Escape From Pianosa

I did an improv workshop for Aaron’s Intro to Entrepreneurship class at the local college. It was my first time on the teaching end of improv and it really brought home for me just how much improv has changed my life, and I am still very much a novice.

A year ago, I would’ve been extremely uncomfortable getting up in front of an audience like that. I still get nervous in public speaking situations but I find that it’s an excitement energy instead of a fear energy.

I love improv’s power to change people in positive ways–in just a two hour workshop, everyone was noticeably more open in their body language and more comfortable being the center of attention. From shyness and fear to comfort and confidence–it’s a beautiful thing to see and feel in a human being.

I just started watching The Office and I’m kicking myself for missing the past three seasons. Michael is a brilliant character and he’s already taught me something about online marketing:

Michael: “Business to business. The old fashion way. No blackberries. No websites. I would like to see a website deliver baskets of food to people.”

Indeed!

Thank you Nora, you said some very nice things about me. My run as a freelancer (which included a lot of real estate and some dabbling in writing among other things) has come to an end, at least for the foreseeable future. My first job is at a small online marketing firm in Baltimore and I’ll be working on Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which is something I enjoy immensely–although I didn’t really realize it until about a month ago.

I’d fallen into the habit of taking my friends’ websites and finding a dozen or so things that they could be doing better. Like, hey you need to have a blog so you can interact with your customers and you need to be building links to your site and you need to improve your layout so it’s more user friendly, and all sorts of other ideas for building up traffic–things that I’ve learned and implemented with my various web properties over the last few years. Well lo and behold, you can get paid to do that! It’s a natural fit for me.

My other job is more of an internship with a nonprofit in the DC area, where I’ll be working part-time for the next few months. That allows me to pursue one of my other passions in life, which is spreading the message of freedom; a brand evangelist for liberty if you will.

And don’t worry Nora, I plan to keep my entrepreneurial approach to life and work.

Do you like crunchy leaves? Will you go out of your way to step on them? Well you’re in good company. Finally, a social networking site where I can meet people just like me! In fact Facebook has at least 20 groups related to stepping on crunchy leaves:

• I Will Go Slightly Out of My Way To Step On That Crunchy-looking Leaf
• I Go Slightly Out of My Way To Step on a Leaf That is Particularly Crunchy
• If I step on a leaf that looks crunchy and it isn’t crunchy, I get sad
• I Will Go SIGNIFICANTLY Out Of My Way to Step On That Crunchy Looking Leaf

And for the contrarians:

• I avoid the crunchy leaves in an attempt to be more stealthy and ninja-like
• i will go slightly out of my way to step on that crunchy looking squirrel
• I WILL GO OUT OF THE WAY TO STEP ON ICE THAT LOOKS PARTICULARLY CRUNCHY
• Fuck crunchy leaves, it’s all about the pine cones.

And when times get tough, there’s always…

• Soggy Leaves Mock My Existence!

BIG is holding its Fall auditions this Saturday at 12pm at the Hamilton Arts Collective. For more details, check out BIG’s official MySpace blog, where I am now blogging.

This is an idea I hear a lot from people that until recently, I took for granted. “Writers are in high demand” or “it’s so hard to find people who can write well.” Anecdotally, this rings true for me, but when I went looking for jobs as a writer, I found that the market wasn’t so hot. Go to Craigslist and you’ll find that many of the listings for writers don’t pay anything. Most writing jobs have starting salaries in the 30 to 35k range, if you can find one.

And so I think that writing is an excellent skill to have, but in the job market it’s more valuable as a secondary skill. A good manager is very valuable, and a good manager with excellent writing skills is marginally better. Same for engineers or software developers or any other profession. But from my limited experience on the job hunt, I don’t think writers per se are in high demand.

When I shifted my job search from writing to marketing/web/technology, I really started getting interviews, call-backs, and interest.

This season of Curb has been a little slow but that was a great line.

Seth Godin is like this never-ending generator of cool ideas and insights. Every time I read something that he writes, I can feel the connections forming in my brain…

My philosophy then, and my philosophy now, is that learning the first 80% of something new takes 20% of the effort. My goal in college was not to become an expert on phenomenology or civil engineering; my goal was to understand the framework of as many disciplines as I could.

That’s me. I love learning the first 80% of something. It’s a personality trait that serves me well. I try lots of new things because they fascinate me and I find myself knowing a little bit about a lot of things. And the more ideas or subjects or philosophies or careers that you sample, the more likely you are to find one that you really love. Then you can spend the effort of learning the last 20%.

So much in life is simple luck. Finding your passion is the same. When I read about people who always knew what they wanted to be, I think yeah, that’s because so many people start that way. How many people, at age 12, decide they want to be actors or dancers or firefighters? Lots. So when people end up in those professions, it’s not uncommon for them to have started down that path at an early age.

What you don’t hear about is all the people who started out dreaming of becoming an actor, only to discover later that what really excites (or pays) them is accounting or software or engineering. People overestimate their ability to predict what they will enjoy. To overcome that bias, you have to lean towards experimentation.

He trumpeted around his pen for a few minutes, and then keeled over on his side. Horrified, the researchers tried to revive him, but about an hour later he was dead. The three scientists sheepishly concluded that, “It appears that the elephant is highly sensitive to the effects of LSD.”

From The Top 20 Most Bizarre Experiments of All Time.

HT: Marginal Revolution.

Chris doesn’t have a blog, but you can still find him on the internets, saying goodbye to his white coat. Last night he asked me to bring back some of my old blog posts from back in the day, you know, the one about the blind lady you worked with. Oh yeah, here it is:

I returned from lunch this afternoon to discover that not one, but two residents of aisle C were sound asleep. I’d like to protect their identities, so let’s just call our first subject “the blind Asian woman.” Apparently she doesn’t have much work to do because she literally sleeps half the day. How does this happen? What kind of manager tolerates this? Seems to me, if you’re blind, you better go out of your way to justify your space on the payroll. Otherwise people might start wondering…

It gets worse though. The other sleeping co-worker is the guy whose job is, get this, to help the blind lady! She’s a programmer and she has trouble seeing the screen. So he goes into her cube–ostensibly–to help her with her program. Usually they just fight:

“Why you touching my screen!”
“I’m looking for an email I deleted!”
“No touch my screen!”
“Listen blind Asian woman, I need to find an email that I deleted, ok?”
“It’s not there!”
“How do you know? You can’t see the screen!”

How long does this take? How much time does he spend ‘helping’ her? Maybe 30 minutes a day. Wanna know what he’s doing now? Let me go check. Big fucking surprise! He’s passed out in his chair with a book in his hands! I love the government. Nap time.