Half a million hits on my blog. So what?

By Neil Patrick

Today this blog reached half a million hits. Oops. How did that happen?

I'm sure you care not a bit about this. That's okay. This news is of no consequence to anyone else. Or is it? This post isn't about self-congratulation. It's about how blogs have the power to change our lives.

I remember distinctly about three years ago reading an announcement on the blog of one of my inspirations, the wonderful Stacy Donovan Zapar, that her own blog had just reached half a million hits.

This was a revelation to me. At the time and still as far as I know, Stacy is the most connected woman in the world on LinkedIn. Stacy’s blog about recruitment is in a similar field to mine. Jobs are not the most interesting topic to most people, yet Stacy had achieved something incredible I thought. My blog was new and had about 30,000 hits at that time. Stacy I am sure didn’t intend this, but she unwittingly planted the seed in my mind that this was a goal I would set myself too.

It seemed at that time to me to be an impossibly unrealistic aspiration. And quite probably a completely meaningless one. It wouldn’t make me richer, smarter, or more secure. So why bother at all?

The answer to this question is that no, I am not richer. Or smarter. Or more secure. Except in one critical way. I am much more connected with many more wonderful people all over the planet. People who care about the same things I do. People I like and who hopefully like me. And we help each other out on the basis of simple goodwill.

Academics have a term for this. They call it social capital. My bank manager might say ‘so what?’. Well here’s the answer: As the world shifts from a competitive economy to a collaborative one (for more on this, read my post about it here), connectivity, reach and goodwill are the essential ingredients for influence. And influence has value.

Influence and connections have transformed my world. Just last week I enjoyed a Skype chat with one of my newest connections. A man who has been dubbed ‘Britain’s best boss’. A man who has been CEO of some of the biggest and most valuable companies in the UK. And he made me almost choke on my coffee when he told me he reads this blog. I had no idea, because apart from subscribers whose email addresses contain their name (a minority) and some wonderful people who share my stuff on social media, I have absolutely no clue who reads my online ramblings.

The fact is that this blog has put me in touch with a huge number of brilliant people all over the planet. People who send me things. People who talk to me. People who inspire me. People who will invite me to events as a speaker or participant. And many of these people have become friends. And endorsers. And collaborators. And yes, even clients.

So to coin a phrase from my favourite movie of all time, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, what has this blog ever done for me?...Nothing!...apart from change my world.

So to everyone that has shared, commented, agreed, disagreed, challenged, contributed or just read this blog, please accept my unreserved thanks and appreciation. You have made my online existence worthwhile. You have changed my world for the better. And I hope that in a small way, I have changed yours too.

Why this blog sucks…without you!

By Neil Patrick

I am writing this post three years after starting this blog in September 2012.

In conjunction with Twitter, it has connected me with countless amazing people around the world. Even though I have never met most of you face to face, many of you have become friends, collaborators and even clients.

Thank you all for your support, encouragement, generosity, contributions, ideas, criticisms, and kindness. Without this, I would have given up long ago.

Anniversaries are the natural time when we reflect on what has passed and what lies ahead. I had absolutely no idea what would happen when I started this blog. I just knew the world of work was transforming so fast that many people were at risk of having their careers and later lives wrecked while they were busily going about their jobs. And untangling what was going on was both a mystery and a fascination for me. But most of all I wanted to try to do my bit to help people avoid these dangers.

As the daily traffic here grows to over a thousand hits a day I would tentatively venture to say that this blog has been a minor success.

But it still sucks quite a bit. And one reason is that I have failed to get enough of you to share your views.

Every day when I go to the comments to moderate them, I usually find the same junk. Here are a few examples:

So what? It’s just spam after all. And the appalling grammar is quite hilarious - so thank you for amusing me so much spam people! But I know that some very good blogs have closed down because of this deluge. My filters thankfully block most of it for me. And what’s left I just delete when I have finished laughing my head off.

But as I have explored more and more aspects of the 21^st century world of work, the more I learn, the less I realize I know.

I am also acutely aware that many people who read this blog know far more about some of these topics than I do. At the very least, we all have experiences which would illustrate or refute the views I record here. None of us can know everything.

So I have a humble plea. Please help me make it better.

When I read other writers’ posts I often find the comments even more interesting and informative than the original article. And I want that to be the case here too.

I am not after your money. Just your minds!

I think blogs should be catalysts for debate, not soapboxes.

I want this blog to become a community, not my personal podium. Please comment and tell me what you think. I am just as happy to be contradicted or proved wrong as applauded.

There is no advertising on this blog and I make no money from it. And I want it to stay that way.

So please get involved and help me make this blog a better place for all of us.

Thank you.

Baby boomers – here’s why (some of) our kids hate us

By Neil Patrick

If you want to know how some of the gen Yers see us, then this piece by Australian blogger Mark Fletcher is an example. If you’re a baby boomer, it’s tempting to simply go into denial and rebuttal when you read his fiery rhetoric, but I think if you can see past the rage, he makes some valid points about for example the failures of government institutions to lead effectively.

But overall, I think his arguments are naïve and driven more by anger than understanding. You cannot hold a whole generation corporately responsible for anything. We didn’t hold the whole of Germany accountable for the crimes of the Nazi regime; if we accept Mark’s reasoning, it would follow that we should have done…and presumably murdered every surviving German person in 1945. It’s ironic therefore that one of his ‘recommendations’ is the removal of voting rights from everyone over 40 years old. Isn’t that a bit erm..fascist Mark?

It also conveniently fails to mention what the gen Yers have done which is really any different from what the boomers have done. They have just whinged a bit more and are seeking out culprits for their angst. If you want culprits Mark, I think you are looking in the wrong place.

Perhaps though this inter-generational blaming attitude highlights one really important point. If we have failed as a generation, we have failed because we put our trust in the wrong leaders and the wrong economic policies. And because of that error, we have failed to win the trust and respect of (some of) our own children.

What do you think? I'd welcome your thoughts in the comments section below.

Here’s Mark’s post:



The Baby Boomers had their chance to create the society into which they wanted to retire and they dropped the ball. They don't deserve our help, writes Mark Fletcher.

By Mark Fletcher
Back when I was a kid, old people had fought in a war. They could tell you stories about growing up in the Great Depression, about the spread of mass manufactured cars, and about personally trying to shoot Hitler. When they retired, they looked back on a long life of hard work, of securing our freedoms, and of not understanding how to programme the VCR.

Today, old (sic) people are rubbish. They’ve never done anything worthwhile. They happily took handouts from several economic booms and completely failed to invest in infrastructure like their parents’ generation had done for them.

In Australia, they crafted a completely nuts housing market where housing prices head steadily upwards (which will be paid for by their children’s generation); meanwhile, they enjoyed free education (again, paid for by their parents’ generation) which they subsequently denied to their children. The media companies they own write article after article about how ‘Gen Y’ has a bad attitude and feels entitled to jobs and conditions of employment. Now they have the freaking audacity to claim that they want to retire and have my generation pay for it.

Sod ‘em, the lazy swine. If you didn’t fight a Nazi, you don’t get to retire. You certainly don’t get to retire on my dime.

Boomers only ever cared about themselves?
Credit:  Alfabille (Own work) CC-BY-SA-3.0

The problem with my ‘Let them become Soylent Green cake’ attitude is that, one day, I shall be old and I will want to retire. With a bunch of old people currently hogging all the political power making the sort of short-sighted decisions that you’d expect from people who won’t survive to see the consequences, the future doesn’t look bright and rosy for my retirement (which apparently will be in the year 2105).

The Per Capita think tank released an awkwardly phrased report last week called Still Kicking:

The ageing of the population will see the number of people aged 65 to 84 years more than double, and the number of people aged 85 and over more than quadruple. As a result, the proportion of people who are of working age will decline as a proportion of the whole population.

Clearly this conclusion doesn’t follow. The sentence ‘The number of people who are of working age is not expected to increase by as much’ is missing, which is weird given that the rest of the report is dedicated to increasing the number of people who are of working age.

Per Capita gives us the usual handwaves typical of Australia’s think tanks. We could change the working age to include more people and ‘reconceptualise’ retirement. We could tinker with superannuation. We can gear our health system towards making sure that people are economic cogs for longer. And so on and so forth. All the low-hanging fruit was dutifully picked.

Not to be outdone, the number-crunchers at the Grattan Institute got out their sliderules and abaci to put together a chapter in their Balancing Budgets report about retirement:

Increasing to 70 the age of access to the Age Pension and superannuation (the ‘retirement age’) is one of the most economically attractive choices to improve budgets in the medium term. It could ultimately improve the budget bottom line by $12 billion a year in today’s terms, while producing a lift in economic activity of up to 2 per cent of GDP.

What both Per Capita and the Grattan Institute are saying is that previous generations have screwed up the general revenue base so heinously that everybody needs to work more to pay for the retirees.

Further, both organisations are setting the policy gears to resolve the problems of today’s old fogey. They let the health system deteriorate and now health care is expensive. Shock. They let the infrastructure deteriorate and now they don’t have the labour mobility that they need to get a job. Horror. They let the education system collapse and now they can’t reskill into new industries. Surprise. They let general revenue get whittled away on pork barreling and now there’s no money left.

As a result, intergenerational policy is being colonised and dominated by economic, labour, and health policies. How can we afford to keep old people? How can we unlock the potential labour of old people and translate it into GDP? How can we manage the health needs of the elderly?

It is an approach that conceptualises homo senilis as if they had sprung out of the earth and suddenly (like mushrooms) come to full maturity without all kind of engagement to each other.

There was society and it was functioning and then - completely by surprise - there were all these old people who had special needs and who needed things.

A better, more sophisticated, approach is to work out what sort of society we (that is, people under the age of 35) want for our retirement and then set the policy gears now to achieve it. Do we want a society of lifelong learning? Then we need an education policy to gut the current education system which considers education over by age 25 and de-link technical education from the research sector. Do we want a society of non-manual labour? Then we need an industry policy to let the manufacturing sectors crash, a research policy to invest in better industries, and a legislative policy to improve protections for intellectual property. Do we want to enjoy a retirement like our great grandparents had? Then we need a fiscal policy to diversify the revenue streams of the Government so it relies less on income taxes. And so on and so forth.

The easiest way for us to achieve this utopian future is to rescind the voting rights of any person over the age of 40. The Baby Boomers have made it clear that we’ll have to take the reins of government from their cold, dead hands, but they’ve demonstrated that they can’t be trusted to manage themselves. They’ll live longer and they’ll vote longer; and they’ll vote for parties that promise to stamp out ‘Aged Discrimination’ (which is code for forcing the rest of us to pay their indulged way).

They had their chance to create the society into which they wanted to retire and they dropped the ball. Our policymakers shouldn’t be putting out the fires of yesterday, and we definitely shouldn’t develop policies which exonerate their hideous mistakes.

Mark Fletcher is a Canberra-based blogger and policy wonk who writes about conservatism, atheism, and popular culture. He blogs at OnlyTheSangfroid. This article was originally published onAusOpinion.com.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/11/29/comment-will-you-still-employ-me-when-i-m-64

How a blog will explode your work opportunities

By Neil Patrick

If you are looking for work, or wish to boost your profile, you may have seriously underestimated the value of having a blog. Or you may have thought it is too difficult without technical skills. Or it’s too time consuming. Or any other excuse.

Well, don’t debate it, don’t think about it, just do it!

It’s quite possibly the best investment in your professional prospects you’ll ever make.

How long do you spend currently online each day? And wouldn’t an hour or two a day of that time be a better investment if it boosted your personal profile in your area of expertise and show cased your knowledge and professionalism to the people YOU need to influence?

And it’s much, much easier than you’d ever believe. What’s more, one of the most common reasons recruiters and hiring companies discriminate against older workers is that they believe that older professionals don’t have up to date IT and digital media skills. Doing this destroys that prejudice at a single stroke!

So don’t wait or even think about it too much.

Just do it.

You’ll boost your profile, showcase your talent AND prove not only that you are technically savvy, but also that you know how to take the initiative.

Oh, and if that’s not enough, you’ll learn a heap of valuable new things and grow your contact network too!

Here’s Jill Konrath, who spells these points out brilliantly as usual. Everything you need to understand about why and what you should do to set up your blog is here...not all the little details granted, but all the vital fundamentals to get you started are covered in less than 10 minutes!

This really is all you need to know to get started and to start building your online asset base.

Oh and if you want me to help you with my own tips and experience about this topic, just let me know!

What I know now – 9 lessons from my life

By Jim Langendorf

My last post was about my realization that my life was at half time and that I now knew the things I wish I'd have known when I was 23.

Upon further reflection, I thought a list of those lessons would be helpful.

I have nothing to fear if I am not liked. The most important lesson, which is applicable to business and professional life alike is that I am worthy of respect, if not affection. I don't like everyone and they are as unharmed by my lack of affection for them as I am of theirs for me. 

Time is fleeting but patience is rewarded. One must act with conviction, but be prepared to wait for results. It is often not clear what the consequences of our actions will be, but if you believe you are right, then you should act.

Consistency and diligence beat flashes of brilliance. Some of the brightest students in law school were unable to pass the bar exam. They could bring it to an essay exam for a class, and get As, but they could not maintain their focus and concentration at the big moments in July and February. Better to be regularly competent than only infrequently extraordinary. (See, Thomas Edison).

The front line of any organization is what gets work done. If you want to assure failure and rejection, then treat the waitresses, clerks, cashiers and janitors with disdain and disrespect. Almost everyone has to start somewhere. Some people start and stay lower on the "ladder." But they are mothers, fathers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters. They are important in their own way in their own world. Almost everyone is doing the best that they can. Understand and respect them and thank them for their efforts.

Tip generously when it's deserved. Tip generously in advance to guarantee great service.

Show up and act like you belong where you are. If you believe, then other people are inclined to believe it too. If you believe that you can do anything and be anywhere you want, then you can be. It may be that simple.

There is a virtually infinite amount of money circulating the planet. You can have as much as you want, but you have to make an effort to get it. It will not automatically flow to you. Trillions are flowing all of the time. You only need a small part of that flow to be wildly rich. If I knew exactly how to do it, then I'd be rich too. I'm still working on the mechanics.

Go big. You can spend an hour digging a ditch, or selling industrial supplies, or learning how to finance a rental property with no money down. The hour digging a ditch pays quickly but only a little bit. The closed sale, or the refinanced rental may take a little longer to actually happen, but the payoff is far greater. Put your time into high return efforts and act on them, consistently.

Be courageous. Ask yourself what is the worst that can happen? Or remind yourself of the worst thing facing you a month, or six months, or even a year ago and recognize that you made it. It passed. Be bold. It pays off.

On that note, I am off to work. I have to litigate, settle and ideate for a while. Check out my website, http://www.langendorflaw.com/


Jim Langendorf is a law firm operator and an entrepreneur who spends much of his time in federal court recovering unpaid overtime wages for his clients. When he isn't practicing law, he is on a mission to self-improvement, wealth and health. He is always looking for opportunities where everyone wins.

Jim authors two blogs, Rashinal Thoughts http://rashinality.blogspot.com/and the more legal industry focused Donning and Doffing, http:// http://donanddoff.blogspot.com/ He welcomes new followers to both.

Get a job you love faster – here’s how I will help you

By Neil Patrick

I had a rude awakening last night. One of my Twitter followers said words to the effect – ‘Can you actually help me find a job?’

Career development development and job hunting have gone through a silent revolution in the last few years. Trying to explain this and help people deal with it is the whole purpose of my online presence. So I was stunned to say the least. It prompted me to think though that perhaps I should provide a more complete guide as to how I can help.

I think many people, especially mature professionals have no idea how the process of finding a new job has changed beyond all recognition in the last couple of years. Yes it really has been that dramatic and fast. If the last time you got a new job was more than two years ago, you just will not succeed today with the same approach and methods you used last time round.

That’s the reason I set up 40pluscareerguru, because in this terrible recession  too many people’s talents are going to waste and I wanted to do something about it.

So here’re all the things I provide right now every day for free.

1. Daily jobs news and tips

Yes this is a blog. But it’s a blog with a purpose. I want to provide mature professionals with insight into the evolution of jobs and hiring processes in the digital age. Ironically, this is not so easy to find amongst the deluge of generalized and shallow information which is all over the web. Every day I scan my news feeds for what I consider to be the most valuable and helpful news articles and blog posts I can find. What I consider the best and most insightful, I share on Twitter. I also put up new posts every week, either by myself or the experts who I collaborate with.

If you wish you can subscribe to my posts by email. Now I know this is a danger sign for most of us these days. If you wish to do this, you'll just get my new posts delivered to your email box. Typically once or twice a week. That's it! No offers, sales messages, links or other junk. And of course I will never share your email address with anyone else. Ever.

2. New job vacancies daily feed

Not only do I post new information regularly, I also retweet lots of vacancies I come across as soon as they are announced. You’ll see these in my Twitter timeline. Some of these appear in the Twitter feed on this blog, but to see them all, you’ll need to look at my Twitter timeline daily.

If you are a recruiter and you'd like me to include your vacancies, please let me know.

3. Finding work – the best tips from the world’s greatest experts

Since I set up 40pluscareerguru, I have been privileged to connect with many of the world’s greatest recruiters, coaches, and HR leaders. Not only do I share what I consider to be their best insights and tips through Twitter,  you can also connect with them directly yourself, just by following them. This list is growing daily and fast. 

4. Quickly find YOUR key recruiters anywhere in the world

Importantly, my Twitter account is set up so you can easily find and connect with any of my key recruiter contacts. To help you, I have organised these into public lists, grouped by region. You can access these by going to my lists on Twitter. So if for example, you want to get a job in Australia, you can go to my Australia and New Zealand recruiters list and follow all the recruiters there. Then, not only will get a steady stream of their job vacancies straight into your Twitter account, you’ll be able to contact them directly and make them aware of your job hunt and get them working to help you.

You'll find my lists here

I have also written a post here which provides you with a strategy to get recruiters on your side and working harder for you.

5. Finding top recruiters is only part of the task

It’s really valuable to be able to find the right recruiters quickly, but of course recruiters work for their clients not for you. Generally, they are far too busy with this to help job candidates craft their resumes and LinkedIn profiles into super-slick selling machines which will have jobs finding them (yes, if you do it right, that is exactly what will happen).

At least 90% of the professionals I help have sub optimal LinkedIn profiles and/or resumes. Not only that, most do not know how to use LinkedIn effectively so the jobs find them. But if you follow this blog and my Twitter account, you'll get regular information and tips that will help you improve your job search, LinkedIn profile and what folks these days call your personal brand strategy (Yuk!).

6. Connect with me on Linkedin

Twitter is great for providing a steady stream of new information and leads. But it’s not really possible for me to help anyone through public Tweets of 140 characters. However if you connect with me on Linkedin, we can exchange information in private.  So I'm always happy to accept invitations to connect on Linkedin. Here’s the link to do this   http://linkd.in/10EqkCT

Finally, if you'd like to help me help more people, do please share my posts via any of the buttons at the top of each page and hit the G+ like button whenever you feel I deserve it! Thank you :-)

So I hope this post helps you get more out of this blog and helps you achieve your career aspirations faster. Please let me know what you think and how I can be more helpful in the coming months.

Baby-Boomers, Here's Your Wake-Up Call

The workplace has changed dramatically. These days, there's more to maintaining a career than your day job. Get another oar in the water, fast.

 

By Liz Ryan, Contributing Columnist, Kiplinger.com

October 23, 2012

I call baby-boomers the bushwhacked generation. Back in the early 1980s, when I began my career, the message to a new hire was "Welcome to XYZ Corporation! We’re so glad you are part of our team. We look forward to a long and happy employment relationship with you."

Hard as it is to admit, back then I was one of the people peddling that longtime-career Kool-Aid. I was a corporate human-relations person, one who never questioned the idea that if people came to work and put their shoulder to the wheel, they'd earn a nice living and climb the corporate ladder straight to retirement.

Now that the corporate ladder is sawdust under our feet, baby-boomers need to think differently. Longtime employment isn’t just elusive; it isn't even always a good thing. Every day I talk with employers who say "This candidate seems like a good guy, but I worry about him, too. He spent 26 years at his last job. Do you think this guy can flex, Liz?" In some respects, having many jobs with varying circumstances equips a job-seeker better for today's workplace than one longterm gig.

How is a baby-boomer to deal with the ever-shakier employment landscape? My advice: Grow new muscles. People need altitude on their careers now, and perspective they didn't need when a job search was a once-every-decade-or-so proposition. We need to be aware of the talent marketplace all the time. We have to know which business problems we solve for employers, whether we're job-hunting or not. More than anything, we need multiple oars in the water.

An oar in the water is a revenue stream and a way to exercise professional muscles. If you've been a W-2 type since forever, you likely haven't thought much about additional oars. (Our kids know all about them, however. As a 25-year-old in Denver told me, 'It drives my mom crazy that I've got a degree and five part-time jobs. She doesn't understand that I don't want one full-time gig. I make more money this way, and I don't lose sleep worrying whether my employer likes me or not.')

Back when, having a side job meant bartending or singing at weddings, something most corporate types would shun as too down-market for their tastes. Today, it's different. I encourage every working person to have a business card separate from the one your employer gave you. You could consult, advising overburdened businesspeople in your spare time. You could pick up freelance gigs from the comfort of your den. You can make money in a thousand ways without even blowing your professional cover.

Putting out a shingle isn't just a good idea financially; it's essential for your mojo, too. Solving other people's problems is the best way to grow your connecting-the-dots skills, the same skills we need to thrive in the new-millennium workplace. Here are three of our favorite oar-in-the-water options for otherwise-committed W-2 types.

"Elance" Your Knowledge

Elance.com pairs freelance workers with projects they can complete from home. Projects range from tiny (a graphic designer paying $35 for a more fluid bio than she could write herself) to gargantuan (a six-month project with a five-figure payoff). If you want to put a toe in the second-revenue stream, this is one great way to begin.

Blog About What You Know

Every day I talk with baby-boomers who are experts on all sorts of subjects – including areas of expertise they get paid for at work and ones they've cultivated over the years on their own, outside of work. I recommend that people who know a lot about anything at all start a blog or a Facebook page, to get the "sharing what I know" juice flowing and to enable other enthusiasts in the same space to find them.

You'll be amazed what happens when you start writing regularly about topics that interest you, especially when your advice can help other people. It's free to start your own blog at Wordpress.The blog itself may turn into a revenue generator for you, or the contacts you make via your blog may create financial opportunities (or both). What are you waiting for?

Get a Business Card

When it comes to oars in the water, the big message is "Be available when opportunities arise." To get started, go to Vistaprint.com and get business cards that brand you as something other than your company's assistant manager of whatever. I want you to get business cards, no matter what your work situation is – they cost almost nothing. You can worry about the actual business later.

Sadly, we've taught the baby-boom generation that entrepreneurism is something exotic and risky, not suitable for the average person – absolute hogwash that would have horrified our grandparents. My friend Jody, unsure how to brand herself, ordered business cards that displayed her name over the tagline "Available for Lunch." Those cards got her fantastic freelance jobs and ultimately a terrific W-2 gig. You don't have to pick a business name, design your offerings or create a business plan, at least not yet. Just get out there and start talking to people about their issues. You'll be amazed how fast your new-millennium workplace muscles grow.

http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/onthejob/archive/a-wake-up-call-for-job-seeking-boomers.html