when I first started writing this blog over eight months ago, I did it for two reasons: as something to fill my time, and as a way to prevent others from having the same experiences in the job market that I did.  So over the past week, I shared some of those experiences with you.  And all of them are true.  It’s never fun to see your business fail, to have to move back with your parents because you don’t have any options, or to send out 150 job applications and not get a single response for an interview.  This blog was created to prevent that from happening again.

But somewhere over the course of the past 250 posts, I realized something: there’s only so much that someone can say about getting a job.  And I was no longer in the unemployed bracket of society.  I wasn’t learning about how to get a job anymore.  Instead, I was learning about creating a business, developing a brand, becoming more creative and finding a balance in my life between my personal and professional obligations.  I’m not in the same place as I was eight months ago (and I hope that none of you are, either).

So I’ll no longer be making any posts here at canhasjob.wordpress.com.

The blog will stay up here for a while, until either the middle of 2010 or whenever WordPress realizes that there are no new posts coming in on the site.  You can read through the archives, share links and do what you do – but I won’t be here.

Because I’ve moved Needle, Meet Haystack to a new site.  New posts will continue at www.NeedleMeetHaystack.com.

I’ve been working for the past few days on setting up the new page, and though it’s not quite finished, you can go over there to see more blog posts starting on Monday (giving myself Sunday off to polish the site, but there might be a link there).  The feed will be updated on Sunday for the new site, so subscribers don’t have to worry about missing out.  And I’ve imported the archives to that site too, so you can peruse on the new site just like on the old one.

So, just to clarify: new posts are moving to a new site, but this one will stay up for a while.

So thank you to all of the subscribers, commenters, bloggers, casual readers and people who stumbled across the site from a Google image search.  I appreciate your support, ideas and views.  It’s been great having the chance to talk to the entire Internet and get feedback.

I hope I’ll see you on twitter and at the new site.

As I boarded the plane, I kept thinking of that phrase, “If you can make it in New York City, you can make it anywhere.”  So now it was time to face facts: I couldn’t make it anywhere.

Things hadn’t exactly panned out for me in New York.  After sending out applications to 150 different advertising, public relations and marketing agencies, I found that I couldn’t get even one interview.  Sure, it was nice to walk around Manhattan sometimes and desperately cling to the hope that work would turn up, but nothing materialized.  So after the self-imposed deadline of two months had passed, I packed up again and flew off to Phoenix.

“We’re happy to see you,” my dad said in the car ride home from the airport.  ”Well, we’re not happy that you’re here.  But we’re happy to see you.  You understand what I mean.”

My mom echoed his statements.  ”I’m sorry that you couldn’t get work over there, but it’ll be nice to have you home for longer than a couple of weeks to visit.”

So I set up in my old bedroom and began the process of rebuilding my professional life.  But I didn’t have to look far.

About a week in to my newfound “Boomerang” status, I met up with an old friend from high school.  It turned out that he had started an internet marketing company, but needed help expanding it.  Specifically, he needed someone to write emails, develop site content and take care of customer issues.  And with that, I was once again employed.

Which leads us to now.  Unlike the last time I worked on a business with a friend, this time, I knew what I was getting myself into.  We had discussed (and corrected) many of the problems that had plagued our business lives in the past, and have been able to move forward much more successfully.

This might not have been the life I planned on, but it’s taught me a lot more about myself and my professional abilities than I could have imagined.

We were two young, barely experienced, unemployed guys living in a $2400 a month apartment.  And we had a dream.

My roommate (let’s call him Stan) had spent the better part of the past three years building his reputation as a club DJ and producer, though his true hobby was business.  He had been running successful businesses since he was 14 – when we first met, he showed me his new Porsche 911 that he had bought with the spoils of his financial victories.  Stan was a motivated self-starter with the goal to create an entertainment company for our future ventures (publishing for me, music for him) that would set us up for financial security within one year and possible retirement within ten.

With Georgetown out of Stan’s way and the body language job out of mine, we began to build our empire.  Over the course of the next two months, we corralled over a dozen artists, signed distribution deals, recorded radio shows that were heard all over the world and managed to secure almost 70 hours of play time for our DJs at the biggest dance music convention in the country.  The label’s name was on a lot of people’s lips, and it seemed like we were destined for greatness.

Except for one tiny problem: we weren’t making any money.

Because the sales of the music we were selling (singles) were all done digitally, we had to wait for the distributors to compile total sales, which is only done quarterly.  It then takes another month or two for the accounting to be finalized and for checks to be sent out.  Additionally, several promoters had not followed through on payment agreements, so there was less money coming in from club performances than there should have been.

And lastly, Stan decided to keep all of his reserve funds locked up in investments rather than having some set aside in a checking account.  The combined market tumble and the new policy of the online brokerage to take three months to process cash-outs led to the total of our expenses (rent, utilities and food) being hoisted on my shoulders.

So I went broke.

Luckily, our lease was coming due, saving my credit score from taking a permanent nosedive that would kill any hopes of building a stable financial future.  But I knew that I couldn’t afford to stay in DC.

I called my parents to discuss the possibility of moving back to Phoenix to recover, rebuild my finances and find work again.  They agreed that staying in DC would be financial and career suicide, but suggested that I spend a little time with some family near New York City before returning home.

After all, Manhattan is the central hub of the advertising, marketing and PR world.  Maybe I would be able to score a job at one of the hundreds of firms there and get to use my marketing degree for the purpose it was intended.  I had hit rock bottom, but it looked like I had come across a way out.

So there I was: a 21-year-old fresh out of college with no solid job prospects and just over $2,000 in the bank.  The dark cloud of student loans was still building up off in the distance, and without a second thought, I hopped on a plane and made my way to Washington, DC to seek my fortune.

My once and future roommate and soon-to-be business partner and I had scouted out apartments online, and we had decided on a charming $2,400 a month (minus utilities) two-bedroom place in the northwestern (read: safe) part of DC.  He was going to go to Georgetown and pursue an MBA in  finance by day while I would find work in advertising or marketing.  And at night, we would build our music empire.  Or at least that was the plan.

By the time I had lived in the District for two months, my bank account was exhausted and my credit card was nearly maxed out.  I’d sent out hundreds of applications, attended networking events, talked with industry professionals, begged and pleaded with employed friends and even considered working for the post office – but nothing was working.  My personal deadline for finding employment was about to expire, when, miraculously, I got an interview.  And even more astonishingly, I got the job!

So for the next few months, I helped secure media placement for advertisements for political candidates and causes all over the country.  The hours were long, but the amazing staff, challenging work and excellent pay definitely made up for it.  Unfortunately, there were two problems with the job.  The more pressing problem was that it was only a contract position that ended once the election had passed.  But personally, telling people what I did involved conversations about politics.  And as the party affiliation of most of the candidates was called into question, I often got looks from people that are usually reserved for those who steal candy from babies or punt kittens across a city block.

So as the election passed by and the new year approached, I once again found myself unemployed.  And yet within six weeks, gainful employment was again mine.  This was especially fortunate, as my roommate had decided to put his MBA plans on hold and start focusing more seriously on music.

I was hired to find bookings for a self-help and body language guru, but wound up writing newsletters and articles, helping her coach classes (most notably a dating class for busy professionals) and developing content for her book.  This job was not as enjoyable as the last one, and my pay was much lower – I had the misfortune to be one of the few people in DC who had to commute to Virginia for work, so public transportation ate up most of the paycheck.  Since I was scrambling to make rent with my meager earnings, I decided to seek opportunities elsewhere.

It was about this time that my roommate and I realized that we had yet to fulfill our original goal of starting the record label.  But once my schedule had opened up from leaving the body language job, that all changed.

I hadn’t bothered to apply for any jobs until about three weeks before I graduated from college.  The HR representatives and hiring managers at the career fairs I’d been attending for the better part of the past five months had instilled me with the belief that doing so any earlier would yield negative results.  After all, advertising is a capricious field in which hiring practices are based on obtaining and retaining clients.

So as I was putting the finishing touches on my financial aid closeout forms and pulling all-nighters for my remaining classes, I desperately clung to the belief that one of these magical applications would get me a job that I would start the week after graduation.

That didn’t happen.

So as I finished up school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I packed up my belongings and moved back home to Phoenix to stay with my parents as I planned out my next move.

For two weeks, I sent out applications to advertising agencies on both coasts and everywhere in between, hoping that one of them would fall in love with my portfolio and resume and scoop me right up.  At best, I would receive a generic response that my application was received and I would be contacted if there was any interest.  My prospects were looking dim.

But then, an old college friend called me up with a proposal: move to Washington, DC and start a record label.  And as an unemployed new graduate with no job prospects, the offer seemed quite appealing…

Yes, I really should have thought this through more.

The last book signing I had gone to was when I was 11 or 12, and Walter Cronkite had been in Phoenix signing his autobiography.  Having recently learned about the early days of television, I begged and pleaded with my parents to let me go.  Luckily, the persuasion worked, and I soon found shaking hands with the greatest newsman of the 20th Century, who had a surprisingly strong grip for an 80-year-old.  At this signing, people just lined up to have copies of A Reporter’s Life.  But the author that I was going to see was definitely not Walter Cronkite.

Looking around the room, I saw that I might have been the only guy there whose decision was based off of the author’s work rather than his reputation.  All around me, men (and a few grumpy-looking girlfriends) shifted in their seats with nervous anticipation, some wearing leather pants making an almost fart-like noise.  Turning around, I saw that there were even more people standing behind the seats, a cloud of hair products and cologne almost obscuring the crowd.

When Neil Strauss finally arrived, the crowd applauded and cheered loudly for what seemed like a full minute.  Their reactions to his stories and comments seemed almost over exaggerated, like a sitcom laugh track.  But by the time that everyone jumped in line to get their books signed, I was sucked in.  When I finally got the chance to talk to the author, I was a nervous, blubbering mess.

Why?  Because the energy from the crowd caused me to hop on the bandwagon of excitement.  Although I had really only gone to support an author whose work I enjoy, I wound up a drooling fanboy.

Although groups can be more knowledgeable and accurate than experts, they can also suck people in and project their collective feelings onto them.  A group is a powerful social organism and a crucial element of social change.  Think about the times that you’ve bowed down to peer pressure, wondered about how so many people could like something, or made a concentrated effort to be  nonconformist – these are conscious steps taken to resist the pull of a group.

Social media people know this.  Marketers know this.  Hell, most everyone knows this.  And yet, time after time, we fall victim to the power of groups over our individual preferences.  But if you can transition your personal brand into a driving force for a crowd of people, you’ll find that your status goes up considerably.

I’d had little to no interest in seduction community stuff before I came to the book signing, despite it being the field in which Neil is most widely known.  But after my experience with the crowd, I wanted to buy every pick-up artist-type book that was in the store.

Neil Strauss created a personal brand that developed a loyal and passionate following.  Doing so has allowed him to cut his time spent working on his brand, allowing his crowd of fans to do the work for him.  And maybe that’s the goal of creating a personal brand in the first place – to let the group take over, spreading excitement and energy to others, giving your brand even more power than you could have harnessed on your own.

BriteTab

I decided to write a post called “What Being Sick Taught Me About Business,” until I realized that it really hasn’t.  I’m a location-independent worker, so my office is my laptop, which was 10 feet away from my hacking, wheezing body.  As you can imagine, I didn’t call in a sick day.  I have since wiped everything down with Lysol wipes though.  Twice.

Instead of going to the doctor, as a 20-something male, I chose instead to treat the symptoms with OTC medication (thanks, Walgreens!) and check out WebMD.  My problem with WebMD has been that no matter how specific I get with my symptoms and problem areas, it always gives me results that range from “light cough” to “certain death.”  Here’s the list from this time around:

• common cold
• acute sinusitis
• migraine headaches (adult)
• hay fever
• bronchitis
• chronic sinusitis
• indoor allergens
• tension headache
• allergic reaction
• nonallergic rhinitis
• nasal congestion
• cluster headache
• pneumonia
• dust exposure
• nearsightedness
• nasal polyps
• high blood pressure (hypertension)
• foreign object in the nose
• chemical pneumonia
• asthma (teen and adult)

So basically, I could have had the disease that killed George Washington (pneumonia), a severe allergic reaction, or something stuck up my nose.  And I should’ve been looking into buying facial tissues, antibiotics, low-grade steroids, or glasses.  Gee, thanks WebMD.

As a result of being not of the healthy persuasion, I stayed in and spent a lot of time online and watching TV, hence this week’s two current events-based posts.  But now that I’m lucid and no longer taking copious amounts of cold medicine, posts should be back on track.  But I must say, I learned something from this whole experience:

Don’t get sick.  It sucks.  And for the love of Gosh, don’t trust WebMD.

It’s not just because they give me that feeling of powerless and impotence against the forces of nature.  It’s not because of a sense of fatalism about the downfall of human society as mother Earth strikes back at us for our transgressions.  And it has nothing to do with how I feel about the loss of human life.

No, the real reason that I hate natural disasters is because of all of the charities.

I’ve mentioned before that the best way to help out a charity is to volunteer, but when disaster strikes in another country (or even in our own), volunteering is a less plausible option, so making a donation seems like a plausible idea.  The problem is, making a donation is not as easy as it seems.

When people donated medicine for tsunami relief in Asia a few years ago, most of the donations (from individuals and organizations alike) sat unused.  And yet there was about 4 pounds of medicine for every affected person.  Why?  Because the labels were in languages that the locals couldn’t understand, and there wasn’t a solid infrastructure to handle the distribution of medicine.

Food and clothing donations can often sit in warehouses and never arrive at their intended destinations.  Or in some cases, aid packages are seized by militant groups and are hoarded away from the people who need them.

But there are two offenders that stand above the rest: social networks and the Red Cross.

CNN recently ran an article about the outpouring of support for Haitian earthquake victims over the Internet.  But the story doesn’t really ring true.  I ran a quick check of Facebook groups with the words “Help Haiti” in them, and came up with over 570 results.  Yet most of the groups are like this one, where someone pledges X number of dollars (or cents) will be donated for every person who joins the group, then leaves the group, so no donations occur.  The self-congratulatory feeling of joining a group means that one doesn’t feel the need to actually donate (since someone else is doing it while people join), leading to less money going to the victims who desperately need it.  And most of these groups will never mention how or when or to whom the donation is going.

But the Red Cross is far, far worse.

I’d rather gloss over the 570,000 Google results for the search “Red Cross corruption”, the controversial and poor execution of aid that the group provides (noted here and here on its own Wikipedia page), the Ripoff Report comments, and the ridiculous salaries paid to its top executives.  The LA times and this blog explained a lot of that already.

And if you’re thinking of using the Charity Navigator figures to tell me I’m wrong, consider that the Red Cross is reimbursed by the government for most of its costs and that it relies on a volunteer workforce.  Who it charges to help.

Years ago, my dad was a volunteer helping to fight forest fires in Arizona.  Many local businesses donated food, water and supplies for the volunteers, but the Red Cross charged volunteers for stale, weak coffee in small styrofoam cups and hastily-made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  So even though hardware stores and McDonald’s franchisees were donating to help the volunteers, the Red Cross made people who came to help for free pay for food.  So where does the money go?

If you must give to the Red Cross, donate blood.  That’s one area where they might follow through on their charitable promises.  But if you want to donate funds to help people, do some research first.  Or else you’ll be doing more harm than good.

NOTE: I recommend Doctors Without Borders, Hollywood for Haiti or CARE.  These charities actually help.

Which got me wondering – how did that happen?  How did Billy Mays become such a cultural touchstone that people are sad that he’s no longer making infomercials?  He was a TV pitchman, a role that isn’t typically associated with celebrity.  And then I remembered how Dick Van Dyke got famous.

In some PBS special I watched too long ago to remember the name of, Carl Reiner was being interviewed about The Dick Van Dyke Show, and was telling the story of its name.  When the creators were developing the show in 1961, they were having trouble finding a hook to draw viewers in.  None of the actors were well-known at the time, and the generic names the network offered for the series didn’t work.  So the creators took a gamble and named the show after their leading man.  Dick Van Dyke wasn’t a celebrity then, but his eponymous show created self-fulfilling prophecy that made him a celebrity.  After all, he had his own show – he HAD to be someone!

Similarly, Billy Mays was endorsing a lot of products with the strength of his pitches resting on his opening line, “Hi, Billy Mays here…”  Who was Billy Mays?  Well, if he was on TV endorsing something, he HAD to be someone!

The key is total brand confidence.

Both Dick Van Dyke and Billy Mays were thrust on stage (metaphorically speaking) and through sheer force of will and conviction, people accepted that they had value and were worth paying attention to.  Sure, it’s a more risky gambit than creating a persona over time, but if you can present your brand with enough charisma, and then back it up by showing utility, people will take notice and follow.

However, this move can be overplayed.  After all, what’s more pathetic than someone saying “Don’t you know who I am?”  If you have to resort to this, you’ve already lost, and your brand loses value.  All you need is to confidently say something that gets across the message, this is who I am, and this is what I can do.

It might sound simple, or even a little contrived.  But getting by on the strength of one’s name has worked since the early days of television.  So give it a try – there’s no shipping or handling involved.

I’m terrified of becoming successful.  And the more I think about it, the less it seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy or a subconscious reaction.  I might be deliberately setting myself up for failure.  And I don’t think that I’m the only one.

A while ago, an article that I can’t seem to find online (it might be this one) discussed how future success could be predicted by someone deciding to apply for an Ivy League college – not whether they get in or not, but just the act of applying boosts odds of future achievement.  But this is tied more to self-esteem and confidence issues, which do not always create a self-fulfilling prophecy of personal and professional triumph.

It takes a lot of time, dedication and hard work in order to become successful at something.  You have to have some amount of expertise in your field, proficiency at the task at hand, and enough of a competitive advantage that pushes you past the rest.  You need to cultivate a strong personal brand and extend it out as far as possible.  But a fear of success is not necessarily tied into procrastinating on any of the steps that will land you on easy street.

For me, it’s an issue of balance – weighing the opportunity cost of becoming accomplished in one area means that I lose out somewhere else.  If I start doing well with my writing, then I won’t accomplish as much with my music.  If I get more renown for my PR skills, I won’t be known as a good advertising copywriter.  Sure, it might be the onset of a quarter-life crisis, but this indecision is slowly crippling my future.  Since I can’t have my cake and eat it too, I’m just staring at it, brandishing a fork (metaphorically speaking).

Taking steps to resolve this problem isn’t an easy thing to do either.  Not only is it disheartening to find that one of the top Google results for “fear of success” is on a website called “Weird Phobias,” but apparently the most exhaustive list of phobias online doesn’t even have a name for it.  I’ve made one up, though: Anti-Atychiphobia (Atychiphobia is the fear of failure, which also has a second name, Kakorrhaphiophobia).  And if one is pursuing a goal of conquering a fear of success, being successful in that pursuit is a part of that fear, creating an ouroboros of non-achievement.

So I’m setting more short-term, attainable goals for myself and creating tangible proof that I’m accomplishing what I set out to do.  I’m redefining my personal definition of success.  And maybe if we all try to do that a little more, we won’t focus so much on failing.

Basically, the network has decided that drastically altering their primetime schedule and creating an almost-solid (except for the local news) block of four evening talk shows isn’t such a good idea.  The ratings have been poor, and rescheduling the different shows might not help much.  Conan O’Brien might lose his shaky grasp of The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon will be competing with infomercials for ratings, and Carson Daly (remember him?) will be cast off from the network.

The person who is most affected by this decision is O’Brien, who was given a late night institution, only to watch as the network showed their lack of faith in his abilities by giving Jay Leno another show whose very presence trivializes Conan’s promotion.  There have been suggestions that O’Brien quit and find a home at another network – 15 years on the air have helped him create a powerful brand – but the problem is, where will he go?

CBS has firmly established a counterpoint to NBC’s lineup with David Letterman and Craig Ferguson’s shows.  ABC has Jimmy Kimmel doing late-night hosting.  The CW isn’t making much money and seems to be more interested in teen dramas.  So that leaves Conan a choice of moving to FOX, a network whose record of late night talk shows is spotty at best, or cable.

Leno’s Reverse-Chappelle*  has forced Conan into a situation that many of us have found ourselves in at one time or another: an Either-Or debacle.  Either Conan takes his lumps with NBC and hopes that everything works out okay, or he quits (keep in mind that the jobs and paychecks of all of the people who work on his show would go with him).  But, as with the seemingly limited number of options that are presented to us when we’re between a rock and a hard place, he has a third option.

He can make his own choice.

Conan has proven that he has a powerful brand that attracts younger viewers.  His audience is more likely to categorize him with Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert than Letterman or Leno.  So if he wants to send a message showing not only his brand power but also his utility, he needs to mobilize his fan base in a way that his network bosses will notice.

Online petitions don’t really do anything, but ratings do.  A concentrated online campaign to increase the number of Tonight Show viewers might help (ie: “Save Conan by watching”) as it attracts his fan base through a medium that they are comfortable with.  He could partner with Leno, as Letterman suggests, and co-host the Tonight Show, helping to increase his visibility and popularity among viewers who may have left when he took over the show.

There are many things that we can learn from the current trials and tribulations of Conan O’Brien. Getting a promotion does not increase your job security.  Your personal brand value is a constantly shifting thing.  You’re allowed to diss your own network on your show.  Even when it seems like you have very limited options, you can create your own solutions.

When you’re developing your brand and establishing yourself in a new position with a company, it’s difficult to find solid footing, and even harder to do when the rug is pulled out from under you.  But if you can maintain your brand, demonstrate your utility and come up with your own solution to solve the problem, you’ll come out ahead.

UPDATE: It looks like Conan chose the third option.

*Dave Chappelle, as you might remember, quit his show and a huge paycheck when he didn’t like the direction that it was going in.  Conversely, Leno continues to stick around and collect what I imagine to be cloth sacks with a dollar sign printed on the side that are full of money.

Facebook has, for the past few months, been pointing out people who I haven’t written on the wall of, messaged, chatted with and so on.  ”Share news,” the website suggests.  ”Send them a message!”

And in some cases, Facebook is replacing ads with friend suggestions.  ”You both are fans of marmalade!”  it might say.  ”Add him as a friend!”

Really, Facebook, I’m okay.

I’ve discussed before my aversion to adding people for the sake of having a larger number of friends, but this is getting ridiculous.  There’s no utility in connecting with people who I don’t remember, or may never have met – it just seems creepy and wrong.  Also, it violates the new social contract.

I’ve always been under the assumption that social networking sites were created to enhance pre-existing friendships and interactions.  It’s easy to send people an invitation to a party you’re throwing, show them vacation pictures, tell them happy birthday or strike up a short conversation.  And if you do use the sites to contact strangers, then it might be similar to the case of using LinkedIn to find out more information about a recruiter or hiring manager to get a leg up over the competition.

But through a combination of the site’s relentless urging to connect with people who are more on my social periphery (ie: some days, I wonder, “what’s going on with my Sophomore year lab partner?” and can easily find out, rather than sit and continue wondering) and recent comments by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg about privacy, I’m starting to wonder what the site is trying to do.

I was (and am) a big fan of the way that Facebook constructed its business model – build slowly and gradually increase its audience by adding universities and colleges, whose members (students) are well-versed in the Internet and word-of-mouth communications, then expand geographically so more features can be added along the way, and markets can be more easily managed as the company grows.  It was nice that the site was the cool, underground and almost secret thing before it was unleashed upon the masses.

But now, the site’s increasingly more confusing privacy settings make it trickier to manage for those who don’t want the whole world seeing their account.  Several of my friends have quit the site because they found it easier than blocking off search engines from finding them.

So the larger problem becomes, how does a website known for innovation continue to innovate when it has grown so large?  And it seems that Facebook’s answer is for people to first grow out their friends lists past the point of knowing someone in the real world and to the point of six degrees of separation connectivity.  While this strategy may pay off on sites like LinkedIn, where you want more professional contacts, so a 2nd or 3rd degree connection is helpful, it fails for a site like Facebook, where you are developing personal contacts.

The site itself has become a global powerhouse and has forever changed the way that we interact online.  But if Facebook stops treating its members like people and more like customers, it will find itself losing relevancy, and more importantly, profits.

So, no, Facebook, I don’t want to reconnect.  I don’t want to connect to someone who I don’t know.  But I do want to use the power of a social network to help me communicate with other people.