tongue and groove

kick *ss on Kickstarter

brilliant example of how to create an extremely effective video using simple items already on hand:

discovered via this article at GOOD: How to Kick Ass on Kickstarter

calendar

i read a thoughtful post at Mule Design's blog this morning. the primary focus of the post was the use of shared calendars in workplaces and the meetings inherent in those settings, but there were some good general insights there. it's a smart post and you can read it here. the concepts could be translatable, whether or not we work outside the home. take this, for example:

"In my experience, most people don’t schedule their work. They schedule the interruptions that prevent their work from happening."

holy sh*t! that stopped me cold.  :) 

because, really, that's what meetings and meetups and conferences and business lunches are--things that interrupt the flow of our work. most of us look at our calendars--and those of our mates and children (if we have them)--and fit actual work and personal life around scheduled appointments.

Jamie's Wishcasting question today is: "Where do you wish to grow your confidence?" by flipping my calendar habit on its head. i'd like to start by scheduling what i want and need to do, and then fill in what others need from me. simply put, i'd like to grow more confident in the use of my calendar.

would

a couple of days ago, i came across this multimedia map called Geography of a Recession...it shows the monthly unemployment rates in the U.S. by county from January 2007 through September 2009. (it only takes a few seconds to play.)  it makes my brother look pretty smart to have recently relocated his family from California to South Dakota.

then i had an email conversation with my niece who's in college in California.  she's understandably frustrated because with tuition increases and budget cutbacks, she's having to pay more to get less education...and she can't always get the classes she needs/wants.  and if you want to attend a University of California school (which is our public university system), you won't be happy to hear that the UC Regents have just voted to increase the (already-high) fees by another 32%. some colleges are turning more enrollment slots over to out-of-state students to generate much-needed income. and college students are competing with large numbers of adults who are returning to school for additional job training and/or new degrees.

on Sunday the Washington Post ran a cover story about a young woman who excelled all through her academic career...only to find that after graduating summa cum laude from George Washington University's Business School, she couldn't find a job after searching extensively for months.  she ended up moving back in with her parents in Missoula, MT.  her parents spent $100,000 on her college education and she's had to resort to working two part-time jobs in her hometown...retail sales clerk at a music store and restaurant hostess.  despite her education and sterling credentials, she couldn't even get hired as a substitute teacher in her hometown school district.

that story led me to another one about the plethora of jobs available right now in, of all places, North Dakota. it profiles a middle-aged woman who got in her old pickup and drove from Zanesville, OH to rural North Dakota after she'd exhausted all of her job-seeking options in Ohio.  what she found is a state where there are 9,000 unfilled jobs...a state where the talent recruiter gives personal attention to the job seekers who email her.  (imagine that.)  after a life spent in much more populous states, this Ohio woman has had to adjust to living a rural lifestyle, but she was able to buy a fixer-upper mobile home and her home-buying experience went like this: "What happened next made Morgan realize just how different life would be in North Dakota. The purchase price: $7,500. The down payment: $100. The closing date: How about right now, if the local lawyer is still in his office? The paperwork: one short form, requiring one signature. The lawyer's fee: $10."

yesterday my pal Amy wrote a post about being a 20-something teacher and wondering if there might be something more...if maybe she might want a little adventure in her life before settling down.  reading her post i thought about the young woman in Missoula...who's discovered that there have been unexpected benefits from having been forced off the fast-track. she's able to spend her mornings hiking in the hills above Missoula...to take off on spontaneous adventures with her boyfriend (who's preparing for his own adventure in Antarctica). cubicle life has started to seem less appealing. she's asked routinely by her parents and friends what she's going to do next (for some of us, our lifestyle choices guarantee that those questions will never end)...she gets awkward looks and weird responses to whatever she can come up with...but "a complete, honest answer: that, actually, she doesn't feel in a hurry to find a job anymore. That she is now wondering why she ever felt hurried. That maybe this whole thing is a blessing. That maybe the roundabout path offers more than the straight line."  

people in my Dad's generation often had one employer their entire careers...they knew they could count on job security and enjoy their later years having socked away money in their retirement plans. those days are over. in October, the unemployment rate in California hit 12.5%.  if you go back and look at that interactive unemployment map at the beginning of this post, you'll see that the states least impacted are smack dab in the middle of the country along with the upper Rocky Mountain region.

so what does it all mean? what should we do? do we abandon the lifestyles we've become accustomed to on the sides of the country and move to the rural Midwest?  what do we tell our young people who are in college or about to head there, if there's a chance they'll spend a fortune and many years getting a college education only to find they might have to settle for a job that requires only a high school diploma?  (and that's if they can find a job.)  no one, of course, has any answers for anyone else...everyone's path is unique. but it seems to me that this is more than just our job culture switching to what's been dubbed the "gig economy" (needing two or more jobs to survive). there's a huge paradigm shift happening...life in America as we knew it no longer exists...job security, newspapers, constantly rising real estate prices...things that we once took for granted are becoming rarer.  the people who seem to be thriving right now are small business entrepreneurs...especially those who use social media.  know what's hot right now? food carts that advertise via Twitter.  

i don't have any answers...only one suggestion:  as we make this big shift as a culture, maybe it's time to leave behind the 'shoulds.' they never belonged to us anyway. maybe it's time to veer off and start heading down the road toward the 'woulds.'  if we could live our ideal life, what would we do?  creativity isn't just something we set aside a few hours to spend doing...the ultimate would be to live our lives creatively. and if we can block out the voices of doom, maybe there's a gift in all of this after all.

dream extreme

i read a post this morning that i loved so much that i felt compelled to make a Wordle out of it.  need something to kick-start your Monday?  go read this post from Danielle LaPorte..."Look, if you, like dropped acid and wrote your business plan, what would it look like?"