Top traits for hiring new people

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“I just returned from a three-day seminar with Paradigm, a highly-respected sales training firm, and they recommend that managers ensure that new account executives are “adaptable” and “resilient” before hiring them. In fact, these two traits should be at the top of the list in the hiring process because the media world is changing so quickly.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to apply this same thinking when hiring for new journalists? That adaptability and resiliency are just as important as storytelling skills, for example? Of course, those traits not as easy to identify as watching a resume tape and looking at online writing examples (both of which should be required for reporters, by the way), but it means we need to ask job candidates to explain specific examples of how they’ve flexed with change and bounced back from failure.”

— Cory Bergman, Lost Remote

My first three-way

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Ichat_conf2Been doing more and more iChatting since getting the MacBook. Starting to take it for granted. Today we did our first three-way chat, just to see a) if we could and b) how it works. [a: yes, b: easy]

David works from his home in Springfield, MO. Roger’s office is on the other side of our building. I selected both of them in my “buddies list” and hit the video button. As they accepted the invite, they showed up in facing windows on my desktop. And that’s it. We chatted for a few minutes, marveling at how falling-off-a-log simple it was.

I mean, this is how shit is supposed to work, folks. I remember oohing about this to one of our IT folks last year, who responded: “You can video conference on the PC, too. You just have to get the ports configured correctly.”

ABC News forming one-man bureaus

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“Taking the one-man band news crews a step further, ABC News President David Westin announced today that they will open seven new bureaus around the world with only one person per bureau. According to TVWeek, the reporters will write, shoot, edit and feed their material digitally from DV cameras and laptops wherever they are in the field. Assignments so far put people in South Korea; Jakarta, Indonesia; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Nairobi, Kenya; Mumbai, India; New Delhi, India; and Dubai, United Arab Emirates.” — Lost Remote

Sorry, I’m a radio reporter. I do interviews, cut up the sound, write the wrap and anchor a three minute newscast. You’re just gonna have to hire some more people do to that other stuff.

Order of the Fez #9: Phil Powell

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Phil100_2We’ve had something of a member explosion this week over at the Order of the Fez. Hmm, let’s make that “membership” explosion. Phil Powell is Fez #9 (Last of the Single Digits) and hails from the UK. Like Howlin’ Hobbit (Fez #8), Phil is a ukuleleist, and shares my appreciation for the Laurel and Hardy. Welcome, Phil.

Happiness

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I guess intelligent people could argue about whether happiness is something that happens to you or something you can make happen. Gary van Warmerdam believes and, more importantly, makes me believe, we can achieve happiness. We can make it happen. This is a topic I don’t post on too often. The idea of “changing your life” can sound weird if you’re not “ready.” When you are, Mr. van Warmerdam might be just the guy to help you get there.

Note: Gary was probably the one person most responsible for introducing me to meditation practice.

Order of the Fez #8: Howlin’ Hobbit

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Hobbit100The ranks of the secret (some would say cult-like) Order of the Fez have swollen to eight with the induction  of Howlin’ Hobbit:

“Attached you will find a picture of me performing at The Pink Door in Seattle’s fabulous Pike Place Market. This was several years ago and I was part of the Lucky Devil Girly Show, a burlesque troupe.”

How could we refuse the application of someone that had been part of the Lucky Devil Girly Show? No way. Don’t miss the link to Howlin’s music.

Learfield’s original business plan

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In his latest “History of Learfield” blog post, founder and CEO Clyde Lear shares the business plan (below) he put together 35 years ago, when he was starting the company. If you’ve ever started your own business, or think you might someday like to start your own business, you should download the PDF file and read Clyde’s plan (just 27 pages).

This a fascinating look at the very earliest beginnings of what has turned into a multi-million dollar company (Disclosure: the company I work for).

As a blogger, I love that Clyde chose to share this bit of history on his blog. It’s been sitting in his desk for 35 years and now he’s put it out there for employees, friends, family and the world.

Clyde’s First Business Plan (PDF)

And she can sing

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Sheryl CrowI always get a few “you filthy perv” emails when I post one of these photos of Kennett’s Favorite Daughter, Sheryl Crow. I promise, I’m motivated by nothing more than small-town-pride. And appreciation for the work it must take to keep a 45-year-old body looking this fine. (I’m getting close to perv, aren’t I?)

What can I say? Smart, talented women in control of their lives is a turn-on for me. Okay, it doesn’t hurt if they’re hot.

The cover is from the October issue of Shape. Previous posts on SC.

J-Walk Blog

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“The Web has thousands of halfway-decent blogs. This is one of them.” That’s how John Walkenbach describes his blog. No idea how I missed this wonderful blog all these years, but it’s in the reader now. The few minutes you waste here can be better spent on the J-Walk Blog.

Sign150Update (Sept 30, 2007): Yesterday morning I happened across the J-Walk Blog and posted the link above at 11:22 a.m. CDT. At 10:22 a.m. Mountain, J-Walk gave smays.com a nice little mention. (Not sure how this could happen so quickly because I can’t figure out the time zone thing.)

Not long after the mention on J-Walk, I heard from Keith Povall, a delightful chap (bloke?) who blogs from the UK. Keith is also the genius behind the Sandals and Socks website.

UPDATE: John abandoned his blog somewhere along the way in favor of Google+ and Facebook. Alas.

Post number 3,000

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This is the kind of milestone I usually miss until I’m well past it. But a few days ago I happened to notice we were coming up 3,000 posts here at smays.com. Now, that’s really not a lot of posts over a span of 5 1/2 years. But a fair amount of jotting for a journal that started with the tagline, "I’ve really got to start writing some of this down."

And while most of those 3,000 posts are short links to something someone else wrote and I found blog-worthy, this has been a good place to record those few original thoughts that popped into my head.

And every post is a thin, almost invisible thread, stretching out to become part of The Web. And every once in a while, someone plucks one of those threads and I get a little tingle of…connectedness? Hard to describe, but if you’re a blogger, you know what I’m talking about.

I have no idea what I’ll be doing a year from now… or 10 years from now… but I’m pretty sure I’ll be writing things down here. And I promise not to bring this up again until we get to 10,000.