute, and with no technical expertise) and
d) instantly have those products ready for sale and delivery.

If that's not enough, here are some REALLY cool things about CafePress:

  • A basic store is FREE.
  • Buyers get a very rich browsing/buying experience (that I didn't have to program or pay for)
  • CafePress handles all ordering and credit card clearing details - you don't have to know how they do it, or lift a finger to make it work.
  • Products are manufactured just-in-time, in the quantity the customer orders. Nobody inventories anything.
  • CafePress happily packages the products and ships them to the buyer.

Damn. The only thing that could make this better would be something wacky like an unconditional 30-day money-back guarantee.

Oh. CafePress provides this too.

Rolling My Own...



I guess instead of just pissing and moaning about not being able to post images to blahgKarma without Hello, I could look at what Hello is actually doing and figure out its just posting a photo to a directory somewhere and then building a little code to display it and then DO THE SAME THING MY OWN LAZY-SELF.

Duh.

Goodbye Hello...

I use Hello to post pics to my blog here on Blogger, which seems kind of ass backwards, as in "why isn't there just a feature integral to Blogger to let me do this?". Takes a few steps, induces the aggravation of having a picture I'd like to include in a post BECOME a post, and then I either need to edit it or copy the resulting HTML out of the post and paste it into the real one... you get the picture. Not smooth.

What's REALLY not smooth is having a cool little graphic to put up for a post and then finding out Hello has completely crapped out. As in won't run. Like the error message "please reinstall". Bummer.

I found a support thread here that says this is a new yet known problem, and a new build will be forthcoming. Wierd that it just stopped working, although I think I do remember a Windows Update or two yesterday.

Can't be too burned up. Its free, after all. Guess my witty little pics will have to wait, for now. Tonight its worth what I paid for it...

Saturday, February 12, 2005

Make: Blog...



New blog at O'Reilly called "Make:" Seems to be about monkeying around with your technology, making technology, screwing up technology... all fo the above. Saw it in a post over at the eyeBeam reBlog. Here's how they described it:

Make is a mook (hybrid magazine/book) and a website for do-it-youself gadgety hacking published by O'Reilly. The team is my favorite do-it-yourself hacker Philip Torrone, Mark Frauenfelder of Boing Boing and Dale Dougherty from O'Reilly. Phillip tells me there will be a lot of audio and video coming, but it looks great already.

Check it out.

Friday, February 11, 2005

It Hurts to be Right...

Sometimes its great to be right, and sometimes it hurts. In this case, I'm talking about an evolution in the software world that my former company played a part in - had world-leading software for, in fact - but we're not in the business any more. We sold.

My partners developed an awesome electronic forms platform for capturing and moving information around the business, and after I joined we began maturing the company. Here's what Tom Peters had to say about our former market space this week:

Spoke to Hummingbird's customers in Miami yesterday. Gawd, I love ... LOVE ... the "IS/IT Revolution." Hummingbird is a leader in IECM ... duh ... Integrated Enterprise Content Management. It's not quite Siebel, or Oracle. Or SAS. Or IBM. It's just ... whatever. Software that helps us suck good shit from other software and figure stuff out. (Right?) The point is that it's where the world's heading!

When I look at other software companies, we had so much going for us:

  • We were profitable (at least we became profitable while I was there - this wasn't historically true).
  • We grew the business from 25 to 100 people while I was there.
  • We'd been in business for a long time.
  • We offered excellent customer service.
  • Some of the world's smartest and largest companies did enterprise deals with us.
  • We figured out how to sell millions of dollars of our stuff in one whack.
So what went wrong (if you can call cashing out wrong)? I've written a little about this before, but simply put, growing the company to the next step involved decisions that were too painful for some of us. And since we had varying degrees of investment in the business, we had differing risk associated with ripening the fruit. VC's see this all the time - I didn't think it would happen to us. We had big value to players like Hummingbird, but we sold our fruit unripe in my opinion.

When Tom Peters writes stuff like this, and then you have Bill Gates and Steve Sinofsky validating the same market space by indicating electronic forms (in their case InfoPath) are the flypaper that corporate info sticks to, you've got a game. Its a shame that vision didn't better translate better with my partners, that our Microsoft partnership didn't develop more quickly, and that we didn't keep it all together long enough to avoid selling short. I'm not innocent - my style and choices played a part in the outcome, for sure. 20/20 hindsight.

Pity. I'd be still be fishing in Costa Rica right now if we had.

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Lead, Follow or...


Enough said for now...

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Looking for a Good Job?


Great Head...

Not one, not two, but three excellent posts on landing a job/the hiring process on Seth Godin's most excellent blog. Here's a blurb:

"I've been thinking about the job-finding/person-finding paradox a lot lately, and it seems completely broken to me.

The traditional way to get a job is to send a boring resume in response to as many posted jobs as you can afford. Your resume will be scanned, culled and if it doesn't stand out too much, a person might look at it.

Then you go for a job interview and try to be coglike in your malleability and desire to fit in. If random acts are working in your favor, you get the job."

My god, do people and organizations still do this? I guess they must. What a crappy process.

What I really mean to say is that may in many ways be the highest effort for lowest probably reward. In today's world, some of the most talented folks have the hardest time finding great jobs because they don't fit the mold. This is at the same time that businesses, in press if not in practice, seem to be clamoring for people who DON'T/WON'T fit the mold.

By chance I downloaded an article from the current Harvard Management Update entitled"The High Stakes of Hiring Today" (its costs $6, but if you post a comment here I can probably at least summarize it for you without Harvard suing me). The article talks about a shift in how companies identify talent (a subordinate may be better able to recognize talent in a person to place for a position than the manager was one interesting observation), attract the interesting hires and apply them. More importantly, and exactly what happened with me and my current job, is the notion that companies are increasingly hiring for talent and attitude and teaching technical skills, since you can't very effectively teach attitude or aptitude.

I'm the kind of person Seth talks about - a Purple Cow. It would be hard for me to just float a resume and find a "great" job, I think - at least not one that matches my business experience, drive and problem-solving skillset at a high enough level in a small company to make the biggest difference/provide greatest payoff.

I'm lucky in that I haven't had to look for a job for - what, maybe 15 years now? I worked in Public Safety for a number of years, left to go work for someone that essentially hired me away, built his business, started my own business, merged with another company, built some alliances, sold the business... and then essentially created my own job. None of this could have been accomplished in the "traditional" hiring manner.

If you're a Purple Cow and you're looking for a good job, here's my advice...

1) Know what you're great at, and be able to prove you're great at it.

2) Be creative in identifying what role(s) you might be able to perform for what organization(s).

3) Be assertive, and don't give up. Who gives a steaming pile of crap if they
don't know you yet or know they need you, because you're going to

4) NETWORK YOUR ASS OFF TO GET INTRODUCED TO THEM.
Unabashedly. Like a son-of-a-bitch with your hair on fire and its spreading fast.

Good companies always (eventually) need good people. Purple Cows finding good jobs with resumes - they find them through personal connections. If you don't have them today, start making them.

Screw the mold. Conforming is highly overrated.

Greetings from Punxsutawney Phil...


The camera loves me!

Its official... six more weeks of winter.

Whether you think he's the man or a rat bastard, you have to admit that Punxsutawney Phil is one media-savvy groundhog. Do you see a bunch of other furry little groundhogs starring in movies getting international media coverage or forecasting weather as far away as Japan? (OK, maybe just one, but he's an impostor).

I didn't think so.

The brand that is Phil is strong. Whether you like him or not, he's a media force to be reckoned with. Mock him not.

More escape:route and Technorati...


Courtesy Henry Dawson and escape:route

I set up a Technorati Watch List for "escape travel album" (you can subscribe to it here) and have been watching it to see how this cool site is catching on. Had an interesting dialog with Henry Dawson, the artist, too. Very interesting guy.

Ran into a little trouble doing a watchlist as "escape:route" - the results via Watchlist aren't specific to that exact string, and a direct search returns no hits. Hmmm... Maybe Dave Sifry will help me with that... I'm sure its just another stupid human trick.

Technorati is awesome - while I'm sleeping, its looking for stuff in the blogosphere that I'm interested in. I opened Outlook today (I watch RSS feeds with NewsGator, so I get all my e-mail AND my bloggage in Outlook) and a reference to the site on the Eyebeam reBlog (a blog on Art and Technology) and another on The Bit Cruncher (Luc Geurts' blog from The Netherlands).

I did a less strict search and also found a reference here in Japanese.

Technorati does a good job of putting the most relevant and most recent stuff to the front. I'm still learning the tool, but so far its a great thing.


Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Cautiously Optimistic...



Things are a little better today. My mom-in-law had her emergency surgery, and survived it. This was a major concern both due to her age and the severity of her condition. Now we wait to see what all they found, how serious it was, and how/if she'll recover. We're sure she had Cancer - we're not sure of much else but as test results come back and she recovers from the surgery, things will begin to come a little better into focus.

I'm a little worried that some in our family take crossing this initial hurdle as "whew - she's going to be OK". I'm not going to squash any hope, but deep down I know these stories hardly ever come out with a happy ending. Maybe this one will be the exception.

I hope so.

I wish I could will it so. I would if I could.