20%

So lets say your boss came up to you and said the following:

"Four days out of the week you work on what I tell you to work on.
On the 5th day you can work on whatever you want?"

Do you think this would have an impact on employees?
What would people work on?
Would they know what to do?
What would you work on?
Why aren't you doing this already?
Do you really need the bosses approval?

Think about it.

Waiting

Playing the waiting game is no fun.

Waiting for that email.
Waiting for that phone call.
Waiting for that text.
Just waiting. Waiting.

It makes me tense. Anxious and uptight. Why can't it be done now. Why can't they respond now. What' the deal.

Sometimes you can take control of what you are waiting for. You can just do it. Make it so. Engage. Jump right into the deep water and see what happens.

Sometimes you can't do anything about what you are waiting for. Or can you? Take a step back. Think. Look around. Is there another way in. Am I really waiting, or am I just procrastinating. Blaming my own inability to take action on someone else.

Think about it and figure out what are you really waiting for?

Meeting the resistance

Sometimes people like to get together and meet to discuss the current work. Sometimes this is good and sometimes this is bad. Sometimes its wiser to cancel the meeting and use that time to complete some actual work. This is much better than holding the meeting and saying it will take about an hour to complete this task, and then promise to get it done by the end of the week. Just cancel the meeting and get it done, then recall the meeting and talk about it.

I like to keep floating meetings on my calendar. These are free to move both times and days if need be. If there is no reason to meet today, push it off until next week. If you need another 4 hours to do something, push the meeting out a day.

Obviously this can be abused, but most of us already have too much to do, so why not delay the meeting a tiny bit so that some real work can be done.

Feeding the resistance

So there was some pretty visible resistance at work today. These included numerous small group discussions at random places in the building. You know what I mean right? Two or three folks in the hallway talking in hushed voices when you pass by. Cubicles with coworkers discussing the latest management screw up. All clear signs of the resistance. It is no wonder that an average person only actually works a few hours out of the day. So much time is spent feeding the resistance movement. These little gatherings get to be common daily activities. You go to work looking forward to them. Sounds strange but its true. A long time ago I was asked to cover a coworkers job while he was on vacation. I did some training with him the week before he was gone and we would be "working" up to eight hours a day completing his tasks. The week he was gone I completed his tasks in less than 2 hours time. The rest of the time was spent feeding the resistance. Think about it. Then stop doing it.

Remember that Chef vs. Cook thing?

So do you? If not, just recall that the chef is constantly creating new things and cook is making the same old stuff by following directions. For part of today I was the chef, and part of the day I was the cook. While I was the chef it was amazing - ideas were flowing, creativity was abound, and time flew right by. When I was the cook, I felt my energy drop and time seemed to grind to a halt. I found myself struggling to make any progress at all. I found myself longing to be the chef again. If you have not experienced a day like this yet, well that could be good or bad. You could be the chef who is doing art all day long, or the cook who is doing work all day long. I guess you have to ask yourself at the end of the day, was I the chef or the cook today?

Browse a good (Face)Book lately?

There was an article published on Fast Company today that discussed a new trend in web browsing. It would seem that young female Facebook users, who can spend as much as 5 hours online each day, spend almost all of that time on Facebook. You probably are not that surprised by that, or maybe you are, but it obviously deserves some thought. Lets look at 2 responses to this statement

1. Oh no, we need to update our websites so they will surf outside of FB.
2. Lets move everything we have to FB!

What do you think most companies will try? Option 1 or option 2? I am thinking most will find themselves leaning towards 2. Will it work? Of course not.

Which option would you "LIKE". Hopefully you said option 2.

So get out there and start posting.

Whats next for Grounded

So I am working on a few new videos/promos for the grounded series. Should be interesting to see how they turn out. I wish I could give more details, but I want to keep it quiet for now. Maybe after I shoot some material I can post some teaser info for everyone to enjoy.

Stay tuned...

Time to retire the resume?

In my opinion, the resume is outdated and needs to be done away with. Unfortunately, its pretty ingrained into our current job system. Its like an angry tick that has embedded itself into ourselves. Lucky for us the Internet will take care of it. What do I mean by that? Well if you start a blog, or a collection of Internet stuff (guitar riffs for instance) that quantify what it is that you do, it becomes your resume. Your collection of work can be accessed by anyone from anywhere. Think about that for a minute. If you take the time to post just one thing a day during a normal work week, you are capable of building quite a large database of stuff that supports who you are and what you do. Compare that to a single sheet of paper that contains silly information like your current address and phone number. I mean, do we really need to know where you live? Is it that critical to your success in the workplace? I think not, and yet there it is on each and every resume that there is. How about we ditch the resume and offer a web site address, or a Twitter account, or a YouTube account name. Lets us what we have available to us, and make a resume a showcase of who we are and what we can do.

So what are you waiting for??

100th YouTube Video

So I posted my 100th YouTube video this morning. Most of the videos are original guitar riffs or songs. Some of them are good, some are bad, and some are whatever. No matter though, the real goal is to create something new everyday, and then give it away. So that is what I do. I pick up the guitar and whatever happens just happens. I don't really think about it too much. Then afterwards I post it to YouTube and Facebook and The GearPage. I am trying to find some other places to post it because I want other song writers or creative guitar folks to see it and enjoy it. I will keep looking for places to post my stuff, or I might just create my own website for posting this stuff. I might also post a few on Ebay for sale and see if anyone buys them. Why not right? I am mean the Weather Channel is always looking for some good music right?

So what next?

So you have taken the time to evaluate the fall career fair - now what? Well there are lots of things you and your friends can do to help one another. Here are some examples:

• Share interview experiences with each other - was the experience tense? relaxed? fun? frustrating?
• Talk about the questions that were asked and how they were answered - were there technical questions? behavior questions? what do you think they were trying to learn about you with these questions?
• Think of it as a mock interview only you already know the questions
• You might want write the questions down and formulate some answers for use in the spring career fair - you can use the interview questions to craft your elevator speech for the career fair.
• If a person was lucky enough to do an on site interview talk about that experience - how long did it last? how many people did you talk with? did you get a tour or a free lunch?
• One suggestion is to not worry about if your answer is right or wrong, just answer it truthfully and you will be fine - not all jobs are meant for all people so don't try and give the answer you think they want - recruiters can see through that answer

So the take away is to take time and evaluate that experience. Be aware of what you learned from it, and share that information with others.

Stop back tomorrow for resume tips.

Step one - Look back

So the first step in going forward should involve taking a look back. Think back to your fall career fair experience and answer the following questions:

• What companies did I talk with?
• Did I talk with enough?
• Even the ones I wasn't all that interested in?
• What companies did I hear back from?
• What companies did I not hear back from.
• Was I pleased with the those who called me back?
• What companies offered me an interview?
• Did I take the interview even if I wasn't interested in the company?
• How did the interview go?
• Did I achieve my goal for the career fair?

You want to evaluate your fall career fair performance and get a plan together for the spring effort. Maybe that last question should be your first question for the spring fair. What am I trying to achieve? Am I looking for a summer job? Am I seeking some interview experience? Am I looking for a real job?

Take this time to research the companies that were there. Figure out what they do, and if you want help them do it. All too often students wait until the night before to start doing research and then they end up with a head full of information about so many companies and it gets hard to remember who does what.

It is actually a nice thing to be able to attend multiple career fairs in a single year. You will get more comfortable in selling yourself and what you have to offer, and the recruiters will pick up on this and they will be calling you back. Trust me. I know.

Stop back tomorrow for another tip.

Time is running short

I know its hard to think beyond the next couple of months, but now is the time to consider what you will be doing in early 2011. Those spring career fairs are typically in February, and so you might want to start thinking about a few things. I will do a series of articles this week that will focus on what you should be doing.

Also, have any of you considered getting a mentor while in school? Is there any reason to wait until you start working? I will touch on that as well.

Stay tuned.