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The Conquest of LinkedIn – Your Profile PageLinkedIn, inmaps, Profile Page, Resume, Network, Meeting Offline, Facelift, Last Little Bits, Q & A, Social Media Specialist

The Conquest of LinkedIn – Your Profile Page

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on January 19, 2021

To Continue the Conquest of LinkedIn, Let’s Look at Your Profile Page

What’s up with your profile page?

You’re doing it. And you’ve got your resume up. You’re answering questions. And you’re joining groups. You’re even meeting people offline. But you aren’t getting an enormous number of invitations to connect.

Or, perhaps, you’re blogging and tweeting. But you’re not getting a lot of readers in either medium. And you’d love to get some of your LinkedIn buddies to read some of your stuff. Maybe you want to use your writing and social media skills as a part of your overall job search strategy.

So the most obvious place to look, and to fix, is your Profile page.

Just like with a resume, a news story, or even if you were trying to sell your home, it pays to spruce up the first thing people see. Hence special care should be taken, as this is your first (and it may very well be your only) chance to make an impression.

There are any number of things you can do to assure that this impression is a positive one.

Driving Traffic

And, you can even use it to help you drive a little traffic to your own website and/or blog. Here’s how:

• Make sure that you make use of all available fields, and customize these as you are able.
† Next, list your blog.
• and I also recommend adding X or Bluesky.

If another social media platform will fit better, then add your details there as well, such as YouTube for videographers.

More You Can Do With Your Profile Page

So assuming that your resume has been integrated in its entirety, your next task should be to update the summary and specialties sections in your profile page. First of all, the specialties section is essentially just for keywords, so load them up.

However, the summary section should be more grammatical. So don’t make it an old-fashioned and generic personal statement. Instead, highlight your main differences here.

Pix, Pictures, Images, You Get the Idea

Include a current, clear, professional image of yourself. And once that image becomes, say, about five, eight, ten or so years old, replace it with a newer one.

URL City, Baby!

LinkedIn won’t give you a nice URL unless you essentially make your own. But they offer instructions for customization. After all, it is absolutely in LinkedIn’s best interests for you to put your LinkedIn URL on, say, your resume, your business cards, etc.

And most people won’t do that if the URL is breathtakingly ugly.

It’s a very, very easy thing to do, and there is truly no excuse not to polish your URL.

Posts and Takeaways

Yes, you can add posts to your profile page (a feature which seems to come and go). But you don’t have to. This isn’t Facebook, so a continual stream of statuses (statii?) is not expected.

Finally, with a little polish, your front door (profile page) can look mighty inviting to all.

Want More About the Conquest of LinkedIn?

If my experiences with LinkedIn resonate with you, then check out my other articles about the largest networking site on the planet.

What LinkedIn Has to Offer

• Your Profile Page
† Your Resume
• Meeting Offline
† Your Network
• Giving Your LinkedIn Profile A Facelift
† Last Little Bits
• InMaps – Visualize Your Network on LinkedIn

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The Karmic Wheel TurnsAdventures in Career Changing, Welcome to my Welcome Mat, Color Theory Videos, Cheat Sheets, future of the lonely writer, Second 5K, Contact me, Tech Boston, More Than This, First 5K, This Sunday, Monday morning dash, My Appointments, Fun at Andala, Job interview, site map, my reinvention, karmic wheel, sail on, which universe, my videos, Sense and safety, universal explorations, job at Neuron Robotics, Social Media Club, enough spoons, Happy Birthday Mass Innovation, a look at Pegasystems, our collective future, Future of the Lonely Writer, Job Seeking, AI hype train, Writing Freedom, Chance Encounter in Time, Show for the Galaxy, Sense, my sitemap, site map, cheat sheets for you and me,

The Karmic Wheel Turns

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on July 11, 2017

Social Media Karma

What is the Karmic Wheel? Alas, the Examiner is no more, but the Karmic wheel keeps spinning all the same.

I was at one time contacted by a friend, Phil Butler, to write an article for the Examiner.

Now, Phil and I had known each other for a few years. We met through the original Q & A discussions on LinkedIn.

We have never actually seen each other, in person. He is not even on the same continent as I am. Yet I wrote the article all the same. It was on an article called Food Addictions and Treatments.

Now, did I expect fame and fortune from all this?

Well, I would be lying if I said it wouldn’t be nice. But did I honestly think that empires would rise and fall based upon my one little article?

Of course not.

Karmic Wheel Spinning

But I think it illustrates the point I have made about collaboration. That is, sometimes you just up and do something for someone. And you do it because you just, well, want to do something for someone.

So that ends up a reward unto itself, is it not?

I think the article is the kind of thing that people have got to write about. And it continues to shock me that other writers would not touch the subject matter with a ten-foot pole, as if it would give them the adult equivalent of cooties to talk about addiction.

As if being at all sympathetic with people who are ill would, somehow, mean they were condoning those lifestyle choices or admitting that they, too, were imperfect.

Hey, I will shout it from the rooftops – I’m imperfect!

And if I am not mistaken, the sky did not just come crashing down.

Go forth, and I hope you will collaborate, and do things for others. And then the karmic wheel will turn for you, too.

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The Future of Lonely Writer and Adventures in Career Changing

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on March 9, 2017

The Future

The future? Well, more specifically, I mean the future of the Lonely Writer website.

Wait, What?

So as some readers may recall, I started that website as my capstone project at Quinnipiac University. I needed the project in order to graduate with a Master’s in Science in Communications (social media).

Well, graduation happened in August of 2016. However, I had paid for the domain until the end of March of 2017. It seemed silly to try to cancel early.

But now it’s March of 2017.

Changes

Hence I want to change things up. My life has gotten considerably more busy since I graduated. I currently hold down four part-time work from home jobs, all centered around various tasks having to do with blogging. I also podcast every month and I blog for that podcast and for its parent podcast. Furthermore, I still blog about social media and even about fan fiction.

In addition, I still write and still work. I always try to get more of my work published. As a result, I just plain don’t have the time for yet another domain. Most noteworthy, I’d also like to save a few bucks. This project does … okay. Yet Adventures in Career Changing does better.

Therefore, I realized: I should combine the two.

What Will Happen in This Future?

The Lonely Writer YouTube channel and Facebook groups will both live on. And the Twitter stream won’t be going away, either. They do not require as much work as a separate blog. Plus, they are also free of charge. I am only talking about the other domain and those particular blog posts.

So, where did they go? Why, they came here! As a result, the blog URLs changed, and the blog posts themselves were removed for later re-posting. I changed them up, too, so they would be more up to date. That’s all. So don’t worry, okay? That advice and that work will not go away.

It all just moved here, down the street. I was excited about the move. I thought it would help to freshen up Adventures without losing the focus, which is altering my career and also embracing social media. And the writing-related posts, of course, would give that more of a writing bent. That’s all.

Thank you so much for reading.

But then…

Greetings from the Future!

It’s 2024 as I update this post. So, here we are, seven years later. Still no flying cars.

Just kidding.

But in all seriousness, combining the two blogs was a good idea but it also wasn’t. Because the God’s honest truth is, like for so many blogs out there, this site has too much content. And, the content’s focus is often scattered.

So, how do I fix this? One way is here, by updating things. Another is by deleting (or, rather, unpublishing) a ton of stuff. But then that runs into issues with other posts pointing at the stuff which is no longer live.

Of course, I can stop pointing at them. Which… is more work.

I swear, I have the ambitions of a full SEO team for this blog, and the team is just, well, me. Heh.

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The Five Elements of Hip-Hop Content StrategyContent Strategy, Halvorson, Hip-Hop Content Strategy, Content Monster

The Five Elements of Hip-Hop Content Strategy

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on September 22, 2015

A Look at an Oldie: The Five Elements of Hip-Hop Content Strategy

On June 2nd, 2010, I got to attend The Five Elements of Hip-Hop Content Strategy. The speaker was Ian Alexander. Ian is down to earth, informative and fun. The meeting was hosted by Content Strategy New England. A special shout-out must go to the tireless Rick Allen.

Ian led us through a history of both hip-hop and content strategy as a discipline. Neither one sprang up overnight. So the roots are in the 1970s or so, perhaps earlier.

Then it was down to business – an outline of the Five Elements.

Hip-Hop Content Strategy – Five Elements

#1. DJ’ing – on the Content Strategy side of things, this is the technical expertise. It’s being able to understand and apply semantic categories. It is being able to interpret analytics. So a Content Strategist cannot be a Luddite. She cannot fear spreadsheets.

#2. MC’ing – on the CS end, this is the editorial expertise. Often, this is what people think of when they think of Content Strategy. It is acting as a copywriter, a librarian, a research analyst and something of an artist.

The Content Strategist finds and tells the story. He or she selects the format and helps to promote the brand.

The Content Triangle

This is where Ian introduced the concept of the Content Triangle.

Building Trust

(a) The first type of content is Trust Building. This is where a company establishes its expertise. So it is also where it provides value to its clients and potential customers. Here is where the company is informative about internal and industry trends.

For a product-based company, this area should encompass approximately 30% of all of the content. For a service-oriented company, this area should be about 70% of all of the content.

Informational, Please

(b) So the second type of content is Informational. This is basic internal site information, such as the Contact Us page and the FAQ. This is for users to understand how to, for example, return a defective product.

For a product-oriented company, this area needs to be around 30+% of all content. For a service company, that figure should be around 20+%. So in either instance, start here.

Calls to Action

(c) The third and final type of content is Sales/Call to Action. Somewhat self-explanatory, here’s where you close the deal. The deal need not be a commercial one; your call to action may very well be for your reader to sign up for a newsletter.

For the product-based company, this area will have to be around about 40+% of all of the content. In the case of the service company, it’s less than 10%. So either way, this should be A/B tested.

So in all instances, analytics must drive the percentages and the content.

Hip-Hop Content Strategy – More Elements

#3. Graffiti – for the Content Strategist, this equates to design expertise. Infographics are, according to Ian, only going to continue to become more and more popular.

#4. Breaking – to the Content Strategist, this element represents Information Architecture expertise. The two are related but not identical — cousins, not twins. Yet the gist of it is the concept of movement through a site.

So, what are the funnels? What kind of an experience do you want your users to have? What’s your preferred destination for them?

#5. Knowledge – this final piece of the puzzle speaks to the Content Strategist’s Project Managerment/Change Management expertise. Change concepts are disposable, iterative and proposed. It is the idea of moving from a concept to a solution.

The best solution is not the best solution, per se – it’s the best solution that you can implement. For, without a consensus (and a budget and a signed contract!), the so-called best solution is no solution at all.

But What Does it All Mean?

Content Strategy is different from Content Marketing. So the first must drive the second. One of the best ways to help the discipline to get more respect is to branch out the network. Get to know people in vastly different disciplines (say, Robotics, for instance).

So, what about helping the client? Think differently. So generate a 404 error and see what happens. Sign up for something: what kind of message does the user get? Is the message consistent with the remainder of the site’s look and feel and philosophy?

Is the footer out of date?

Check sites like Compete and Tweetvolume for more information about how a company is really doing. So note: Compete does not exist any more!

So consider CMS Watch as well. Know the company’s baseline strengths and weaknesses and understand related practices and disciplines. So note: CMS Watch now redirects to Real Story Group.

Takeaways from 2010

The Content Strategist often wears a millinery’s worth of hats, not just during a particular project but in any given day. For the CS to excel, he or she needs to have an understanding of fundamentals in a lot of areas, and be able to speak knowledgeably.

Fortunately, acquiring and applying that kind of knowledge makes and keeps this discipline fresh and exciting. Plus, Ian clearly has fun every day. And who wouldn’t want a piece of that?

A Look Over 14 Years Later at Hip-Hop Content Strategy

Welp, things have changed. Big time! Ian is no longer under the above URL. So you know, it’s the one in the first paragraph. And two other sites no longer exist. Plus, the world is a lot different now. So that includes my life.

Now, as I look back on older posts like this, I can see where I did not write them too well. In addition, I can also see where older events were, can I say it?

Kinda gimmicky.

So, I get what Ian was trying to say. And a lot of his advice is still spot on. Yet now, though, I think there are other ways of saying it.

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They Used to Call me Robot Girl

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on November 4, 2014

They used to call me Robot Girl?

It’s true. They really did call me Robot Girl, back in the day.

But I haven’t blogged for a while. Yeah, I know.

At the time, I was uninspired and did not want to just subject all two of my readers to my ramblings. Plus, I was looking for an actual day job.

Robot Girl Gets A Day Job

Well, I found one (several, eventually). The first one was a temping gig for a large financial services company which shall remain nameless. I was working as a Financial Analyst, preparing and running database reports.

The job was rather similar to several other gigs I had held. And then after that I returned to Social Media full time, and so on. If you want the details, here is my resume.

In the meantime, the Bot Boys are not forgotten, and I still have connections to them on Facebook and LinkedIn. But our lives have all taken rather different turns. Such is to be expected.

But I wanted to reach out, on this blog, for the first time in quite a while, to offer up some of the things I have learned along the way. So gather ’round, and hopefully I can help someone else to navigate the wild world of startups.

Some Wisdom from the Trenches

1. The best gift that anyone can offer startups is money. Advice and expertise are great, and they are helpful, but it all pales in the face of do-re-mi.

And while startup competitions may not want (or, truly, be able) to part with too much of it, it is money that is most needed because, to truly succeed, someone has to quit their day job. You know, the thing I just got a few weeks ago? Yeah.

Someone has to take a flying leap into outer space – but that person still needs to be able to afford ramen and a futon.

2. Speaking of ramen and futons, the startup game is often played by the young. This is not to say that those of us who were born during the Kennedy Administration have naught to offer.

Rather, it is that we have mortgages. We may have children. We have lives that often require more than minimal Connector-style health insurance. Or we may have aging parents, credit card debt or any number of things that make living off ramen, on a futon, nigh impossible.

Besides, I treat my back a lot better these days.

And More

3. However, the not-so-young have a different place in the land of startups. The enthusiastic feel of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney (now I’m really dating myself) yelling, “Hey, kids! Let’s put on a show! We can get the barn!” is replaced with “Let’s see if we can get this thing to work before defaulting on the mortgage/Junior needs braces/gall bladder surgery is required/etc.”

Our needs are different, and we may be more patient with setbacks. This does not necessarily spell being less hungry but, perhaps, less able to truly go for broke.

The not-so-young person’s role in a startup is often more advisory. We are the ones who cannot quit our day jobs until the salaries are decent and reliable. And that day may never come.

4. Startup events are best when they have a focus. Mass Innovation Nights, I feel, is something of a Gold Standard. There is a coherent beginning, middle and end to each event.

It is not just a lot of business card trading. The participants and the audience get good conversational hooks.

Making contacts is vital – I hooked up with the Bot Boys at an event like that – but it cannot just be “Hey, let’s get a bunch of startups together, eat pizza and trade business cards!” The startups that are succeeding are too busy for such activities. And those that are not ….

And Even More…

5. Cloud computing, apps and software companies are everywhere in the startup space. With the Bot Boys, we could stand out a bit as we were a hardware company. Having a product that people can see and feel is valuable amidst a sea of virtual stuff.

6. The downside to that is that hardware companies have spin up problems that cloud computing companies just plain do not have. App companies do not have to worry about shipping and packaging. They do not have to perform quality control checks on shipments. They do not have to work on product safety. Or storage. Or….

7. No one wants to talk to the job seeker, but everyone wants to talk to the entrepreneur – and those are often the same person! Human nature is a bit odd in this area.

But I have seen people who are barely past the “I’ve got this great idea I just sketched on the back of a napkin” stage where there is a flock of interested people swarming around, whereas a person honest about looking for work is often overlooked.

Kinda Sad But True

8. Charisma counts. While one founder is going to be the inventor or the developer (the idea person), the other pretty much must be the socializer. Otherwise, even the best ideas are all too often buried.

Someone must be willing and able to do public speaking, elevator pitching and sales. This need not be an experienced sales person, but that person has got to be a lot friendlier and a lot more fearless than most.

9. Most startups and most entrepreneur groupings will fail, morph, coalesce or break apart before succeeding. And perhaps that is as it should be, for being nimble is one of the characteristics of a successful startup.

If the product sells when it is colored blue, but not when its color is green, dip it in dye, fer chrissakes!

10. We all work for startups, or former startups. Even the large financial services firm was, once, a gleam in someone’s eye. Every invention started off as an idea.

Even day jobs were, at one time, in places where the founders were living off that generation’s equivalent of ramen and sleeping in that era’s analogue to a futon. Yet somehow, against the odds, they made it.

And a lot of today’s startups can, too.

See you ’round the scene. Robot Girl may have left the building. But me? I have not.

I am just a bit different now.

Click to buy Untrustworthy on Amazon

Want More About What I Have Been Doing Since I was Robot Girl?

If my experiences with the startup life resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about how my own reinvention might help you to navigate yours.

Well, first there was school, and there was community management. Well, more community management than before. And then some inspiration.

Which of course has led to writing and even more writing! What’s next? Me, you’re asking?

• Quinnipiac Assignment 11 – ICM501 – Mobile & Locative Media
† Quinnipiac Assignment 04 – ICM 526 – The Importance of Content Marketing for Community Managers
• A Day in the Life of a Community Manager
† Getting Inspiration from Exercise
• Getting Inspiration From Sexism
† Self-Review – Failure
• Short Story, Skating, a Self-Review

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Onward to Quinnipiac!

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on January 21, 2014

Woo-Hoo! Onward to Quinnipiac

For quite a while now, as I have searched for work, I have been dismayed at not only issues with networking, but also with the need to make myself stand out from the pack. Hence, onward to Quinnipiac.

I believe that education will do this. However, most social media educational opportunities are with what seem to be more like fly by night operations.

When I learned that Quinnipiac University had a graduate and certificate program in social media, I decided to give it a whirl.

Currently, I am taking one class, ICM 522.

ICM 522 In a Nutshell

ICM 522, Social Media Techniques and Practices, 3 graduate credits
Spring 2014, Summer 2014 – 12 weeks

The proliferation of social media in society has created a new communications environment built on platforms that encourage contribution and collaboration through user-created media and interaction. This course explores the underlying theoretical concepts, development and management of social media platforms as well as the creation of effective strategies to facilitate a viable social media presence.

Covered will be:

• Content creation and interactions from semester-long blog postings
† Establishment and maintenance of credible social media presence on multiple platforms
• Demonstration and understanding of platform usage and capabilities
† Written analysis and review of notable social media practitioners or brands
• Overall growth, and effectiveness of student’s semester-long social media presence

What it’s All About

ICM 522 proved to be an excellent introduction to the subject matter. It was also a really great way for me to get into the mindset of taking a class. And studying. And trying to get a good grade!

One thing I was not prepared for was how much I was going to truly love the class.

Onward to Quinnipiac: Takeaways

So I guess it’s back to school (that is, graduate school!) for me.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t just pass. I graduated—in 2016—with a 4.0 GPA.

Oh and PS

Since most of the Quinnipiac posts are old and not getting any readers, I am unpublishing many of them. I get the feeling no one will be looking around for them.

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My New Job at Neuron Robotics …

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on June 4, 2010

… or, how Janet Met Bob. Back in the day, I had a job at Neuron Robotics. And it was kinda fun.

Looking for Work in All the Wrong Places

I had been looking for work for a while. The same things had been working all right, but it was time to shake things up. I was in a rut!

I received a notification of a job fair at the Microsoft Nerd Center, to be held on Tuesday, April 13th, 2010. Great!.

Except for one thing.

The subject was robotics.

So, my knowledge of the subject spanned R2D2, Lost in Space, Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Star Trek.

In short, I was about as over my head as anyone could possibly ever be.

What the Hell

But the event was free, and I figured, well, everybody needs social media marketing, right? So I decided to go anyway.

I got a haircut that morning (completely unrelated, I swear!) and prepared for the event by printing up business cards and generally doing pretty much everything but think about it. Yet onto the bus I went.

The space is interesting. It is a two-level area, where there is a huge staircase in the middle, splitting up the lower level. Being that in a former life I was an insurance defense attorney, I always look at that big, beautiful staircase and think: someone is gonna trip.

But I digress.

I walk in, and I am easily a good 20 – 25 years older than everyone in the room who is not an employer. Also, I am one of very few females. And most of the job seekers are in corners or staring at their shoes.

There are two skateboards in the room (fortunately, they are not being used — see tripping hazard, above).

God knows I do not belong.

I do not belong. Cough, wheeze.

Mild Panic Attack Ensues

But seriously, folks.

I do not belong.

Taking the Plunge Which I Did Not Expect Would Become a Job at Neuron Robotics

And that is all I can think of, but I plunge in anyway, and I talk to some people but, frankly, I can only reel off about five words before I am done. I drop cards wherever I think I can.

And then I retreated to the sidelines, to an area where there was a large wall that showed information on all of the companies attending. I stare at the names, and I am having an existential crisis.

I do not belong.

Oh, I do not belong. Panic, slight panic, big panic.

But let’s face it.

I do not belong.

Gawd, this is not good. I look up and I see this guy standing nearby. He is, perhaps, thinking some of the same things I am; I cannot tell of course (it turned out, he more or less was). He looks at me, I look at him, and perhaps there was a flash of recognition or sympathy or commiseration because he smiles, says, “What the hell!” and sticks out his hand.

He is Bob Breznak. He owns a robotics company.

Thank God!! And, Suddenly, a Job at Neuron Robotics

So, we chat, and I find myself becoming animated again. It is a free and easy discussion, on topic and off, and it is, above all else, easy. Hallelujah, saved from despair.

We part ways in order to mingle and network, but keep circling back. We are not there together, of course, but keep circling back anyway, you know like you do when you are at a party with a friend and comparing notes or taking a breather.

The evening ends and the next morning, I send a note. But I hear nothing, and chalk it up to experience. I continue, as always, to go to networking events.

In late April, I get my reply. So, we start emailing, and agree to meet on May 10th. Coffee okay? Sure.

I get in early, and the coffee shop is playing The Smiths. This I consider to be auspicious. Bob arrives and we again chat easily. Finally it comes down to brass tacks. Do you want to help us out? Do you want a job at Neuron Robotics?

Sure. Details are discussed over the next few weeks, and I meet the rest of the team, and we hit it off, too. We agree on a shmancy title: Director of Social Media and Public Relations.

And I think to myself:

I belong.

I belong.

… and …

I belong. And egad, I suddenly had a job at Neuron Robotics.

A Quick Look Back at My Old Job at Neuron Robotics

The Name Side of my business card!
A bad scan of my Neuron Robotics business card! If you met me then, you could have gotten a much nicer one.

We used to make stuff. Or, at least, that was the plan. The company, apparently, was sold or taken over or got its own taste of reinvention. Helfino.

Did it help me? I cannot honestly say. I came away from it with some fun stories. As in, running through the streets of Cambridge, barefoot, hunting for a place to buy batteries (my shoes were off because I was in killer heels).

Also, as a person who has worked in a startup, it gives me some street cred around not only startups but also fast-paced work and modern work.

I made friends. I still keep up with the guys. And I did a ton of networking, but that is only semi-helpful as it is not in the field where I want to be these days.

In retrospect, it filled what would have been a rather large gap in my work history. And, if nothing else, I made like Socrates and learned just what I did not know. So, I went to Quinnipiac and got my Masters degree!

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Every time I think of careers ….Supercharging your online presence, pet peeves, careers, virality, Alibaba

Every time I think of careers ….

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on April 2, 2010

…. I get nervous. Careers scare me.

That is Because Careers Are Definitely Scary

I think of just how long I am (hopefully) going to be living. And can I ever really be happy? But now I feel I may have found my bliss — social media.

All I needed was to make the leap into doing it professionally. Every day I would run up, hard, to the gate. Eventually, I made the jump and landed in a few places.

There was robotics, where we competed for money at the WPI Venture Forum. Or I would go to lectures that were sometimes kinda gimmicky. Okay, very gimmicky.

And a Master’s in Communication (Interactive Media) from Quinnipiac University.

Come watch.

An Update After a Decade and a Half Plus

So, over 10 years later, it felt like I had finally landed somewhere. And then…. things changed.

Careers and Ambitions

Careers are tricky things, aren’t they? We ask people about their ambitions all the time. In fact, for children, it can even be an occurrence that happens more than once per week.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Raise your hand if you ever said, “I don’t know.”

Because that is totally okay.

Time Keeps On Going; If You Don’t Look Around, You Just Might Miss It

So that is kinda, sorta paraphrasing Ferris Bueller.

But that is all totally all right. Because, you see, time slipping away has made careers like mine possible in the first place.

Say what?

Seriously.

Invention and Reinvention

So, before I write anything else, you need to know that I graduated from high school in June of 1979. There were no smart phones. There was no internet. Yet there I was, a kid who kinda, sorta understood communications.

Oh yeah, computers were the size of a room. And the popular fiction of the time showed them as unhinged menaces, lurking and ready to get us.

I am looking at you, 2001.

And you, Star Trek TOS.

I graduated from college in 1983. Computers were a little smaller. But their cost was still comparable to a car. I had taken one programming class, hated it, and had dropped out before I could get a failing grade.

But I had liked fooling around on the computer. I just did not want to program in DOS.

And then…

I graduated law school in 1986. I had used LexisNexis. But then I went to work for a large firm where there was still a typing pool. And IBM Selectric typewriters. No lie. Two secretaries had word processors.

But at least the managing partner had a computer which he was trying (miserably) to teach himself how to use.

So, I left after 6 months and was at a firm where we had dumb terminals with some actual information in them. We did scheduling this way – although the clerk still used a huge book.

When I left a few years later (and left the practice of law altogether), things had not changed much.

Plus…

I taught paralegals. And I adjusted claims. Everywhere I went, it seemed computers were being used less and less. In 1995, I started as a litigation auditor. I did not even know how to turn on the Apple PowerBook 170 they gave me.

According to Wikipedia, it was vintage 1991. I 100% believe that. And so, ever since then, I have hated Apple products. Sorry, not sorry.

So I taught myself how to use it, and how to get faster. Slowly, we were switched to better computers. In my last 3 months or so (late 1999), we were finally given internet access.

And yes, you had to petition management and make a business case as to why you of all people would need internet access.

Hard to believe now, eh?

Because I knew databases, and it was the dot-com boom, I found another job fast. 9/11 happened, and it stole my job, along with a lot of other peoples’. I drifted.

Slowly, I was getting away from databases. In 2004, I worked at Dictaphone, and I did three separate stints at Fidelity Investments.

And I while I was at that third Fidelity job when I first wrote something like 73 words for this, my first-ever blog post.

Life Has Changed and Along With it I Have Changed Careers

From there to here, I wanted out. So I went to grad school and I blogged – here! Plus I made whatever contacts I could.

In 2014, I became a published fiction author. And in 2017, I was offered a job managing content for a business credit company. Now, I do not even do that anymore. The future looks blurry. The current administration makes it even blurrier.

And AI? Ha, you must mean the stuff that is falling all over itself to make people like me obsolete. The plagiarism factory. That nonsense.

What a long, strange trip it’s been. I have never regretted changing my life this way. Careers, I have learned, are for bending and changing. Because you will never know if there might be a better choice out there than what you have right now.

Careers are for reinvention. Never, ever set yours in stone.

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