Category Archives: Business & Marketing

Google me business cards

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Guess this doesn’t work if you’re Bill Smith or don’t show up at all in a Google search. But I like the idea. You will learn a great deal more about me from Google than I could ever cram on a business card. Sort of a moot point since I don’t hand out many cards these days. If there’s a point to be made here, perhaps it is be in control –to the extent you can– of your Google footprint.

PS: I see that –for the moment– smays.com tops the results for “steve mays” (minus quotes) and number two with quotes.

50s and 60s new prime?

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Major U.S. companies are retaining workers over 55 even as younger workers get the ax. That’s the gist of an article in Feb edition of BUSINESSWEEK:

“Figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics tell the tale: The number of people aged 55 and up with jobs actually rose nearly 900,000 from the start of the recession, in December 2007, through last year. By comparison, people aged 25 to 54 lost nearly 2.9 million jobs. The share of older Americans who have jobs has risen during the recession, while the share of younger Americans with jobs has plunged.”

And a “mature” dude such as myself, who is comfortable on the Internets… let’s get us some of them!

Job interviews

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Lots of folks looking for jobs and many more will be. I’ve been trying to remember the last time I interviewed for a job. I blush to recall that Clyde recruited me 25 years ago and “insisted” I accept his offer.

In 1972 I got a job at the radio station where my father worked so there was nothing that resembled an interview. If I was willing to work 10p-6a, the job was mine.

The short-lived gig as a postal inspector was more of a pass the test, fill out the form kind of thing. Another instance of me “falling into” the job.

I can only recall a couple of job interviews: one for the Memphis TN police department; another with a community theater in Kansas City. I wasn’t qualified for either and was damned lucky I didn’t get hired.

During my Management days, I interviewed lots of people for jobs but don’t think I ever got very good at it. And I wouldn’t be very good at applying for a job now.

I wish the very best to those now “on the bricks.”

Tom Peters: This is not a recession

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“Don’t think of our current economic crisis as a recession. Instead, think of it as a recalibration. Everything is different now. If you think of it as a recession, you may be tempted to “hunker down” and wait for the economy to cycle back.”

“One thing I’m convinced of is that the world I am working in today is different from any world I have ever done business in. The world has been reset. We can no longer look at the “LY” column on reports to use last year as a benchmark for what will happen this year.”

“You’re not clever enough to be cute. Just be honest.”

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Seth Godin explains (by the numbers) how to send a personal email. My three favorites from his list:

  • Just because you have someone’s email address doesn’t mean you have the right to email them.
  • Don’t mark your email urgent. Urgent to you is not urgent to me.
  • Be short. The purpose of an email is not to sell the person on anything other than writing back. If you don’t have a personal, interesting way to start a conversation, don’t write.

Do I have the balls to forward Seth’s list to those who violate these simple rules? No, probably not.

A career in radio prepares you for (new career goes here)

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Missouri’s new governor will be sworn in tomorrow and, as part of the transition, about 150 people working at state jobs under the previous administration were terminated. This happens with every four or eight years.

A few days before the state ax fell, I had a routine meeting with the chief public information officer for one of the state departments. Like many in that line of work, he had –I believe– started in radio or spent a number of years in broadcasting. The years of consolidation in that industry had left this person weary from new owners, pay cuts, job elimination… and happy to have a more stable job in state government. Two days later the person is, once again, looking for a job.

It’s only a rumor but I’ve heard many of these communications positions will be filled by attorneys under the new administration. Our new governor was formerly attorney general, but I’m not sure why one would want/need a lawyer in these positions. As I said, that’s just rumor.

All of which reminded me of the dozen years I spent working in local radio. They were more fun than I can describe. Whatever skills I acquired during that time (talking on the radio (??); writing commercials; covering a news story (sort of) seem so… irrelevant now. Okay, it’s a quarter of a century later, so why should this surprise me?

If I had stayed in radio, what would I be doing now? Programming a “cluster” of stations? Managing? (unlikely) And what would those years have prepared me to do?

I have no idea why so many radio people go into public relations or become PIO’s for some association or state agency. I always suspected they were hired for their communications skills. Comfortable in an on-air interview; familiar with writing news releases (?); good voice?

Still a useful skill set. But what else do you need to know how to do in 2009? Blogging? Podcasting? YouTube? Social media? Couldn’t hurt.

I hope everyone that lost their jobs last week finds new ones. And better ones. Free advice every morning from 6:30 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. at the Jefferson City Coffee Zone.

Scott Adams: Cusp of fundamental change

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“I wonder what people mean when they say the economy will recover in 2010. The only way that can happen is if another irrational bubble forms thus creating an illusion of wealth similar to our previous illusions. If you take illusions out of the equation, there isn’t anything to get “back” to. The wealth was never there in the first place.”

“I said before that I think we’re on the cusp of a change as fundamental as the industrial revolution. But this time the change will be on the consumption side, not the production side. As a society we have dabbled with recycling and such, but it has always been fairly optional. There was no real penalty for waste.”

“The coming consumption revolution won’t be strictly for the benefit of the environment. It will be an economic necessity, driven largely by the huge numbers of retired poor. There simply won’t be enough stuff for everyone if waste is allowed.”

He goes on to share some thoughts on the Internet and home schooling. My nephews and niece were home schooled and they are very well educated and socially well adjusted. The post is worth a read.

Forrest Gump on the bailout

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This showed up in my in-box and I don’t know the source or the author but will be happy to properly attribute if anyone knows.

“Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates. Criminals on Wall Street stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with turds. Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poor rated these boxes AAA Investment Grade chocolates. These boxes were then sold all over the world to investors. Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime. Suddenly nobody trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide.”

“Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all these boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until the market for turds returns to normal. Meanwhile, Hank’s buddies, the Wall Street criminals who stole all the good chocolates are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted.”

Mama always said: ‘Sniff the chocolates first, Forrest’.

Quote of the day from a fund manager: ‘This is worse than a divorce… I’ve lost half of my net worth and I still have my wife..’

And one more perspective:

“Back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed. Now we are trusting the economy of our country to a pack of nit-wits who couldn’t make money running a whore house and selling booze?”

Fortune: “The genius behind Steve”

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Steve Jobs gets a fair share of the credit for the cool products Apple produces. The company is also extremely efficient and well operated and much of the credit for that goes to Chief Operating Officer Steve Cook. For a look behind the scenes of the well-oiled machine that is Apple, check out this article in the November issue of Fortune. The following excerpt will get you started:

“Tim cook arrived at Apple in 1998 from Compaq Computer. He was a 16-year computer-industry veteran – he’d worked for IBM (IBM, Fortune 500) for 12 of those years – with a mandate to clean up the atrocious state of Apple’s manufacturing, distribution, and supply apparatus. One day back then, he convened a meeting with his team, and the discussion turned to a particular problem in Asia.

“This is really bad,” Cook told the group. “Someone should be in China driving this.” Thirty minutes into that meeting Cook looked at Sabih Khan, a key operations executive, and abruptly asked, without a trace of emotion, “Why are you still here?”

Khan, who remains one of Cook’s top lieutenants to this day, immediately stood up, drove to San Francisco International Airport, and, without a change of clothes, booked a flight to China with no return date, according to people familiar with the episode. The story is vintage Cook: demanding and unemotional.”

Scott Adams: Recession

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“No one wants the economy to crumble. But having a reason to love your neighbor a little better doesn’t suck. If we can feed everyone – and I think we can – things will be fine. And as I have said here before, some kid in a garage has already figured a way out of this.”

–Scott Adams Blog