Pain is so close to pleasure

Forgive me, for I have sinned.

It is one year and one week since my last blog.

Back then, the blog went off the rails a bit. We were embarking on a  new venture, and the world seemed full of endless possibilities.

One of the really big possibilities was an economic crash, but back then – a week or so before it really hit – it didn’t seem that real.

One of the others was that some of our carefully researched and checked information was a bit wrong. The problem with any data is that if the observer is not impartial, it can be seen to mean anything.

Big things happened in the world in the last year. Economies melted. Countries ailed. Good people died. Bad people died. Always in the wrong ratio.

I lost a childhood friend who was in his early 40’s. Even though I appreciate that if I lived in Baghdad or Kabul, that might be a daily occurrence; it still feels terribly awful that I never managed to squeeze in a visit to him once we learnt of his illness.

The business we bought; well, that is another tale. In fact, it’s related in an article in The Fordyce Letter, so let’s not bother here.

Still, we live in one of favourite places in the world; and I always remember that if you speak English as a first language, you’re probably in the top 20% wealthiest people in the world! I read that in a book on cooking cheaply way back in my teens.

Anyway, back to the “off the rails” bit. The blog stopped talking about all sorts of stuff and became very personal and less external. Not really what I have envisaged.

But these things evolve.

From here on, this will remain a more personal blog. My blogging activity on issues will move to the blog on www.peoplemagic.com.au; where every second blog will be my responsibility.

And here I’ll relate anything I want to comment on. Given that I’ve only ever met one person who’s read this, it’s the least I can do for myself.

The 08/09 financial year has been full of both pleasure and pain for us. The next twelve months will certainly have more of one than the other. It remains to be seen which side of the ledger it falls.

Dreamer’s Ball

Today we – that is, my vastly better half and myself  – registered a new Australian Proprietary Limited Company.

Why? It seems we must be stark raving mad.

After eight years in recruitment, steadily aiming at a general management role, I had two offers on the table – but instead, we’ve bought a restaurant.

Other than being a fair cook and a big fan of Gordon Ramsey, I’m not qualified in the least to run a restaurant. My wife has a similar lack of restaurant experience, and our son once worked for Hungry Jacks(that’s Burger King for any non-Australians reading this).

Personally, I’ve lost a third of my body weight in this year. I still have more to go. That’s going to add to the challenge – discipline will be paramount.

So, we have bought a restaurant with a proud history - and it’s a little run down. We’ll be attempting to bring it up to a higher standard of service delivery and earnings.

We’ve got plans; dreams; ambitions. We’ve got ideas. We’re dreamers.

So today, we celebrate the birth of Dreamer’s Ball Pty Ltd.

Keep Yourself Alive

Last week, not long after writing my blog, I resigned from my job.

If you re-read “Spread Your Wings” below, it seem pretty obvious that I was about to. It’s not going to be announced until later today – I’m counting on the fact that this blog is not exactly mass communication of a message, but twitter me if you have a comment on that!

So, why leave an interesting and exciting job with a great start-up that has taken the Adelaide market by storm?

After several years in the planning stages, it kicked off last year, and I was employee number one. For eighteen months I’ve put in huge weeks and we’ve achieved a lot. The staff levels have grown exponentially. Our first trading year has been a multi-million dollar smash hit success. The directors are very happy.

But I’m not happy.

Several managers have described me as a butterfly. I flit frm interesting task to interesting task. For any micro-manager out there, you might see that as a weakness.

But without small, flittering insects who pollinate as they go, we would not be here.

In a start-up, a butterfly is invaluable – there’s just so much to do. People who can work on a revolving schedule of twenty projects – and deliver about 90% of them – are actually a great asset, as more methodical people will be overwhelmed with a need to make everything perfect, as opposed to make everything happen.

When I’ve worked in big, big organisations, a butterfly is pretty useful there too (For example, the entirely fictitious story “Intestinal Fortitude” in my book 1001 Nights is a thinly-veiled recounting of my experiences doing just that). You need to have a few agitators for change, or you become stale.

The problem is, butterflies aren’t that useful in an organisation that is consolidating. So, I’m leaving.

I have no complete plans. No definite job to go to. I am considering buying a business, I’m shortlisted for a role outside of recruitment, I’m considering running my own consultancy and I’ve been approached to head a division for a major recruiter.

All jobs for a butterfly?

Spread Your Wings

When is it time to leave your job?

What a great question that is.

It used to be that people would hang around in a job they hated for years, because leaving was such a big deal. But times have changed.

So, what drives us to change?

I think the lack of challenge is the easiest and most positive reason to cite. “Well, I’m bored, so I’m off” sounds good, but it’s amazing how many people who say this go into fundamentally the same job elsewhere.

Opportunity is a better reason. An opportunity to explore something new, make a wad of cash, to work for yourself. To test yourself, to put your family in a better position, to work with someone you admire – there’s opportunity to be found everywhere.

But there’s two schools of thought – was Jon Mitchell right – “You never know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone” or is it true you can’t grasp something with both hands if your hands are already full? In other words, do you sit back and slowly find a better deal or just say “to hell with it”, quit and blaze forward?

I would have said, at one time, it depends on the kind of person you are. I now think it depends on the kind of person you are now.

We all change, and opportunity and risk abound.

The work environment can play a major part in your decision, and not always a positive one. If you are overworked and/or underpaid and/or bullied and/or part of a culture that puts you under stress, then you might not see the picture clearly until you resign.

That will sharpen your thoughts!

But it’s easier to get a job if you’ve got one, according to conventional wisdom. Well, conventional wisdom has been wrong before!

Ultimately it’s down to the individual, with help and support from those closest to them. Omen and portents, faith (in anything, including oneself), further opportunity, all play a part, but at the end of the day, it’s a big decision.

And it’s up to you. Play it safe or leap of faith.

You’ll know when it’s time to spread your wings.

Don’t Stop Me Now

I’ve never been busier in real life.

I’ve often been more of a behind-the-scenes worker. Whilst I have never had a problem with making a sales call or undertaking  business development tasks – and I am reasonably equipped to be successful at this, and enjoy it – I’ve not been in sales full time since 1993.

As a researcher you tend to hide behind a PC or other info sources, but lately, I’ve been out and about with alarming frequency.

The difference is, I am now catching up with people whom I either met on-line, or who are connected with me on-line.

When we go on line, even with the limitations of social networking tools like LinkedIn or Facebook, we still put more of ourselves in the public domain than ever before. When I catch up with a supplier for a chat about business, I now might know where they grew up or went to school. Or what their previous role was. Or the fact that they were photographed in fishnet stockings at a Rocky Horror-themed party last Saturday.

It adds a whole new dimension to the conversation. You could meet the same person once a week for a year and not know much about the person behind the corporate face, but if they’ve got 714 pictures of themselves in various states of inebriation over the last year, you start to get a bit of a picture.

A real issue is that spammy stuff that turns up on Facebook – you know, when your mini-feed says you did something you didn’t do.

I’ve apparently just joined something called “Be a Billionaire”. Except that I haven’t. I hadn’t even been on Facebook for a month or so before I logged on last night to see some photos my son pasted. And there it was.

A few months ago, a good friend of mine was talking about me to her other half, and bought up my Facebook profile. The mini-feed suggested I’d joined some sort of “photos of swingers” application. And we’re not talking about people swinging on a tyre on a rope here. (Well, some of them might have been!).

So, my point here is that I use on-line networking as a research tool before I meet people – suppliers, clients, candidates, anyone. Have done so for some time. It also helps to track down a photo of someone you’ve never met before; though the person photographed on Facebook wearing a fairy costume may not look the same in a Hugo Boss suit. But never assume everything you see is real.

Even confusion between two people of the same name can have hilarious results. So it always pays to check. Particularly if you are say, a professional hit-man or a recruitment consultant. You want to get the right guy!

Anyway, my original point is that, confirmed geek that I am, I’m now finding my business network is getting stronger, and more personal.

Around the time I was born, hippies were sitting about discussing ‘the interconnectedness of us all, man’. Now, 43 years later, the boat the hippies were looking for has sailed into the harbour.

We are all interconnected. Perhaps not as connected with a sparrow, a blade of grass, Mt Everest or our inner purple love-child as the hippies would have liked, but nevertheless, we’re heading there fast.

Love, Peace and LinkedIn, Man.

Who needs you?

I can understand phishing. There’s a point.

The point is to rip every cent (or penny, or peso, or whatever) out of your bank account. It’s fraud by mass market: someone somewhere will fall for it (and by the way, Anti-Phishing Phil is brilliant, if you’d like to get better at avoiding falling victim).

But when it comes to straightforward virus attacks; there’s no discernible point.

Common wisdom is that it’s the thrill of destruction – a bit like arsonists who hang around to watch a building burn.

In fact, a bit like cases where arsonists have tried to use pyromania as a clinical defence, it won’t be long before someone tries to defend themselves in court against charges of creating viruses by claiming ‘viromania”. If they ever get to court.

The vast majority of anti-social reprobates that create viruses are never caught.

To go back to our arson analogy; arsonists are often caught. And they often turn out to be people who would profit in some way, (e.g. by an insurance payout) or have a grudge.

However, there’s quite a few who get no discernible benefit; they just decided to burn down a building.

Many of the people in the last category are poor and undereducated. Burning down a building and getting caught for it is within a fairly limited scope – you don’t have to be a genius to accomplish this.

Not so the creation of a virus. For starters, you need access to a computer somewhere reasonably private, programming skills, and usually, an ability to not get caught easily.

So, why are the penalties for a poor, uneducated firebug so much more than those of a sophisticated virus author?

Now, I’m not advocating a lessening of penalties for the former; just some parity for the latter.

“Ahhhh, but Computer Viruses don’t kill people; whereas arson often does.” I hear you say.

While this is basically true at this point; how do we know that a virus won’t take down an air traffic control computer? Or one that affects red lights?

In many fatal arson attacks, the goal is gratification, not murder; and I’m happy to included virus creators in the same group.

So, I’m going to change tacks here to wrap up.

Listen, Mr or Ms Virus Author: Your efforts disgust me. The effort I put into keeping your sick products away from my home and business is time I’ll never see again; time spent away from my family. The time you spend creating it is also completely wasted.

So. here’s the changes I’d like to see.

It’s time to bring back the public stockade. These people want to be famous. Chaining them up in stocks in a public place with a ready supply of rotten fruit and a couple of dozen IT managers in the vicinity will spread their name nicely.

Then tattoo their foreheads. “Moron” in 72 pt bold works for me. If you put the “r” backwards it’s even better. A nice long sentence and perhaps a kick where it hurts as well!

And keep them in wooden prisons. Next door to the arsonists.

 

Life is Real

I write this blog; a column on careerone.com.au; a few articles here and there on sites such as ERE, press releases and news stories for my main employer; all the content for four websites; I have one book published and three more on the drawing board.

In other words, I write a lot. In fact, I also talk a lot. Communication of ideas and concepts is really what I do.

But we have a problem.

Lately, I’ve found that actions speak louder than words. Try losing over 40 kilos (90 pounds for my US friends) and it becomes the opening conversational gambit for everyone you know when you see them. That’s if they recognise you in the street.

Whilst I never tire of the compliments, it does start the conversation down familiar paths. And inevitably; that path is advice.

Yes advice: I’m full of it. How to get around to finishing that book you’ve been writing for years. How to lose a massive amount of weight. How to harness social networking and fulfil your destiny!

You expect to get asked for advice when speaking at conferences etc. After all, you’re there as an expert. And ditto: columns and news stories have advice running through them. So I write; speak and generally impart a lot of advice.

Or do I? Is it really worthwhile when people don’t actually listen. I pretty sure many of them don’t. How am I to know if they do or not?

With real life and most of my work becoming a full-time advice dispenser; what about the other sides of my life. The beauty of this blog; and Twitter.com; is that they are my outlets for emotion, not really advice.

OK, so I still pontificate on this blog. That’s me. But it’s stuff I feel passionate about.

At the moment there are a few things in my life that occupy a lot of my thoughts. Given the lack of nourishment that intensive dieting offers; perhaps I have less thoughts as well.

It amazing that I appear to transitioning to the web. The things that affect me the most are private issues that will not make it to this blog. They dominate my conversation with my nearest and dearest. So, they get endless repetitions of the same theme; my 312 satisfied blog readers get passion and interest; my twitter Friends get the benefit of my rapier-like wit and my column readers get as much advice as they can eat for $0.

In The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie, there’s a painter who disappears into his own painting; he ceases to exist in real life. Sometimes I feel that I’m slowly becoming a net persona and that this is a substitute for real life.

Someone asked me where I lived the other day and I replied “LinkedIn”. True, we had been discussing social media; and I was being funny.

The difference between disappearing into the web, and say, falling down a rabbit hole to a magical kingdom, is that the former is more subtle: because you feel you can pop back anytime from the web. But try going on holiday and not being on-line. I’m nowhere near a full-time web junkie, but I do feel the need for web-ether running through my veins after just a day or so.

Yet I’m reasonably interesting in real life and I quite enjoy it. Why does the web have this attraction? Perhaps a blog is simply a conversation where I’m never interrupted: the ultimate soliloquy.

Or perhaps I’m like a late night talk DJ who’s never sure if anyone is out there, I hope for callers – or comments, as it is on this blog.

Attack me or flatter me; disagree with me or proclaim my spot-on-brother-ness; just don’t ignore me.

Because I wonder what happened to the painter, when people stopped looking at the painting? 

 

 

Headlong

I love LinkedIn network statistics.

My direct list is OK, my indirect list is huge, but the number of people in my home town has remained relatively low – I only cracked 5000 recently.

Last Saturday, I made a decision that I would become the most LinkedIn person in Adelaide. I did this after discovering that you can list people by number of connections – I know that’s a pretty obvious feature, but I had never looked for it.

My thought was that I would find out who the top LinkedIn people in Adelaide were, and send them requests. That’s a good start. It will build my list generally, and I hoped, locally in particular.

So, I did the search, and found that I already am the most LinkedIn person in Adelaide.

Wow, what a warm glow of smug achievement. I was a terribly ineffective user of LinkedIn until I met Dave Mendoza in April, and a light went on in my head. Look at me now, everybody!

But not one to rest on my laurels, I wrote to a bunch of other highly LinkedIn people in Adelaide, and requested connection.

So I dared to dream. Given that I’m less than an eighth as well connected as Stan Relihan, how do I rate in Australia?

Do I dare to dream Top Twenty? Top Fifty? Must be top hundred, surely?

Well, no, no and no.

As of this morning, I sit in position number 191.

This exercise has made me think about why people are on LinkedIn, so I posted a simple question: Is it better to give or receive on LinkedIn.

Given the Pledge (see my post ‘One Vision’ below) asking any question has its price, so such an open one means I’ll be very busy Wednesday – that’s my question answering day.

Apart from one bitter reply, the overwhelming ethos of LinkedIn is to give.

I think that is the miracle of LinkedIn. I suspect people mainly join to further their own ends, but get swept along in the tremendous feeling of goodwill.

Whilst I’ve found few good candidates on LinkedIn; that’s just my day job. It’s the community on LinkedIn that keeps me at the keyboard in early hours of the morning, swapping ideas and advice.

Adelaide is my hometown by choice; I wasn’t born here. LinkedIn is my virtual community by choice; and the stats don’t matter – being a part of something bigger than yourself is always inspiring.

Teo Torriatte (Let us cling together)

Yesterday, I was feeling that the world was inching toward becoming a better place.

True, there are wars, and an end to war is a dream that many of us share.

True, a long-lost friend of mine is dying of a very nasty cancer. And an end to cancer is a dream many of us also share.

But for me, the dream of everyone being just that bit nicer is the big one. Because as the Paul Kelly song goes; “From little things, big things grow”.

The reason for my optimism is that yesterday, the Adelaide Advertiser ran a column of a friend of mine.

Sidebar: How many people know that my home town is responsible for the Murdoch Empire? Sir Keith Murdoch started it all here with the Adelaide News. News Limited went on to buy its much older rival, The Advertiser, and the rest is tabloid history. Not that I’d ever bag News Ltd. For starters, I write a column for them. And secondly, I’m a close personal friend of a whole bunch of people there, though sadly not Rupert!

As is often my wont, I digress. So back on topic:

Monica Magann’s column yesterday spoke about the power of nice. I’ll encourage her to put it on line. It was just lovely. It was, well, nice! I really felt that her quiet conviction sold the benefits.

 It’s not that every bully boss out there is going to suddenly become nice, but it is the start of a movement where people refuse to accept anything but nice.

But this morning, the world bought me back with a thump.

Autism is challenging. When I wrote the short story “Angels Like Water“, which I’m currently turning into a full length novel, I did a small amount of research. And there’s a lot to know. And a lot we don’t know. 

I’ve seen first hand the difficulty of handling a child with Asperger’s Syndrome; as one of the boys in a football team I coached suffered from it. And to be honest, everybody around suffered a bit as well.

But taking issue with someone who cannot control this condition is pretty low. When it’s a supposed adult abusing a child, then it’s far worse.

In Florida, a teacher organised a kangaroo court to evict 5-year-old Alex Barton from his classroom. In a 14-2 vote, held after the teacher asked every classmate to pillory Alex publicly, Alex was removed from the classroom. Democracy at work?

Sidebar: Democracy was not invented by happy Greeks in robes discussing philosophy as the world imagines. Cleisthenes, desperate to cling to power in Athens, proposed it one day and startlingly won the backing of the people. Whilst it has been idealised and very successfully implemented for good, it is not possible to interchange the words “good” and “democratic”. In a speech Winston Churchill said “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”.

So, this is a teacher who has not only abused a child, but has systematically, callously and heinously invested other children into the process. “Here’s an example of how we can kick the weak, children. Learn, well, because you may be able to fight your way to a position of power, where you’ll need those skills.”

Don’t forget, democracy gave Germany Hitler. The problem with democracy is that it only works if one is in a position to judge motivation.

What’s the motivation here? I mean, currently the most notorious example of enforcing democracy – US policy in Iraq and Afghanistan – arguably for oil, or prestige, or to fix Daddy’s little problem – still has underlying it, a passionate belief that the citizens of those countries will be better off with democracy. The vast majority of policy writers, of soldiers, of diplomats, of Presidential lackeys surely at heart believe that they are helping to restore and rebuild countries with a significant place in the history of this planet. I have to believe this to be true. I can’t comprehend the magnitude of any other motivation.

But this teacher’s motivation could be spite or sheer laziness. I’ll break for half an hour to think of others…

Back from half an hour. Still nothing!

Enlisting democracy for evil ends is nothing new. Using it to revile a child does hit a new low.

Clearly this teacher should never, ever teach again. Give them a mop and bucket, or teach them to pick fruit, I don’t care, but this is a person who has forfeited the right to ever supervise another human being, let alone a classroom of children.

No doubt there’ll be a lawsuit. Good! If a bloody big settlement is the only punishment meted out; then at least it’s something.

The Advertiser article I referred to suggests that nice begets nice, and I think that’s right. But the converse is true, and this nasty, reprehensible act on the other side of the globe has led me to my bitterest side and this rant.

I promise I’ll be nice tomorrow.

PS: On Dave Mendoza’s site, you can read the full stoty and email the school to tell them what you think: http://sixdegreesfromdave.com/2008/05/30/support-5-year-old-alex-barton-email-campaign-to-confront-discrimination

One Vision

Sometime, throwaway lines can have a profound effect on your life. In my last blog, I wrote this about LinkedIn Answers at a moment’s whim:

Because I believe that you have to give as well as receive, for every answer I receive, I’ll go to LinkedIn answers and find a question to answer – that’s being the Person 2.0 I wish to be.

The blog before that was related to a LinkedIn Answer, and over the process I was amazed by the generosity of spirit of those who responded. However, even more amazing was the reaction I got to the little sentence above.

I received dozens of messages telling me what great idea it was from that pool of LinkedIn users. And the momentum didn’t hurt my network either, with growth still pushing back the barriers of belief. I’m at nearly 800 now – I was on 61 on April 12th after about 5 years in LinkedIn.

So, the idea of giving as well as receiving. It’s central to Web 2.0, Here’s my thought process:

• Passive Web 1.0 only offered the chance to take, and we all took.
• Interactive Web 2.0 offers the chance to give AND take. Person 1.0 still just takes. But Person 2.0 gives and takes. And enjoys it. And benefits in so many ways.

So, in a return to the temperance idea of the early 1900’s, I’m taking the pledge. Obviously, since I’ve written it, and here it is. (It doesn’t stop you drinking)

I pledge that Web 2.0 has inspired me to become ‘Person 2.0′ & I should give at least as much as I receive. I therefore pledge that when using LinkedIn Answers or any site similar, every time I get an answer to one of my questions I will find someone else’s question and give a thoughtful answer.

It sounds pretty simple, but to be honest, it can be a bit of work if you get a lot of answers. As I write this, I’m about six behind due to a great response to my last question. I’ll answer two a day until I catch up, I promise!

I’ve setup a LinkedIn Group, along with truly dodgy logo, so that others can join the pledge. It’s at http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/109061/513273580568 . I’d love to see you there.

I’m keen to see whether this crazy little idea has any currency. I guess I’ll find out.