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Next up on my Reading List…

June 29th, 2009 // No Comments »

I picked this one up at this year’s HOW Design Conference.  I’m just a few pages into it so far, and it looks useful!

Here’s where to get a copy.

Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis: The Takeaway

June 29th, 2009 // No Comments »

It’s taken a while (and I managed to finish four other books during the time I should have just sat down and read this one), but I’ve finally finished reading Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis.

Here are my takeaways from the book:

The test I use to determine how much something affects me is to see whether I become oblivious to the world when I’m immersed in that activity. (p.17)

You can still fit your dream, even if it’s in diminished capacity. (p.30)

We pay for everything we want- in one way or another. (p.32)

The price of thinking only about the future is that is costs you the present. (p. 32)
Everyone lives at their own pace. (p. 39)

The most important thing to do is to not settle on anything or anyone just because you’re trying to meet a deadline. (p. 41)

Life just happens. (p. 41)

It’s not what you acquire by a certain age; it’s how you acquire it and if it makes you feel satisfied. (p. 42)

Who are you racing, and what are you trying to prove? (p. 42)

Take pride in your progress… Learning to like yourself is just as important as career achievement, but no one thinks to write that up in a plan. (p. 43)

There is no rush to decipher your identity in your 20’s- you have the rest of your life for that. (p. 44)

You have time- you don’t have to get everything right now. (p. 45)

Nothing is a waste if you learned something from it. (p. 52)

Whatever you did in you past led you to where you are and who you are today. (p. 52)

If starting over is something you’re hesitating about, although you know you need to do it, ask yourself, “What am I afraid of? Is that realistic? Is it likely? Is that situation worse than the situation now?” (p. 53)

It’s better to make a change now than to keep living your mistakes simply because you worked hard to get there. (p. 53)

Life isn’t a race; it’s a journey, a process. (p. 90)

You can’t make a positive impact if you’re not working on something you love. (p. 91)

…you will always look at someone else and think that they have everything going for them, but when you talk to them one on one, you might learn that they have every single insecurity and confusion and lack of direction you think you have. Nobody has it as together as they seem to. (p. 99)

If you hate going to work, you’ll need to isolate which factor or factors are at the root of the cause rather than let one negative aspect of your job taint the entire field for you. (p. 100)

No opportunity is a good opportunity if you’re treated poorly. (p. 104)

Changing your mind is a sign of growth. It’s a sign that you are learning about yourself and getting closer to discovering who you are. Allowing yourself to backtrack opens up more avenues than forcing yourself to stick with decisions you made in the past. (p. 117)

…if you remain in your current state, refusing to change, things aren’t going to get any better. (p. 118)

Overall, I would recommend this book if you’re in your early twenties- just out of school.  Use it as a reference as you live your life toward your mid-twenties.  Being 27, I did find some of the points in the book useful (as outlined above), but for the most part, this was people in their mid to late-twenties doling out advice. As I read some of the situations written about in the book, I found myself wondering, “What the hell does a 23 year old have to give me advice about?”

On a scale of 1-10, I give Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis a 6.5. As I mentioned in my previous post about this book, I still believe the quarterlife crisis is real, even if the book didn’t pan out to my high expectations of it.

Again, if you’re interested, pick one up on Amazon- a used copy will set you back about three bucks.

Seen Today

June 24th, 2009 // No Comments »

I caught this poster today at the HOW Conference in Austin:

As you can tell from the shoddy picture, I need a better camera.

How to Temporarily Anger your Boston-Area Customers

June 19th, 2009 // No Comments »

Canton Massachusetts-based Dunkin’ Donuts had this little faux pas this morning while tweeting live from Fenway Park:

…which linked to this picture of a very pumped-up Wally the Green Monster hanging out on the concourse:

I’ve taken the liberty of cropping out the comments under this picture, as they were a bit… R-Rated.  In any event, Dunkin’ Donuts, let’s just clear this up once and for all:

People make mistakes- and I’m not perfect by any means.  But when your company is at the home stadium of an MLB team that you spend a lot of money sponsoring, you’d better have your facts straight (especially when you tweet them to the entire world).

But hey, at least he didn’t call Wally “Jeter”…

(By the way, I still love your coffee.)

Free Advice from Those in Charge

June 17th, 2009 // No Comments »

For the past several weeks, I’ve been keeping up with the New York Times’ Corner Office column (which I have published onto my Netvibes start page), and I must say that I’m hooked.

Reiterating my need for a career coach/mentor (which I’ve had no luck in finding), this column has really given me some great insight into how some of todays CEOs think and operate.  What’s also great about these articles is that the interviewer regularly asks the CEO how they got to their current position, what they look for in a job candidate, and what their favorite piece of advice was.

Here are some of the highlights from my readings over the past weeks:

From Robert Iger, CEO of Disney:

“Optimism is a very, very important part of leadership.  However, you need a dose of realism with it.”

“…if you’re not good at one thing, try something else.  Don’t stick with something you’re not good at unless you think you could turn yourself into someone who’s good at that.”

“Just when you think that nothing’s going to change, everything changes.”

1.) Be patient.  2.) Be accessible.  3.) Be optimistic

From Greg Brenneman, Chairman of CCMP Capital:

“In any interaction, you either gain share or lose share.”

“It takes you just as long to respond quickly as it does slowly.”

“Think about the ’shadow of the leader’.”

“…socioeconomic wealth is not the only, or even the most important metric of personal happiness.”

From Richard Anderson, CEO of Delta Air Lines:

“Learn to be patient and not lose your temper.  Everything you do is an example, and people look at everything you do and take a signal from everything you do.”

“Be thankful to the people who get the work done; be thankful to your customers.”

“If you can just focus on getting your job done and being a good colleague and a team player in an organization, and not focused about being overly ambitious and wanting pay raises and promotions and the like, and just doing your job and being part of a team, the rest will take care of itself.”

1.) Only touch paper once.  2.) Always have your homework done.  3.) Return your calls very promptly.  4.) Stick to your schedule.

From John Donahoe, CEO of eBay:

John shares some advice from an old boss:

“I didn’t know it at the time, but I was suffering from a real fear of failure. Kent [John's old boss] said, “You know, John, your challenge is that you’re trying to bat .900.” And he said, “When you were first in college, you got a lot of A’s.  You could get 90, 95 percent right.  When you took your first job as an analyst, you were really successful and felt like you were batting .900.”  But he said, and this is probably five years into my career, “Now you’ve moved from the minor leagues.  You’re playing in the major leagues, and if you expect to bat .900, what happens is, either you come up to bat and you freeze because you’re so afraid of swinging and missing, or you’re a little afraid to step into the batters box.”"

“He said, “Best I can tell, the best hitters in MLB, world-class, they can strike out 6 times out of 10 and still be the greatest hitter of all time.”"

“And he said, “…that’s my philosophy- the key is to get up in that batter’s box and take a swing.  And all you have to do is hit one single, a couple of doubles, and an occasional home run out of every 10 at-bats, and you’re going to be the best hitter or the best business leader around.”"

“You can’t play in the major leagues without having a lot of failures.”

The New York Times’ Corner Office column is published weekly, and is written by Adam Bryant.

Headed to Austin Next Week

June 17th, 2009 // No Comments »

I’ve been trying to get to the HOW Conference for three years now, and I finally got the approval from my boss to go.  Being that I’m the *entire* marketing department at my company, I’m responsible for everything from the design and execution of ad campaigns to requests for proposals on building facilities at new airports; my range of duties (and capabilities) in this position is very broad.  I’m sort of a one-stop-shop, if you will.

The upside of being the *entire* marketing department is that things get done very quickly.  There’s no bureaucracy, and there’s very little back-and-forth for approvals, re-writing copy, or re-formulating a campaign.

The downside (besides being stretched in ten different directions on any given day), is that I don’t have anyone in my department to bounce ideas off of, learn from (or teach), and sometimes I feel like my ideas are getting stale.  Granted, I spend a lot of time on the Internet researching current trends, methods, and industry news, but there’s nothing like having a person (or a department full of people) to get that qualified feedback from.

As far as professional development goes, this will be my second such conference.  I was sent out to Las Vegas a couple of years ago to attend the Exhibitor Conference… there were a few interesting classes that I attended, but it was basically a re-hashing of my first year being a marketing major.  I feel like the HOW Conference will be a better fit for me, in that their seminar sessions are better suited to my current responsibilities at this company; sometimes being at a company for so long, your learning curve starts to flatten out (which causes job fatigue)- professional development seminars like this might be the fix.

The tagline on HOW’s website says it best, “Recognizing that graphic design is a business as well as an art.”

See you in Austin!

This Summer Only

June 16th, 2009 // No Comments »

That’s right- these ultra-clean package designs for Oreo and Ritz will be at your local Target store just for the summer.  Such a shame that this nice of a package re-design won’t be around longer…

Via TheDieline.com, designed by Baker Associates.

Spam, visualized.

May 19th, 2009 // No Comments »

If all spam e-mails were in the form of nicely drawn cartoons, I might actually read them.  Via Geekologie.

Money vs. Career Satisfaction

May 18th, 2009 // No Comments »

Via 20-Something Finance:

Arguments for Money:

• Following this path could potentially set yourself up for becoming financially independent so that you may do whatever you’d like in life and not have to make money at all.
• A job is a job and as long as you’re working, you might as well be making the most return for your time investment.
• When you follow a path that leads to money you are developing a skill set that is in demand in our society and have a much better chance of getting hired and keeping a job.
• Your job is your job. You should leave it at 5 PM and enjoy the rest of your life.

Arguments for Job Satisfaction:

• Your passion should be what you do with your time. Life is too short to pursue other people’s or employer’s goals. Pursue your own, and rich or poor, happiness will follow.
• What good is money if you don’t enjoy what you do?
• If you love something you can become really good at it and money will follow.

What’s your motivator?

The Rules and Karma

May 18th, 2009 // No Comments »

I’m full of questions today- I’m warning you now.

From Seth Godin’s Blog, an article on teaching people a lesson:

“It’s very easy to set up policies and procedures designed to give people what they deserve, to set a standard, to teach a lesson, to make sure they understand who’s boss. And I think that for parents, this is an excellent idea. Bribing your kid leads to spoiled kids who don’t get it. But businesses aren’t parents and customers aren’t kids.

“I can’t let you in, because you didn’t follow the procedure, and even though you’re never coming back here again, if I let you in now, without having followed the procedure, you’ll think that you can ignore the procedure the next time you do business with someone else…” It sounds stupid when you say it that way because it is stupid.”

Think about that for a minute…

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