An Old Story, An Old Wound

In 1971, Atlanta was still very much a small town. The interstate highways were not completed, so a trip from Atlanta to Marietta took an hour or more. (It still does, but for different reasons.) I remember one leg of this journey required crossing a one-lane bridge. That's one lane total as in "You go, then I go".

My grandfather lived in Marietta. He and my grandmother had divorced years earlier (an unusuality in the 1970's South) and we grandchildren trekked up to see him a couple of times a year. His was not an active presence in my life. He was distant, both physically and in my knowledge of him. But we lived with his shadow every day. Me with the idea of him built only from observations through small-child eyes; his children with the heavier memory of what might have been. He was short, trim, and drank Coca-Cola like a fiend. He was smart and well-read. From what they tell me of him, I would have liked him. I loved my grandmother with all my heart and I think I would have loved him, too.

This is how I envision what happened.

10 Thoughts About Finding A New Job

So, I have a new job lined up which I'll start late next week. But I wanted to reach this milestone before making a few observations about the process of finding a job (and the associated malady of being unemployed), which, in today's market, is not for those with weak constitutions.

1. Time of year matters. August was dead and September was surprisingly feeble. It wasn't until October (and Q4) rolled around that employers began to get serious about hiring. I imagine that late November and December will be wretched with a nice uptick at the start of the year. I further imagine it'll hum along ticketyboo until June, when it'll die down again during the summer. The good news is that there are jobs out there, more and more as the weeks wear on into winter.
   
2. Job search engines are largely worthless, even as search engines. There are one or two out there that are probably worth one (1) month's investment in their premium service, but I found them, in general, to be greedy (refusing to show you an employer's name without paying them) or wrong (linking to jobs that were no longer open). Often both.

Axioms of Visual Analytics

As I strive to learn more about the visual analytics space, I've tried talking to people in that industry to understand how the industry is structured and what skills are required to participate. On Friday, one of the smart folks over at Juice Analytics generously (and patiently) spent more than an hour with me answering questions about the space. Here are some of the things I've learned:

Axiom 1: Your data elements are not your children - you're not required to love them all equally. This is a famous-ish quote. What it means, essentially, is that just because you have data doesn't mean you're required to use it. Depending on what you're trying to accomplish. some of it might not be necessary. Which leads to...

Midnight Madness

I had a great meeting this morning with one of the folks over at Juice Analytics and walked away truly excited about the possibilities in the visual analytics field. In fact, I learned so much that I have to condense my thoughts into one or more posts. More on that next week.

Instead, I thought I'd close a blogless week by pointing out that today is the official start of the College Basketball season -- my favorite time of the year. Let's go Duke!

My First Four Analytics Lessons

I had a good meeting the other day with a very smart friend of mine (I have lots of friends who are way smarter than I am -- it's a secret to success). This buddy began his career as a graphic designer and is now a Brand Strategist for a well-known consumer product goods (CPG) company here in town. My intent was to pick his brain about his career -- what kind of training he needed to do his job, what did he look for in a job opportunity, what are the economics of his segment, how might one enter this segment, etc.

But our conversation, interestingly, swiftly turned its gaze towards analytics. I mentioned my interest in visual analytics and described what this field was. He was intrigued. We talked a lot about consumer marketing campaigns and how to measure their effectiveness, particularly when you start rolling social media into the mix. How do you know your marketing spend mix is optimized? How can you measure its impact when we're talking about hearts and minds?

Warren Buffet on Hiring

"In looking for someone to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. But the most important is integrity, because if they don’t have that, the other two qualities, intelligence and energy, are going to kill you."

The Conversation Prism

Presented without comment, for now.

The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas

Now the work begins...

So I looked at all the bar graphs and spider charts and curving lines and symbols and meters and let them percolate for a while in my head and then suddenly I knew what I needed to do.

I've always been an intuitive decision-maker -- I just "know" when a decision is the right one for me. It's like I can feel the current of my life flowing around me, even though I can't see it.

My career-of-choice candidate is "Visual Analytics". You probably don't know what this is. I didn't either when I started this, so let me explain.

The Butterfly Circus

This movie came to my attention from another blog. It's 20 minutes long and very well made. It appealed to my creative side as all as my theme of finding one's true purpose. Now, I don't see myself as...disadvantaged...as the protagonist in this film, but I think, at one time or another, we all have felt that out of place. The best managers understand who people ARE, not who they'd like them to be. And success usually ensues.

Since I'm linking to their film, I feel compelled to suggest that you also consider donating to the Doorpost Film Project.

I should also point out that I've figured out what I want to do in five years. Now the real work begins. More on that later.

New Resources/Last Assessment

So I found a bunch of new "what do you want to be when you grow up" resources on the web yesterday (via LinkedIn, for those of you evaluating the effectiveness of social media channels).

The most promising of these, whose depths I have yet to plumb, is InternsOver40 -- a blog about people making intentional and sharp career changes later in life.It's laid out a little capriciously, IMO, and somewhat hard to read, but the content makes it worthwhile. I look forward to following it.

As I began to explore the material on this blog, I found links to other sites with a similar theme which, in turn, linked me to things like skills assessment tests and the like. It's like...I don't know...a "web" or something.

"Control of the adjacencies"

I spent the next two days in a kind of Apple-induced thrall, thinking excitedly of what my new Mac laptop would do and when I could get it. I was thinking of all the new, non-PC things I could do when the spell began to fade and I realized I needed a counter-perspective.

So, I called one of my friends who once was a Mac devotee, but who moved his life over to the PC world. (Interesting note is that he blogged about this when he did it and got flaming, vituperative hate mail from Mac people he didn't even know. Everything has a dark side.)

Mr. Wood, Your Laptop is Ready...

So, after much debate, I got online the other day with the Apple Store Concierge and made a "Personal Shopping" appointment for last Thursday. I was still wrestling with this "PC vs. Mac" thing -- logic said PC, emotion said Mac. Which was the right decision?

I walked in at 11:00 am and was met promptly by Kristin, whose business card carries the title "Expert". I was very honest with her:

• Not gonna buy anything today.
• Struggling with why I should pay 2-3x for a MacBook Pro
• Wanting to understand the emotional geas that Apple had magically placed upon me.