What to Do When You Hit a Juncture: Don't Put Life on Hold

One of the most important things I've learned over the past year is that you should aim to live in a place that mirrors your own personality. Unfortunately, most of us won't find ourselves in that perfect place from the get-go. So it's important to not let it get you down, or keep you from achieving your goals.

I have no intention of staying in Madison for more than a couple years. Just enough time to get our business going and hopefully move somewhere that suits my personality. But a couple years is a long time. If I just put things off because I'm waiting for the perfect place to take action, I'll miss out on a lot I've looked forward to for years. Timing isn't always everything. The other half is putting your dreams into action.

What I realized through my lack of action over the past year is that great things can happen in a juncture. We're really just procrastinating when we deceive ourselves into thinking we should wait.

Have you ever told yourself these things in a juncture?

If I'm just patient, good things will happen to me.

Image Credit: jenvanw
The first time I probably told myself this was in high school. And it was probably over a girl. Because I was probably awkward and goofy.

But with confidence and a few more years under the belt, we should all learn that patience is only half a virtue. The second half is a willingness to put yourself out there, even if it might crush your ego.

If you're in a new city and you're social life sucks, it's probably because you're not taking enough risks. Being quiet and reserved can seem like the right move because it's safe, but in fact, it's killing your chances of meeting the right people.

Weekend homework assignment: Go to the bar and put yourself in a situation that runs the risk of making an ass out of you in front of the opposite of sex. Sound like an all-time backfire? Maybe.

But maybe not. Great relationships usually begin during awkward moments. Test the theory out for yourself. If you fail, miserably, I'll owe you a drink.

I should just put in more hours working. I'll enjoy myself later.

When we first came to Madison we lived via late-night meetings, skipping out on happy hours – it was a first-class ticket to depression.

And I really hate that I used to live like that. There's a risk of having only weak relationships when you choose to live this way. Fall into this trap now, and who's to say you'll escape from it later?

My new approach: go out whenever you can reasonably afford to. As long as it doesn't seriously affect your work, it's as an important element on your path to success as climbing that ladder every day.

Everything I create here won't matter once I leave. Why waste my time?

I once met a girl from Mexico who convinced me to study Spanish. I went home and bought Rosetta Stone. Granted, I'm susceptible to foreign girls, but it's proof enough to me that short-term friendships can affect our lives.

Now that I'm finally settled in Madison, I'm embracing every new friendship I possibly can because I've learned to be okay with "temporary." Change is going to happen and nothing is permanent.

People who can adapt quickly to change can find happiness almost anywhere. So learn to embrace where you are all the time, even if deep down you wonder if you will ever think anything but "this sucks."

It's doubtful that anyone in their twenties is completely in tune with their environment. And even if you are, that will probably change as you grow older. What's important to realize is, as long as you're willing to embrace where you are today, you're probably going to end up in the right place tomorrow.

Why Every Company Needs to Embrace Social Media

Social media is changing everything. Business Week recently published an article about the power of social media and how companies are beginning to embrace it, because they really don't have a choice. Not everyone has a blog, or wants to blog, but you would be hard pressed to find many people who aren't on some type of social network. Now it's time for corporate America to follow suit and meet their potential customers on their own turf, or risk falling behind the times.

Image Credit: qtmcknight

The article says, "It's as if the walls around our companies are vanishing and old org charts are lying on their sides."

There is truth to that statement. Social media is changing how business works, so businesses better figure out how social media works. Here's why every company needs to embrace social media, now.

Brand Awareness and Traffic

Brand awareness is crucial, it always was. But today you have to go beyond old media to market your message to the masses.

On Friday, my post about Gen Y changing the work place was picked up on Stumble Upon and Digg. On Sunday, 60 Minutes re-aired a segment featuring my blog. Guess what? Our site received 4 times more traffic and 10 times more comments on Friday then it did on Sunday. When prime time national media attention can't compete with a couple of niche websites on a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend, you know that things just aren't what they used to be. These days, if you want to create real brand awareness, you better start with the niche communities.

Passive Job Seekers

Job boards are dying, fast. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Lou Adler, a chief executive of the Adler Group, a company that trains corporate recruiters on hiring practices, says, "I certainly see many, many companies posting their jobs on job boards….and not getting any results and wondering why."

The reason why is because people aren't actively looking for jobs. They are, however, actively browsing social media sites and spending time on social networks, and even if they don't know it, they're passively looking for jobs. The smartest companies are taking advantage of this and creating a social media presence.

Someone may not be looking for a job, but if they stumble across an interesting blog post, Facebook page, or Twitter profile that mentions a great company, they will take the time to investigate further. So everyone is a passive job seeker. It's up to every company to create a large enough online presence so the right people will stumble on them.

Credibility

Online credibility comes from the way you handle your brand and the links and references your blog or website receives. When people link to you, it's like an unofficial endorsement from that person. Think of it like politics. When John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama, it made a big splash. A company can gain serious online street-cred when one of the big guns endorses them.

But again, like politics, the common folks matter too. You must first establish credibility with the masses, and then the big fish can provide you that final push. Even if it takes a while, online credibility will eventually lead to mainstream coolness.

The Coolness factor

The majority of social networks and social media sites are not "mainstream cool." Outside of Silicon Valley and the 900,000 tech crunch readers, the majority of people don't know what Friend Feed, Digg, or even Twitter is. But your company should, if you want to be cool. Why be cool?

If your company can adopt a bunch of these new technologies and figure out how to properly use them to leverage your brand, at some point it will pay off. Not only will your company immediately be considered cool in the tech world, but when one of these sites becomes a legitimate hit, like Twitter is about to become, your company will be mainstream-cool as well.

And when you're mainstream cool, everything changes. You'll have people knocking down your doors trying to get an interview with your company. Just ask Google.

Controlling the conversation

Social media is a constant conversation and because of this, business is now a constant conversation. It's a comment string on Brazen Careerist, its someone's Facebook wall, and it's a Linked In recommendation. Someone, somewhere is out there talking about your company, and they can say whatever they want. All you can do is control the conversation.

Controlling the conversation does not mean telling people how to talk about your company or spamming a couple bloggers with job postings or company descriptions. It means creating a presence where you can initiate and continue a conversation.

What social media requires is authenticity, because even a newbie social media user can sniff out a phony quickly. But authentic conversation isn't what most companies do naturally. So when corporations want to initiate a conversation, they have to find the right people, and they better empower those people to tell the truth, which isn't always great news to deliver.

Starbucks is a great example. When things started going south, they publicly admitted to being at fault. They started a social networking site to ask for help from the customers. And we all remember when they shut down the stores across the country for an afternoon to address some fundamental problems. Smart decisions like that come when you take the time to start a conversation and then remember to listen, too.

It's not easy. It takes a ton of time and it may even consist of a couple full time hires, but establishing a social media presence is worth it. Sooner or later every company will be actively using social media, but the trendsetters are the one's who will get the most out of it. Don't be left behind.

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Thinking Inside the Box: Freelancing, the Only Way to Make Less Money than Being Unemployed

When I finally managed to break my cubicle shackles I swore to myself that I would not take another desk job; at least not until I realize that not having health insurance anymore and only leaving the house slightly more often than those little old ladies who are convinced that the sun will kill them really gets to me. Therefore, I thought it would be prudent to take a break from the nine-to-five and try my hand at freelancing. Hehe, cute idea.

I believed striking out on my own would be a good idea because in the industry I'm trying to break into (video game journalism), there are very few true staff positions. Most gaming websites are run by a guy (or collection of guys, but always guys, because ladies still value human contact a little too much) who knows way too much about programming and also has an intrinsic desire to tell everyone what he thinks about games. Now, this is all well and good, as passion is a great thing, but the unfortunate side effect is that the vast majority of gaming sites are small, in-house operations that employ little to no actual staff. Sure, there are a few big companies like IGN, Gamespot, and 1Up who have a full-time professionals on board, but most "enthusiast" websites are nowhere near reaching those heights.

The nice thing is that there is just too much going on in the industry for one person to handle it all, and that's where we freelancers come in. Be it product reviews (it sucks), opinion articles (the whole industry sucks), or thoughtful editorials (everyone who disagrees with me sucks), freelancers can do it all. I've done a bit of freebie work the last couple years in order to build up my portfolio, and now I've garnered enough of a reputation and track record that I'm in a position where I can actually extract a little pay for my services.

The only problem with the whole arrangement is that the pay scale for freelance work is comparable to the allowance your parents gave you in middle school, possibly even less. Outside of Employee Evolution/Brazen Careerist, I write for four different gaming websites, and my total monthly take-home is somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 for a really, really good month. Also, over half of that amount comes from one site, so if for some reason we ever end up on bad terms, my yearly salary will be akin to that of your co-worker's 7 year old who gathers up aluminum cans and returns them for the recycling deposit. I'd like to think I have more income potential than little Susie, but she's got all of marketing and legal pitching in their cans, and we all know that if anyone loves caffeine it's the folks who spend their days coming up with ad campaigns and suing people.

The prudent thing to do would be to find outlets that pay more, but unfortunately it's not quite that simple. There is a big discrepancy between the major, investor-backed URLs who run a full staff and everybody else. If you aren't making money hand over fist then you likely aren't making money at all, which is why I'm lucky to concurrently find four places that will actually pay me when I vomit my thoughts onto paper.

I suppose I could branch out and write for other industries, but since I have no interest in how to be a good mommy or where to find the best shrimp salad in town I find it hard to develop a passion and give my best work. What's the difference between working at someone else's desk and being miserable than doing the same thing at my own? No thanks, I'd rather be broke and content than slightly less broke and miserable.

Besides, there's a traffic light near my apartment, I can always just head up there with a bucket and dance for change. That would be fun, assuming the hot dog cart guy is willing to share his little slice of solicitation heaven.

10 Ways Generation Y Will Change the Workplace

There's no doubt that Generation Y will fundamentally change corporate America. It's already started. Managing Gen Y is the hot topic among consultants, Human Resource executives and talent management professionals. For a Gen Yer like me, this is great news.

We have a voice, and we have the ear of the decision makers. Not bad for a group of lazy, entitled, twentysomethings. We've learned the importance of balancing work and life from our overworked parents, and we've watched our older siblings and cousins struggle with their baby boomer bosses who refuse to retire. Now we're primed to change the workplace for the better. Here's how we'll do it.

1. We'll Hold Only Productive Meetings
Meetings are important, sometimes. A good meeting will pull everyone to the same page while motivating them to get the work done. It's rare when that should take more than 30 minutes. Efficiency is the name of the game with Gen Y. We know that a drawn out meeting really means, "we have no idea what we're doing," and these time suckers actually halt productivity and stifle creativity, the qualities that they were supposed to encourage. As soon as Gen Y is running the show, watch wasted meeting time drop dramatically.

2. We'll Shorten the Work Day
The work day is eight hours. Or so they say. A real work day for most of us, if you include the commute, lunch, breaks and maybe dinner, is at least 10 hours. But how many hours of the day are actually spent doing real work? I would guess about half. To truly balance work and life, you cannot mess around and waste time at the office. Gen Y knows this. We're productivity machines; we will figure out how to get as much done in six to seven hours as the average boomer does with his eight.

3. We'll Bring Back the Administrative Assistants
Back in the day, nearly everyone had a secretary. These days, you have to be a CEO or high level executive for a Fortune 500 company to have an assistant. Sure, this saves the company a ton, but Generation Y won't stand for it much longer. We recognize the value of time. Two extra hours per day not filing papers and mailing checks adds up to over 500 extra hours per year that we can spend with family and friends. Even if it comes out of our own pocket, Gen Y will cough up the extra dough to get a part time or virtual assistant.

4. We'll Redefine Retirement
Retirement is dead. It's dead for a number of reasons, including the issues with social security and middle class America's inability to save any money. But Gen Y will figure out how to save money to retire–we're already demanding 401K's and excellent benefits. However, we will re-invent retirement by taking multiple mini retirements instead of calling it quits a few years before its time to croak. Maybe in our late twenties we'll take a few months just to travel the world. Then, as we approach parenthood and our kids grow up, we'll take a year off to enjoy time with our family. Then we'll return to work, refreshed and ready to go. When we hit 65, it will be the new 45 and we'll have a solid 15 to 20 years left before we take our final, very brief, mini retirement.

5. We'll Find Real Mentors
Gen Y is obsessed with career development. We understand the importance of great mentors and we seek them out. The problem is that many older workers weren't effectively mentored and they don't always know how to mentor Gen Y. When it's Gen Y's turn to be senior mentors, we'll know how. As we seek mentors now we'll learn what works and what doesn't. And from the time we enter the workforce until the time we're senior employees, the smartest Gen Yers will figure out how to mentor up. We will teach our older co-workers about new technologies and the power of online communities, and they will respond kindly by guiding us through the insane office politics that exist everywhere.

6. We'll Restore Respect to the HR Department
Ten years ago, human resources got no respect. Today, companies are just beginning to see the importance. Gen Y recognizes that people make the company successful. Maybe it's not tangible and maybe it's not easy to see the direct ROI on keeping people happy, but happy people create successful organizations. All you need to do is take a look at Google, the company that's quickly taking over the world, to see that happy people are successful people and successful people make a lot of money for themselves, and for the company. HR is not a cost center, its vital to the bottom line.

7. We'll Promote Based on Emotional Intelligence
For some reason, companies assume that when you pay your dues and you know the business, you can be a manager. They're wrong. The truth is that seniority does not make a good manager. People skills make a good manager. By the time Gen Y is running the world, we will be smart enough to promote people to managers because they can manage, not because they've worked for ten years. For managers, personal work must come a distant second to developing employees both personally and professionally. If you can't help others, you don't deserve a promotion to manager and you will be left behind.

8. We'll Continue to Value What Our Parents Have to Offer
Sure, Gen Xers can laugh about it now, but Gen Yers respect our parents, and our parents are interested in every part of our lives, even when we're 30. Don't be surprised to see Gen Y employees giving their parents a tour of the office and calling up mom and dad for a little advice on their lunch break. It's not about being babied or refusing to grow up, it's about a level of mutual respect that Gen Y has for our parents and our parents have for us. My mother is coming to visit in a couple weeks, and guess what our plan for the day is? A tour of the office and a couple hours of work for each of us before we go out and do the tourist thing.

9. We'll Enjoy Higher Starting Salaries
Sure, Gen Y is interested in volunteering, putting a halt to global warming and all that other good stuff, but we're not our idealist parents. We watched our parents get laid off and we know that companies look out for themselves, so we do the same. Gen Yers will gladly accept a higher starting salary than promises of raises and promotions that we may never see. Additionally, all we have to do is go to Payscale.com or some other site to find out what the average starting salary is. Then we will ask for more, and we'll probably get it, because we know we can get it elsewhere if your company won't give it to us.

10. We'll Re-invent the Performance Review
Semi-annual or annual performance reviews do not work. Gen Y wants constant feedback. If we're only at a company for two years, we cannot wait for our one year review to find out how we're doing. Gen Y will invent the on-the-spot performance review. The smartest companies will train their managers in giving frequent feedback, and the companies that don't will get a quick reality check when their Gen Y employees demand them. Spot reviews lead to consistent improvement, and consistent improvement is what truly matters to Generation Y.

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The Millennial Curse: Can Blogging Break It?

Millennials have been called everything from the Next Great Generation to praise-hungry narcissists. Of course, the media loves to sensationalize (especially news magazines), so we're either "really great," or we "really suck."

I have my own opinion. Since entering the blogosphere over a year ago, I've met some great young people who are challenging the negative side of the stereotype. And the best of all, older generations are starting to listen. But I still wonder, does blogging—all by itself—have the power to alter, perhaps even to define, the image of my generation?

Part of me says no. It takes a lot more than an online presence to change how a generation is defined. And I just don't see enough young people proving their greatness in considerable ways outside of the Web 2.0 realm.

But then again, if enough of us do it well, we can change some minds and create a better reputation for our generation.

Making a change on our own terms

Even though we're still being tagged as self-centered and egotistical, our community-oriented approach to the Internet tells a different story. The Brazen Careerist network is a prime example of Gen Y working together to share ideas and show cooperation.

Every day I find at least one new Gen-Y career blog. We've taken the initiative to talk back. And with all these eager voices ready to provide answers at the drop of a dime, is it fair to say that Millennials are really the root of the problem? Or do we all need to find a better way to bridge the gaps between Boomer, GenX, and Millennials?

Blogging is not mainstream (yet)

Still, blogging may not be the best weapon towards eliminating the millennial Scarlet Letter, because blogging's popularity is growing, but not quickly enough. While university professors insist that it's a great medium not only for personal discovery but also for your career path, many students simply resent it. I was once one of them.

For many young people, a blog still has that "dear diary" feel that was marked by early blog platforms. I still remember how lame it seemed when I first read an entry by a girl I knew in high school. It was a turnoff, why would I want to be a part of this today?

Granted, blogging has changed. In many ways, it's as credible a media source as any big mogul out there. In fact, even big name reports like CNN, Newsweek and Fortune have blogs. Most of which are marketed at the millennial generation.

But like most people (even those not in my generation), word of mouth is still the most powerful marketing tool. And right now, blogging isn't getting widespread respect on the street, so it's hard to believe that it is already changing our reputation in any real way. Yet.

Not enough great millennial bloggers?

So what's missing? To change something as widespread as a stereotype, there needs to be strength in numbers. And while I consistently find great young bloggers every day, more voices are needed. And they need to be individuals with a solid, though-out opinion. Not just ranting about being called selfish.

Most rants are totally lame. They lack substance and I wish someone had told me this when I started blogging. I had to learn it on my own.

Taking your opinions seriously doesn't mean you have to tailor your posts to boring corporate jargon, but it does mean you have to have an opinion, not just a voice. Be more than just a young person shouting for change. Build the bridge that makes change possible.

Regardless of whether blogging has the power to change people's minds and break stereotypes, I don't think anyone can argue that it hasn't had a positive impact on the millennial generation. It's still the best way to communicate our thoughts and ideals to a media world we have little ownership in. And the best part is we can't be censored.