What I'm Reading

Adding various things to my Google reader today, and came across a bunch of great sites and blogs that I'm looking forward to reading more of.

Although this Incomplete Manifesto is from a design company called Bruce Mau Design, I think many of the points are so applicable to lots of processes, creative or otherwise. Particular favorites include:

• Don't Clean Your Desk: You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.
• Take Field Trips: The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.
• Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it
• Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child): Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.

Other sites I'm intrigued by:

• White Hot Truth
• Daily Poetics
  
• The Happiness Project: especially because we've been trying to update The Happy List more often. Figuring out what makes you happy helps you to remember to do it.
• Wanting to read more of Bob Sutton's workplace blog too. So many conversations I've had lately about jobs and the future have circled back to wanting to work in a good environment, for a good boss, as a good employee, and what all of that means.

(One more set of interesting rules from Daily Poetics: Immaculate Heart College Art Department)

What are you reading? Any good suggestions? Also recently launched, if you're looking for a good way to get into reading print materials and not just blogs: The Twitter Book Club! Check out the first book announcement and get involved!

Eeeeek.

I missed a day. Been trying to write every day, and just noticed it's 12:09 am. Booooo.

Stealing a concept from Pursue the Passion, and writing 5 things I'm excited about on a Friday:

1. A grownup apartment!! So soon!
   
2. Taking yoga classes. I've only gone to two so far, but I feel so much more centered and relaxed after each class. An hour where I only focus on my body and my breathing takes some pressure off of my poor brain
3. Liking my new roommates! I'm always ambivalent about getting new randoms, but as usual, I've been proved too cynical, and the three new girls are laidback and funny and easy to live with
4. My new haircut--chopped off 8.5 inches to donate to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program, in memory of my friend Eric who passed away from leukemia this fall. It was an emotional thing to do for that reason, and cutting off my hair always feels like a good catalyst for change in my life as well.
5. My mom's second-round interview for a sweet job. She's so smart and interested/interesting, but hasn't had a full-time job in a while--spent time taking care of me and my brother, and working part-time for my dad's jewelry business. She's both an architect and an attorney though, and is getting back into the workforce, looking to do consulting and contract work. First round went well, and I'm excited for the next round on Monday for her! It's funny with us both looking for jobs at the same time. It's been a while since she's done it, and I had to remind her about things she didn't have to consider last time, like following up via email a week later, since things get lost in inboxes so easily.
6. And a sixth for good measure: my best friend Val got into Columbia's Physical Therapy program!

Friday's my day off--hoping it's sunny and productive. And not thigh-freezingly cold.

Cover Letters = On Their Way Out

When (not if) I am in charge of a company or business, I will never ask for cover letters. Resumes, ok, maybe. Just so I can justify hires to other, less creative folk. However. Some other item submission will be substituted. Options thus far include:

• papier mache
• haikus
• wire sculpture
• colorful acrostic poems
• collages (please let all glue dry before sending in)
• videos
• short story
• cartoon
• song
• dance
• mural
• torn-out notebook page with impressive doodles.

Cover letters are all hot air. I'd rather submit a Post-it Note flipbook cartoon. I'd hire me.

Going Professional

I'm trying to revamp my resume. Boost my job image. Get myself hired. Not be homeless and jobless effective May 1st.

Like every Northeastern student ever, I have a resume that sums up my basic experiences at jobs and internships and touts my decent GPA. There's an application deadline at the end of the week for a non-profit consultancy job (one-year duration, some business classes provided, menial (but at least existent) salary, and health insurance provided). A connection at the company warned me that HR is potentially looking for people with work experience, even though the program is geared towards new young professionals.

My goal is to highlight the work experience I have managed to obtain during 5 years at Northeastern. Even though I'll be a new grad, my resume doesn't resemble it. However, my current resume doesn't pop. I've looked at it so many times that it's more likely grey words than anything engaging or active. There are a few tactics I'm trying though:

• Stronger, more active verbs at the beginning of all my bullets. I want words more representative of the activity they are referencing: create = not specific. Participate = lame. Good verbs are hard to come by, however.
  
• More quantifiable terms. Created something? What number of something? For how many people? In what span of time? Did I come in way under the deadline?
• Specific skills I want to highlight: supervising interns, copyediting and proofreading a publication, managing several projects at once reliably,
• Social Media: my knowledge of and interest in blogs, Twitter, and other forms of marketing and communication
• My range of experience: while it may seem slightly less focused than the resume of a business major or engineer, I think my strength at any job will lie in my familiarity with multiple fields and skills.
  

Suggestions? Willing to read and comment on my resume? Any skills I might not be thinking of that you would either want to see as an employer or know I have as an acquaintance?

Things I Am Excited About (all deserving of capital letters)

• www.conjectured.com and www.workatjelly.com

The idea of a more organized coffee shop/idea swap experience is hugely attractive to me...I like surrounding myself with friends (usually studying or working on different topics than me) and feeding off the range of energy and ideas. Tempted to check out a Boston Jelly, especially if I get into...

• Consulting for my dad

His custom-design jewelry business could use overhaul in a few areas: PR, marketing, demographics, events, engaging the public, new media, rhetoric/message/branding, etc. We talked for a long time tonight about various ideas I have for the Pittsburgh audience, as well as branching out in various different directions. Nothing he adds to his business will hurt--it will only help or serve as a testing mechanism for future attempts. Plus, most of my ideas would be pretty low-cost--he could pay me or a young person with a similar background to do a lot of the groundwork for minimal money and with minimal supplies beyond a cellphone and a computer. Goal is to convince him to hire me (and actually pay me, something he is horrific at following through on) for the spring...

• Job hunting

Both petrifying and really exciting. Need to make lots of lists of fields/companies/inspirations/interests to research. Boston Best Businesses, using Danielle's connection to a career consultant, calling up all my old bosses, gathering together any actual skills and useful knowledge I've garnered from college, revamping my LinkedIn, blog, Twitter, happylist blog, etc to be useful demonstrations of my skills, and continuing to be excited about the things I'm passionate about.

• Getting my act together

This sounds like my New Year's resolution list, but that's fine. Grocery shopping, gymming, redoing my Google Reader to encompass everything I need (and actually reading it), meditation, keeping in touch (writing actual letters, too) with people near and far, learning how to manage my money in any way shape or form, planning the travel I need for 2009, finding an apartment with Bonnie, paying off any bills, getting a Blackberry-type object, and remembering to take time for me and for the seemingly less consequential things in my life (beyond school and activities and to-do lists). Typing things out makes them seem real: if I have to reread this when I go back through this blog, maybe it will make me uncomfortable enough to follow through.

• To Be Continued :)

Check out www.itsthehappylist.blogspot.com for more exciting things in my life and in other lives!

of mice and men and interns and clarity

If I've learned one thing from my myriad internships and jobs, its that I want to be a good supervisor. A good boss. A good coworker. Someone that helps to shape a positive, enjoyable, productive work environment.

A job isn't just the task at hand--its something that consumes hours of lives, a purpose behind a drive, and also affects the lifestyle and mental state of the worker, beyond the effect the actual work done in work hours has on a business or on clients or on the world.

It doesn't take much to be a pleasant part of an office. In all honesty, I think it takes more effort to be curt, brusque, unfriendly, unhelpful, uninviting, and cold. By chatting with coworkers, smiling, editing others' work or taking on a project someone can't handle, inviting someone for lunch or coffee, offering to pick up something or run an errand for a busy boss, or answering the simplest or toughest of questions, you can make a huge difference in the comfort level of a work environment.

Encouraging workers to take a break, rather than chaining them to a desk forcefully or subconsciously, is another great way to boost morale--even the most motivated people can't focus for 8 hours a day--why make them try? Condone coffee breaks, and employee bonding. Happy employees do more work. Angry employees will procrastinate and do mediocre work.

Don't discourage dialogue. Don't ever make someone feel stupid for asking a question, because one day, that person will be too cowed to ask a question, and you might not like the result of the work they do without questioning.

Also, just remember things. Not big things, but you know, when your intern is coming into the office, or when their last day is. Just one of those ways to make employees feel valued.

that's it for now. something more coherent later--I want to read more about workplace theory at bigger companies, or more productive companies.