Career Opportunities

We are all weird by Seth Godin

Whenever I read one of Seth Godin’s books I feel he is preaching to the choir because his thoughts are so much in tune with my own when it comes to New Media, marketing and business. I often that he is describing things in much the same way I do when talking to those people who don’t understand the new world we live in, but want to know more. We are all weird is another of these cases. I found myself nodding in agreement and even saying “yes, yes, yes!” out loud as I read.

The basic, overriding message to this book is, “Mass is dead. Here comes weird.” Godin should have just as easily said “Here comes niche. Here comes small or a variety of other words, but I am sure using weird makes readers stop and take notice.” I agree with him, too. The mass market is shrinking (he provides some charts showing how and why) and smart businesspeople will focus on tribes, niches, small groups to find those people with an affinity for their product.

“The opportunity of our time is to support the weird, to sell to the weird and, if you wish, to become weird.”

Like most “normal” processes of the world, the Internet and the hyper-connectivness it allows, is making weird the new normal. I know, that seems an oxymoronic phrase, but I get where Godin is coming from. As the “mass” decreases the old normal gives way to the new, weird, normal.

As with most of Godin’s books, this one gets me thinking, and making notes and instituting changes in my own marketing policies even as I am reading. You may have to think deeply about how to implement some of the ideas here, but I think there is something for nearly anyone who wants to reach a particular audience with a particular message. This can be anyone from a non-profit out to change the world to a corporate hive worker trying to keep their company relevant in the new weird, normal world.

We are all weird is available from Amazon.com as both a paperback and Kindle book. Use the links above to find out more information, read reviews and buy the book.

Disclaimer: I received an early, e-gallery version of We are all weird directly from the Domino Project. The opinions here are my own and no payment was made for this review.

Find more great career-related books in the Career Opportunities section of the WelchWrite Bookstore in association with Amazon.com

My first Kindle-format eBook is now available on Amazon.

The great thing is that is doesn’t require a Kindle to read. You can get free Kindle software for nearly any device (Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, Blackberry) and read the book there.

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Description:

Social Media Self Preservation: Taking advantage of social media without losing your mind

7100 Words

Price: $4.99

Using social media as part or business or personal life can seem overwhelming and fraught with pitfalls. There is a way, though, to make the best use of social media without falling into the traps of lost privacy and social media burnout.

This guide explains what you need to know as you start your journey into social media and how to make social media productive for you.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: Why Social Media?
• Chapter 1: Which social networks should you join?
  • Be Found!
  • Reserving your name
  • A few social networks to get you started
• Chapter 2: How to decide who to include in your online community
  • It is all about value
  • Where to begin building your online community?
• Chapter 3: Maintaining your online community
  • Re-evaluation
  • No longer needed
  • People Change
  • Too much information
  • Information you can find elsewhere
• Chapter 4: What to share online
  • Share your knowledge and expertise
  • Share your work
  • …but my work is secret!
  • Share your life
  • Balance in your social media sharing

I am reading this book, for free, courtesy of Seth Godin’s Domino Project and their sponsors. It looks as if that deal has expired, but the book is worth checking out. — Douglas

Read This Before Our Next Meeting

by Al Pittampalli

One mediocre meeting after another quietly corrodes our organization, and every day we allow it to happen. Culture change occurs when a transformational idea spreads to enough people. Like a virus that makes its way from person to person, spreading exponentially faster, so can the Modern Meeting. The status quo must go. Now. Before it’s too late. 1. Meet only to support a decision that has already been made. 2. Move fast. End on schedule. 3. Limit the number of attendees. 4. Reject the unprepared. 5. Produce committed action plans. 6. Refuse to be informational. Read the memo, it’s mandatory. 7. Work with brainstorms, not against them. CUT THIS OUT AND BRING IT TO OUR NEXT MEETING.

Read more about this book on GoodReads.com

Another book in my “To Read” stack. A review will be coming soon if I deem it worthy of one. — Douglas

Instant Influence: How to Get Anyone to Do Anything–Fast

by Michael Pantalon

If you want to motivate your employees to be more productive, convince your customers to use more of your products and services, encourage a loved one to engage in healthier habits, or inspire any change in yourself, renowned psychologist Dr. Michael Pantalon can show you how to achieve Instant Influence in six simple steps. Drawing on three decades of research, Dr. Pantalon’s easy-to-learn method can create changes both great and small in 7 minutes or less. This scientifically tested method succeeds in every area of work and life by helping people tap into their deeply personal reasons for wanting to change and finding a spark of “yes” within an answer that sounds like “no.”

Read more on GoodReads.com

I have just finished reading Do the work by Steven Pressfield and would highly recommend you do the same. In fact, I am thinking that I will make it (and Pressfield’s earlier book, The War of Art) required reading before I will work with any client. Both books have helped me tremendously in my life and work. We all have to start somewhere on our creative adventures and Pressfield’s books are like an experienced guide that can help to lead us through the creative forest. Revisiting them on a regular basis reenergizes me to face the fight that all creatives feel.

Of course, creativity isn’t just the domain of some specialized class of people. We are all creative in unique ways and we all experience the haunting voice of resistance, as Pressfield names the monster that frightens all of us away from big, transformative changes in our lives. Pressfield reminds us of the nature of this beast and gives us the tools we need to defeat it — again and again.

In my work, I meet so many people who don’t realize their own potential. They drastically underestimate their power to change their lives and change the world. They face the resistance dragon and allow it to eat them nearly every time instead of emerging, triumphant, like St. George. It is often my goal to give them the tools — the horse, the lance, the sword — to help them slay the dragon of resistance just as I have to fight against it everyday. Sometimes I can bring them along with me — at other times, not, but I will never stop trying.

So, to repeat my unasked for advice — get these books, read them and then start on your own creative adventure. You can overcome resistance and create something new, something unique and something great!

Do the work is now available in a free Amazon Kindle edition. You don’t need a Kindle to read it, though. Download the free Kindle app for your Windows or Macintosh PC, Apple iPhone or Android phone and then download the book, for free, from the Amazon store.

The War of Art is also available from Amazon and your local public library. Add it to your creative toolbox today!

If you read either book, I would love to hear your thoughts. How did it help? How did it not? What project are you now going to create? What problems are you facing? Leave a comment here and share your adventures with other readers.

Now available for sale from Career Opportunities…

Career Compass: Finding Your Career North Transcript

Presented at CareerCampSCV on July 10th, 2010

$3.99 via PayPal

We all need some direction when sailing through our career and the Career Compass is one way of evaluating where you want to go, as well as keeping you on-course towards Career North.

In order to know which was is north, we have to lay out your work likes and dislikes. Your likes lie to the north and your dislikes to the south. Your goal, then is to track north as often as possible while avoiding turning to the south and into the teeth of those jobs you dislike most.

Any sailor or flier will tell you you will never be able to track perfectly north. Your course is followed only through constant correction as currents push you in one direction or another. You must change and adjust constantly to keep your course headed towards home.

This talk leads you through the Career Compass process, step-by-step, and shows you how to develop your own personalized compass based on your own unique wants, needs and desires.

My friend, Matt Moran, has re-launched the web site for his book, The IT Career Builder’s Toolkit and he is starting a new career-focused video series. Visit his web site (link below) for complete information and videos.

Matt will be doing a twice weekly videocast on careers, consulting, technology, and where they intersect with life.

Now available from Career Opportunities…

$4.99 via PayPal

Item will arrive by direct email after purchase

This 11,000 word transcript of my recent talk, Production, Promotion and Being Proactive in Your Career, is now available as a PDF download.

For far too long we have thought that only entertainers needed someone else to promote them and their product. What I’m suggesting in this talk is that everyone needs to reach out and create their own audience by realizing that their work deserves to be promoted as much as any actor or singer. This is true regardless of what type of work you do. If you don’t produce something unique, and promote that unique advantage, you are severely limiting your career.

This talk details the hows and whys of being proactive in your career and how to utilize new media tools to show people “what you do and how well you do it”. It offers clear steps to take your career to the next level instead of remaining the anonymous person deep in a corporate department.

This lightly edited transcript will allow you to review the talk more carefully at your own pace. You can also mark up, copy and paste sections to highlight the information that interests you most.

# 15 The No Asshole Rule by Robert I. Sutton, PhD

Let me start by addressing the mild curse word in the title of this book. I find it a totally appropriate use of the word and truly brings home the extremity and importance of the issue. If the word offends you, please skip this post, although I do highly recommend this book. — Douglas

A world without assholes (the author has a precise definition for them) — what a dream it would be. Working in a company where you weren’t constantly demeaned, threatened or abused. A company where everyone had the ability to succeed to their highest levels without suffereing the outbursts, rage and attacks of the assholes around them. While nearly everyone can agree this would create a much better workplace, too often we support assholes and allow them, even encourage them, to continue their behavior no matter what the cost to the company or those around them.

Sutton clearly explains what we already know in our hearts — excluding assholes from out lives makes everyone happier and more productive. He suggests that every company have no assholes rule clearly stated on paper and embraced by everyone in the company and I highly agree. It is the only way to insure that you, your fellow workers and your company can reach your highest productivty.

There is so much in this book that rings true with my own experience “in the trenches” of corporate life. This is especially true of the times I watched, from the outside, the extremely disfunctional entertainment business where my wife worked. The entertainment industry seems a haven for assholes of all sorts and I have seen some of the worst in action.

Too sum up the book in a few lines — don’t hire assholes in the first place, get rid of them if you have them and use some of the coping mechanisms in the book to survive them, if you cannot escape them. These might be the most important steps you can take to protect and extend your own career.

You can hear Moira Gunn’s Tech Nation interview with the author over at IT Conversations – Listen Here

All Gift Guide Recommendations:

• #14 Books by Malcolm Gladwell
• #13 Moleskine Ruled Notebook Large
• #12 Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive
• #11 Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
• #10 Tribes by Seth Godin
• # 9 The Craft and Business of Songwriting
• # 8 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
• # 7 The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need
• # 6 The Little Big Things by Tom Peters
• # 5 The Creative Habit and The Collaborative Habit
• # 4 Thinking for a Change by John C. Maxwell
• # 3 Drive by Daniel Pink
• # 2 Getting Things Done by David Allen
• # 1 Linchpin by Seth Godin

# 14 Books by Malcolm Gladwell

Malcom Gladwell’s books always generate a lot of thoughts as I read through them, and I consider this to be one of the hallmarks of a good book. From The Tipping Point to Outliers, I have made a point of reading each of his books, often twice.

All Gift Guide Recommendations:

• #13 Moleskine Ruled Notebook Large
• #12 Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive
• #11 Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
• #10 Tribes by Seth Godin
• # 9 The Craft and Business of Songwriting
• # 8 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
• # 7 The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need
• # 6 The Little Big Things by Tom Peters
• # 5 The Creative Habit and The Collaborative Habit
• # 4 Thinking for a Change by John C. Maxwell
• # 3 Drive by Daniel Pink
• # 2 Getting Things Done by David Allen
• # 1 Linchpin by Seth Godin