Author Archives: Steve Mays
One never has enough clever people
I don’t think of myself as clever but it is something to which one might aspire. This article at FinancialPost.com identifies the attributes of clever and why organizations need such folk:
“The truth is that organizations need a particular kind of clever employees — people with a propensity for innovation and even iconoclasm. People who happily tread on organizational sacred ground while seeking new ways to produce sustained economic growth.
Clever people are highly talented individuals who have the potential to create disproportionate amounts of value from the resources that an organization makes available to them.”
And how does one spot a clever boy or girl?
- They know their worth (their skills are not easily replicated).
- They ask difficult questions.
- They are organizationally savvy.
- They are not impressed by corporate hierarchy.
- They expect instant access to decision makers.
- They are well connected outside of their organizations.
- Their passion is for what they do, not for who they work for.
- Even if you lead them well, they won’t thank you.
Learfield’s “kitchen conference room”
When I started at Learfield Communications in 1984, the business was operated from a 3-story brick house on McCarty Street in Jefferson City, MO. The rooms were jammed with desks and partitions and the kitchen was the “common area.” In this photo (below), you see Clyde, Clarice Brown, Bob Priddy (all still with us) and a few others.
This image captures that time very well. There was very much a family feel to the company. The days of high-tech conference rooms were many years in the future. This is one of several images I scanned from a contact sheet (thus the poor quality). The original prints are undoubtedly buried in a box in some closet.
The Handmaid’s Tale
Reply
“The Handmaid’s Tale is set in the Republic of Gilead, a country formed within the borders of what was formerly the United States of America by a racist, chauvinist, nativist, theocratic-organized military coup motivated by an ideologically-driven response to the pervasive ecological degradation of the land, widespread infertility, and attendant social dislocations. Beginning with a staged terrorist attack killing the President and ousting Congress, the coup leaders launched a revolution which overthrew the United States government and abolished the US Constitution. The new theocratic military dictatorship, styled “The Republic of Gilead”, moved quickly to consolidate its power and reorganize society along a new militarized, hierarchical, compulsorily-Christian regime of Old Testament-inspired social and religious orthodoxy among its newly-created social classes.”
Plot summary of The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood (Wikipedia). Sound familiar? Published in 1985.
Casting call for actors and zombies
“Collapse,” a SAG feature film from Iowa-based production companies Iowa Film Production Services/Storybench, will be casting in Coralville Sunday for feature parts, extras and zombies.
Open call with PMS Casting of Pella will be noon to 5 p.m. at production office 805 Second Street, Coralville (the old Scandinavian Design building across from Dairy Queen.)
Principal photography begins Sept. 30 and will run for five weeks in Johnson and Iowa counties. Compensation for speaking parts is equivalent to SAG low-budget scale of $268/day.
Non-agented actors can email a small photo in jpeg format to pmsfilmcasting@aol.com with resume and contact information.
This is Storybench’s third feature, following “The Offering” and “Splatter.” “Collapse” was written by Ottumwa’s Mike Saunders and will be directed by Saunders and fellow Ottumwan Jason Bolinger. Producing is Bruce Heppner-Elgin of Washington.
Characters being cast include:
ROBERT MORGAN – in his 40’s. A care-worn farmer doing his best to take care of his family. Teetering on the edge of losing his farm and dealing with a sick wife, his world is spinning out of control. When the zombies begin to attack the farm, he deals with them brutally and efficiently.
MOLLY MORGAN – Robert’s much-loved wife suffers from spells of pain and exhaustion. She is a loving, dutiful wife and mother but the stress is becoming too much for her.
WILL MORGAN – 13-14 years old and doesn’t quite fit in at school. A quiet child who feels a great deal of responsibility toward his family. Tired from the burden of helping his father and Hank with the farm chores and distracted by his parent’s absence in the stands, he loses his track event.
HANK – Mid-late 20’s, Hank has worked for the Morgans for about 10 years and is more like family than a farm hand. He is a surrogate big brother to Will. Tough and loyal, he is forced to give notice because he has his own bills to pay.
COACH BELL – Female, athletic and fit in her 40’s-50’s, she recognizes that Will is a kid in trouble and needs encouragement. Coach Bell speaks with his parents about her concerns for Will.
Dr. CHARLES MCFARLAND – Small town doctor in his 40’s. A contemporary of Robert’s, he knows that Molly’s illness is not something he can treat and tries to convince Robert to take Molly to a psychiatrist.
NURSE -30’s – She runs Dr. McFarland’s office and is efficient, yet motherly. Fits well into this small farming community and probably knows everything about everybody.
SHERIFF RHODES – Rough and tough local guy who has spent his entire life in this community. Late 40’s -early 50’s, he was probably a high school football hero in his youth. Rhodes is good at keeping his small town running smoothly because he knows everybody and is fair to them all. He wears cowboy boots and an exterior gruffness.
DEPUTY COOPER: An average nice guy in his mid-late 20’s. Single and easy going. Likes the relative peace of working in a small town and never thought he would have to deal with anything like this.
DANA – Just out of high school, Dana is a small town girl who attends community college and works at the local convenience gas mart. Robert rescues her but is later forced to kill her when she is bitten.
MR. LYNN A prosperous neighboring farmer in his 60’s, Mr. Lynn is losing his sight. Molly reads to him on occasion. When he hires Hank away from the Morgan farm, he adds to Robert’s troubles.
EDGAR HENNENLOTTER – A banker in his late 20’s. Because he is a city boy with a business degree, he considers himself to be better than the farmers his bank serves and has an air of arrogance and insincerity about him.
For more information visit PMS Casting’s web site.
New release that came into one of our newsrooms a couple of days ago. Golly, but I’d love to make up to Iowa just two talk with those waiting to audition. I mean, how does “Dana” feel about being “forced to kill her when she is bitten?” Or, how does “Robert” plan to deal with the zombies “brutally and efficiently?”
If you see this movie, leave us a comment.
Tag cloud
We (yes, there IS a mouse in my pocket) migrated one of our websites over to WordPress this week. As near as we can determine, more than 46,000 stories were imported. My role in this has been modest but I did spend a good bit of time working with the categories, keywords, tags and other meta data used to organize all of those news and sports stories.
There are less than 5,000 posts to this blog but it would be impossible (okay, very difficult) to find anything without a good tagging scheme. One of the more common approaches to displaying those tags is the “tag cloud.” I have one on the right side of this page, near the bottom. And here’s the tag cloud for my flickr account.
My friend Scott doesn’t like how tag clouds use different size text to indicate the most and least common topics. He thinks it looks “sloppy.” I find the visual cue very intuitive and easy to use. (I can see I have some clean-up to do)
Strangely, tagging is a bit like curling your tongue. Some people can do it and some just can’t. I’m getting better at it.
Dollars moving from old radio to new radio?
“Internet Radio Makes Waves,” a new eMarketer report, predicts the radio industry will see double-digit losses in ad spending this year alone, with terrestrial radio bringing in $14.5 billion in ad revenues in 2009, a drop of 18% from 2008 levels.
ZenithOptimedia reports that in 2009, advertisers will spend $260 million on Internet radio and another $28 million on podcasting for a combined total of $288 million, up 28% from 2008. By 2011, that combined figure will reach nearly $394 million.
The Rev. Knute Rockne will deliver today’s message
This morning I overhead two friends discussing religion. Their “conversation” quickly became tense and strained with one party walking away angry.
Kids, listen to your Uncle Steve. The ONLY safe place to talk about religion is in a big room with a bunch of people who feel exactly the way you do about it.
Organized religion (a redundancy) is like the NFL. It’s made up leagues (Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Hindu, etc) and the leagues are made up of teams (Southern Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Sunni, Shia, etc).
Now, the league officials (the Pope and whatever they call the top guys in the other leagues) don’t want you just getting together on a Saturday afternoon, choosing teams and playing touch football for a couple of hours. That might be fun, but you won’t make it to the Big Leagues like that and those pick-up games sure won’ keep the lights on.
You need uniforms, play books, cheer leaders, a band… and officials to blow the whistle when you break the rules.
With verrrryyyy rare exceptions… every “discussion” of religion (and politics, for that matter) is one person validating his or her beliefs by demonstrating that yours are wrong.
“Ward, June, Beaver and Wally have all moved away to live with Timmy and Lassie.”
Letter to realtor from man shopping for a home in just the right neighborhood:
“One of the most important things I’m looking for is the quality of the neighbors and the neighborhood as much as I am a house. According to your map on the internet, I felt that perhaps these homes were in neighborhoods that are clean, wholesome and safe; with honest christian neighbors with sincere and humble christian values who would be pleasant to live among.
Being retired I wish to live where their is respect, and civility and kindness among the resident population. I wish for the neighborhood to have a refinement and elegance to it, with stable households of quality and good taste. I don’t want to move into a blighted or deteriorating area, nor do I wish to live in an area filled with transient student population where in the neighbors are changing every semeter. I want it to be family oriented that when one might sit on their front porch people go for walks with their families and wave and are ginuinely neighborly.”
Response to realtor from a seller:
“Ask him if he has any other requests. Would he like his neighbors to be of a specific gender or race? What kind of pets would be to his liking, and what about climate? Would occasional rain be acceptable or would he rather it be dry, but with humidity readings in the low 40’s?
Tell him Ward, June, Beaver and Wally have all moved away to live with Timmy and Lassie.”
No, you can’ t make this shit up. Wouldn’t you just love to live next door to this guy?
Have you seen this man?
