Pamela Skillings’ ‘Escape from Corporate America’ blog links to a great video interview of her by Devesh Dwivedi.

I’ve posted the 22 minute video link below and recommend it to anyone still in the corporate world who’s thinking about ‘career change’ but not sure what to do next.

This is the first time I’ve encountered Devesh and I was impressed with his interviewing skills. He asked each question and then kept quiet while Pamela got on with answering it!

Some of the interview highlights that resonated with my experience were:

a) What to do? (4m 24s)

b) What is it you’re escaping to? (8m 29s)

c) Ethical moonlighting and financial implications. (10m 1s)

d) Career transition doesn’t necessarily mean being an entrepreneur (14m 0s)

e) The reality of starting a business – how are you going to solve problems in the marketplace? (16m 0s)

f) (Solo) entrepreneurs, especially in the early stages of growing a business, spend a lot of time alone. Therefore, having a support network and not becoming isolated are things to think about. (17m 0s)

Interview With Pamela Skillings from Entrepreneur In Making on Vimeo.

Career change is about taking ‘calculated risks’ but with no firm guarantees of success. That said, I think Pamela and Devesh communicated a very important message about the joys and perils of escaping from cubicle celldom:

“hope for the best but plan for the worst.”

- Mark McClure

New Year’s Eve is upon us in Japan and in our house that means a quiet evening, a bottle of wine and occasional glances at NHK’s annual ‘Red/White’ singing contest on TV. (Susan Boyle is scheduled to sing live during one of the breaks.)

But I won’t be spending hours glued to the screen watching Enka and J-Pop artistes do their thing. Some time’ll be spent kneading the visionary dough for my 2010 goals and beyond.

Speaking of bread, we popped into a very crowded Isetan department store food hall this morning and picked up some delicious bread for this evening’s meal from Andersen’s Danish Bakery.

The in-store leaflet has a mouthwatering summary of their Christmas bread ideas.

But what really caught my attention was discovering that they’re not Danish at all – this is a Japanese business begun by Mr. Shunsuke Takaki after WW2.

The company’s story is succinctly told on its web site (see the English language section in the link above), where the reader can get a sense of the owner’s vision for Danish bread and lifestyle as time went on.

What I find really visionary about Andersen’s business model is a sentence from the company’s ‘Quality Bakery’ statement:

“No matter how much the world changes, I believe every person strives for improvement and progress in their lives.”

The entire article is worth reading for anyone looking to develop and take action on a vision statement for their own business or life.

“Improvement and progress” can take many forms but I particularly liked how Andersen took their Danish bread business into overseas markets…

… especially into that of Denmark, itself!

Read this link from the Danish government’s “Invest in Denmark” web site, describing how the “Andersen Bakery (is) exporting the concept back to its ’spiritual homeland’.”

Food, indeed, for thought.

A Happy New Year to You and Yours.

- Mark McClure

Ever find inspiration and hidden messages in the oddest of places?

Recently they’ve been making an appearance for me in song lyrics – take this from the 1993 Tears For Fears song, “Break It Down Again“.

Break it down again
It is time to dissolve
no more sleepy dreaming
no more building it up

Of course, with these types of signals, one person’s shining truth often means little to others at the time.

However, I doubt their indifference matters much.

It’s more important that the detector acknowledges the message and then chooses what to do about it.

The backdrop to what is making these words personally significant is described in this post about mid-career change.

How about you?

Noticed anything lately?

- Mark McClure