Corporate Jargon, dead yet?

The MBA admissions season is starting to tail off. As usual, I spent at least 25% of my time pulling corporate jargon out of client's essays. Words like "value extraction" or "create value" are replaced with what the person actually did. "Leverage" and "optimize" are replaced with real verbs rather than name of a TV show and a Transformer. "Tool kit" is replaced with an actual description of skills unless the person is describing a carpentry project. "Impactful" or "Impacts" is changed to the humble original word of impact. I also pull out the word unique, profound, and deeply because they are just another way of saying "very" and suggest that they use real adjectives instead.

Given that MBA admissions cracks down on corporate jargon, I wonder if this effort will eradicate impactful value streams from future MBA's vocabulary like the invasive species that it is? I had further hopes during a conference call with a vendor that was trying to cross sell us their products. Since we were on mute, we spent the call laughing at phrases like:

• To be honest with you
• As the risk of sound sales-y
• I don't want to get into the weeds
• In order to wrap your arms around this

We spent the time trying to use as many of those phrases in one sentence. The winner announced "At the risk of being honest with you, I really want to wrap my arms around this project while I am down in the weeds." These corporate jargon phrases caused the person's stock to plummet as fast as the actual stock market in August.

After these observations, I was feeling hopeful that standard English was making a come back at the expense of corporate jargon. Real words and adjectives were the new black. Or is it the new pink? My hopes were dashed after receiving this email from a current MBA student. I had expressed an interest in writing for their newsletter and this was the response that I got:

Thanks. Will be in touch. We are refining a plan based on the responses we have been getting so we can optimally leverage the talents and enthusiasm of all those interested in a high level of engagement. We would like to "share the wealth" such that the time commitment for any single individual is manageable and to have a full queue of content throughout the year to maintain momentum as each edition rolls out.

For readers who don't speak corporate jargon, the response was "We are trying to get a lot more writers so we have enough material to produce at least a few issues." FML. MBA student's writing ability is a lost cause just like Rick Santorum's hope of ever solving his Google problem.

Paradise Lost and Found and Lost Again: the Mission of Playgrounds

As a parent of a young boy, I spend a lot of time on playgrounds. I like the rock climbing walls and appreciate a good fast slide. I also really like swings that have really long chains since you feel like you are flying.

My young boy likes the animals or cars that rock on large springs, a large sand box, and the dome jungle gyms. There are a lot of other features which are hit and miss. In general, if my little one can play on most of the equipment without getting frustrated, we're happy. It's a bonus, if I can spend some times swinging on monkey bars and refraining from looking too triumphant if I successfully swing across.

I thought that the societal role and social mission of playgrounds was fairly straight forward and transactional relationship. Until I went to New York City where I learned about the Rockwell Foundation and other architect's mission to transform society and create a future paradise through playgrounds.

Some of the quotes from the linked article (which require a subscription to see the full text) include the 1959 United Nations declaration about playgrounds as "as a place where children, by playing, learn to become non-playing adults." Alternative perspectives include playground development as a substitute for war training. On the other hand, playgrounds that introduce too many repetitive tasks like the 3 S's of swings, slides, and see saws are considered to tools of oppressors to stifle creativity in children.

Architects like Rockwell, Gehry, and others that we have never heard fought these pedestrian playground design and developed "Playgrounds in a Box" and "Loose parts." Children were entrusted with more control over pieces of the playgrounds to encourage the discovery and creativity process. Whacking each other with foam noodles is one example of this process.

Overally, their goals were best summed up with the following quote from the article:
Over the past century, the thinking about playgrounds has evolved from figuring out how play can instill youngsters with discipline to figuring out how play can build brains by fostering creativity and independent thinking. The hope of Rockwell's playground project is that children who have experimented with fitting together oversized blocks and cogs-and who have learned to navigate a place where the social challenges of sharing and collaboration are built into the experience-will be better equipped to handle the complexities of twenty-first-century life.

How did our experience with playgrounds changes through these carefully designed New York City playgrounds. Were my youngster and I transformed in anyway? I am going to answer in repetitive bullet points so you can clearly see that I am a lost cause for these playground architects:

• We watched slightly older kids take over water sources or fountains and spray other kids who got too close. As the designers intended, kids learn at an early age that sharing is for the weak and they should dominate key resources.
  


• A group of kids were digging an elaborate canal system in the sand. Two of them yelled at all the other kids to dig more and dig faster. It was inspiring to see their imagination settling on building their own sweat shops.



• One two year old was very vigilant about tearing down any block or "Loose Parts" construction that any child built and left alone for more than 15 seconds. Clad in baggy back shorts, a medallion around his neck, and a pot belly, he looked like a little mob enforcer. Actually, he might have been.

It looks like the playgrounds do mimic the work environment quite well. This is New York City.

Generation X or Y, Do or Die

The blog title is inspired by Loudon Wainwright III's song from the album Strange Weirdos. However, Wainwright is a Boomer. When I first started blogging, I ran into Generation Y like a crash test dummy runs into a car windshield. Generation Y runs most of the blogging world like Hugo Chavez runs Venezuela. Dogmatically and the courts or rule of law are not needed to change rules.

Generation X lurks on the outside with occasional rushes towards the forefront. Results are often comparable to Chavez's opposition party tactics. Therefore, when I interacted with the blogging community, I did it sparingly and specifically.

These generation musings were triggered by the book The Ask by Sam Lipsyte. The reviews declared that this was the latest voice of Generation X. Since the main character was a recent father, I almost too strongly identified with him. Combined with a recent perusing of Generation Y blogs, this led to my further think about Generation X and Y and the generational rivalry.

I am not including the Boomers in this generational musing because enough has been written about the boomers. Even USA Today wrote a series about the Boomers and a probling, controversial story for them is generally, "US still eats more hamburgers than India." This boomer series was inspired by the first wave of boomers turning 65. Boomers turning 65 strikes me more as an Outlook calendar reminder than the trigger of a generational examination.

This Boomer retirement wave may be the assassination of the archduke that triggers the full fledged generational rivalry as X and Y compete for the corporate and business spoils that are left behind. Some write that there is a closer alliance between Generation Y and the Boomers since they are more team oriented and optimistic. Generation X's response is that it's on like Donkey Kong as we don't intend to be passed over again. However, this may all be irrelevant as Boomers may figure out a way to take the spoils with them to their graves and hold their positions and power for life just like Hugo Chavez.

Generation X and Y's philosophical leanings also place them on a collision course for rivalry. From reading Generation Y blogs, I see their gurus are Tim Ferris and writers of self-improvement books. They look to Seth Godin about following their passion. They love writing lists of what they plan to accomplish.

Generation X looks to the book/movie Fight Club and wishes to subvert the mainstream or John Hughes movie about nerdy underdogs finally receiving societal acceptance through unconventional methods. We're too cynical for failed cycles of self-improvement. Our New Years resolutions are snarky vows to update our hard drives or use fewer cue tips. We don't understand Generation Y's preacher-esque zeal for self-improvement and accomplishment and find their efforts come across, as well, too much preaching.

The rivalry is probably most intense among the older Y's and younger X's due to the freshman/sophomore dynamic. Sophomores feel their extra year warrants respect from freshman and that they should be treated differently by elders. However, sophomores are often really just older freshman who are still trying to figure out the same issues.

As an older Generation Xer, my contemplation through this post has made me realize that I am mainly just annoyed that Y's are littering on the internet and are terrible writers. Their web businesses that fill the internet like spores are typically affiliate marketing arrangements or "lifestyle design" which seems to be a way to justify writing about your navel gazing as a business. The true lack of any business model once traffic was achieved disillusioned me the about Generation Y's contributions to the internet.

Furthermore, their affiliate marketing or lifestyle design business models need to be driven by compelling content since they are mainly just writing about themselves. However, they kill their content with overusing awsome, awesomeness, sweet awesome goodness, or other words that don't really lend any descriptive value. I am waiting for awsomeful to catch on next. They declare ninja or rock star status for various abilities like networking or nose hair trimming. Unless it involves a throwing star or actual musical instruments, ninja or rock star are just another way of saying awesomeful. The Generation Y twitter driven writing style creates short blog entries with lots of ideas but no substance behind them. Titles of articles declare, "Everything that you know is wrong!" when the title should be: "I would like to suggest a slight shift in how we think about a new social media tool."

My Generation X co-workers and I talk about the challenges and how it's different working with Generation Y. One of my coworkers is managing 2 Y's and had the difficult experience of having to fire one of them. As we get older, the rivalry will fade and our different philosophies will complement work styles rather than be divisive. Until then, I will be more welcoming of Generation Y when they learn how to write awesomfuller and stops littering the internet with Amway schemes.

What Bloggers Really Hear

When bloggers hit submit on their first post, we all hope for comments about how thoughtful and introspective we are, how clever our animal husbandry and colonoscopy imagery is, and that the Huffington Post begs us to be their new featured writer. Actually, we really hope that we just meet some like minded folks who also think that colonoscopy jokes are hilarious and perhaps find a community. Instead what we usually get are messages like this:

Hello, This is Shiela from bestdogfoods dot org dot uk. We stumbled on your blog while searching for Best Dog Foods related information. We operate the largest Best Dog Foods website featuring more than 30,000+ blogs. Our site averages 200,000+ unique visitors per month. Based on your blog's popularity and other factors, we have featured your blog at bestdogfoods dot org dot uk dot bogus link. We would be grateful if you could add the following details to your blogs main page. Looking forward for your confirmation. Thanks Shiela bestdogfoods dot org dot uk P.S. If You Have More Quality Blog We Can Feature Those.

Contrary to Shiela's claim, my blog was not featured on that page. I also am completely convinced that Shiela repeatedly spelled her own first name wrong. However, Shiela did inspire me to provide insight into the blogging world by sharing the utter garbage that people email me. Since I have no other ideas for a post and really want to have 4 posts this month, I'll subject readers to a true blogger navel gazing post. There is nothing that bloggers like more than to write about the thoughts behind their thoughts. Like Lebron James, once you start uncensoring yourself, it's really hard to stop (I mean, Lebron, you really thought that your league contraction idea as a solution to oppressed super stars who have to play in Minnesota wouldn't make you look like even a bigger dick?).

Here are some of the really bad short-sighted ways that people interact with other bloggers (like me):

The disingenuous link offer: One of the easiest things to do is ask someone to link to each other's blogs. You express some genuine interest, demonstrate that you read their blog, and offer to exchange links. Having a first name that seems real and spelled correctly is an added bonus. The part that turns a simple exchange into a really low stake scam is when the soliciting blogger never links the other blog. Hospital dot com is the biggest offender as they repeatedly offered me the link exchange but have no obvious place on their site for links.

The comment disguised as an excuse to link: Masters Dissertation dot co dot uk has left flattering comments under the name "Marketing dissertation" and "MBA dissertation" with links back to their website in the comment. My post was "informative" and they had "not found any proper resource for their research" until they read my post about how MBA guys should try to score at the Veterinarian Graduate Programs due to the favorable female:male ratio. I published the first comments as I was properly flattered but after the 4th or 5th time, I just felt like the girl at the bar who was hearing a bad pick up line.

Teeth Whitening is also guilty of this approach but even more guilty because they don't even try to use a name that remotely disguises their intent.

The urgency to link or write about comment: There's nothing like getting a request to link or provide some publicity that accuses you of ignoring their previous multiple attempts to get your attention. I supposed some might feel guilted into acting but I figured that if I ignored them and couldn't even remember ignoring them, it couldn't have been that important. The oddest part was that Team USA was using this approach during the last Winter Olympics to raise awareness for athletes. I guess that's what people mean about organizations that don't understand social media.

The crappy guest post offer: I've received a few emails from the writer of accredited college online dot com for guest post services. However, the sample articles that the writer sent included "100 tips on how to raise a brilliant bilingual baby" with a first tip of "Speak another language at home." I had visions of a guest post on "100 tips on raising a goat" with a first tip of "Find a male goat and a female goat and get them horny". Get it, the goats are horny? Horns and horny? Get it? Hmm, I think that I might have an idea for a guest post for that writer.

All of these short sighted techniques that bloggers use to get a little bit more traffic obscure actual legitimate interactions and community building. As a result, I was completely skeptical about the one email that I got where the person was truly interested in paying me to advertise. I was even more stunned when they proved to be legitimate and actually did pay me. Thus, I can claim that I actually have monetized my blog.

However, most of these attempts show that there are not a lot of smart people working on web advertising and the competition is never so intense when the stakes are so low. Now, I am going to try and complete my 100 tips for raising goats. What do goats eat anyway?

Judging WikiLeaks: Amazon and PayPal's Glass Houses

It's safe to say that the story of WikiLeak's posting of diplomatic cables or what happens when diplomats stop being nice and start getting real is as ubiquitous as Leslie Nielsen quotes. WikiLeak's actions have triggered government investigations and lively debate about the role of news organizations and democracies. WikiLeaks creates extreme discomfort and operates in shades of gray as it forces us to deeply question the definition of freedom and role of government. Personally, I like my government like I like my negligees which is transparent. However, this debate is far from clear.

What I think is clear is Amazon and PayPal's role in the WikiLeaks story. PayPal dropped WikiLeaks as a customer which cut off their primary way of receiving revenue. Amazon kicked WikiLeak off their servers because Senator Joe Lieberman complained. Both companies judged WikiLeaks before any judicial body had made a decision and put their political and possibly ethical opinion above shareholders or the traditional role of a business.

The role of business in society is the subject of a few lectures in the required business school ethics class. One side will claim that shareholder value trumps all as business' prime purpose is profits not societal change. The other will claim the business needs to support its communities and there is a return in investing in society. Businesses have also become intertwined in politics in positive ways such as the boycotts of oppressive regimes and as corrupting forces by pumping money through PACS and lobbyists.

However, PayPal and Amazon's role is beyond a business decision to invest or even endorse a particular position. Their actions were similar to blockading a harbor or funding rebel troops. PayPal's blog claimed that cutting off WikiLeaks' account was prompted by a violation of the service provider's policy, "which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity." Comments on this PayPal blog post are closed. However, one can freely comment on the Pay Pal blog post "Tips for Safe Selling this Holiday Season".

I find it perplexing that PayPal seems to have decided that WikiLeak's engaged in illegal activity when no court has convicted WikiLeaks. Considering the scrutiny of financial institutions and new regulations, PayPal may find themselves convicted of committing illegal activity before WikiLeaks. I had a recent phone conversation with their outsourced India-based call center about fees that I was charged on a transaction that were not disclosed clearly. When I asked them who their regulatory agency was, they had no idea.

With regards to Amazon responding so quickly to Joe Lieberman's complaints, I have to say, seriously? Lieberman is an old east coast orthodox Jewish guy which means he complains 30 times a day by definition. Amazon's customer service is probably on a first name basis with him over complaints about how his last order, Big Dick Cheney, turned out not to be about the former vice-president.

In reality, both companies probably caved into political pressure faster than the Kardashian's update their twitter posts. I just hope that they at least got a good deal for selling their souls and advancing well beyond the normal role of business in politics. Because people in glass houses should change their clothes in the basement.

Roll Away the Dew is Speaking at the Society of Insurance Research Conference

It's road trip time at Roll Away the Dew. Well, actually it's just a plane trip with a connection in Altlanta, on the way to Jacksonville, Florida where I will be speaking at the 40th Annual Society of Insurance Research Annual Conference (SIR A.C.). Did you know that Jacksonville is the largest city in terms of square milage in the lower 48 states? That actually sounds horrifying me to as an example of uncontrolled urban sprawl that we don't see here in Oregon with our Urban Growth Bounderies. However, I did hear very positive things about Amelia Island and Florida in November is not something to look down at.

Readers may be wondering what Roll Away the Dew could pontificate upon for 45 minutes. How many colonoscopy or animal husbandry jokes will the speech include? Will the inmate and asylum analogy continue? Will familiar topics of MBA's behaving badly be broached or will this be a pure health care focus on the strengths of the Medicare Advantage program, the dysfunctions of the Individual insurance market, or the future of Accountable Care Organizations? Will the words, MediCAID for all be uttered and for those guessed this topic, you know Roll Away the Dew way too well!

Actually, I think that I need to make a "MediCAID for All" T-shirt for the conference. I will be speaking at the newly created Health Insurance track for the Society of Insurance Research. My topic will on the business opportunity that health reform created for Medicaid managed care companies. If there is a health care organization that can afford to ignore a market that is going to almost double then I want to see your business model. That's because that health care organization must be performing at a very high level in commercial, Medicare, individual, self-funded or other aspects of health care to be able to ignore 25% of the market.

If you want to hear more about my presentation, come to Jacksonville, Florida from November 14th-17th. I hear that the Property and Casualty insurance guys really know how to party. Another option is to just wait until after the conference when I'll do a full postmortem on my site.
Before I do that, I think that I really need to make myself a MediCAID for all T-shirt.

Seeking True North or How to Talk like an MBA

I graduated from my MBA program at the tail end of the dot-com/corporate scandal/Not so Great Recession of the early 'oo. As a result, I interviewed a lot and got to hear a lot of corporate jargon. Most jargon was a harmless way to avoid being specific about any answer. MBA's, including graduates of online MBA programs, pick this up to show they understand corporate code. The only insidious example was during my interview with The Advisory Board Company (ABC).


The ABC is very serious about their corporate jargon to the point it's used to brainwash employees. Every employees' answer to a question ends in an inflection? That is because ending in an inflection makes you sound curious? And interested in what everyone is trying to say?

The most egregious example was my interviewer's answer to my question of "What would you say the ABC company does best or how would you distinguish yourself from other consulting companies?" I admit that my question was a little obnoxious but I had already written off ABC as a likely employer and wanted to have some fun.

"We are best at finding true north?" my interviewer inflected back. I dug my nails into my thigh to keep from laughing. True North was a popular corporate cliche at that time that means finding the right strategic direction. Or finding any strategic direction. Or any direction and if it's actually strategic, that's a bonus. It merges on saying that ABC can predict the future on a high end or like saying they were really best at peeling the onion or kicking the tires on the low end. As Damon, from the HBO TV series Hung said, "All that you get when you peel the onion is more onion."

With that back story, I would like to share a recent column that has some of the best corporate jargon that I have seen in a long time. Here are my favorites from the link above:

End of the Day
Formerly 5 to 5:30 p.m., now defined as an uncertain point in the future when everything magically turns out okay. Example. "At the end of the day, the pollution in the groundwater may just drain into the earth's core and become unnoticeable."

Space
Industry or field. Example: "I'm in the manufacturing space," "I'm in the waste disposal space," "She's in the adult film space," or "He's in the space exploration space."

Can't Wrap One's Head Around
Unwilling to get into the details or deal with the facts; intellectually lazy. Example: "I can't wrap my head around all this recycling business; Let's throw everything in the dumpster behind Home Depot and let them deal with it."

You will also talk like an MBA, especially if you remember the inflection in your voice?

Don't let me write like Dan Brown!

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I heard of the website I Write Like (IWL) on NPR and read about it on Yahoo. After reading it on Yahoo, I figured that it was old news. Similar to how when I first heard about the Spice Girls through Newsweek while living in rural South America, I knew they were probably not the world's hottest band anymore.

IWL was developed by a programmer in Montenegro and uses key word analysis on text that you enter that is similar to the logic used on spam filters. Its creator has only entered 50 authors so your options for who you write like are limited. As you can tell by the badge above, I write like David Foster Wallace based on its analysis of my posts Bring Me a Bucket of Bankers, Love in the Time of MBA's, Free Markets Response to Gaps in the Individual Insurance Market, MBA's seeking health care jobs, Early Results of Medicare Advantage Cuts, and COBRA: Strategies and the Stimulus. At first, I thought that David Foster Wallace had written Breaks of the Game, one of my favorite books about the Portland Trailblazers 1977 NBA championship season and I was really excited. Turns out that David Halberstam wrote that book and that I have never heard of David Foster Wallace. However, since the majority of my most popular posts are written in his style, I checked out his book, Infinite Jest, from the library.

Of my other popular posts, The Legacy of the Leveraged Sell-Out was written like H.P. Lovecraft, the Summer Reading List for non-traditional MBA's was written like science fiction writer Iasacc Asimov, and Lake of the Angels: Olympic Peninsula was written like Stephenie Meyer, the writer of the Twilight series. Given that post is basically a trail guide, I really have to wonder about the Twilight Series.

One of my posts was written like popular writer Dan Brown which horrifies everyone who finds out that they write books with tortured logic and albino monks. Some people are told that they write like horror writer Stephen King and no one seems to know what to make of that. That wouldn't make me happy but it's nowhere near as bad as Dan Brown. Stephenie Meyer is pretty bad, too but I like vampires and werewolves more than Dan Brown's characters.

Personally, I think the programmer should load some really badly written books and attribute them so that someone could be told, "I write like someone who writes DVD programming guides," or "I write like the Unabomber." I admire IWL's creator for exercising this restraint.

Then We Were Done or when We have Blogged All there is to Blog

Bloggers do not blog forever. A lot of blogs don't get beyond 1 post. Conscious of the high failure rate and motivated to produce a quality blog, I made sure that my blog reached at least 100 posts during its first year and 8 posts per month. During my second year, I haven't had the same motivation and have settled on a respectable 6 posts per month.

The two main reasons that I got into blogging were to practice my writing and participate in the online blogosphere community. My interest in the blogosphere community did not burn out as much as it faded away. Some of my favorite bloggers that are linked under my "Men Are Smart, Women Are Smarter" section stopped writing. Others no longer seemed as compelling. My fantasy baseball team filled up my internet surfing time as I was no longer interested in what the blogosphere had to say. It had started to feel like everything there was to say on a blog had already been said and the arguments became circular.

1. Who owns social media at company? Marketing was nominated to own social media. No, Human Resources wanted to own it in their quest to get a seat at the table at a place that doesn't involve a buffet. No, everyone owns social media. No, no one owns social media. So, who owns social media again?

2. Be careful about what you post on Facebook. But if you don't want to be careful, understand your privacy settings. Wait, privacy setting changed. Okay, go back to being careful about what you posted on Facebook.

3. Generation Y is unique, special, and going to take over the world with Twitter. Generation X is still bitter and snarky and writes nasty comments back to Generation Y about how they should move out of their parent's house before they take over the world. Generation Y says the the home ownership dream is dead and they'd rather live at home and save money to start their own business. The Boomers are too busy actually running the world to care about either generation. Boomers win. Again.

4. The most important indicator of a blog's success is traffic. No, it's content. No, it's comments. No, none of those things help make money so I'll just become an affiliate marketer like people who sign up for Amway. But it's not call affiliate marketing anymore but multi-level marketing instead.

5. You should blog to show you are an expert about your niche! Get traffic to your blog to show off your expertise! But it's not about traffic, it's about connection and no one cares about your niche expertise in vintage cookie jars. Oh well, there's always multi-level marketing.

6. Resumes will never get you a job. Well, since every job asks for a resume, that's not really true. It's all about networking. And to be a really awesome networker, you should start a blog. Oh wait, forgot about #4 and #5.

7. It's important not to settle and find a career that makes you happy. I don't know what career will make me happy. But I know that I don't want to settle. So I've defined myself by what I don't want to do. Blogging makes me happy so maybe that will be my career. Crap, forgot about the last 4-6

8. I am going to blog about how something sucks. Well, it doesn't really suck since I am going to write a fairly nuanced post. Using words like suck in blog titles is good because it draws traffic. Traffic is important, oh wait, we've done this before.

9. I am a personal finance blogger. However, you shouldn't take advice from me but use a professional financial adviser. So should I ignore the advice about using a professional financial adviser since I shouldn't take financial advice from a random personal finance blogger? This is the ultimate circular argument kind of like those circular Excel formulas that trigger a big warning when I create them.

10. Making lists are great blog posts. Lists that end in a round number like 10 are even better since ending on a random number like 7 or 8 makes it look like you just ran out of ideas. Yes, I reached 10! Victory is mine!

My lack of interest in the blogosphere and lack of motivation to engage with this community is a disappointment. The internet provides many opportunities to join community and I really do like a good community. However, I haven't found it. I do like blogs from more experienced professionals and bloggers like Fred Wilson and Laurie Ruettimann but I'm realizing how unique their blogs are.

This leaves me with a blog that is an opportunity to develop my writing and motivates me to more fully research ideas. I use some of my ideas at work. Sometimes, I just try to impress the marketing department by talking about my blog.

Getting Really Horrified about the Personal Information that's on the Internet

The personal branding industry became prominent in 1997 with a Tom Peters article and now yields 7.9 million hits on a Monday night search by the Google. The main contribution of the personal branding industry seems to be fairly obvious guidelines on what you should share online. For example, putting up photos where you are scantily clad in a compromising position with a goat while drinking alcohol is apparently not good for your personal brand.

What would really actually be helpful and impressive from the personal branding industry would be specific guidelines for those of who just can't resist showering the internet with nudity, alcohol and barnyard animals. For example, is a picture with a knowing smirk, cocktail dress, martini, and a sheep personal brand neutral? What if the martini is replaced with a Pabst Blue Ribbon and there is a little bit of tongue emerging from the smirk? Is that bad for a personal brand or just a little racy? For those with these low levels of impulse control, knowing line and when have we passed it would be very useful.

These are the types of assignments that those who work in personal branding should have to wrestle with. No naked pictures online is the low hanging fruit. Give me the exact square inches of skin that can be shown to not hurt someone's personal brand and that is someone who has earned their fee.

The information that we can voluntarily share on the internet pales in comparison to the latest business models for online aggregators of personal information. The previous paragraphs were on my to do list as part of making fun of the personal branding industry. The meat of this post is about sites that that make you wish that untagging that awkward middle school picture was all that you had to worry about.

Spokeo is the New York Yankees of Privacy Violating free sites. It is frightening in both the information that it portrays (address and birthday) and its inaccuracies (attempts income, profession, and home value with no success whatsoever). A street level google map of your address just adds to the creepiness. It has all the information that someone would need to target you for marketing or a home invasion. The only good thing about the site is that it is easy to get your information removed.

Zabasearch is similar to Spokeo but more of a white pages and doesn't attempt to peddle financial information. When I attempted to find myself and a few others, it seemed to have this default setting of LAST NAME Hole or in my case it would be Hedge Hole. I don't know if the site was really calling me an A-hole, it was a glitch, or Hole is a really common last name. Overall, it seemed too inaccurate with basic information to be really harmful. To opt out of zabasearch, you have to fax them a request along with a proof of identity.

Pipl is an aggregating site that pulls in information from Spokeo, Zabbasearch, and Google in attempts to create an unauthorized profile. They are kind of the open market with some quality goods and some snake oil. I give them credit for having a real person respond to emails about removing your information. They will remove your results from google searches if you contact them at mail At Pipl Dot Com but will not take down your profile.

For $40, you can also pay many sites to get even more complete records of anyone that you want. I understand that business model and market need for this information for those who are willing to pay. I don't appreciate the business model of the sites above that use my available personal information as their product. At least include me on a pay for click model for people who search for me. All their sites claim that they search available public data bases and are merely aggregators who just happened to put together profiles that would only appeal to people who you generally wouldn't want to find you.

Why do Guys Give Bad Interview?

It's like watching Wile E. Coyote use explosives or Shaquille O'Neal shoot free throws. It may look like this time it's actually going to work, but it never does.

As you might have guessed, I watched a guy give interview today. I used to interview a lot of high school seniors for my undergraduate alma mater. It doesn't seem to matter whether the guy is a hormonal 18 year old or hormonal 30 year old. Guys do not interview well.

Not interviewing well mainly entails talking for too long without really saying anything that wasn't covered in their first sentence. For example they will usually answer the question with the first sentence, then describe the entire project in too much detail, give a hypothetical example of something they might have done, get into a hypothetical argument with themselves about the hypothetical example and than repeat the first sentence again. Most interview questions can be answered with 6-10 sentences but guys usually need that much time to cover their project plan.

Guys also can only seem to handle concrete questions that cover the trajectory of "What did you do." When I ask a guy why he likes something or what the favorite part of his job is, he seems to get completely stumped. I almost see panic in their eyes when a sentence starts with "Why". Actually, I have a similar reaction when most women ask me why I did something so maybe that's a conditioned response.

Finally, they are terrible about asking any questions at the end of an interview. Actually, this seems to becoming a lost art for women too. The interviewers all know that every candidate has probably googled the entire company history and probably knows more about the organization than the interviewer. However, the questions at the end of the interview are used to show that you actually want to work at the company or show off this research. Ask about career paths or the person's favorite part of their job to show that you are actually interested in the company. Ask about the latest company tweet to show off this research.

I don't have a good answer for this behavior. There just seems to be something dangerous about asking a guy to spend an hour talking about himself with limited structure. Sometimes, I think that some guys are one slightly informal remark away from describing their weekend bachelor party plans at an interview.

I think that as a result, male interview performance gets discounted. Expectations plummet to the same level that we have for character development and plot in a Kevin Smith movie (which have become elaborate vehicles for penis jokes). I actually do the same thing with my office dress. My baseline dress is slow that when I tuck in my shirt and wear real shoes, I get more compliments than the guy who coordinates his belt and shoes every day.

If poor male interviewing was at crisis levels, I think that we would see even lower employment levels for men and the onslaught of career coaches would have identified this market opportunity. There would be advertisements everywhere about how men are as incapable of interviewing as they are at dressing themselves. Since that hasn't happened, I can only wonder if the recruiting market is more efficient than I suspected and has incorporated low expectations into their interview evaluation.

Readers, what are your opinions of the male ability to interview and my assessment?

The Roll Away the Dew Diet Plan!

Everyone has a diet plan. I remember the pasta/carb and low fat diet in the 80's, and the Zone diet in the late 90's. For some reason, not everyone can locate Russia on the a map (you betcha!) but we all know what the Atkins diet is. There's also the grapefruit diet but I have never met anyone who actually was on that diet. After the South Beach diet, I stopped paying attention until recently.

Now, the new diet is the Slow carb diet which I think is an off shoot of the South Beach diet. It involves avoiding heavily processed carbohydrates with a low glycemic index that the body easily converts into sugar. It seems pretty similar to the Cave man diet which is eating like a hunter and gatherer. Hunters and gatherers didn't have heavily processed carbohydrates either. From a dieting perspective, hunters and gatherers also have the huge advantages of sleeping out in the cold (great way to lose weight) and limited food options. Personally, if I were to create a true hunter and gatherer diet, I would tell people to turn off their heat, they only get to eat once per day, have to carry all their food with them, and the food supply is cut in half in the winter.

My primary credential for being able to critique these diets is that I wrestled in high school and was capable of losing or gaining up to 7 pounds in a day. Sometimes I even lost and gained 7 pounds in the same day. In other words, I was able to create a shift 10% of my body weight in a 24 hour period.

I also have a theory that the same subsection of the population follows all of these diets. The reasons they work so well is they dramatically shock their bodies so badly with a radical change in eating habits, that they shed weight as a fight or flight response. Imagine going from eating nothing but carbohydrates to nothing but protein. Then shift back to carbohydrates but the slow kind.

The reason that this subsection of the population is always on a diet is because all these approaches dramatically change the participants eating habit and run contrary to the eating habits of general society (with the exception of those who live in Eastern Paraguay where there are still hunting and gathering tribes). In short, they are unsustainable eating habits. The dieter follows them for a period of time, loses the weight, grows bored with only eating 25% of the available food groups, and goes back to a more conventional eating pattern. They are sick of only being able to order a Chicken Casar salad with no croutons and dressing on the side at restaurants or having to quiz the waiter on the exact glycemic index of the dinner rolls.

Now, criticizing fad diets is pretty low hanging fruit, like Sarah Palin jokes, (you betcha! Sorry, can't help myself). While I am all about low hanging fruit, I also like to take a few steps up the ladder, and offer a different perspective. Therefore, I present the Roll Away the Dew diet:

• It's all about sustainability. Dramatically changing your eating habits will result in likely long-term failure. It will also probably ensure that you annoy all your friend and family by talking about how you have had to change your eating habits and became the most aggravating dinner guest ever. If someone absolutely craves bagels, than they should not stop eating them and except to be successful.
• If the diet advertise that you'll lose 10 pounds in the first week, it's not sustainable. While it's great marketing copy, the only sustainable habit that should cause you to lose that much weight in a week, is crystal meth.
• A pound is 3500 calories. When you consume either 3500 calories greater than your body needs or less than your body needs, your body weight will change a pound. That really helped put weight change in perspective for me. The elliptical machine tells me that I burned 400 calories after being on it for 30 minutes. That unfortunately means that mean that I need to be on that machine for 262 minutes or 4.5 hours to lose a pound. The other side of the equation is what I put into my body. Five 700 calorie cinnamon rolls will add a pound even if I only eat once per week.
• Small victories. Given the 3500 calorie window, it taught me that having only 1 piece of candy from the office candy bowl, eating the coffee cake in the break room once per week, and only getting a pastry with morning coffee once per week adds up.

To summarize, the Roll Away the Dew diet is a very boring methodical approach where you will lose 1 pound per week. It's not really a diet but a change in eating habits. Recognize what's sustainable and what's not. If a cookie at lunch is one of the highlights of the day, don't get rid of it. Squeeze out other calories by not eating any pastry that wasn't baked that week and comes in a chain grocery store box. It probably won't taste that good in anyway.

To put it in MBA terms, the Roll Away the Dew diet is those incremental improvement processes that reduce the budget by a percent here or percent there through some kind of lean or six sigma production process. It needs to be maintained for at least 6 months to be successful. It's not a big product launch or a huge lay off of workers that moves the share price a few points in one day.

The biggest draw back is there are not immediate small victories to keep someone motivated and it requires a long attention span. That's type of byline isn't going to sell more books. However, at least it's not based on extinct populations who lost the evoluationary race thousand of years ago.

A Blog comment should make you want to say FU not Thank You

I recently found a post on Sam Huleatt's blog about how blog comments are the new black. As we know, I'm always looking for the next black and I truly love a good charcoal. Before I digress more, this linked post talks about how we have many ways to engage and connect with someone online but a comment on someone's blog is the best way to begin building a relationship. There is a community around blogs and the comments are the gateway for that community to connect with each other and build offline relationships.

Social media is all about creating dialogue and blog comments have been declared to be the most meaningful. Not all blog comments are created equal just like not all dialogue leads to meaningful relationships. Today's health care summit is a fine example of dialogue not creating any meaningful sense let alone improved relationships. A good blog comment can introduce a new idea to a post, push the author on a particular point, elaborate on an example, or demonstrate that you share a similar background or values with the author that will lead to greater connection.

There are also blog comment that do not further the conversation is the equivalent of a "Like" in Facebook. On the other spectrum, there are comments on entertainment blogs for example whose contribution to a Miley Cyrus article about her sleepovers are to ask if she is a raging lesbian slut or merely a huge lesbian slut (apologies to anyone who found this via Google while searching for Miley Cyrus lesbian slut and are now extremely disappointed).

Digressions aside, I need to offer an apology in advance to readers who previously merely commented that they liked my posts. I appreciate your comments and they made me smile. However, I would rather see a comment to a blog post that made me write a response that started with "FU" rather than "Thank you." I'd rather have my arguments pushed and challenged then just praised. I would rather have to rethink my position then bask in the glow of how right I am.

For blog comments to truly be the new black, they need to create dialogue. Conflict can build relationships because it leads to debates which leads to better understanding of each other. A rich debate with differing view points in the comments section creates a more compelling blog post. There are some blogs where I read the comment section as eagerly as the blog post.

There are also some blog posts where I skip the comment section because there's no additional value or contribution. The Brazen Careerist, a Generation Y career-focused community site and Untemplater, a work/life style blog are some of the biggest sinners. Although I shouldn't bite the website that was kind of enough to feature my posts (Brazen Careerist) or one where I have submitted a post for consideration (Untemplater), I'll keep my straight talk express going. The comments section on these website's blogs is a cascading series of "I like that post so much that I want to marry it." This Untemplator post is an example where the comments section is a huge series of high fives. There is some pushing the topic further but the affirmation after affirmation really makes it look like an echo chamber as opposed to serious dialogue. In a community, not everyone will agree with each other all the time. Neither should blog comments.

One example of a blog where the comments were almost as good as the posts is the Leveraged Sell-Out. The comments were brutal, debates raged, people get their feelings hurt, and it was the best thing on the web. Thank you's were non-existent and FU was one of the milder responses. However, I understanding the investment banking culture more than I ever wanted to because of the comments section. Another good example of a comments section that meets this new black criteria is Penelope Trunk's blog. Generally 1/3 of the comments tell Trunk that she understands their pains, fears, hopes, and dreams better than their family and she is completely right about everything, 1/3 of the comments swear this is the last time that they will ever read anything by Trunk again and that she is the dumbest person on the web, and 1/3 promote their own theories and philosophies. It's taken me a while to appreciate Trunk's blog comments and community because I used to fall pretty solidly in the middle group. Given, that I've turned Trunk's material into 3 posts of my own, I've probably moved into the last group and I have began to realize the brilliance in her marketing.

For any future comments on my blog, may I say FU, may you swear back at me, and let's break bread and have a real dialogue. If I need someone to high five me and give me a hug, I'll go find my 2 year old son rather than write a blog post.

Being Frugal is really Personal

Since I was fairly critical of one of Penelope Trunk's blog posts about the value of college as measured by job placement, I am pleased to balance the karma scales by praising one of her recent posts. I really like Trunk's post about "Frugality as a career tool" and equally enjoyed the comments.

The post is about Trunk's approach to frugality and the connection to overspending or investing in aspects that can limit future mobility or entrepreneurship. The comments included a range of opinions on what was considered to be frugal spending and what was not. There was agreement, disagreement, other opinions, questions, and in general it was better than Cats. Generally, we all think that we're frugal and our neighbor is not.

I think that I'm frugal because I have only bought about 9 books since the Y2K implosion that never was but read hundreds. I've read more books in the book store coffee shop than I've purchased. I also think that I'm frugal since my vacations involve camping trips and I've slept in my car more time than I have slept in a hotel. Some call sleeping in your car an example of homelessness, I call that my home away from home. Finally, my furniture reminds me of my childhood since it was my parent's furniture when I was a child. My sister got the furniture that reminded me of being a teenager.

However, I buy cars that are new and own a house that currently has an unoccupied bedroom. I went to a fancy college and MBA program. Based on this, some might accuse of me of blowing money like a Jersey Shore socialite. Even this MBA, who blogged about getting foreclosed might have congratulated himself on his frugality.

Some have called this prioritization as opposed to frugality but frugality is a better word. It's not about what you're spending money on but what you're not spending money on. Ultimately, it's about not trapping yourself with your purchases. In other words, don't buy anything big 1) that you can't sell if you need to, 2) that you could pay off if you lost your job, or 3) that doesn't lock you on a career path that is difficult to leave and makes you miserable.

However, our current political parties will probably agree on something significant before there is consensus on even these 3 vague principles that I outlined. For the first, sometimes you have to sell something in a week or you just need to sell it eventually. Illiquid assets from houses to a herd of llamas to a kilo of crystal meth are dependent on their market.

For the second, the bigger question is what percent of savings should be used to pay off a debt and what are the consequences of not paying off the debt? For houses that are worth less than their remaining mortgage, banks are trying to use a moral argument to guilt people into not walking away since there isn't the economic argument. The image of banks taking a moral high ground reminds me of the George of Arrested Development's conversion to Judaism.

The third creates the biggest argument as it's another way of asking about the ROI on graduate school. I've posted links about the 20 year salary trend of MBA's by programs and the unemployment rate by professional degree in support of graduate school. Others can probably post some dismal information about the number of law school graduates who are still working in the field. I'll offer the political third way which is that graduate degrees will help move you forward if you stay within your field. That requires a fair amount of soul searching before picking a graduate program. Or do what I did and apply to a dual degree program (MBA and Masters in Social Work) so you improve your odds.

By the way, the political fourth way is to be the first to call your opponent a Nazi.

In conclusion, a post about the right kind of frugality for a career is a really good blog post because it triggers a lot of debate, anyone can participate, and there is no right answer. Like the, "Why do you want an MBA" essay question it forces people to develop a game plan and really think about their answer before responding otherwise their argument will fall flatter than the latest CEO apology.

The only really solid answer that I have come up with for not trapping yourself with your spending is to insure yourself really well and find a really good arsonist. Then you'll always to be able to walk away.

My New Favorite TV Show that starts with "G" but is on the ABC Family Network

Until Glee resumes programming, I am hooked on the TV show, Greek, that airs on the ABC Family Network. No, I didn't know the ABC Family Network existed either and I don't know what channel it's on or its other programming. I picture a lot of School House Rock and after school specials. Maybe it does "Where are they now specials" about the cast of Saved by the Bell or Nickelodeon's You Can't do that on Television. I watch all my TV on Hulu on my computer. Our only remaining TV, a mid 90's classic with a built in VCR that my sister gave me, lives in my closet.

Back to the topic on hand, which is a digression from my usual fare of health care and the business world. I try to write 8 posts per month, it's the end of the month and I'm a post short, and I want a break from those more serious topics.

Greek (only the E's are replaced with pretend Greek letters) is about the fraternity and sorority life at the mytical Cyprus Rhodes University. The creators envisioned a Gray's Anatomy with a college age cast, focus, and no melodramatic musical montages (not that I'm not a fan of a good musical montage). Essentially it replaced the niche that has been largely untouched since the Beverly Hills 90210 cast entered college. Greek is either a comedic drama or a dramatic comedy and does both parts equally well.

The wikipedia link describe the basics of the show but the reason that I dedicated a post to praising a TV show on an obscure network is:

Characters routinely break their stereotypes: The main characters rotate between taking the moral high road and falling to their most basic vices. No character is consistently wise or consistently wicked. One character will provide brilliant wisdom to a friend about their relationship and than destroy their own relationship with a selfish maneuver. No one is completely evil or good or competent or an idiot. In other words, its characters are pretty realistic.

They've balanced out who sleeps with who: The main failure of most TV shows with an attractive cast of sex-obsessed characters is that eventually every character sleeps with or wants to sleep with every other character and every combination has been exhausted. At that point, new characters are brought in just so everyone can sleep with someone new. Greek balances this out well with gay male characters who don't sleep with the female characters. Other characters are limited by love triangles to only sleep with one or two other characters. Other characters are are more innocent and don't sleep with the other main cast members. Finally, a few characters are designated to be huge sluts and sleep with everyone. A brother and sister round out everything nicely. It's a simple but elegant formula that keeps new relationships and sexual conquests interesting and creates new plot lines rather than recycle them.

The ridiculous is balanced out with the sublime: Regular characters such as the perky and popular female lead, her best friend side kick, the nerdy genius who just wanted to be accepted, witty slacker, and cutthroat future CEO president of the popular fraternity are balanced out with ridiculous characters that allow for the unexpected and the funny. There is a fraternity member who wears mascara, never speaks, and is routinely admonished for creepily watching people sleep. An awkward sorority girl curses all the time and eats obsessively. A southern baptist who takes a purity pledge reveals secret desires to be on the cheerleading squad and sleeps with his cougar-esque landlord. A large muscular, "George-from-Of-Mice-and-Men" fraternity guy gets stumped trying to figure out if the cilantro on his nachos are a vegetable or not. Okay, the last one was pretty stereotypical but is an enjoyable character.

Some suspension of disbelief is required. The show is supposed to take place in Ohio but since it is filmed in California, it never snows. The genius characters scientific discoveries violate most laws of physics let alone the capabilities of a typical freshman engineering major. However, the writing is quality (the slacker character has some really good dialogue) and the humor fresh enough ("He's smart. He goes to an Ivy League School! Okay, it's Brown but that's pretty close to Ivy league.") to make up for it.

College and the MBA: Not Dead Yet

Penelope Trunk's blog is one of my guilty internet reading pleasures. I balance out reading her posts about a train wreck personal life and deliberately controversial advice by reading Fred Wilson's thoughtful venture capital blog.

Trunk's latest post on the value of a college education led me to think about the topic since I promote education as an admission consultant for MBA programs. Trunk's post proposes that the availability of information on the internet and work experience available through social media has resulted in private colleges no longer being worth the cost when measured by job placement. She attacks college career centers which is kind of like going after the punter, the smallest player on a team, in a football game.

Trunk linked to Ben Casnocha's post on the topic which analyzes other aspects of the college experience besides job placement including the arguments against "signaling" studies. Google couldn't find the original researcher for me but the signaling theory is essentially that someone who is motivated to achieve the highest or most prestigious education sends a signal to future employers of their skills or level of motivation. All in other words, it's why someone will hire a Harvard MBA over a less recognized program even though they study the same material.

The drivers that resulted in this discussion are:

• Colleges may be pricing themselves out of the market: Colleges have joined health care as the two industries whose costs have increased at twice the rate of inflation for too long. What was once thought to be a very inelastic, price-insensitive market is starting to stretch.
  
• Colleges have more competitors: Performance in college had been the best way to evaluate the capabilities of an 18-22 year old who doesn't have a great jump shot or can't run the 40 yard dash in under 4.5 seconds. It's measurable, can be benchmarked, and takes 4 years. The 4 years is actually probably the more important piece because it requires sufficient dedication and reliability to complete a degree. Peace Corps used to require a college degree (or 5 full-time years in one profession like farming) mainly because if someone spent 4 years and finished college, they were more likely to finish their 2 year Peace Corps assignment. Now, college has more competitors. People in their 20's can demonstrate their website portfolios that show similar levels of commitment and talent as a college degree. Additionally, community colleges have done very well with focused vocational programs and raising their reputation.
  

However, while a college degree or graduate programs are being questioned, this will still be the dominant destination for people in their 20's because:

• People will college degrees are more likely to be employed and make more money: Data shows that you are twice as likely to employed if you have a college degree compared to a high school diploma. Sure Bill Gates dropped out of college and did pretty well but can you think of anyone else who doesn't have a good jump shot or crossover dribble?
• Social Media careers have their limits: My standing comment on posts that worship social media like a golden calf is to ask about social media market penetration. Does even 5% of the Western world use twitter? Do 10% of the Western world blog and do 20% read blogs regularly? Until social media reaches double digits as a distribution channel, it won't even replace direct mail. It will receive a few percent of the budget from direct mail but that won't fund too many positions. The conversion rates and ability to track response may look cool but you'll still reach the largest audience with Google or traditional methods. Social media needs more volume for it to become as viable a skill as the critical thinking of a liberal arts degree.
  
• As do web portfolios: As far as web portfolios, the danger is that they are made by people in their 20's and can contain career killer content like calling a business WTF Consulting or writing articles like this (note the comments section). If anyone has any Generation Y web portfolios that reflect the equivalent effort as a college thesis, please send them to me and prove me wrong. Most web portfolios that meet this threshold are written by older individuals that well, have college or more advanced degrees
  
• The Value of an MBA: To bring this back to my secondary job of MBA admissions consulting, the MBA degree still is the best options in two areas. First and foremost, it is the best option to career switch into a business sector due to the dedicated 2 years to learn a new field, get internships, and access to companies. Career coaches have told me that you can switch industry or function but never both without an MBA or industry specific training. Second, it provides the most job training of any non-licensed (like medicine) graduate degree as students learn about how to write resumes, interview, and other nuts and bolts of job finding. There are other advantages, such as networking, access to alumni, and "signaling" that I described above. However, the first two are aspects of the MBA that will survive the disappearance of the investment banking industry or the competitors that colleges are facing. It's possible for an MBA program to price itself out of the market but the other options for these two aspects have not yet emerged.
  

Bank of America's Website: Making the Health Care Industry look good by comparison

I had no idea that refinancing my mortgage would have given me such a source of blog material. I would like to think that my previous posts explored business models and lessons learned around the financial services industry rather than complaining about daily inconveniences. However, this post will be different. I am going to happily just complain about daily inconveniences in a way that provides all the insight of a post about hating the morning commute or feeling ill after eating too much Taco Bell.

The bank that owns my house is now Bank of America. Previously, I had such feudal relationships with Countrywide and Wells Fargo and enjoyed the web sites of my lords. With Wells Fargo, I set up automatic re-occurring payments, could find my payment history and tax information easily, and it was very easy to navigate. I actually had happy thoughts about wonders of technology when I gave them most of my pay check every other pay period.

Bank of America, by comparison, makes your average health insurance or hospital website look slick and brilliant by comparison. What makes this ironic is that health care companies often view financial services as an industry that has solved some of the issues that health care still struggles with. Financial service have an excellent understanding of their cost structure, are good at handling sensitive personal data, can effectively explain complicated concepts and services, and are good at working with individual customers on a retail level. These are still goals for the health care industry.

Here's how Bank of America's website has failed to meet those goals and spurned me to openly mock them:

1. I have had to call them 4 times to explain how to do something on their website: Since the most basic business case of any website is that it will reduce customer service calls, this should be a big problem. I had to call them to:
1. Set up a password
2. Figure out how to verify my bank account which involved clicking on "Account Details", then "Manage Account", then "Services", then "Verify. How is anyone expected to figure that out on their own?
3. Figure out how to pay my bill. It turns out their menu bars on the top are for people with regular accounts and the main page is for my specific mortgage.
4. My absolute favorite was calling them to go paperless and not get bills mailed to me. The "Go paperless" button is just an FAQ. The customer service rep had to do it for me and could not tell me how to do it on the web. I almost expected to have to send a letter in the mail to request that Bank of America stop sending me mail.

2. I still have to call them 2 more times: Some things that I would like to do are 1) set up reocurring payments and 2) have bills emailed to me. However, it's easier to set up calendar reminders on my email so I'll just do that instead.

3. Their privacy features are draconian: Protecting financial data is a good thing so I should have no complaints. Only problem is that when I call and verify my account number, zip code, enter my options, and a customer service rep gets one the line, I get logged off due to inactivity. Therefore, the rep has to wait for me to log back in and ask my question. Bank of America could 1) not log me off so quickly, 2) answer their phones quicker, or 3) improve their website so I don't have to call customer service to explain things to me.

I also don't know the answer to most of their security questions like the name of my best friend's pet since he had 12 reptiles growing up.

For a final score card, Bank of America can't explain simple concepts on their website and renders their website almost inoperable with their privacy rules. You cannot easily pay a bill on a website even though one would think that a bank would want to make it as easy as possible for a customer to part with their money.

I'm suddenly feeling better about the health care industries chances of implementing health care reform.

Reminiscing about my Transgender Car

The first car that I owned as an adult was a white 1999 Subaru Outback. It's first name was Sipowicz since I was watching NYPD Blue reruns at the time and a big white functional but not flashy car reminded me of that character. However, Sipowicz doesn't exactly roll off the tongue and a bald, crude guy who got shot in the butt didn't exactly provide a great role model. It was nameless for most of its existence until we started calling it Baru (pronounced Barooo and short for Subaru) due to lack of a name. It also kind of looked like a Baru. When my wife started driving it for its last 6th months, it had a sex change and became a Sabrina.

Sabrina has a DNR written around the same time as its name change. Any repairs over $500 would result in a trip to hospice which it entered the end of October. In the end, Sabrina did fulfill the rock n roll dream of burning out before fading away. She ran up 137,000 miles in 11 years. Unlike a lot of cars with off road capability, Sabrina was tested and got stuck on a mountain road in Colorado.

Sabrina was also the ultimate road trip car. She went across the county and all over the west coast from Sacramento, CA to Vancouver, BC to Utah and back again as well as every corner of Oregon. There was no need to worry about sleeping arrangements with Sabrina as I could just blow up an air mattress and sleep in the back. The only problems that I ever had sleeping in Sabrina was explaining the smell and mess to carpool companions later in the week. But this post is not a roast on Sabrina or further elaboartion on a transgender car (although there are probably some disappointed google search results). I am here to praise Sabrina and reminisce about the greatest trips taken and the role that she played.

Colorado or You never forget your first: Shortly after buying Sabrina, a college friend and I drove around Colorado for 2 weeks. I had just returned from the Peace Corps while he was about to start medical school so we were both saying good-bye to our old comfortable lives. It was also an introduction to the west coast in the form of seeing snow in the mountains in July at Estes Park and roller skating waitresses at Sonic Burger. The Great Sand Dunes National Park in southeast Colorado was almost biblical in proportions and the Mesa Verde National Park in the northwest corner made us feel like we were back in the era when Native Americans were the only residents. This trip was an extended bonding experience with Sabrina as I got to know her. I also got her stuck on a mountain road so I got to know her limits.

Southeastern Oregon Tour: Southeastern Oregon has some the lowest population density in the United States. The town of Fields is out there with population of 9 but some of the best milk shakes in the state. Fields isn't even the most surprising town compared to Jordan Valley which is a Basque outpost on the Idaho border. The geology is incredible with the Steens Mountain range, Alvord desert, and Leslie Gulch. With no radio access nor current newspapers, I felt like I was almost in another country. The isolation was a welcome change from the usual city living with strangers.

The only time that I got nervous was when I shared a natural springs hot tub with an older gentleman that looked like he was almost in the movie Sling blade. The fact that he was reading the John Grisham book, The Firm, made me nervous since the book had been around 15 years and he was just reading it for the first time! That's a little too isolated for me. As you can probably guessed, I lived in Sabrina for the 4 days that I was out there. Most campsites involved pulling off the road into BLM land and firing up the camp stove.

Cross Country Skiing in Northeast Oregon: Another eastern Oregon trip that involved living in Sabrina was my excursion to Anthony Lakes for cross country skiing. Anthony Lakes had closed for the season so I was able to just camp out in my car for the night and spend the day exploring the Eagle Cap wilderness.

This was the trip where I discovered that Enterprise was my favorite small rural town. It was the only town in Eastern Oregon where I didn't get the "You're not from around here" vibe. After running into a brewer for the Terminal Gravity pub (I literally ran into her as I was coming down a slope on cross country ski and she was hiking up with her snow board), I spent the evening drinking and eating there. The local were interested in my story, how I wound up there, and I was able to listen to their stories. It seemed like Enterprise is more open to new arrivals than most smaller rural towns.

Me Speak Corporate Good

I was making myself a sandwich while holding my almost 2 year old son, Berserker (no that's not his real name but yes that's what I actually wanted to name him after the rock band in the movie Clerks) in one arm and spreading mayonnaise on a sandwich with the other. Berserker started reaching for the mayo and indicating that he wanted to eat it straight from the jar.

"No Berserker," I said, "we don't eat mayonnaise." My wife looked up. Since Berserker has reached an age where he pretty much understands everything that we say, she has been trying to get me to be better about explaining things to him directly and not say things that aren't correct. For example, when Berserker tries to climb on the table so he can pound on the computer keys, I'll often say, "No Berserker, there's nothing interesting on the table." That is incorrect since there is something very interesting on the table, the computer, which is why he was trying to climb on the table.

"Deadhedge," my wife said, "We do eat mayonnaise and Berserker knows that we eat mayonnaise so he probably doesn't believe you. What you should have just said is, 'Berserker we don't eat mayonaise directly out of the jar but we can give you some mayonnaise on a sandwich." She paused, her expression slightly changed and a grin emerged as she thought of something else.

"Deadhedge, when you talk to Berserker, why don't you talk to him like you would talk to your coworkers at a business meeting? At a business meeting, you are direct and think about the best way to describe something before speaking. You could use this an an opportunity to improve your presentation skills." Ah, that was an ingenious way to get me stop being lazy while talking with Berserker and relying on easy phrases like, "That's not interesting", or "We don't do that," or "The cat ran away from home."

However, I thought about how I talk at meetings at work and realized this wouldn't work.

"Wifey," I said, "If I talked to Berserker like I talked with my work colleagues, I would say things like:"

"Berserker, let's put eating mayonnaise from the jar in the Parking Lot."
"Berserker, we haven't prioritized eating mayonnaise from the jar on this year's strategic plan."
"Berserker, we haven't built a business case for eating mayonnaise from the jar."

With this type of corporate communication style, it's pretty incredible that we actually accomplish anything at all at our meetings.

I avoided the Quarter Life Crisis but can I escape the Mid-Life Crisis?

The quarter life crisis is the new mid-life crisis. A search for "Quarter Life Crisis" on the Generation Y career website Brazen Careerist reveals entries on how to assess if you're having a quarter life crisis, what happens when previously clear paths fog over, and the existential struggle in between.

It does not surprise me that this crisis involving the search for meaning, uncertainty about the future, and ambivalence about the past now hits us in our mid-twenties. Previously paths were more certain as you worked on the farm, your parent's business, or got married. Paths were also delayed as apprenticeships or paying your dues were typical so tough career decisions could be delayed until we were in our 30's. Now, Generation Y has to worry about the right decisions on their Facebook post let alone the choice of graduate school, entrepreneurship, corporate jobs, or year long bender in a Thai opium den.

I dodged and juked past my quarter life crisis like Barry Sanders used to dodge the Green Bay Packers defensive line. My early 20's were spent in the Peace Corps, working on-call at multiple psychiatric floors with complete control of my schedule, or living in a commune. Actually, I should clarify, communes are now called Intentional Communities since commune's got a bad name in the 1970's. During these jobs, I spent the time thinking about what kind of graduate degree I should get to be able to do what I wanted in the health care field. At the end of the 3 years, I had decided on an MBA. I had complete confidence in my decision and future path. Additionally I embraced the small victory of each skill developed. I had experience in construction, grant-writing, and social work. I knew how to knit a sock, spin a pottery wheel, traveled most of South America, cooked for 50 people, garden, used power tools, made soap, spoke 4 languages, and butchered a pig. Actually, my ability to butcher a pig excited one of my rugby classmates so much that everytime I answered the phone, I thought that I would hear squealing in the background with my classmate yelling, "Come on over and let's barbeque!" In summary, I had more than enough stories of adventures to take center stage at most cocktail party conversation. On a serious note, I felt accomplished, lived a life less ordinary, and had confidence in my ability to make decisions about my future.

My method of avoiding a quarter life crisis is not a new one. The idea of spending 2-3 years finding your way in the world, sewing wild grains, and experimenting is a pretty standard career path for my undergraduate class. I know there are those with bigger student loans, visa issues, or family expectations or culture that playtime was over and it was time to get a job that could not take this path. My point is that a quarter life crisis is, for the most part, a relatively modern construct of our making. Some part of it does involve the collapse of the American dream where 4 years in college leaves you with a staggering load of debt and no health insurance. The ability to spend 2-3 years traveling, being a subsistence organic farmer, Americorps, working part-time and doing art part-time, moving to San Francisco and seeing what happens, homesteading in Alaska, or any of my other classmate's pursuits has faded. However, the quarter life crisis emerged well before the economic crisis so I will stand by my position that the quarter life crisis is our own invention and we have more control over it than we may think.

I turned 35 this year so my mid-life crisis is approaching. In some ways, I'm ripe for it as I am married, have a child, clawed my way to middle management, and am 20 pounds heavier than I was in college. One of my high school classmates with a suburban lifestyle lamented how he's realized that we've reached the age where we have as much chance picking up young Generation Y women in a bar as our grandfathers do. My car died recently and I saw a perfect opportunity to embrace a mid-life crisis by buying a sporty red convertible. My wife said that it was fine as long as the baby's car seat fit in the front seat. We bought a station wagon.

What's saved me from a full blown mid-life crisis so far has been maintaining a life outside of work, family, and social life. I still climb a mountain or two a year which keeps me connected with life and the wilderness outside of the normal 9 to 5. My high school classmate who lives in suburban Chicago doesn't have this outlet and I can tell that he needs it badly. By some quirk, I am also in better shape than I was in my 20's. I can run farther and faster, get into more yoga positions, and rock climb harder routes. Blogging also keeps my feeling connected and involved in what's new in the world, whatever that may be.

However, I can't pronounce my mid-life crisis to be avoided until I have had at least 5 more years of hindsight. There's also still my plan to grow my hair down to my shoulders again when I turn 40. Long hair is part of my plan to embrace a mid-life crisis since I may not be able to avoid it.