The Truth Of Meetings

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Meetings seem to be the bane of most businesses.  And employees.  And people.  I judge this by what people tell me, and by my own experiences of slowly fading out as I sat through a meeting that had no reason to be.

Of course meetings are necessary.  I find them useful to resolve conflicts or sign off on agreed-on things, but why do people schedule so many meetings?

I find meetings are usually held when other things don’t work.  Meetings are treated as the duct tape of management.  The greatest reason for these meetings is to tell people stuff, so meetings are often done because statuses and status reports aren’t clear or communicated.

Of course sometimes you don’t even need the status reports, but people make them anyway.  Long, pointless, complex, unneeded, too short – we’ve all seen bad status reports.

Of course status reports are needed when simple communication isn’t enough.  Sometimes that’s the truth – and sometimes people just communicate poorly.

So really – too many meetings are often due to people just not talking to each other.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

So What’s Next For Apple?

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We here at the fan-to-pro group have a mailing list we discuss things on, including tweets, news, etc.  This came partially from my discussion on what’s next for Apple.

And namely, I’m not entirely sure – because it’s hard to know where anything goes next.

Look, Apple was successful.  They defined markets and products.  They defined designs.  They’re being imitated.  They’ve done well – but as we all know, there’s always the question of “what’s next” which is kind of hard when you’ve come as far as they have.

Except I think the question applies to a lot of technology companies.

Where does anyone go from here?

  • The norm is portable phones that are small computers.
  • The norm is tablets that are flat slates of computing power.
  • The norm is slick and powerful laptops.
  • The norm is portable music, portable books, portable video – portable everything.

So we’ve all got a lot of powerful stuff that does all sorts of things out of SF films and technophilic fantasies.  Hell, I’ll say we’re further along technically than I’d ever dreamed 10 years ago.  The problem is I’m not sure what’s next for any company.

Television?  Gaming consoles?  Being subsumed into other devices.  Social media is established.  Until we start implanting things it seems we’ve hit a great pinnacle of This Stuff Is Awesome.

So what’s next for Apple?  Hell, what’s next for any technology company?

For those of us who can figure it out it’s a fantastic career advantage, or a chance to even found a business.  It’s just we won’t always know when we’re right until it’s too late . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

 

Getting Offensive On The Job Search

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We all know the classic line “The Best Offense is a Good Defense.”  I of course believe the opposite is true many times and sometimes you’ve got to go on the offense as a form of protecting yourself.

I also believe that a job search and career plan can be both Offense or Defense.  The “offense” job search/career plan involves aggressive planning, moving forward, and following plans that lead to various goals.  The “defense” job search is one where you preserve what you have, plan “horizontal” moves to escape bad situations, and in some cases just take any job.  I’m sure we’ve all done both.

However, I meet a lot of people doing “defensive” job searches (indeed I’ve done them myself).  Based on my experiences I think the “defensive” job search and career planning predominates as we have an unstable, unpredictable, economy.  It’s understandable, of course – but I’m thinking it may be taken too far.

I see so much defensive job searching, that I’m thinking far, far too much time is spent in defense mode.

When you’re defensive, you’re not planning ahead (usually).  You’re responsive.  You’re protective.  This may make sense, but when the economy is in such a shambles there may be no defense, there may be no protection.  In a state without sanctuary you need to build one – you need to get defensive.

After all, when you go “on the offense” in your job search you’re planning, you’re moving forward, staking out territory, making things happen.  You’re not letting the crisis define you – you’re doing your own definition – and you may even be redefining the crisis.  You’re also not letting yourself be defined by the situation.

How many of us are being defined by a situation?  How many of us are just responsive?  How many of us have no grounding and are really just preserving what little we do have?

I think it’s time more of us go on the offensive:

  • Preemptive low-level job searches may be great – but get an eye toward career advancement.
  • Keep your career plan moving forward, with training, coaching, looking at new positions, etc.
  • Make that new business of yours anyway – even if its part time or erratically.
  • Keep your career plan going and chart it.  Even if it’s delayed, you know where you’re going.
  • Define yourself.  Don’t’ let someone else or something do it.

Let’s try to ramp up the career plans and the job search. Let’s go on the offense.

But how did it get that way?  Well that’s for the next column . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.