Of Life

My baby girl is approaching a year of age. It's been a fascinating experience becoming a parent and priorities change and time scheduling is a delicate and fragile dance but it's totally worth it. Of course the first three months are a blur and you certainly question what the hell you were thinking in that period. After that you either get numb or it gets better, I think it's mostly the latter.

I can't describe how excited I am to get home and see my family after being gone all day. I'm usually up and moving around 5:30 in the morning and do my morning routines (news, breakfast, shower, etc.). I usually leave for work a little after 7 and don't get home until sometime after 6 PM. The mornings are tough for me sometimes because Sadie wakes up a little, usually ready for a morning feeding. I have to fight my urge to pick her up and cuddle her for a morning fix before leaving. She needs to sleep and feed and we're trying to condition her to a routine but it's tough. When I get home I give Carrie a kiss and then it's my time with Sadie. We chase each other around the house, we read, we spin around, we chase the cat (and the cat loves it), and I often give her a bath before Carrie puts her to bed. It's a lot of fun and I wish I could spend more time with her but we usually try to have some father-daughter time on the weekends.

No point to this really, just that kids can change your life, for the better if you let them.

About my last 3 out of 4 Jobs....

I was reading another thing about finding the right fit with a job and it reminded me of something I hadn't thought of in a long time. In 3 of my 4 jobs out of college, I was promoted within 6 months of being hired.

At one, I was hired as a manager of a small group of systems administrators and within a few months I was promoted to a director level with various units of IT reporting to me.

At the position before that I was hired on as a technical trainer and within 5 months I was asked to take a manger role with far greater responsibility.

Before that I was hired on as a technical product specialist and within 3 months i was traveling around the US as the primary liaison between the customers and the engineers and later promoted to the role of Global Training Manager covering several continents.

I'm really not trying to brag here but in all instances I've been brought on to do one thing which I've excelled at to the point that it gained the attention of higher level management and was quickly moved into larger roles with greater responsibility.

OS X Leopard and Screen Sharing

I was at the Corte Madera Apple Store this afternoon getting my laptop's power supply and battery swapped out and someone next to me at the Genius Bar was there trying to figure out why his 'Back to My Mac' remote access wasn't working. While I have not personally used B2MM to connect across the Internet, I have a different solution that I have used for remote desktop connections and other things for a few years now. It is simplified with Leopard because they have included a basic remote desktop utility called Screen Sharing that is the underlying application used to, well, share screens of another Mac. This all assumes both computers are running Mac OS X version 10.5. Here's what I did....

1. Sign up for a free Dynamic DNS account by registering. You will end up with a subdomain name. For the sake of this example, I will call mine wilbur.dyndns.org where 'wilbur' is my subdomain name.
   
2. Download and install the DynDNS Updater software from the Support section to your home computer (one that will be on all the time) and fill it in with your account information after it's installed. Configure it so that it launches whenever the computer is turned on.
3. Change the home computer's IP address to a static one on your subnet. For instance, if your home firewall/router is providing DHCP addresses, leave that setting but choose an IP address that's available for your home computer. For instance, Linksys firewalls by default use the IP addressing schema of 192.168.1.xxx. They by default hand out IP addresses starting with 192.168.1.100 and up. In this instance I would use a lower IP address, such as 192.168.1.50 for the computer to be controlled remotely. Test it and make sure you can still get to the Internet in your browser.
4. On your Mac, go to System Preferences/Security/Firewall and add 'Apple Remote Desktop' under the 'Set access for specific services and applications'. See the picture on this entry for more detail.
5. On your home firewall/router, make sure you open up TCP/UDP ports 3283 and 5900 and have them route connections to the IP address of the computer you want to remotely control (for this example, 192.168.1.50). You will likely need to restart your home firewall/router now.

At this point you should have the appropriate ports opened on your firewall/router, your Mac should have a static (or fixed) IP address, the Mac's firewall should allow Apple Remote Desktop, and you have an account and the DynDNS Updater software running.

Now, on your remote Mac, you can go to your Macintosh HD/System/Library/CoreServices/ and double click on 'Screen Sharing'. In the box at the bottom type in the name of your subdomain that you registered for in step 1 above. In my case, it is wilbur.dyndns.org and click on 'Connect'. If you did everything right, you should be connecting to your remote computer!

Of Music and Media

I'm beginning to feel that we're on the cusp of something new with music. No, the music itself will ebb and flow stylistically as it has before but the means of distribution and awareness of new music will change. It's starting to happen now with Radiohead distributing their latest album for free and asking fans to pay what they think it's worth and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails encouraging new means of distribution. Apple has exposed unheard of artists through its Tuesday weekly free music on iTunes (a friend of mine on average buys an album a month based on hearing new artists this way). There's no denying the popularity of MySpace for music (though I personally don't care for the jumbled appearance).

At the same time we have the RIAA who seems to be looking for more and more ways to protect its interests and continue to maintain its profits. The members are desperately scrambling to find ways to make money now that it's nearly impossible to get away with selling an entire album for the sake of one or two songs that the consumers want. This means to sell a complete album you either have someone who really likes the band, all the songs need to be good, or you sell the entire album at a price that warrants buying the entire album instead of the 2 or 3 songs that someone might normally buy. The RIAA is incredibly aggressive about pursuing those who have illegally obtained or distribute music to the point that their lawsuits are being challenged because of the astronomical amount per pirated song.

So, what does all this mean? I think we're going to find emerging Web 2.0 applications and enhancements to Amazon's MP3 store and iTunes to make it easier to find new artists. There will be better self-promotion. Big artists could recommend upcoming artists for songs they should download at reduced cost or free samples. There's going to be a lot of neat new stuff going on in the next few years. And frankly, it won't break my heart to see the RIAA members have to re-tool to remain profitable and to compete.

Where to Live?

I've had a few places in mind of where I'd prefer to live for a while now. They do have some common threads.

Some of the things that I look for include:

• interesting geography--I like mountains, bodies of water, and trees; I like camping, motorcycling, skiing, kayaking, and bicycling so my ideal locale will permit all of those
• climate--I'm not a particular fan of Hawaii or Florida type of weather, I do like seasonal changes and I actually like some snow; having grown up in Montana I think I have a fundamental appreciation for the change of seasons; if I'm going to be somewhere it doesn't snow I'd really rather that it be mild year-round, such as Marin and Sonoma counties in California
  
• community--I've lived in areas that were bedroom communities that seemed to lack their own sense of identity and while often peaceful, I do prefer a place that can stand on its own and isn't necessarily dependent on the next county's economic prosperity; I prefer a place where people feel like they are active participants and contributors; within this grouping I tend to prefer places with fewer than 150,000 residents
• culture and character--this is a little trickier to characterize but small northeastern towns of 4,000 people can have it, particularly if a local college is a major occupant of the community due to the nature that a college town can bring; part of this is an intellectual curiosity that I enjoy; if the town has some interesting and meaningful history, all the better; I don't require a symphony but a local playhouse or a couple of coffee houses with live acts or the occasional poetry readings take place, I'm pretty happy; a raison d'etre really makes me happy; towns where the local college or university are significant tend to score higher; ethnic diversity is important to this as well
  
• shopping--this is a mixed bag, I'm really not much of a mall crawler or big-box shopper but hopefully I don't have to go much more than an hour to get to those places for the 3 or 4 times a year I might feel the need; most of my shopping is done via the web now, heck, I even have Huggies on a subscription through Amazon delivered to the doorstep! Of course, organic farmers markets and grocers are big with us.

So, with this said, what locales have I identified? This is not a complete list but covers many in the U.S. that hit my radar (in no particular order):

• Missoula, MT
• McCall, ID (though there's not much work outside retail trade)
• Boise, ID
• Pasadena, CA
• Claremont, CA (trees and PhDs)
  
• Camino and Placerville, CA
• Red Hook, NY
• New London, NH
• Portland, ME
• Petaluma, CA
• much of Marin County, CA
• Eugene, OR
• Portland, OR
  
• Medford, OR
• Spokane, WA
  

Of course there are many areas in western Europe that I really like too but job opportunities are limited for a US citizen who doesn't already have work rights in the EU.

So, if you have any other suggestions for places that have the blend that I've described, please let me know!

Coffee Makers....

Minor post here but I just noticed that my response to a story about reducing energy consumption was picked up in another story on ComputerWorld. Too cool!

In sum, we switched to an insulated carafe coffee maker because we discovered that leaving a coffee maker on to keep the coffee in the carafe warm takes about 1,000 watts of electricity. That's nearly as much as a hair dryer or a space heater! Of course, coffee that hasn't been burnt by a 1,000 watt warming plate for an hour tends to taste better too.

On Community

I was talking with my in-laws over the Thanksgiving holiday and the subject turned to that of their neighbors. They referred to 2 or 3 of their neighbors by the nicknames they had come up for them. I thought this sounded curious and I asked them if they knew any of their neighbors by given name and they answered 'no.' They've lived beside and across from the same neighbors for seven years. Interestingly enough none of this surprises me.

It could be my imagination but it seems to me that fewer and fewer people actually know their neighbors. I try to reserve judgement on most things but I really do believe that it's beneficial for everyone to know their neighbors. I'm not saying you need to be best friends with them but I believe it improves the quality of your life if you know who lives next to you and you have a rapport. With my first home I got to know nearly all the neighbors on my street. We would help each other out, share tools, and attend one another's parties for kids, Halloween, etc. When we moved to Reno we immediately got to know our neighbors to our right--they are DINKs who also enjoy camping, motorcycles, bicycling, and home improvement. We looked out for one another, took care of the other's house during vacations, and would have the periodic beer or dinner. We got to know the people across the street and a few others.

I guess I believe that it can be a mutually beneficial thing to know your neighbor. I believe it's better for the neighborhood, the property value, the safety, and general happiness if you know something about the people with whom you live in close proximity. It's nice having a name to associate to the face, and it is even better if you get to be friends. I still consider my neighbor from Placerville to be one of my best friends.

Before leaving my in-laws after Thanksgiving I asked them for a New Year's resolution--get to know 3 of your neighbors. I think this is good for everyone no matter where you are. You'll enjoy the community you help to build. You'll be a part of something.

Confidence – the Ultimate Personal Brand Attribute

Confidence – the Ultimate Personal Brand Attribute
By William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson

Nothing is as attractive as confidence. You know people in your life who just exude confidence, and you see how others are drawn to them. Confidence is powerful. It’s empowering. It’s grounding.

What is confidence?

According to Wikipedia, self-confidence is a term used to describe how secure a person is in his or her own decisions and actions. This faith in one’s abilities may be applied generally or to specific situations or tasks. Self-confidence is an important attribute because the lack of it can cause underperformance.

Although someone can be incorrectly self confident, self-confidence usually involves a realistic assessment of one's own abilities. People with high self-confidence typically have little fear of the unknown, make decisions with conviction, are able to stand up for what they believe in and have the courage to risk embarrassment. Confident people aren’t afraid to speak in front of large groups, put their thinking on paper for others to critique or share new ideas. They have a vision and believe that vision can become reality.

How does confidence relate to personal branding?

Confidence is an attribute of all strong brands. After all, strong brands are not wishy-washy. Confidence derives from an understanding and appreciation of who you are. It comes from being comfortable in your own skin. It’s a celebration of your authentic self, acknowledgment of your innate traits and skills and an ease of knowing you have what you need to achieve success – however you define it.

To achieve a higher level of confidence, we must develop greater clarity of our unique gifts and talents. We must acknowledge how powerful we are when we are maximizing these strengths, and we must feel secure in our ability to persevere.

You will find free exercises here to help gain self-awareness.

Confidence busters and bolsters in the world of work.

When it comes to the world of work, we have many opportunities to bolster or break our self-confidence. While some of us are naturally more confident than others, confidence can be built—especially if we avoid the busters. Focusing on the positives and your long-term goals will help you to stay on track when the “turkeys get you down.”

Confidence Busters

• Working for a company whose values are incongruent with yours
• A manager who doesn’t acknowledge the value of the diversity of talents on his/her team
• The wrong skill fit for the job you have
• People who take credit for your accomplishments
• Being overworked and underpaid
• Negative feedback on your work

Confidence Boosters

• Successfully taking a risk that involves your strengths
• Surrounding yourself with others who are validating and nurturing
• Recognition for a job well done
• Asking for what you want and getting it
• Having your bio, resume, or online portfolio professionally written (you get objective perspective on just how marketable you really are)

Are you confident?

Ask your trusted advisors what they think. You can find out if others describe you as confident by taking the personal brand assessment.

That what you focus on e-x-p-a-n-d-s. Think confident!

William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson are the authors of Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand and partners in Reach, a global leader in personal branding for career-minded executives and professionals. Reach is the platinum sponsor of “A Brand You World” Telesummit – a virtual professional development conference featuring personal branding experts and bestselling authors. Subscribe to the podcast at www.personalbrandingsummit.com.

Is It Time to Toss Your Resume?http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Is It Time to Toss Your Resume?
By Abby Locke

Would you cook a gourmet meal and then serve it on dirty dishes? Probably not. So why would you engage in a new job search using outdated, ineffective resume development strategies?

If you’ve been conducting a targeted job search that is not generating any interviews or getting you the results that you want, it’s time to sit down and evaluate your existing resume.

Let’s take a close look at some of the questions you should ask yourself to avoid the basic mistakes that could hamper your job search.

Is Your Resume Too Short?

Are you one of those die-hard, traditional executives still abiding by the one-page resume rule? There are innovative, one-page career marketing documents like the networking resume and career biography, but your standard executive resume should not be squeezed onto one page.

If you downplay your career progression and end up cutting out critical information just to get it to fit onto one page, you run the risk of appearing extremely under-qualified. Your goal is to keep the resume content succinct, concise, and as brief as possible. But, if your career story is compelling and accomplishment-focused, developing a two-page resume is more than acceptable.

Does Your Resume’s First Page Stand Out?

Generally, you have a max of 30 to 60 seconds to make a great impression on a potential employer. Don’t make the mistake of filling your resume’s first page with heavy detail that does not support your qualifications, experience, and expertise. Information like education, certifications, associations, and volunteer work take up too much valuable real estate on the first page.

Instead, use the first page to strategically draw the reader in with a strong personal branding statement, career highlights, and core competencies.

Does Your Executive Resume Contain Too Much Fluff?

If you have opted to include a summary of executive qualifications, key achievements, or an executive profile at the beginning of your resume, be sure to avoid adding “fluffy”, superfluous statements that don’t add value.

Here are a few common phrases that you should avoid on your resume:

• Great problem solver concerning customer relations, inventory management and cost containment.
• Demonstrates superior leadership through conceptual thinking and strategic planning.
• Articulate communicator with expertise in professional presentations and key professional relationships.

These statements are general, can be used by anyone, and do nothing to differentiate you from your competition.

Try using more powerful statements like these:

• Forward-thinking strategist able to structure contract agreements, financial investments, and joint ventures that increase business growth and minimize financial losses.
• Broad-based expertise with marketing to diverse cultural and ethnic groups in untapped, domestic, and international markets.

Do Your Achievements Stand Out?

Don’t make the reader work hard to determine if you are the right candidate – most recruiters won’t take the time to hunt down your achievements if they’re lost deep in your resume. Your executive resume is a career marketing document that needs to effectively “sell” you to potential employers.

When your career achievements and high-impact accomplishment statements are buried among your daily or overall responsibilities, you can easily be overlooked as a viable candidate.

But, you can draw attention to major career achievements in several ways. Try writing an umbrella statement with quantifiable successes that demonstrate your problem-solving and leadership capabilities. The statements below would appear just before the job description


Developed a healthcare consulting services company from startup to fully operational in just nine months; grew annual revenues from zero to $5 million in first year.

OR

Performance Impact: Introduced innovative process improvement initiatives that automated 45 processes, shrunk operating costs by $500,000, and eliminated 100% of manual, time-consuming tasks.

You can also use hard-hitting, bulleted statements that really stand out. Check out the examples below:

• Delivered $13.5 million savings in general and administrative expenses by conducting extensive review of corporate and field human resources operations.
• Reduced annual HR expenditures 50% by eliminating duplicate costs, creating benefit efficiencies, and reducing employee training costs.
• Decreased staff turnover 20% and boosted employee satisfaction by implementing targeted recruiting, retention and human resources enhancement programs.
• Lowered annual benefit costs for two consecutive years by introducing managed care approach to employee health care plans.

Do You Display Your Personal Brand?

Adding a personal branding statement to your executive resume helps to manage the readers’ expectations right from the beginning. Think about your professional reputation, your unique attributes, and your consistent trend of career accomplishments. Use that information to write a strong, memorable branding statement and include it as part of the title header on your executive resume.

For example, a manufacturing executive may have a branding statement similar to:

SENIOR MANUFACTURER EXECUTIVE

Engaging cutting-edge technologies to advance corporate-wide initiatives, expedite manufacturing processes, and achieve aggressive revenue / cost objectives.

While an Operations executive would emphasize his leadership and management capabilities in a branding statement like the following:

SENIOR OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE
Start-Up, Emerging & High-Growth Companies

The Profit Builder: Systematically improving internal systems, strengthening operational processes and mobilizing vital resources that propel companies into stable, profitable entities.

If a career move is on your list of New Year’s resolutions, take the time now to get your executive resume and career marketing documents in order.

Abby M. Locke, president of Premier Writing Solutions, is a Certified Executive Resume-Writer and Personal Brand Strategist who helps senior-level professionals and C-level executives achieve personal success with customized, branded executive resumes and career marketing documents. Her resume samples have been published in Nail the Resume! Great Tips for Creating Dynamic Resumes and Same-Day Resumes.

On Commuting

After moving back to California I have a 22 mile commute each direction. We could have moved closer to work but we really like Petaluma. If I had a job any further south we would probably move but I consider it an acceptable commute, particularly by motorcycle where I can take back roads (at least when there's daylight after work) and I can split lanes once I get to the traffic congestion. As much as I like the area driving/riding it day after day can get a little boring. I recently wired my motorcycle helmet with thin Chatterbox earphones that I inserted into the space behind my ears in the helmet and have been listening to podcasts on my iPod. I find the podcasts perfect because I can pay attention to the road without big volume changes in the audio and am still able to pay attention to the podcast. Lately I've been going through the Vintage Airstream Podcasts and am really enjoying them. I seldom have the time at home to sit pay attention to a 50 minute podcast so this really works out nicely. Of course when I finish those I'll have to delve back into my Click and Clack, The Tappet Brothers.

Hosted Core Services

I think the next decade will prove to be an interesting time as far as hosted services are concerned. The prices and quality of hosted services are improving for the buyer every couple of months. Microsoft/Hotmail, Yahoo!, and Gmail are all improving their free services and offer some sort of business class hosted solution as well. Of course they have integrated social networking and applications as well. Google is leading the charge to deploy as many features/applications as possible and theirs and Microsoft's offerings are the most elegant. Google's isn't quite as well integrated as Microsoft's but Microsoft lacks the visibility and still feels a little too restrictive by comparison (log in at least once every 90 days or lose it).

Of course one of the most core services is e-mail. This has rapidly become the file server for employees and personal users of mail. So why should someone host their mail (and other services)? Cost is an obvious reason, and accessibility and you don't have to handle the burden of off-site redundancy, etc.

There are a lot of other details and some philosophical/legal questions that need to be considered on any of this as well but there are a couple of different core opinions about it but I think I can predict a reaction and opinion based almost solely on age.

One of the biggest benefits of having your own mail system is that you have instant, live support from internal people, including the ability to restore something you inadvertently deleted. There is also a sense of security that you can go into the server room and physically touch the server(s) that holds you mail. Some people like that sort of thing. Hosting your own mail, and this is a big generalization, tends to be a more popular solution for people who are roughly 35 or older, unless they tend to be more technology aware.

On the other side of the argument, we have people using mail who are now 10 - 35 years old who most probably grew up with a free hosted mail account being their original e-mail. They never had the luxury of having their mail restored and probably tend to be more careful with what they delete. They have a greater awareness and responsibility for their mail management. This group is also of the opinion that mail quotas should be gargantuan. To maintain the types of quotas that the hosted services can is overwhelming for most businesses. My present Gmail quota is 4.8 GB! I'm now uploading all of my old archives into my Gmail account so I can have it in one place. That's cool! Once enough of these people become employees and they bring their expectations to the workplace, it will be too cost-prohibitive to have the quotas to which they're accustomed and they don't expect that level of extra service. It's kind of like the concierge guy/lady in the bathroom that used to be prevalent everywhere and now only remains in stuffy or old-school hotels and restaurants. Frankly, those guys make me uncomfortable.

There will always be a desire or requirement for some companies to keep their mail hosted on-site, but much of this will be driven by the employees and the changing landscape.

We're seeing this as some colleges and universities are beginning to host official student mail. I looked at it quite seriously for the University of Nevada, Reno about a year and a half ago and found that both Gmail and Hotmail had pretty compelling systems for switching. Microsoft's solution would have caused some resistance mostly from the anti-MS faculty on campus but offered pretty good integration with the Active Directory environment but had few options for students to configure their own mail (forwarding, POP/IMAP access, etc.). Gmail didn't have the native AD integration but it did have more options for mail handling and it did have APIs for hooking into the existing directory services.

So, with all that being said, there is potential for small to mid-sized companies using hosted mail soon with existing options (and several are, but not a enough to be very noticeable). Much of the acceptance of a hosted mail offering is generational though. The sub 35 year old workers are more independent in terms of mail and their expectations are different than the average 35+ worker. As we get more of the Generation Y and later workers in the companies and the offerings become more robust, we'll see the shift.

Motorcycle Therapy

The last couple of months have been a whirlwind and most of my free time has been occupied with job searching. I was thinking of going camping this weekend but Carrie didn't much feel like it and she suggested a long motorcycle ride. That sounded like a pretty good idea so I headed out for a good ride on the VFR. I set up a new playlist on the iPod and I was off. I headed out toward Bodega Bay and north on Highway 1 (PCH) up to Mendocino and then back down Highway 128 to Cloverdale and back to Petaluma on 101. I left around noon and didn't eat anything until I got to Cloverdale around 3:30 PM. I guess that's what happens when you're having fun. There are few things like an all-day ride to clear your head. Highway 1 is a spectacular road--one where you want to take in the amazing scenery but also where you want to maximize the ride by hitting all the corners just right. It was mostly foggy on the ride up with the slightly slimy mist that gathers on the visor. It gave me good time to think about the job search and the current options. I can't say that I drew any conclusions but I feel like I have a better sense of the pros and cons of each. For me there are few things more satisfying than a full day's ride on some outstanding roads. Thanks to Carrie for the suggestion and giving me the afternoon to amuse myself!

The Future of Job Seeking

Much is being written about having your own online identity and presence and management of that. I think it makes sense, I certainly Google on every applicant and business partner I deal with. So what about someone considering me as a potential employee and they can find plenty about me online (much of my own contributions/publications as well as a lot of stuff from forums and my time with the University of Nevada) but I can't find anything about them? I suppose it's a personal choice but if someone or a company claims to be embracing new technologies and is interested in me as an applicant because of my enthusiasm and I can't find anything about him/her, should I pursue the position?

This is certainly not bleeding edge thinking but perhaps leading edge. What's the future hold on this?

One fakakta Week!

Well, this has been an interesting work week....

Due to the mortgage credit crunch our business has nosedived and as a result we've laid off several people, including many in information technology, including my staff who maintain phones and the servers that the phone equipment uses, as well as those who were our vendor links including phone service.

Late last week we lost connectivity to one of our remote sites, as a result of AT&T having terminated the wrong network line. As a result we lost phone service with them, building security, and data. It took nearly all of one day to get the line reconnected and then AT&T wanted to bill me back for getting it running. I calmly explained that it was not our fault for the wrong line being cut and they seemed to understand that they shouldn't charge us then.

Thursday of this week one of our guys goes into the server room and it's nearly 90 degrees! Turns out one of our 2 A/C units is blowing ambient air. The technician from the maintenance company comes out and diagnoses a bad compressor. That will be installed Monday but in the mean time we're on one A/C unit and have a series of fans through the room exhausting the hot air.

About noon today we get a call that voice mail isn't working. After trying to diagnose it ourselves and seeing nothing but cryptic errors on the server we break down and call the vendor. Since we've been trying to save money we didn't renew the $87k annual maintenance agreement and we're low on their list of priorities (that company is ExtraTeam). We paid a deposit by credit card and are waiting for them to step up still as I type.

So, the lesson in all this? People in pivotal roles are pivotal. The positive side is that my remaining staff and I are all getting a crash course in much of the infrastructure and how to resolve issues. Good times ;-).

Kobayashi Maru

Kobayashi Maru, I love this phrase, it's the name of a test administered at the Star Trek academy. It refers to a situation where the person being tested is presented with alternatives and there is no right answer. The test is really a measure of character about how we deal with choices and come to conclusions.

By the way, I think most everyone has seen some spin on the motivational posters somewhere or another, but this one is really fun.

When An Executive Resume in Not Enough

When An Executive Resume in Not Enough By Abby M. Locke

While an executive resume will always serve as the primary tool in your job search, increasing competition for top, high-paying jobs requires that you engage in new strategies for job search success.

Developing a portfolio that includes innovative, cutting-edge career marketing documents can really power up your job search and give you the boost that you need. The best approach is to create a series of one or two-page documents that provide the reader with an in-depth look at various aspects of your career progression. Like the executive resume, ROI career marketing documents must be targeted, contain relevant keywords and highlight critical career achievements that position you as the right candidate for the job.

Here are four ROI Career Documents to consider:

1. Career Biography: This is a synopsis of your entire career and education written in a narrative format and works well for networking contacts, speaking engagements, board positions and company websites. With a career biography, you only need to focus on top career achievements and milestones for each company; job responsibilities are generally summarized. When written in strong, active language, the career biography can be just as powerful and informative as the executive resume.

Here are the first two paragraphs from a career biography written for a Senior Consultant. Notice how the first paragraph ends with a summary statement that encapsulates a portion of his career and the consistent value he brings to various companies:

Daniel Allen brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the field of global outsourcing services. For the past six years, he has worked with Fortune 500 companies like Nike and ABN AMRO, where he efficiently met unique organizational and technological constraints to produce significant achievements in cost reduction, service delivery and internal process improvement.

Currently, as one of the Senior Consultants for the Global Advisory Services, Daniel is responsible for leading program management and project planning initiatives for growing companies seeking to secure outsourcing contracts in the global marketplace. He interfaces directly with senior management and C-level executives to strategize and devise effective measures including contract negotiation, agreement structuring, and operational level agreements for long-term ROI maximization.

2. Critical Leadership Initiatives: This one to two-page document is very popular with C-level executives as it allows them to showcase their top leadership and business strengths at work. When writing this ROI career document, make sure that you chose achievements from your entire career that demonstrate strategy planning, organizational leadership, staff development and business acumen - just to name a few. Use this document to show potential employers that you have broad-based expertise. Present each achievement in the Challenge-Action-Results (CAR) format as best as possible.

Here is a sample achievement from a critical leadership initiatives document written for a marketing executive:

Leadership Challenge: Revitalize a poor performing marketing department challenged with lackluster results, service underutilization and declining employee morale - VP of Corporate Marketing, ABC Business Corporation

Introduced company to new "market-driven" philosophy; revised existing marketing, branding and communication strategies; and instituted comprehensive public and community relations programs.

Bottom-line impact: Annual revenues surpassed $200 million goal in just two years and internal utilization of marketing department increased 200%.

3. Industry / Functional Profile: This ROI career document demonstrates and verifies your expertise and strengths in a particular industry or functional area. For example, this document can be focused on technology, marketing, M&A or business development. It is generally one page and gives evidence of specific qualifications and expertise; it’s also highly effective as a leave-behind document after an interview.

Again, using the Challenge-Action-Results format helps to "sell" your story. Here is an achievement used in a technology profile:

Technology Challenge: As VP, Information & Technology Services for ABC Enterprises, revitalize business operations constrained by spiraling technology costs, missed project deadlines and inconsistent team performance.

Actions: Conducted in-depth analysis to identify business "pain" points, assembled top performing individuals to serve on planning team, identified highest revenue-generating products and services and prioritized key business objectives.

Solution & Results: Secured management approval and $50 million to implement the company’s first IT strategy and technology roadmap over a three-year period. Subsequently introduced new processes that propelled double-digit cost reduction throughout the company.

4. Networking Resume: As the holidays approach and business activities slow down, your job search does not need to take a break. Armed with an effective, one-page networking resume, you can still catch the attention of recruiters and key decision makers. The networking resume is essentially a slimmed down version of your executive resume and it gives readers your top career achievements from each position/company. Below is the top portion of a networking resume:

SALES MANAGEMENT & MARKETING EXECUTIVE

Self-directed, motivated sales executive with distinctive track record of success in taking startup, turnaround and high growth companies to new levels. Astute business acumen coupled with solid customer relations and operations expertise ideal for securing new business opportunities, expanding customer base and achieving corporate goals.

Strategic Planning / P&L Management / New Product Launch & Positioning
Sales Initiatives / New Business Development / National & Regional Sales
Business Partners & Alliances / Customer Service & Retention / Marketing Plans

JOB TARGETS
Position Level: Executive Vice President / Senior Vice President / Director
Focus Areas: Sales, Marketing and New Business Development
Industries: Financial Services • High Technology • Manufacturing

Overall, you want to remember that the same amount of detail and effort should go into creating your ROI career documents as you would put into creating an executive resume. If your job search is starting to go in circles and/or you’re competing against the best of the best, try adding one of these ROI career documents to get you ahead of the competition.

Abby M. Locke, president of Premier Writing Solutions, is a Certified Executive Resume-Writer and Personal Brand Strategist who helps senior-level professionals and C-level executives achieve personal success with customized, branded executive resumes and career marketing documents. Her resume samples have been published in Nail the Resume! Great Tips for Creating Dynamic Resumes and Same-Day Resumes.

The Six P's of Online Branding

The Six P's of Online Branding By Kirsten Dixson and William Arruda

We’ve written many articles about how you will be Googled in your job search and how having your own blog or website gives you a great deal of control over your personal brand online.

But what if you’re not ready to have your own site and just want to build an online profile quickly? Or, perhaps you came up as "Digitally Dabbling" in our Career Distinction Online ID Calculator, and you want to increase your volume of relevant online entries? All is not lost! Just use our Six P’s to build your online brand.

Publishing
Write articles or whitepapers, and get them published in online publications that your target audience reads. Your online profile will be even better if these publications are highly ranked in Google, Yahoo or MSN. You can also submit articles to article banks to have them syndicated.

Posting
If you’ve ever purchased a book from Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com, you can post a book review on these websites. It’s key to review books that are relevant to your area of expertise. Off-topic choices may confuse the perception of your online personal brand. Even if you love to cook, don’t review a cookbook if you don’t want to work in the food and beverage industry.

Pontificating
Posting comments on others’ blogs is a powerful way to build your brand - yet it’s probably the most overlooked online branding tool. Dan Schawbel is a marketing executive who has creatively used this technique to increase his visibility. In fact, this tool even garnered him a mention in Fast Company.

You can find relevant blogs on which to comment at Technorati.com or through Google’s blog search. Read a blog for a while before you comment to get a feel for the author’s style and whether you want this particular blog associated with your own brand. Remember, you can’t take back the comment once it’s posted, so ensure that it’s professional, well thought out, and error free.

If you’re hesitant about posting, go with your gut and sleep on it. Be sure to link the comment back to your own blog or website if you have one. You could also link it to your LinkedIn or Ziggs profile if you don’t have your own site.

Participating in online discussion forums also helps you to connect with and become more visible to others who share the same interests, though it’s not necessarily a part of your public online identity that will show up in a search. You can find forums through Google Groups or Yahoo Groups, and some by-invitation forums may be available to you through professional associations. Bernadette Martin, founder of Visibility Branding, says online forums can be a valuable way to formulate ideas and strategies before presenting them to the public on the internet.

Publicizing
Write press releases about your endeavors (solo business project successes, what you learned from attending a professional conference, noteworthy volunteer work, information about an upcoming speaking gig or article, etc.), and post them to free press release distribution sites like www.prleap.com.

You can find more sites like this by Googling "free press release services". If you need the press release to rank highly (maybe you have digital dirt that you are trying to sweep under the virtual rug?), consider purchasing the search engine optimization services available from many of these content distribution sites.

Partnering
One of the most important elements of your brand environment is your professional network. Since your network can extend your brand for you by spreading the word about your unique value, it’s ideal to get others to write about you online. Cultivate relationships with journalists and bloggers. If you’re writing a blog that people read and enjoy, they’ll write about what you are saying and link back to you. It’s that simple!

Also, leverage social networking sites like LinkedIn, Ryze, ecademy and Facebook to connect with your network and keep them updated on your accomplishments. Aim for quality of contacts over quantity, and only add your real colleagues and clients to your online network.

Profiling
Use services like Ziggs, LinkedIn, Naymz, and ZoomInfo to create a basic online profile and increase the volume of Google results for your name. If your professional information already appears online, you are likely to have a profile in Zoominfo.

Since they automatically create your profile and twenty percent of the Fortune 500 use ZoomInfo for recruiting, you’ll want to claim your profile and update it regularly. To get the most out of these sites, post content that is consistent across all of your profiles and that matches your resume.

William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson are the authors of Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand and partners in Reach , a global leader in personal branding for career-minded executives and professionals.

My Vision of Web 3.0

Breaking out my crystal ball I have some visions of what I would like Web 3.0 to be. Before I get into that though I should probably qualify what Web 2.0 is to me....

Web 2.0 has brought about the advent of social networking and instant communications--this includes Facebook, MySpace, major adoption of instant messaging, Digg, Blogs, Wikis, mobile communications (texting, IM, & mail on phones), Podcasts, Photocasts, video chats, Skype, major adoption of digital cameras and the corresponding Flickr & PicasaWeb, online file storage (box.net, etc.), Gmail, Google Apps, and of course, RSS/XML implementation. That's a lot of stuff, and for me, Web 2.0 is about the massive bevy of information, communication, and news that's available at a moment's notice. If you're an enthusiast, it can also become overwhelming. Sometimes I feel more obligated to keep up on my RSS feeds than my e-mail. Strange, but true. I am a sponge for this stuff. I've embraced many of the technologies myself but it's coming to a point where there are several alternatives in each segment and not everyone follows one or the other. I have Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn accounts, as well as some others. I can't keep up on all of them so I pretty much gravitate to one from each category, but even that can be overwhelming. This is where my vision of Web 3.0 comes in.

I believe (or at least I want to believe) will be about transparency. I want all of these wonderful web-delivered applications to integrate at some level and be more intuitive to use (my mom is still struggling with trying to upload photos, and she's one of the braver ones to even try in my family) and talk to each other. I think there are hints of it with Google because Blogger and PicasaWeb are kind of linked (not totally, but a little) and of course you're either in the dark ages or a rebel if you don't have a Gmail account these days. Of course Google also has their Jabber-based IM client too so they're building the suite. Of course, some people are mumbling that Google is becoming the Evil Empire to replace Microsoft but that remains to be seen.

So, there's my prediction, Web 3.0 will be refinement and natural selection of the best of breed of the categories of Web 2.0 applications and it will be transparent and unobtrusive and intuitive. Now, can someone please make it happen SOON??? I might even pay $9.99 per month for it all ;-).

Business Ethics, Part II

While corporate scandals seem to be either more prevalent in recent years or at least more publicized, it still continues to amaze me how these things happen. I do believe a certain culture has to exist within an organization for these things to happen on much more than theft of office supplies.

The Microsoft CIO termination for violating company policies caused me to tilt my head a little. I actually heard a presentation by Stuart Scott earlier this year in Redmond during the Public Sector CIO Summit. His presentation was fine but there was something about him that seemed curious--he seemed to lack the intellectual curiosity or drive that I would hope to expect from someone as the CIO of MS. Nothing rubbed me wrong, just failed to impress.

I also knew a CIO who I actually respected for his thought processes and ability to relate to people. He had a tumultuous home life and some people noted that he seemed to have a particular loyalty to one vendor in particular. I didn't pay much attention to it until later when I heard that the police showed up in the corporate headquarters as he was taken away for embezzlement charges because he was getting kick-backs from that particular vendor. It saddens me because I liked him and respected him professionally. I never held him in hero-status but I was let down to hear that the activity was going on.

With the selection of any employer or business partner, I suggest you make it a point to research the people and company. If you value high moral standards you need to pay attention to things and try to pay attention to the slightest nuances.

Business Ethics, Part I

Last week I attended a panel event on Business Ethics hosted by my alma mater, San Francisco State University Graduate School of Business. It was a 4 person 2 hour event discussing recent events with a lack of business ethics (Arthur Andersen and Enron were mentioned more than once). There were some philosophical discussions about these things snowballing and the general theme seemed to be that the breakdown of ethical breakdown almost invariably happens from the top and trickles down. The matter of absolute power absolutely corrupts was also alluded to. There was some discussion about how a few publicly held companies who are faced with compliance with SOX have chosen to buy back stock and return to being privately held. That subject also moved to HIPAA compliance and how both of these (HIPAA & SOX) are really adoptions of best practices.

In terms of technology, I've dealt with both and I can't say that I fully agree with the statement of best practices, at least not in their entirety. I think particular sections are probably best practices but you will find several contradictions if you take them in their entirety. There are good ideas and as a good HIPAA compliance officer will tell you is that there are specifics for which you should comply but the biggest step is raising awareness of the entire organization. Ensuring that awareness will lead to better thought out procedures and policies. The first step is the biggest and I would encourage any organization to have dedicated personnel to implement this. The personnel should not be of a police-nature but they have to be collaborative with authority and should report to senior management. If you don't have someone trained and well-versed on the subject matter, individuals can very readily throw out 'I have to do it because of SOX/HIPAA' without providing any substance because there isn't anyone to challenge it. I saw the same thing happen frequently in the university with the phrase academic freedom. As soon as you hear someone say that their academic freedom is being compromised, I recommend paying special attention to find real logic.

Blogosphere and the smooth renderings of developers and engineers

One of my favorite things to see online these days is real blogging done by software and hardware developers/engineers. After being in technology long enough you come to appreciate the work that these folks often do and in a way I consider many to be artists, for me, I see parallels with musicians.

The way I see it, a musician can have a general sense and style with which you can relate. You find yourself enjoying particular tracks or an album and eagerly await the next. I often find the same thing with software--some things you eagerly await the next iteration to see what styles and rhythms are incorporated as form and features. For years you've been able to pick up biographies or at the least, liner notes, or Rolling Stone articles to learn more about the creative mind of the artist of choice.

Until recent times, you haven't really been able to see that with developers or engineers. Now, a few of them are exposing themselves via blogs. Cisco is making an attempt (gotta love the Baby Poop entry!) but my hat is off to the MacMojo blogs by the kids at Microsoft's Mac Business Unit. They've written about what their daily lives are like, including home-time, what inspires their designs, and reasons for things being a certain way. It's very approachable and might even cause you to respect their art even more. My second favorite is the Office 2007 (Windows) blog. What it has in common with the MacMojo blog is an honest, approachable, and grateful-for-your-business tone to it. I know many people think of Microsoft as the big evil monster but skimming through some of these blogs really makes you think differently about that. Apple, AT&T, and most other big companies could learn from this example.

Won't anyone build me a good home NAS?

One of the things that has been perplexing me as a technology person is an elegant home-media storage server. I've used many of the popular NAS (network attached storage) devices on the market and while some are certainly better than others, I still haven't come across one that would quite do it for me.

I was really hoping the Windows MediaSmart Server would do it but it is still a little too dumbed down but physically it's great (or at least HPs first iteration is). It holds 4 SATA drives, is quite small, and doesn't use a whole lot of power. It is designed to be your media repository, can host photo albums from photo dumps to a directory, and can be your unified Windows backup server. HP's even has a FireFly server which can host your music files and they're available to client computers on the same network via iTunes. Heck, the thing even looks great.

Unfortunately the MediaSmart OS (based on Windows Server 2003, which is very robust) talks limited protocols (SMB-CIFS) for file sharing, doesn't allow any manual disk configuration, and it requires a fat client to be installed to interface with it that uses ActiveX. In other words, you have to use Windows to manage it. If they would have built it with some open-standards and advanced configurations they could sell a lot more of these things because people are missing the boat on this one. There are plenty of Mac and Linux people out there who are just looking for a good product for doing this and they don't want to deal with the one or 2 hard drive enclosures. They want something that's functional and affordable. By the way, it was recently reviewed on SmallNetBuilder. The best thing I've seen so far for this is the ReadyNAS which has been acquired by Netgear recently but it's very expensive by comparison.

If any of the manufacturers are listening, here's what I want: a small 4 drive SATA enclosure with USB or FireWire expandability, multiple options for disk configuration (RAID0, 1, 5, or simple JBOD with the option to snapshot from one drive to another, multiple file protocols (SMB-CIFS, AFP, and probably most importantly, WebDAV), web access, an iTunes server with UPnP (Firefly?), and if possible, a database server (MySQL is fine). Administration should be available through a web interface and a nice Java-based fat client.

Since the MediaSmart doesn't fit the bill I guess I'll keep adding external hard drives to my Mac Mini. For anyone keeping track, I now have 12 hard drives hanging off my Core Duo 2 GB Mac Mini and 2 Plextor TV tuners. I have a total of 6.5 TB of storage, half of it usable and the other half getting a weekly snapshot of the first 3.25 TB. So far it's still working and I'm amazed it can keep up, though I suspect I'll find the limit soon.

On [Web] Community, Part III

In part II of On [Web] Community I mentioned how publishing old family photos restored communications with my Italian grandmother's side of the family. Well, it didn't stop there. I also posted several of my Smetana family photos to the same web site and received communications from my father's cousins on both his father's and mother's side of the family. As it now turns out, his cousin Paul is putting together a Smetana reunion in Lansford, ND 2009 and I've built a small web site for the event as well. Most of the communication with my dad's side of the family had been lost for over 30 years.

While the re-discovered familial ties was not something I had planned, it was a very fortunate unintended consequence. Once again, the web can build tremendous community.

On [Web] Community, Part II

Earlier I discussed the new type of community that I've begun to notice evolving. Really, it's been coming for years but I remember commenting to a more philosophic friend of mine how when I went for a neighborhood walk I would notice smaller yards, larger houses, and few people working outside or playing. The common thing, if I were walking at twilight or later, was that the iridescent glow of a television or computer monitor was often prevalent inside many homes. Granted, when I first made my observation not a lot of homes had computers so I'm reasonably sure this was the glow from the television. I believe times have changed and more people are getting their entertainment and interaction through their computers.

Instant messaging lets me video chat with my brother in Australia and his wife and newborn son. It lets my mother see my new daughter instantly and now interact with her. I can post photos to my photo site and my friends and family can keep up on activities of ours at their leisure. I'm able to send e-mails to my friends in Europe I made twelve years ago when I traveled there for business for several years.

A particularly neat thing happened last year as a result of the Internet. I have become the family documentarian and have scanned nearly every photo I have along with my parents' old family photos. Some photos date back to the 1910s. I've also made a point of labeling the photos with first and last names and dates where applicable and if possible, places. I posted all of these to my family tree web site early in 2006. Let me give you a bit more perspective now... On both my father's and mother's mother's side of the family there has been relatively little knowledge of the families. My grandmother came to the US after WWII from Italy after having married my grandfather. While she had photos and letters from her family, most of the communications didn't make it past her (not by design, it just kind of happened). As time has gone on and I've taken up an interest in my lineage, I gathered as much information as possible from my mother and my uncle. It just so happened that they seemed to have more information in their heads than they might have realized and I included it in my documentation. That should hopefully give you a better sense of how the information on my mother's mother's side was lost. So, within a couple of months of posting the information on the web site with photos, I received a communique from someone who turns out to be my mother's cousin in Italy! We corresponded and I passed the information along to my mother. It so happens that they had been curious about what had happened to my grandmother's American family. My mother and her brother had also been planning a trip to Europe and after some correspondence with the Italian family they adjusted their trip to take them to Italy to visit and stay with the Italian cousins. It turned out to be a small reunion in Italy and they had a grand visit. This summer my mother's cousin's 18 year old daughter came to the US for 6 weeks and stayed with my mother, my uncle, and my brother. She had a great time and was able to see more of the US than most Europeans do in a lifetime.

So, with that verbose story, I can only emphasize that there is a new community on the web. I still don't believe life should exist solely on the web but it can be used to enhance your life and bring infinitely greater connectivity to family and friends than you might ever hope without it!

On [Web] Community, Part I

,
I've had this conversation a couple of times with technology workers who have kids. The gist of it is this:

They prefer to keep their kids somewhat isolated from technology, from having a computer to cell phones of their own, to instant messaging to FaceBook or MySpace pages. I'll ask them why and the response is that they don't want them to be like all the other kids who seem preoccupied with texting, communicating via MySpace/FaceBook, and IM. They want their kids to go outside and have live, in-person interaction with other kids.

I can see this from their perspective. I grew up in a small western Montana town where we played baseball and football in the back yard in the summer until it got dark. We rode our bikes all over town in small gangs. We played with firecrackers and all kinds of other good things. I really cherish those memories and hope that my kids have those kinds of memories. We had a community of friends and a certain loyalty to one another and our hometown.

Now, it's rare to see a kid over 10 without a cell phone and not able to actively carry on 6 or more IM sessions simultaneously. Childhood obesity is also at all-time highs as well. I'm not blaming the obesity on the pervasiveness technology but many people do.

As I see it a huge cultural shift is underway. Kids have adopted technology, there's no denying it. Some have embraced it with a death-grip even. While most of the kids already know their text and IM friends from real-life interactions, many of us do not know in person our forum-buddies in discussing things from antiques to tweaking an operating system to do what we want to working on vintage Airstream trailers. Either way, there is a new community that has arisen on-line. No, it's not the same as a block-party with your neighbor, but it's more like hanging out on the porch with someone who is as interested and knowledgeable as you might ever hope to meet on your area of interest.

While I don't discourage anyone from going for a hike or camping with their kids, I'd be hesitant to keep the kids too far removed from technology. If they aren't familiar with it and communicating when their friends are, they might be missing out on the new social skills, potential work skills, and most importantly, community. It kind of reminds me of the family we grew up with whose parents didn't have a television and disavowed sugar; they'd come to visit us and we couldn't peel them away from the TV or the cookie jar. Like most things, it's all about balance. I think we need to respect many traditions and pastimes but don't forget to look around the present and the future.

Profiling

In a discussion today the subject of working at a university came up. I think his perception was that it's a slow-paced environment that lags behind private sector.

I can see how this would be a common perception. Things aren't as formal as they are in private sector and quite often things do seem to happen far more slowly. On the other hand, there are some lessons that can be gleaned from higher education. Some of the things I enjoyed the most about it:

• dynamic--there are LOTS of different things going on, subjects are being researched in depth that many people are not even aware but can make a difference in the world
• methodical--so many decisions are made by committees and organizations; yes, things often take time but they are typically well thought out and alternatives are explored; ideally, a balance between snap decisions and thoughtful decisions is ideal
  
• lack of formality--obviously there are pros and cons to both sides of this, one thing I can say is that even though the university at which I worked was not very formal, most people were emphatic about their quality of work
• cerebral--a university is a microcosm full of highly educated and very interesting individuals; just being in a meeting with the faculty can be fascinating
• many technology aspects are very quick to implement and there are many early adopters--at the university at which I worked, most of our IT group and many users were eager to test and implement the latest version of Windows, Office, Exchange, Blackberry devices, Apple's OS, Creative Suite, etc. Of course we had our share of people who were slow to embrace new technology. I was in a meeting this year with one of our managers who said he didn't want to program in something like C#, Ruby, or AJAX because it's not tried and true yet, but he was the exception. In many private sector organizations the notion of implementing Vista or Office 2007 is a couple of years out. There are lots of good reasons for that but there's surprisingly little interest from IT or the users in many private sector environments.
• it's for a great cause--few things can be considered more noble than helping to educate students. As I would occasionally remind my team, our job, as employees of the university, is to help educate students
  

I'm not able to say that I prefer one environment over the other, there are things I like and dislike about both but I can say that many of the stereotypes are misplaced. I think my time between the two environments has served me well and gives me a good perspective and the ability to implement the best of both worlds.

Interviewing

So I had the third phone interview in the course of 2 days with a large company out of Silicon Valley today. The first two were with company recruiters and the third this afternoon was with the CIO to whom the position reports.

The company is one that is almost a household name and, in the technology world, is respected but often viewed as being staid. I mean no disrespect but that is often the general perception. They build solid products and are extremely stable financially but their core product offerings aren't as exciting as some of their competitors.

After being contacted by them I did some basic industry analysis and reviewed their web site. I have to give them credit, while unbeknownst to many people they are really making an effort to revitalize business and approach the social networking/Web 2.0 with a lot of energy. I can appreciate the efforts as this is an area I'm excited about. In reading articles and interviews I've quickly grown to respect their efforts and am particularly intrigued about working for them although I really need to meet some people in person. I think some more P.R. work would be helpful to overturn some of the perception but I think that could happen easily enough.

2007 MotoGP Concluded

Well, the 2007 MotoGP season is over. None of my guys won overall and in fact, someone who, for whatever reason annoys me, won, Casey Stoner from Australia. Rossi, Edwards, and Hopkins (my preferred riders) didn't fare well. Much of Stoner's credit has gone to his tires but he really is a hell of a rider. Early in the season it seemed like the credit could easily go to Ducati since Stoner just blasted past the other riders in the straights without even drafting. With the final race Rossi had difficulties and didn't finish and with Pedrosa's strong riding and taking the race, Ross actually slipped to 3rd overall. Looks like it's the new guard taking over. It was a good ride with the veterans and to all riders and teams, thanks for the continued entertainment!

Cool Phrase

I just saw this phrase and can totally relate... negotiate consensus.

Leopard Crash & Time Machine

I've been running Apple's new operating system, Leopard, for a little more than a week now. I did a clean install and haven't experienced any of the noted problems on the web. A couple of days ago I noticed some irregularities on my RSS feeds in Safari and a couple of minor interest hiccups. I just chalked it up to early-adopter blues being that there are certainly some bugs in Leopard that have yet to be worked out. This evening I went to apply the iTunes and QuickTime updates and upon reboot the laptop kept coming up to the new registration screen. I patiently filled it out, oh, maybe 5 times and 3 reboots before breaking out the install disk to run disk utility. Disk Utility found some problems and claimed to correct them but it didn't. I then broke out Disk Warrior and booted off of it and it found problems that I told it to fix. After a lengthy repair process it still kept coming up to the new registration screen. I filled it out yet again and it kept coming back. BTW, I tried this with 3 different user accounts and all with the same cycle.

On Saturday I received my 1 TB Western Digital My Book drive that I had bought just for backing up the 2 laptops in the house. My last backup was late Saturday night and it's now Tuesday and I've not generated much for new or revised files so I decided to try out the touted restoration capabilities. After about 90 minutes the restoration was complete along with a couple of checks to make sure the drive was okay and here I am away and typing.

With that said, Time Machine is brilliant. It worked exactly as advertised in a real-life restoration and as quickly as I could reasonably expect. I'm EXTREMELY pleased--it was easy enough that anyone who can plug in an external drive can do it and it took me right back to where I was before. It seemed like my machine was being a little buggy (and that happens to any computer sometimes) and the update pushed it over the edge. I'm back and running and the laptop is happy.

Professional Personality Type

I just came across a very apt description of a working/professional personality type that describes me well--an intrapreneur. This is an individual who seeks to change, inspire, and develop an existing organization. Wikipedia defines it more thoroughly.

Quote

In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.
-- Robert Heinlein, science fiction author

Something to think about

Work Tales II

University of Nevada, 2003

After we got through the initial virus outbreak on campus and had the campus running again, it was time to begin a multi-faceted approach to get things under control.

One thing that those of you in the private sector will have difficulty understanding is the sense of ownership of the computers in the academic arena. There is a large sense of entitlement in the equipment in academia and allowing the central IT group manage core services centrally is Orwellian in many people's minds. Of course, in the private sector and even at community colleges centrally administered computers are the norm. In order to successfully implement at the university, my group and I met with academic departments individually for several months explaining how they would still be able to use the software they wanted to use and that all we were trying to do was provide a reliable and consistent platform that we could readily support. In most areas this went well, although the math department was pretty adamant about IT supporting 8 year old SGI desktops so pitching a supported platform was kind of tricky.

On the systems side, I made a case for what seemed to be a pretty easy argument for centralized anti-virus, desktop management software, and update servers. For the anti-virus I worked with the state higher education organization and we leveraged excellent pricing on anti-virus for not only the university-owned machines but also faculty/staff home computers and student computers. Within a year of implementing the anti-virus and central update servers we never again saw a campus-wide outbreak of any viruses. Whenever a machine became infected it was almost exclusively because it was not one of the supported machines and was in a department that opted out of the supported platform. While we would try to help out when possible, there was an element of poetic justice and typically it wasn't long after a couple of department-level issues that they would have a renewed interest in the supported platform.

While it was messy dealing with the outbreaks when they happened early on, we used it to wage an argument for the new equipment and a more reasonable approach to service the university's technology needs. After a couple of years we had the managed to reduce the amount of labor spent to fix problems and shifted energy to providing more and better services.

SBC/AT&T Mail Problems?

About 11:30 AM PST today (11/02/2007) a problem seems to have occurred that is still transpiring with the SBC Global/AT&T consumer mail servers. It seems that users can send mail but multiple SBC Global, AT&T, and Worldnet customers cannot receive mail and it is in fact being bounced by their servers with the following response (I've changed the real names of the sending server and the recipient):

Reporting-MTA: dns;example.com

Final-Recipient: rfc822;user@sbcglobal.net
Action: failed
Status: 5.7.1
Diagnostic-Code: smtp;550 5.7.1 Access denied
X-Display-Name: 'user@sbcglobal.net'

Work Tales III

Soundstream Technologies, 1992 - 1998

My first job out of college was working for a small high-end consumer electronics manufacturer. The company only did ~$20 M per year in annual sales during my time there and the products were specialized but highly regarded. Specifically they manufactured car and home audio products, the former representing the majority of their business.

I had been pursuing this company for a year before finishing my BA in Montana. I put myself through college while working at an electronics retailer, a local specialty store in Missoula. We sold this particular brand of products and I must have seen more value in it than most because I sold more of it and was a huge proponent. I started looking into the company well before I finished my degree and finally a position became available and I pitched myself to try to get it with every name I could find in the company. I was given a phone interview which went well and then a live interview which went pretty well. Eventually, I got the job and moved to California.

After having been there for only two weeks I was told I'd be going to Virginia to meet with a few of the high profile Circuit City store salespeople and technicians. I was still pretty clueless about things, certainly large retailers. I took a down-to-earth approach with them and it must have gone reasonably well because I continued to work a lot with Circuit City and soon after was spending the vast majority of my time in the field. After 3 years or so I began visiting our European distributors and meeting with their retailers. This was the holy grail for me. Prior to these travels I had never been to Europe though I had always fantasized. Before long my passport was getting full of stamps and I was seeing places I could otherwise only imagined.

On one of my early trips I remember working with our Swedish distributor. I remember that we had recently announced and begun shipping a new line of products that was quite unique and reasonably priced. I had sat in on the distributor and his customer's meeting and I recall him presenting a very soft-sale with the customer. I had seen this in other encounters with his customers and at dinner I later told him that he might consider taking charge of the situation and help guide his customers in selling more product. Long story short, he got the idea and placed a huge order as a result of our discussion and began promoting the products far more aggressively. It ended up being good for everyone and he grew his business with existing customers and had more demand from new customers.

Moral of the story? If you have a good relationship with your customer you can say things more candidly than if you're exclusively formal and it could work out really well for everyone. Of course, you really have to have a good read on your business partners but sometimes you also have to take chances.

Work Tales IV

University of Nevada, 2003

When I arrived at the University the security manager had recently deployed Microsoft Active Directory for authentication. While it was really a very good solution and interoperability and costs were quite manageable, there wasn't much discussion about why to use it as opposed to something else. Apparently many people within information technology felt that the decision was made in a relative vacuum and that other input wasn't considered. They were right, they weren't consulted. Seeing this, it was apparent to me that in order for the rest of the IT staff to keep faith in management they needed to be able to realize the benefits of this decision. I made a point to ensure that the security manager become more involved with more of the division and that when we purchased or built other applications that they could integrate with Active Directory for authentication. Shortly after we worked out a very creative and affordable means of getting training for over 40 people in IT to get the course work so that they could take and pass their MCSE certifications. Granted, only a few people did it but they still had better skills and were now a part of the solution instead of sitting on the sidelines.

Active Directory was a good solution for the situation but the decision-making process that led up to it was not participatory and that would have staved some of the resulting separatism that was felt as a result of it but the right plan would still have included training for our technicians and using AD as the foundation for centralized offerings.