Miss Teen USA, Miss South Carolina, & The Power of the Web

If you have not yet already heard about the (to say the least) unfortunate response that young Miss South Carolina gave to the question “Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the US on a world map. Why do you think this is?” on the Miss Teen USA telecast it is (to borrow the NBC tagline) "must see TV."

Unhappily for this drop dead beautiful kid, this is a clip that will likely be around for a long, long time. It was up on YouTube faster than you can say high speed connection, and according to a posting by very glib guy named Scott Goldberg on DigitalMediaWire the clip had already been viewed by more than 5 million people and as this is written it could well be double that number by now.

For the remaining .2% of the population who have no idea what she said and aren't into pointing and clicking, her response was:

“I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and that I believe our education, such as in South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should our education over here in the US should help the US, or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future.”

If you still can't believe that someone of any age could say something like this, and didn't see the film at 11:00, this will get you there.

Scott goes on to say in his post that while he could, he was not going to comment on what all this has to say about education in general or maybe even in South Carolina in particular since the site is really about digital media and not social commentary.

I would like to think that this blog is not about social commentary either, and for sure it is not about digital media. I can barely find the onoff switch on anything. It is, however, sometimes about leadership and as such about education from time to time as well.

You would have to listen to this young lady's response to the question plus her efforts to explain her way out of it on Today and decide for yourself if you are buying any or all of her explanation that she was just kind of overwhelmed by it all and sort of went blank and the words just seemed to tumble out without regard for anything logically connecting to anything else.

Although my bias is to think that the women who compete in things like Miss Teen USA are not exactly newbies when it comes to the various segments of these beauty pagents, including the "interview" stuff, but I am still willing to cut most 18 year olds some slack - not much, but some.

That said, what really scares me is that somewhere there is a survey whose data states “Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the US on a world map."

God help us all.

Chicken Little Doesn't Know Everything

As we are all acutely aware, the stock market has been behaving like something you could only find at Six Flags. Given the hype that we get on a minute by minute basis via CNN or MSNBC or whatever oracle you use to get your news fix, it is a wonder that we have anyone left who can look forward to anything.

Okay, maybe that's going a bit too far. I don't know about you, but no matter how you get your news information these days, it really is pretty tough to stay optimistic. Not that those of us here at ExecuNet have any deeper insights into the future than anyone else, nonetheless, in our own small way, some time ago in an effort to try and help our members and readers get a somewhat different perspective on how all this stuff was likely to impact their professional work lives, we set up a place on the site so that senior executives who were interested in getting a 10,000 foot view of the Executive marketplace could check it out from time to time. Over the years it has proven to track very well against what other indices say is going on.

So, to in some way try to counteract recent headlines, be advised that from where we sit, the sky is not yet falling. Based on our monthly polls of both executives (Executive Employment Outlook) and recruiters (Recruiter Confidence Index) we still appear to be in pretty decent shape.

On the executive side which tends to be more conservative than the recruiting world, nearly half of those who responded (46%) were confident or very confident that the market for executives would improve of the next 6 months. That was up 14% from a year ago, and 8% higher than July. When we asked the recruiters the same question, 69% were confident regarding the executive employment outlook for the next 6 months, and while they were not up quite as much month over month as the execs were, they were still up 2% from the July survey.

The two monthly surveys I am citing here are not the only way in which we attempt to take the economic temperature, but over the years they have turned out to be pretty good indicators and we have no reason to think they will not continue to be, so for now anyway, we are still, as they say, bullish.

Plus ça change? Not quite

When one thinks of "thought leadership" in the business world and what comes under the heading of "must reading" The Economist is one of the names that come immediately to mind. So, when my colleague Lauryn Franzoni sent me a copy of a recent piece entitled Plus ça change? Not quite I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but one thing I didn't expect was to end up laughing to the point of tears.

Maybe it's just my love of British humor or maybe my envy of wonderful writing or maybe it's just because it's Friday, summer and sunny, but whatever it is, this piece really struck a chord.

It's not all that long, so even if it doesn't make you laugh out loud it won't take that much time from your day. Here's a taste:

In a technological age ever more clichés are being untethered from their origins in this way. People write out plenty of metaphorical cheques, whether blank or bouncing. Many of them are to be found in the post, but fewer in real life (some shops no longer accept them). There is no need to keep your cards close to your chest, or indeed an ace up your sleeve, when so much gambling happens online. Thanks to reviews, awards and celebrity book-club stickers, you can in fact judge a book by its cover. If you carry a mobile phone, write e-mail or post entries on MySpace, being out of sight does not mean being out of mind. And in the age of the iPod, no one can be accused of being unable to carry a tune.

The rest can all be found here if your curiosity has been tweaked.

Tsun Ami

"He's the most productive person I have ever met."

Thus starts the piece that John Sumser posted on August 9th. He was referring to Amitai Givertz, a name seen in this blog on a number of occasions, and which will likely resurface from time to time so long as he keeps being thought of as:

"...Furiously writing, experimenting and barnstorming the south, Amitai Givertz is a bundle of raw energy wrestling with the ambiguities of contemporary Recruiting. Recently, I started recommending his powerful presentation on the recursive nature of blogging to anyone who will listen. Posing by day as a Vice President of Recourse Communications, Inc. (RCI), Ami is fast becoming a central theorist and practitioner in 21st Century online recruiting."

which is how the rest of John's opening paragraph went in a piece he posted called Tsun Ami. Do you think John might have second career ahead of him as a headline writer for the Post or Daily News?

I commend the article to your attention if you didn't catch it when it ran a week or so ago. In addition to singing Ami's praises (clearly warrented) John also points out that Ami is going to be the ringmaster for a September 25th event in Atlanta called the Recruiting Roadshow which I think was John's brainchild and which sounds like an intriguing professional development and intelligence gathering opportunity for players in the recruiting world.

Judgement By Reputation

There have been a lot of bits and bytes flying around in the past couple of days over Facebook's kicking recruiter Harry Joiner off for what they interpreted as spamming of their members; a debate that is probably not going to die immediately either. In case you didn't catch it, Harry tried to fire up his entire gmail list (4600 names) and suggest to them to join Facebook. Facebook apparently was "not amused" (to borrow a phrase from our friends in the UK) nor did they appreciate the "marketing help" and not only blew Harry away, but in a message that is certainly not going to win any awards for tact. Check it out:

Hi Harry,

Your account has been disabled because you have violated Facebook's Terms of Use.

Abusing the features of the site to spam other people is not permitted. In addition, it is a violation of our Terms of Use to use one's account for advertising or promotional purposes.

I'm sorry, but you will no longer be able to use Facebook. This decision is final.

Thanks for your understanding,

Anthony
Customer Support Representative
Facebook

If you want to get a good understanding of Harry's perspective on all this, take the time to read his comment on Gavin Heaton's blog MarketingProfs Daily Fix on a posting called Who Owns You. He makes some pretty potent arguments.

So what causes stuff like this anyway? My take is that at one level it is simply part of the growing pains and "learnings" that we are going through as we continue the cyber experiment we currently label as "social networking. At another level, unhappily I think I would tend to agree with John Sumser's take when he wrote in his post on his Electronic Recruiting News:

"The Facebook's response to Harry Joiner was due, in part, to the dreadful reputation that Recruiters have around the planet. Spam, in the guise of "talent pool development" has become a tool of the trade. Bulk email, used because it works, has an unseen cost."

You can read the rest of what John had to say by going to the post About Recruiters.

We all have our reputations, and for good or for ill as they say, perceptions are real to those who hold them. What happened to Mr. Joiner is an example of once perceptions out there, and in a world where judgments are far too often made without really making an effort to look beyond the surface (as clearly Facebook didn't) when it rains, it rains on the just as well as the unjust. Harry Joiner may have made some sort of an error in judgment, but from what I can tell, he really didn't deserve the electronic version of being summarily executed.

Is Sorry a Strategy

Robyn Greenspan is our Senior Editor who among the many things she does is the engine that drives our Executive Insider newsletter, a complimentary publication on senior executive career related issues which is published every two weeks via email.

In the edition that hit my desktop today, Robyn's Letter from the Editor immmediately caught my attention. First because I so much admire the way she writes, but also because of the subject matter which had to do with executive leadership or lack thereof, and readers of this blog will know that this is a subject on which I have focused a good deal such as:

The Qualities of a Successful Leader/Manager

Visting Day Leadership

Things to Think About on the Way Home

The Price of Leadership

I know there are lots of folks who, like myself, look forward to getting the Insider every two weeks. Indeed, the number is deep into six figures at this point, but there are also lots of folks who may not have seen it, and I could not help myself from sharing Robyn's letter in this issue.

Is Sorry a Strategy?

John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, is the latest apologist for his role as an anonymous Internet user who posted negative messages about competitor Wild Oats on financial stock forums. It may seem like a MySpace prank at first — an impulsive action from a high schooler who didn't get a prom date — but Mackey routinely posted on these message boards for eight years.

Mackey's actions were certainly opaque, and his apology seems to represent transparency. But with a recent wave of public "sorries" from visible figures — Paris Hilton, David Neeleman, Don Imus, Mel Gibson and a growing list of politicians — these megawatt mea culpas may no longer suffice. In many cases, the apology seems less about reprehensible actions and more about "I'm sorry I got caught."

While the antics of drunken celebrities, corrupt politicians and greedy corporate executives (Enron, Tyco, etc.) may not surprise us — and may sometimes be expected — Mackey's actions are more disappointing. Whole Foods, like Neeleman's JetBlue, are supposed to be the good guys — socially conscious, friendly, customer-centric companies that care about their employees, the earth and doing what's right.

They both issued very public apologies, but Neeleman's and Mackey's downfalls are decidedly different. The former faced a customer service debacle while the latter deliberately deceived stakeholders; Neeleman absorbed the blame for issues where he may not have been directly responsible and Mackey's consistently poor judgment put his company and — especially its brand — in jeopardy. There are many lessons in Mackey's story: the myth of Internet anonymity, the economic influence of user-generated content, managing bad PR and repairing brand reputation, the psychology of forgiveness, etc. But the most important is about the interrelationship between leadership and trust.

The "learnings" she draws from the likes of Messrs. Mackey and Neeleman among others should serve as reminders to any businessperson large or small.

Lessons Last Night's Democratic Debate Taught Us

I don't know about you, but I subscribe to lots of electronic newsletters. Among other things, it's nice lunchtime reading. One of the ones I get comes from Leslie Unger, a communications consultant and calls her business Electric Impulse Communications. Leslie had been kind enough to do a FastTrack Webinar for us and once I had heard her I knew that this was someone whose thoughts were worth knowing.

I had only seen highlights from the YouTube/CNN Democratic candidate debate, but it was enough to suggest that it seemed to make for far more interesting watching than what we are used to seeing. Apparently Leslie thought so too as one of the articles in her most recent newsletter told her readers some of what she saw as "learnings" from the event.

I share it here since I am sure that in doing so there will be some others who will now get a chance to see what she had to say:

I. Lessons Last Night's Democratic Debate Taught Us

1. Technology Won. Pundits can argue over the validity of YouTube or the format of the taped questions, but the updated use of technology was the clear cut winner over one candidate or an agenda.

Lesson Learned: Technology will continue to revolutionize elections as TV did in the Kennedy - Nixon debates. If technology affects elections, are we naïve to think our updated use and inclusion of it does not affect our success?

2. Being defensive is always a choice. All candidates were asked if they sent their children to private school. Every candidate whose children attended private school allowed themselves to be on the defensive, defending their choice for private education. Once on the defensive, very difficult to be proactive or strong.

Lesson Learned: From a communication standpoint, the most effective technique in dealing with an objection is to embrace it: "Yes, this is a country of freedom and choices, and we made a choice". Why should a candidate defend their choice of education?

Do you allow yourself to be put on the defensive? Embrace, rather than defend.

3. The value of wit. Humor can ingratiate, create a bond, crash through the invisible fence between speaker and audience. A few candidates had witty moments that said, wow-I can think on my feet. The exchange between Kucinich and Anderson Cooper about no one being left of Dennis, Bill Richardson's comment about his peers all looking good in the White House . . .as his VP. Who knew Kucinich had a sense of humor?

Lesson Learned: There is value in being relaxed, confident, and prepared enough to allow your Inner Brilliance to come out and play.

Points of interest:

• Positioning behind the podium: death grip or comfortable stance?

• Was John Edwards remark about Hillary's jacket sexist?

• Target YouTube audience is young, male candidates in traditional suits- good match?

As I read Leslie's piece, it made me also think that the "learnings" she pointed out had obvious implications and applications outside the political arena. If you are an executive and wondering about how you are perceived by your team or those you are trying to influence as a leader there are lessons for us as well.

Blow the Sucker Up?

For those of us who follow the articles posted daily on ERE (Electronic Recruiting Exchange) the name Kevin Wheeler not only comes as no surprise, but when mentioned is often accompanied by the nodding of heads coupled with an assortment of facial expressions which convey the respect and acknowledgment that comes when people feel you really have earned a "thought leader" merit badge. Makes no difference if you agree or not, Mr. Wheeler is clearly a thinker who, and happily for the rest of us, is also a very effective communicator of ideas.

Kevin recently posted a piece entitled Blow the Sucker Up? in which he challenges a fair amount of the conventional wisdom on a number axioms surrounding the care and feeding of staffing strategies that have been around since the days of help wanted ads on sandwich boards. The article is much too long to reproduce here, but if you haven't read it, I would certainly recommend it.

Below, however, are five of what Kevin considered the most critical notions that people should consider "blowing up." It is an interesting list and if it stimulates your curiosity, as I would think it might, then you have some appreciation of the challenging perspectives he presents.

* Only passive candidates are the best.

* It's not possible to keep people as candidates for more than a short time.

* Most candidates want to apply with a resume and don't like online screening or profilers.

* Each candidate will have to be interviewed in person.

* There is no way to show a direct correlation between the sourcing and interview process, and the eventual performance of the candidate.

While I had read Kevin's piece a few days ago, I was reminded of it again today as I was being interviewed by HR Executive who had called ExecuNet regarding some of the data that had come from our Executive Job Market Intelligence Report part of which talked about the degree to which senior level executives were not happy campers in their current jobs and the implications of this in light of the current issues surrounding both recruiting and retention.

One of the things we talked about was the fact that organizations that were really serious about winning their battles in the "war for talent" had best come up with innovative solutions. I suggested to the reporter that one of those folks who has demonstrated that he really is thinking about this stuff is Wheeler and that I very much admire the way in which he gets people's attention by challenging the status quo without making the reader feel too much like a jerk for not thinking about some of this stuff themselves.

Balancing Success With Significance

At various junctures in our lives, we often kid each other about the "big 30,40,50,or 60" and once you get past the 60 maybe you start thinking that I hope I can be around to get kidded about the ones that come after that.

In terms of the world in which I work, the average age of an ExecuNet member is just a tad under fifty, so it is no surprise that many of the members we talk with on a daily basis express a fair amount of feelings on the topic of this post.

We all have often heard our friends (and ourselves?) talk about "giving back." Maybe this is driven by the realization that one has arrived at what is euphemistically called "mid life"? It is probably a combination of a lot of factors, who knows, but few who are in this age group can deny that they don't think about it.

Armed with the foregoing, it probably should not be a surprise that a recent survey by Money Magazine and Salary.com found that the number one job for individuals over the age of 50 was nonprofit executive. Our own survey data which came from our 2007 Executive Job Market Intelligence Report also showed a substantial amount of interest in the NFP world as well with 47.4% of the members indicating that they were considering or might consider careers in Nonprofit/Govt./Education.

Just because I have had a "successful" career in or out of corporate America doesn't by any means suggest that at the end of that road that I feel totally comfortable about where I would rate myself on the scales of what I've been fortunate to get versus what I have given back.

There is certainly no shortage of problems to solve or people in need. While it certainly isn't too late for any of us to think about giving back, having reached that "mid-life" juncture, I have to say that I'm not feeling so great at not having started sooner thinking more about the difference between success and significance.

Don't Do As I Do, Do As I Say

One of the blogs I try to follow is Kent Blumberg's. I do so for a couple of reasons, first he has interesting things to say based on his own experience, and second, he follows ten times the number of blogs I do, so in reading his posts frequently he shares "learnings" and links from numerous sites many of which I also find of interest and would certainly have missed were it not for Kent's collecting them.

Such was the case today when Kent had a link to a blog site hosted by a fellow named Phil Gerbyshak called "Make It Great! with Phil Gerbyshak. I was not familiar with Phil's musings, but his post of July 2nd entitled 20 Quesitons:Monday Morning Greatness obviously made an impression on Kent and when I read it, I had to agree.

It isn't that the questions posed are life-altering or new, they aren't, but they are good reminders nonetheless, and it makes no difference whether you are an individual contributor, lead a cast of thousands or are entry level or board level.

Of course, the fact that most of the questions Phil suggests are intended to help keep one on the right track, like most things like them, it is much easier said than done which is why I have used the title on this post that I have.

If readers here choose to check it out as well, maybe you will agree too.

Video Killed The Database Star

So I was reading today's Interbiznet Bugler where the lead piece was entitled Video Killed The Data Base Star.

As I read on, essentially John Sumser was making the argument that there was a coming tidal wave of video resumes despite the obvious issue of time that it would take for recruiters, third party or otherwise, to screen them nothwithstanding. God only knows they have issues enough dealing with electronic versions.

John finished off this piece by asserting that hiring managers would actually "want" video resumes because "there's something about live action that cements decisions." He also went on to say that all of this would "swamp the recruiting folks with the challenge of wading through years of video clips." Now there's a candidate for the understatement of the year award!

Maybe because it's Friday, a beautiful summer day, and I am more focused on a Tom Collins on the deck watching the boats come in from a sunset sail that I am assuming this piece was written tongue in cheek.

I mean I certainly realize with the advent of YouTube and MySpace, not to mention the official launch of the iPhone that video is going to be used in a lot of ways with much of it hopefully benefiting both our personal and business lives, it's just that I can't see video resumes being one of them.

Aside from the time factor and the ability to edit them to the point where they might be eligible for an Oscar special effects nomination, one wonders what the EEOC would have to say?

In Search of the Perfect Job

I guess if I had the proverbial nickel for every book that has been written about how to go about a job search or just managing one's career in general, I could retire yesterday and not have to worry about the future of social security or anything else.

Furthermore, there are a number of the books out there that are, in my opinion, quite good. So why do people keep writing them? I think because as I learned to my own amazement some years ago, that while many people can write or talk about the same subject, we all come at it from our own personal experiences and "learnings" which usually means that how one communicates his thoughts on a given subject is likely to be different from someone else's and therefore will resonate differently with different people. The result? In one instance I come away and felt I have learned little, and in another I feel like I just had an epiphany of major proportions.

While we have never met, I have known Clyde Lowstuter both by reputation and phone almost since I became involved with ExecuNet nearly twenty years ago. Clyde has written a number of books and In Search of the Perfect Job - 8 Steps To The $250,000+ Executive Job That's Right For You while the subject is certainly not new, it is nonetheless very timely in that it is written for really senior level executives, and if you think it is easy to write something for a group of folks whose lack of attention spans are legendary, think again.

That said, I can promise you that some of its readers are going to rebel at some of the exercises that Clyde has built into the book, but that's only because they force you to think and don't come with a mouse you can click that promises to take you immediately to the URL that is going to answer every concern you have ever had and comes with a seven figure sign-on bonus. In other words, the real world, as we all know, doesn't come with pat answers.

Anyway, even if you cop out on some of the exercises, Clyde has a neat way of putting in light bulb type things to remind the reader of some of the key "learnings" and one that showed up very early on is one that I think many of us should print out and paste on the bathroom mirror because it wise counsel indeed no matter what is going on in your life as a leader:

"Authenticity is the single most important derterminant for personal and leadership success."

When I saw this little gem it reminded me of another quote that I've been told was attributed to Lincoln. I have never been able to verify that came from Lincoln, but even if it didn't, I have always liked it. It goes something like this:

"There is not a man alive with a memory good enough to be a successful liar."

Clyde, they are important values to live by ~ thanks for book and the reminder.

The Qualities of a Successful Leader/Manager

Bells and Whistles is a blog about which I have had something to say on more than one occasion and given the contributions to it made by Amitai Givertz, and Eric Jackson both of whom are on the staff of RCI Recruitment Solutions whose company blog it is, the names are likely to show up here many times in the future as well.

Given the business they are in is probably one of the reasons they write so much about leadership stuff, but that isn't the only reason that the site is way up on my list of blogs to follow. The real reason is not what they are writing about so much as they impact (at least on me) of how what they have to say is so sharply focused.

Happily and another reason is that they attract readers who also are not only obviously very bright, but who also have a gift to communicate via the written word.

One such contributor is a fellow named Gil Keough who happens to be the Director of Corporate Training for a company called Toobeez International located in PA. Gil is an exceptionally bright and gifted writer.

Were I not a follower of Bells and Whistles as well as John Sumser and Recruiting.com I am sure I would have missed Gil's powerfully put comments that he posted after having read a commentary of Eric Jackson's (also excellent) back in April titled Building Smart Leadership. Such is the convoluted and often very valuable "linkages" created by the net.

In any event, all of this is a long way to say that Gil's commentary which he simply called The Qualities of A Successful Leader/Manager is not only very much worth reading, but once you have, you might well be motivated, as I was, to print and place it in that folder we all have called: Lessons in Leadership I Don't Ever Want to Forget.

Fear Induced Lethargy

Anyone of us who has ever found themselves "between portfolio assignments" or whatever other euphemism you want to use for looking for a job while being unemployed knows full well the range of emotions (very few of which are good) one experiences in the quest for the next gig.

Some of us talk about it, others write about it, most of us intellectually fully understand what we're supposed to do about it, but for a multitude of rationalizations often hold back desperately hoping that the world will finally feel the pain of not having us as the answer to their prayers and that one day our phone will ring and the person on the other end will say "Dave, I am so glad I finally found you, please just fill in the blank on this check, and come help us become #1 in our industry."

So why is it that so many senior level executives in a job search seem to find themselves waiting for that call, or who feel they are really having a productive day because they have sent of lots of emails with resume attached to job board after job board or if they were really on an efficiency kick, sent off lots of emails to jobs they found on one of the aggregator services that have been scrapped and published from the net thus saving themselves the click and loading time going from site to site.

One of the best answers to this behavioral phenomenon I found in the musings of John Reinke (who in the interest of full disclosure is a member of ExecuNet) and who among his myriad activities has a blog which he calls Reinke Faces Life.

John came up with the phrase "fear induced lethargy" in a communication he was sending to one of the many folks who come to him for free advice regarding their search. John, who, like many of us, has far more experience in looking for a job than he would like, has what some might consider a pretty cynical outlook on a number of things. Said differently, the advice he dispenses from what is clearly a very giving and compassionate heart is neither "warm" nor "fuzzy." It falls much more into the Howard Cosell school of career management circa 2007. Hence the phrase "fear induced lethargy."

When John used these words he was really trying suggest why it is that many of us take the easy way out (and hope) rather than putting our time and energy into those aspects of a search that are much tougher (e.g. really trying to think about and articulate what it is that I really bring to the table and being able to communicate same in a compelling and confident fashion.)

Fear of rejection is indeed a very powerful motivator for inaction.

It is for this reason and lots of others (but this one will certainly suffice for now) that when people ask what ExecuNet is all about that one of the answers I will give is that we are in the career management education business for senior level executives and professionals.

When the lethargy takes hold, it's as if all of our self-confidence and self-esteem resided on only one side of the desk, and for many that perception is in fact the reality.

So, what helps to change all that and make what John calls "fear induced lethargy" morph into result producing proactivity and action? For me, the hold a gun to my head one word answer is information.

When the "what" seems overwhelming, often it is only because we don't have the information that provides us with the knowledge of the "how". Once I know how, somehow or another the self-confidence adrenalin kicks in and it is for that reason that we spend the time and energy we do on the "how" and I have to say the feedback we get helps me to understand why many teachers love what they do.

Why Do This?

A month or so ago, I got an email from Steve Levy who was going to be on a panel on blogging at the Kennedy Conference in Las Vegas. To prepare, each panel member contacted a number of bloggers and asked them to respond to six questions regarding what they were doing, why they did it, etc., and what impact it had, if any, on their business.

The conference came and went, and while I wasn't able to attend, by all accounts it and the panel of which Steve was a part were both well recieved.

I really hadn't thought about it much since I responded to Steve's request for my thoughts on the subject until today when I noted Kent Blumberg's post on the same subject. In reading Kent's post, and since over time I too have been asked, and as my friends who keep telling me to "get a life" continue to ask me about it, I can save myself some desparately needed time and send them this link. So for all four of you who have asked, not counting immediate family, here's what I sent to Steve:

1. Why do I blog? At first I just thought it might be fun to try since I had not done anything like it before, although since I write an internal newsletter every day that goes to everyone in our company lots of staff members here felt I would find it a natural extension. I also felt it was another channel to communicate with our members and other professionals interested in various aspects of career management at the executive level.

Since we are an organization that has been preaching the value of building a personal and professional network based on members helping each other for the past 19 years, when blogging came along it seemed like another opportunity to try and help as well as learn from others in the field.

2. What do I prefer to blog about? For good or for ill, I have been running around in the career management/HR/Staffing World for more than 45 years. Worse, I have never been known to lack an opinion (although I certainly can’t express them with your clarity or humor). That said, I tend to blog on topics where most of us are still searching for answers (e.g. what is effective leadership really?) or on subjects about which I feel strongly (e.g. education, business and personal ethics). My readers are concerned about a variety of provocative topics (e.g. age discrimination, job security, and compensation.) I try to keep them up to date with what we’re learning from our vantage point. My favorite topics are those that have the potential to really help readers improve their professional lives – even if it’s a tip that just gets them home a half hour earlier or a little saner after a long meeting with their boss.

3. Where does the inspiration come from? Much of it comes from the 45+ years on both sides of the hiring desk and the observations and “learnings” that come from the mistakes we have all made along the way. Much of it also comes from our members. The issues I talk with them about both by phone and email cover the waterfront and often have to do with effective career management in a digital age.

4. Who do I blog for? I approach my blog the same way I approach the networking meetings that we have around the country and in Canada. The blog is a forum that is open to anyone, ExecuNet member or not. Our meetings have always been that way. All we ask is that people come in the spirit of sharing and helping others. The blog is the same as far as I am concerned, it is one of the reasons I like the idea of allowing people to comment and add their own thoughts. One of the factors that make groups such a powerful force in problem-solving is because people bring different sets of experiences to bear. Blogs can be another forum that enables meaningful connections to be made.

5. How has blogging impacted the business/brand, etc.? I honestly don’t know, probably not a lot, although we certainly have received some very nice comments and commentary from many in the blogosphere who feel it makes a contribution, so that is great for the ego. In terms of our business, ever since we started in 1988 the vast majority of our members have come to us by referral, and I’m pleased to say that is still the case, so while it may be that the blog has caused some people to become aware of us who weren’t before, usually they have talked to a current or former member or a search consultant by the time they get to us.

6. When do you find time to blog? Now there’s an issue! Often I don’t and by the time I come up for air, the issue that got me thinking about saying something I sometimes feel is “old news” so I pass. Where folks like you and others on your panel find the time I have no clue, but I stand in awe, that’s for sure. All that said, I usually try to find time at night or on the weekend. It is very hard for me to blog during the business day. I have to find time to put my thoughts together, and for me, that means some quiet time.

It’s the FAST that Eat the Slow!

Those who follow this blog have heard Amitai Givertiz's name before, and given what he writes about and as importantly how he writes about it, it is a name that is likely to show up again.

Amitai writes on a blog site called Bells and Whistles and as I was scrolling through it today I noted a post in which he was telling his readers about a free workshop on May 29th featuring Laurence Haughton.

While Amitai had only recently met Laurence, I instantly recognized his name since he had done a FastTrack webinar for us last year on another of his books entitled The Art of Execution. He has much to say and is a fascinating speaker.

The May 29th session is based on Haughton's first book It's Not the Big That Eat the Small...It's the Fast That Eat the Slow: How to Use Speed as a Competitive Tool in Business (You have to love the title!)

If you are one of those senior level executives who has precious little time to spend on professional development and you have not been exposed to Haughton, I think you would find this program time well spent.

California: Always on the Bleeding Edge

So I get this email from my brother who knows we follow trends in the senior executive job search and career management space after he came across a piece in his local paper about a consulting gig commissioned by the Preident of the University of California.

Seems that UC President Dynes is shelling out $7,000,000 for a one year study regarding the efficiency in the 1500 person Office of the President. You have to love it.

If you are thinking of consulting as something to explore as part of a career change, numbers like this might be a tipping point for you.

Here's one way to look at how it might break down:

Seven million dolllars is more than $4,600 to study the efficiency of each and every one of the 1,500 employees in the Office of the President. (1,500 x $4,600 = $6,900,000). There is even $100,000 leftover for working lunches during the interviews.

Seven million is enough to hire 28 consultants to work full-time for a year at $250,000 per consultant per year.

Of course, as with most studies like these, the consultants will not talk with every employee, they would more likely talk with about one in every ten, so it might look something like: 150 total, for an average of one hour per employee, so their $7,000,000 consulting fee amounts to about $46,000 per interview-hour.

Even if all the interviews weren't the most sintilating conversations in the world, not bad duty!

Only in America, and only in California!

Senior Executive Job Market

As time has passed since ExecuNet was founded nearly 20 years ago we have become pretty accustomed to people coming to us with questions about what's cooking in the senior executive market place. The subjects cover the waterfront from wanting to know about the advent of social networks like LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, etc. to age discrimination. Often it is the media, but obviously it is a subject of even more intense interest to our members.

While we spent a good deal of time throughout the year trying to respond to the inquiries, it became pretty clear pretty fast that it would be a good idea to at least establish some sort of a more comprehensive data source from which we could track market changes year to year. For the past 15 years that effort has turned into an annual publication which we call The Executive Job Market Intelligence Report.

As it has grown over the years, we continue to get more calls asking for copies or at least wanting to know more about it. Since it is a member benefit, naturally it goes to our members first in hard copy as well as being available to them online. Once that is done, however, we also try to be as responsive as we can within reason and cost to respond to the requests for more information.

It is with that in mind that I thought for those who might have an interest, I could at least make readers aware that in addition to an executive summary of the report which is available online at no cost, that Peter Clayton, executive producer at Total Picture Radio also recently spent some time talking with our President Mark Anderson and myself about both the report and the market in general. It was a fun discussion (Peter always makes it easy) so if it is a subject of interest, it can be heard here, and even if this is not a subject of interest, if you are not familiar with Total Picture Radio, but are interested in pro active career management in general, it is a URL well worth book marking.

Visiting Day Leadership

So I sit down to breakfast, and on page one above the fold is the headline

Narcotic Maker Guilty of Deceit Over Marketing ~ Producer of OxyContin to Pay $600 Million.

The story went on to report that three of Purdue Pharma's current or former execs had plead guilty to criminal charges of misleading doctors and patients, and I'm thinking that my only option is to go back to herbs and witch doctors except I'd be worried about pesticides in the herbs and Medicare rejecting the witch doctors.

About the only positive thing I got from the story was that the nausea it caused helped to curb my appetite which is always a good thing.

It also made me think about an ExecuNet FastTrack Webinar that world class consultant and author Judith Glaser presented for our members in April. It was based on her award-winning books Creating We and The DNA of Leadership. Fascinating stuff!

Anyway, in discussing cultures with the audience, Judith took them through a couple of polls, one of which asked them to select the attribute or quality that they felt was most important in a relationship. There were ten from which to choose, such as caring, honesty, candor, etc., but the winner by far was "trust." Surprise, surprise.

I know it is an over-simplification, but in our seemingly never-ending quest to identify the qualities of leadership, I still believe that it all starts with trust, and the more I think about, also ends with trust.

Bells and Whistles

Ami Givertz is someone I have never met or even spoken with on the phone, but he is, in my opinion and those of many others who read his posts, an extraordinarily gifted writer.

Ami is currently the SVP of Business Development for RCI Recruitment Solutions so I can only assume that he is a gifted marketing person as well. Certainly would follow given his skill in putting words together that somehow tranform themselves from simple narrative to an extraordinary intellect that seems to flow effortlessly from his keyboard.

Ami used to blog far more than he does now, so when he pressed the pause button on his former blog it was a big void in my day, but when I recently discovered him once again as one of the bloggers on Bells and Whistles (the blog site of RCI) and found that his voice had not been lost entirely, it definately brightened my day.

If you have not had the chance to check out both his observations on the staffing space and those who roam the recruiting blogosphere, you would do yourself a service to save Ami posts as one of your favorites.