Well, another week over, a new decade begins…
Last week’s post quoted Goethe and for today’s I want to remind readers of another favorite – this time from Henry David Thoreau:
“If one advances confidently in the direction of their dreams, and endeavors to live a life which they have imagined, they will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
- Mark McClure & Kuri-chan
“Eddie Izzard is an actor, comedian and part-time transvestite, but no one thought he was much of an athlete. Until he decided to go for a run – a very, very long run.”
And with those words the BBC takes viewers on an incredible challenge – one that saw Eddie run 43 marathons around the UK in 51 days, and raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for the charity, Sport Relief.
I don’t post Miley Cyrus videos (!) but will make an exception just this once.
Why?
Well, the young lady I know as “that eighth-grade middle schooler”, our daughter, will become a high school student from this September. And some of her school choir classmates sang along to an uplifting acoustic guitar version of Miley’s song, “The Climb”.
It’s hard to believe that the years have flown by so fast.
Yet they have.
At her graduation celebration (the school prefers that word over “ceremony”) there were encouraging and moving speeches from both students and teachers about change and growth.
Of course, as a parent and a teacher, I was proud of all their achievements and the basic goodness of these young people. But at the same time I was also a little saddened at some of the problems (global, national, local and personal) they may confront in the years to come.
However, if they can approach these mountains with even a fraction of the power revealed in Ms Cyrus’s lyrics, “it’ll be beast” 
- Mark ‘Billy Ray’ McClure
Her journey’s not yet done but there’s a great story building around 16 years old Jessica Watson’s goal of sailing round the world. In her own words:
Jessica Watson is setting out to become the youngest person to sail solo non-stop and unassisted around the World.”
Jessica’s age and a sailing accident at the start of the voyage have both generated some controversy.
Such is the way with big goals – things are likely to go wrong and you will definitely attract attention (not all of it positive) from friends and strangers.
What impresses me most is her determination to succeed while enjoying the ride – a great attitude for getting through this trip we call ‘real life’.
- Mark McClure
Just how far would you (legally) go to get your ideal job?
What impressed me most about Eric Romer’s pursuit of an online marketing role with HeadBlade was how he got their attention by using the very skills they were searching for.
Here’s are four specific things he did:
In effect, Eric was ‘walking the online career walk’ and not merely ‘talking the resume/CV talk.’
It was therefore no surprise to learn that HeadBlade’s people got in touch with him within hours of launching his online marketing ‘job hunt’ campaign.
(I suspect Eric was targeting keywords that HeadBlade were probably tracking using tools like ‘Google Alerts’.)
So what was Eric’s primary goal for all this online branding activity?
Well, I think the strategic goal was, of course, to get hired by HeadBlade. Big time win!
But the tactical goal was something many job seekers can learn from – and that was (imho) to get an interview. Eric’s use of online tools and personal branding are a great example of the potential offered by social media for savvy people looking to show potential employers what they can offer.
And in an increasingly interconnected world where the educated labor pool continues to grow by the millions each year, smart and ambitious people will need to use all the tools at their disposal to stand out and compete.
To finish this post, take a look at this screenshot from his YouTube page:
Notice how he has his online contact info in the profile box, as well as ‘tags’ for searches within YouTube.
Very smart!
Two other nice touches in his ‘hire me’ campaign were:
- A followup blog called, appropriately enough:
HeadBladeHiredMe.com !!
These are really clever moves because in years to come such ‘digital footprints’ will remain on the Internet and may come to replace the purpose behind having paper-based resumes and CVs.
Sounds a wee bit outlandish?
Well, in the words of one of the leading online content marketers I’m following, Joe Pulizzi:
“I never look at resumes anymore”.
That may be ahead of the curve for most HR departments out there in cubicle land – but give it time, give it time
More importantly:
If not, why not?
- Mark McClure
