Month March 2015

SXSW – Creativity and Convergence

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This week Austin, Texas is the vortex of the worlds of interactive, film and music. SXSW organizers have created an event that should encourage those who believe the arts are endangered. And for those whose dream job fits into the artistic, entrepreneurial and creative, the Texas state capital is the place to be.

This year Jimmy Kimmel is broadcasting his late night show from Austin and Rand Paul has been showing up at meet ups and receptions.

SXSW was originally staged as a music festival in 1987 and as the Austin economy grew to embrace film and technology companies, SXSW broadened its’ mission adding the interactive and film conferences in 1994. SXSWedu joined the program in 2011 and this year has grown to a four day conference for educators to connect and drive innovation in how we teach and learn.

In an interview with The New York Times, festival director Hugh Forrest described the essence of the festival:“South by Southwest is always about up-and-coming talent, be it a band or filmmaker or technology developer, and that holds true in 2015.”

‘Convergence Day’ provides an opportunity for all attendees to mix at meet ups and panels and discuss cross disciplinary topics including the topic of “Music As Personalized Medicine”.  Using research findings that 18 hours of music a week can have a significant effect on physiology and well-being, “This session will pilot a new technology and begin the largest living experiment to analyze how the music you’re listening to impacts your health.”

There are also practical conversations. Tom Sachs, the internationally-acclaimed contemporary artist and Carter Cleveland, CEO of Artsy discussed ‘Is Good Business the Best Art?’ on Sunday. Their discussion wrestled with the question many face; Can you be successful and not sell your soul?

Current hot industry topics also find a platform with panels on ‘Content, Copyright and Commerce’ and ‘Compensating College Athletes for Their Likeness’.

SXSW is a visible demonstration of barriers collapsing. We live in a multidisciplinary world where imaginative connections create new business opportunities.

While TED in Vancouver is the tightly scripted corporate event, SXSW is organized ‘happenstance’. By bringing together innovators in a variety of creative enterprises, the event captures boundless energy with a soundtrack for the future. It’s March Madness without the brackets.

 

 

 

 

The value of TED in a distracted workplace

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The sold-out TED Conference began yesterday in Vancouver. If your invite was lost in the mail, for $500 you can follow the entire conference on the live stream.

This year’s theme, ‘Truth and Dare’ challenges attendees to join a “quest to magnify the world as it might be. We will seek to challenge and reshape our core beliefs about today’s reality, but also to celebrate the thinkers, dreamers and mavericks who offer bold new alternatives.”

For critics who have likened TED to a revival meeting complete with evangelical speakers, this statement of purpose does seem to support their observations.

Before TED I thought ‘curators’ worked in museums and ‘thought leaders’ guided religious cults. But now my view has been broadened and I realize almost any experience worthwhile is ‘curated’ and ‘thought leaders’ are just folks whose publicists were more aggressive than the competition.

Criticism aside, TED provides a snapshot of where we are as a global culture, shining a spotlight on global issues in technology, entertainment and design. In 18 minute presentations, experts communicate an issue, suggest a solution and issue a call to action. Each video is professionally produced, with each speaker receiving coaching on image and delivery. Has the life been produced out of the presenters? Possibly.

For me, I view TED as a platform for online learning, a place to start research before delving more deeply into a topic.

It’s the rare employer who provides professional development programming in-house today. TED offers an introduction to important topics in ‘sound bursts’ that fit neatly into a workplace of distraction. This is where you can maintain your currency with trends and events. The TED Talks are one source to supplement your ability to talk for five minutes on a topic as you engage in conversations with colleagues and clients.

Here are three of my favorites:

Sherry Turkle: Connected, but alone?

Elizabeth Gilbert: Success, failure and the drive to keep creating.

Susan Cain: The Power of Introverts

 

Bracketology for the job search procrastinator

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It’s that time of year, ‘March Madness’, when everyone, including the President is selecting who they believe will advance to the final four in the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball championships. With a little imagination and humor, you can apply the bracket concept as a way to narrow down your career interests and begin to identify potential employers.

Let’s say you are totally confused and quickly losing your confidence in the process. Everyone you know seems to have this ‘career thing’ mastered while you’re still floundering.  Where do you begin? Try categorizing your interests using the bracket system. Instead of four regions, fill in four career fields that might interest you. Identify sixteen possible employers in each field. Go to each organization’s website and get a sense of how they describe what they do and the culture that enables their employees to succeed. Utilize social networking sites to identify folks you may know who are employees in your selected organizations or have contacts that could be of help.

Your goal in this first phase is to access a basic level of information for comparison.

As you progress with your research, you will begin to eliminate some organizations in favor of others. Once you get to your ‘elite eight’, schedule your information interviews. As you talk to people you will begin to establish a realistic assessment of your chances for success in an organization.

This ‘elite eight’ forms your target list. By the time you have narrowed your selection to eight, you should feel comfortable that each employer presents a realistic next step in your career.

As with any selection process, you don’t have complete control of the outcome. The employer extends the offer and you have the choice to accept or continue to explore other options.

The NCAA tournament lasts three weeks. If you start filling in your career fields now, you will advance the exploration process at a pace to be ready for interviews by ‘tip-off’ in the championship game.

 

 

The week @ work March 9 – 15

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It’s amazing how many people cede their career decisions to the whims of others: high school students who select a college based on prestige vs. fit, college students who choose a major considering only the return on investment and mid career professionals who take residence in their comfort zone and lose connection with their network outside the organization.

There are many things in life where we have no control, but our career success is a result of the effort we apply to setting our goals and making them happen. Read any profile of an individual who has achieved their dream and you will learn of hard work, determination, failure, resilience and a bit of luck. These are folks who ‘own’ their career despite skeptics and critics, building a support system to enable their success.

This past week we suggested some ideas to jump start your decision process, reclaim ownership of your career.

First, write a letter to your younger self. What have you learned from your experience to this point? What is important to you? What were the ‘big’ things that seemed to matter at the time, that now, in retrospect, had no impact on your future.

Next, create a collage. Visualize your life in photos. Include all the things that describe you, and then broaden the picture to include the social influences and finally the reality of the workplace. Here is the narrative at the starting point. Who you are, who is influencing your decisions and how your goals will play out in the world.

Reflect on your experiences with a journal of life and work. Record your experience in real time and select intervals to go back and review: after a month, six months, a year. We are so consumed by the urgency of the present that we often miss patterns over time.

Clarify your ideas in conversation with others. Get feedback without abdicating ownership. Many have charted their career path before you and there is wisdom to gain from the stories of others.

Outline your plan and set it in motion.

 

 

 

 

Dreams – A Poem by Langston Hughes

Eileen Kohan 1 Comment

Today’s poem comes from one of the leading literary figures of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes. As a writer his work included short stories, translations, children’s books and anthologies. But he was best known for his poems. His writing reflected the idea that black culture should be celebrated, because it is just as valuable as white culture, a historical sentiment relevant to today’s refrain of ‘black lives matter’.

‘Dreams’ was written in the early years of the civil rights movement. The words hold the promise of hope and signal the consequences ‘when dreams go’. The poem gives us encouragement to break through whatever roadblocks we encounter on the way to fulfilling our life goals.

Dreams

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

 

 

 

This Is Your Life

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Who is telling your story? Take a minute to think before you respond. It’s so easy to get caught up in the expectations of others that we often lose track of our own narrative, and after time it’s so buried beneath the voices of others that we need a team of archeologists to sift through several layers to find traces of our original thoughts.

It’s a basic question of ownership. Anna Quindlen describes it as “custody of your life” in her 2000 book,  ‘A Short Guide to a Happy Life’:

“When you leave college, there are thousands of people out there with the same degree you have; when you get a job, there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living.

But you are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on the bus, or in the car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.”

At the beginning of a freshman seminar each fall I gave each student a simple black lined Moleskine notebook. The idea was that they would ‘write’ their life in ‘real time’, scribbling snippets of their new adventure in college and hopefully initiate a practice that  would catalog their days long after commencement. I did not want this to be an electronic record, but life captured in the written word with pen and paper with time for reflection.

There was no expectation tied to the gift of the notebook, and I’m not sure how many students continued the practice of keeping a journal after the first few weeks. What I do know, is that keeping a written account of our days allows us to return and read our story as it evolves. If we have captured our hopes and dreams on paper, we can watch them emerge over time and even pinpoint when outside influences begin to redirect our path. And that awareness will inform our decisions.

You are the only person who can write your ‘true’ story. Keeping a journal, writing your life in real time, is one way to claim ownership of your career and your life.

 

                                                                    

 

 

 

‘Painting’ a Picture of Your Dream

Eileen Kohan 1 Comment

For a number of years I taught an undergraduate course on career theories. Hang in there; I am not about to anesthetize you with the syllabus. As you may imagine, the content was a bit challenging and it took some imagination and good humor to engage students in the material.

In a nutshell, our career decisions reflect three major spheres of influence:

Our individual background including: age, gender, self concept, personality, values, ability and interests

Our social circle: family, friends, community, workplace and education

Our environment: political decisions, globalization, job market, socio-economic status and geographic location

All three are parts of a puzzle, when solved reveals a picture of our future.

Back to the undergraduate class. I think it helps to visualize how all these parts come together. To do this, we came up with the idea to create a collage that would illustrate, for each student, the evolution of their dream.

Starting with stacks of old magazines, poster board and lots of glue we all found our spot on the floor and returned to our kindergarten days, cutting and pasting, creating a vision that incorporated values, hopes, dreams and detours. In the subsequent class each student had the opportunity to present their collage and articulate their career vision. Lively discussion followed and in one case, a student who was being influenced to join a family business, found a substitute to introduce to his father – another classmate whose dream was to work in the type of organization his father managed.

All this to suggest a way to uncover your passion is to create a visual that creates a narrative for your journey. You can go old school and create a collage or use Pinterest to start a ‘career board’.

Creating a visual representation of your work life is a learning process, confirming your values and setting your GPS toward your career home.

 

 

 

It’s about the relationship – a visit to the dentist

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It’s Monday and the first appointment on my agenda was a visit to the dentist. Not my favorite day. Not my favorite place to go.

In finding a dentist I went through all the steps I would take to research a potential employer. In my world view, when a degree of competence is required and my smile is at risk. It’s about the relationship and trust.

Imagine my surprise when I arrived at my dentist’s office this morning and the dental assistant kept referring to the dentist as ‘he’ when my dentist was a ‘she’. Apparently my dentist had left the practice after giving two weeks notice and the administrative staff failed to communicate. So I left. And I think they were surprised.

I explained the reason I chose their practice was initially the credentials of my dentist, and over time, the trust I experienced in the relationship kept me connected.

Often businesses view their product as a commodity; easily exchanged for an alternate when the original is not available. This approach probably results in the view that clients are interchangeable as well. And in the case of this dental practice, they may be right. But I don’t think that’s a sustainable view.

We’re all managing relationships in our workplace; with colleagues, leadership and customers.

Today, on the last page of The New York Times sports section there is a photo essay: ‘Standing Till The End’ about the employees who have worked at the Nassau Coliseum as ushers for the NY Islanders Hockey Team. This is the last season the team will be playing on Long Island. They move to Brooklyn and the Barclays Center next season. Reporter Allan Kreda described the scene at a recent game: “Standing at ice level and facing the Islander’s runway, Mike Artusa smiled broadly and had a handshake for all the familiar faces. And there was a seemingly endless supply of those…Like so much at the arena, which dates to 1972, Artusa and his fellow ushers, ticket takers and security guards are fixtures. And they revel in their roles, treating the jobs more like a family reunion that work.”

These are people who will be out of work in a few weeks. But they understand and continue to demonstrate the fundamental values of their workplace and manage the relationships with their customers ‘as family’.

Is there a connection between the expectations we have visiting a dentist office vs. how we are treated at a sporting event? Going to the dentist, my expectation is not to have a good time, as I would at a hockey game. I don’t expect the staff to be ‘fixtures’, lacking career mobility. But I do expect professionals who value their patients.

When it comes to customer service, we can all improve with experience and observation. Maybe the dental office staff should go to a hockey game.

 

 

The week @ work – March 2 – 8

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Today we celebrate International Women’s Day.  The day is being marked by a variety of events and online activities including a ‘google doodle’ and a popular YouTube campaign encouraging women to write a letter to their younger self, #DearMe, providing advice and encouragement to be who you are – confidence is key.

The first National Women’s Day was celebrated in the US in 1909 to commemorate the 1908 strike in New York by women garment workers protesting against working conditions. From its’ historical roots to today, International Women’s Day is about working women campaigning for change. Harriet Minter writing in today’s Guardian cautions those who believe we no longer need IWD:

“The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is “make it happen”. Yes, we’ve made things happen since 1909 but we haven’t achieved enough, there is still more to do. So let’s celebrate this IWD but let’s also remember, we’re a long way away from no longer needing it.’

This week the national jobs report showed lower unemployment but average hourly earnings only increasing by .01%. If you are in the workforce, this finding is not breaking news. Is the message here that you need to move to increase your income?

Last week I shared the story of Lynsey Addario, the photojournalist. This week it was announced that Stephen Spielberg will adapt her memoir and Jennifer Lawrence will play Ms. Addario in the film.

And for some workplace humor: ‘The Diary of the Left Shark’ by Kelly Stout in The New Yorker. You may remember the left shark from the Super Bowl halftime show. Here is his journal of events leading up to the performance and it’s aftermath. It’s an imagined story of workplace stress, sabotage and the resulting reevaluation of career direction. “Downloaded application to Columbia Teachers College. Think I could maybe make a difference in the lives of youth…Feeling O.K. about the future. Dance world maybe too toxic for a shark like me. Perhaps whole episode not humiliation but wake-up call! Considering move to Austin.”

 

 

 

The Power of Taking a Break & the Unexpected Inspiration of Reading

Eileen Kohan 1 Comment

On Sunday tickets will go on sale for the musical ‘Hamilton’ as it moves from the Public Theater in New York to begin it’s Broadway run at the Richard Rodgers in mid July. It’s off Broadway performances which began last month, have received positive reviews from theater critics for its’ unique staging and musical interpretation of the life of Alexander Hamilton.

So why the theater update on a blog about work?  The New Yorker staff writer, Rebecca Mead answers in her profile of writer, composer and performer Lin-Manuel Miranda. He was on vacation in Mexico 2009 “…and while bobbing in the pool on an inflatable lounger he started to read a book that he bought on impulse: Ron Chernow’s eight-hundred-page biography of Alexander Hamilton. Miranda was seized by the story of Hamilton’s early life. Born out of wedlock, raised in poverty in St. Croix, abandoned by his father, and orphaned by his mother as a child, Hamilton transplanted himself as an adolescent to a New York City filled with revolutionary fervor…”

If Mr. Miranda had not been on vacation, taking time away from work, we may have been deprived of his creativity and ability to connect the dots as he developed his perspective for the play: “Miranda saw Hamilton’s relentlessness, brilliance, linguistic dexterity, and self-destructive stubbornness through his own idiosyncratic lens. It was, he thought, a hip-hop story, and immigrant’s story.”

Ms. Mead’s article tells the story of the evolution of Mr. Miranda’s career, the development of ‘Hamilton’, and the connections he has made along the way with mentors and creative partnerships.

Sometimes we think creativity belongs to the artist and we struggle to find opportunities to relate to our own workplace. But creativity is about imagination and storytelling our way to solving a problem.  Taking time away allows for a different view. If we are open to the unexpected we can connect the dots and reframe the narrative. And, maybe be online Sunday to buy tickets and see how it’s done.