So now I get to find out how few people are reading my site... or how few of those people are are technically savvy enough to be reading it through an RSS reader.  :)   The little orange button on the left is my new feedburner feed.  Or, if you don't read the site through an RSS reader, you can always subscribe by e-mail on the right.

So, the date of my Learning Annex class is March 16th.  Don't worry...  you will all be getting advanced warning as soon as it goes live on their website.  I'm anxious to see how many people show up and I think it will be a larger group than they expect.

By March 16th, my life may be entirely different.  I may be working in a different place (Greenwich or somewhere else).  I will know whether I've made Stanford or not.  Hopefully, I will have closed on an apartment to buy.  Softball will be starting soon... but not GM Softball, which I haven't decided if I'm playing yet, but Fordham Alumni softball.   I will have played a season of dodgeball.  By March, I might have a deal for a book...  just not the one I originally intended to write.  By March, I will be more than halfway through my 25th year... without feeling a day over 17.  Somewhere along the line I used to think that I'd be married at 28.  That seems awfully close, with marriage seeming awfully far away. 

Everyday I feel closer to what I should be doing, without knowing quite what that is yet...  from interning to writing the paper to teaching a class to mentoring, and seperately from interning to being an analyst to working on business development and perhaps to getting closer to markets and companies right in the thick of it.  This is all leading somewhere...

"In the soft darkness that hides the future from the over-curious, I content myself with this; that where I will be will not be where I am."- Jeanette Winterson

Posted on the Fordham Alumni website:

"Dear Alumni,

Due to a clerical error Annemarie Germano DiCola, FCO '80 was mistakenly listed as deceased in the Fall issue of Fordham Magazine. Please know that Annemarie is alive and well, living in New York. If you would like to contact Annemarie we would be happy to forward any correspondence to her through our office. Please accept our sincere apologies for any upset or confusion this incorrect information may have caused."

Here's a disturbing trend... people are finding my side by Googling "What matters to you most and why," which is one of the Stanford MBA essays.  I posted my essay because I thought it was an interesting question.

What purpose might it serve someone esle to check out my essay?  Your answer is in you, people...  I don't have it.  Think for yourself... there are no Crib Notes for personal essays.

Link: Six Apart Professional Network: Helping your career with blogs.

When I was a senior at Fordham, me and my roommates played on an intramural softball team with half of the varsity basketball team.  One game, I hit a walkoff homer to win a game, and the whole team, including the guys from the varsity basketball team lined up along the thirdbaseline to slap me five.  Jason Harris, TJ... they were lined up to congratulate me... after all those games I showed up with my face painted to cheer them on.  Ok, so they were linking b/c their founder was featured in the article, and I'm not wearing facepaint, but nonetheless, the fact that the article was linked to on the Six Apart (the company that hosts this very blog) website... well...   it leaves me stupidly giddy, that's all.  In fact, I'm in such a good mood because of everything...  the article, the picture, the invite to the Learning Annex, the fact that the ubercool folks who are right at the heart of blogging are reading articles from a Long Island newspaper on some goofball blogging analyst...  I hardly even noticed the jury duty questionaire that came in the mail.  In fact, I'm more than happy to fill it out.  Call me for jury duty.  Sequestor me.  Give it your best shot.  You're not wiping the smile off my face, punks.  I think I'm going to go eat a pomegranate. 

Link: DrWeb's Domain: Newsday.com - Blogging Bluepoint.

I think this guy was just pointing out what blogs were and their growing popularity... but my favorite part is that he identifies himself as a "guybrarian."  (male librarian)   That's hilarious.

Cover of the Careers section of today's Newsday. 

This is going to be big.

Its an ok picture... I'm not particularly photogenic.  The setting is a bit random...  I mean, like, why am I walking around Madison Avenue with my laptop?  :)    In hindsight, I probably should have had the Find My Path site up on the laptop, not my site.  Already, two people have sought out my site by typeing in "This is going to be big.  I can feel it" in Google.  Now that's interesting.

Tomorrow is the day my 2nd Newsday appearence gets published...   the website was supposed to be up today, but it hasn't been updated yet.   I'm DYING to see it...   Very exciting stuff.

Link: News from The Roanoke Times -'Blog' wins place of note in lexicon and consciousness.

Nicely written article...   "The word of the year is "blog."

Link: CNN.com - Record 'Jeopardy' run ends - Dec 1, 2004.

Well, its about time.  Now I can go back to watching Jeopardy without having to watch this goofball anymore.  I'm sure Trebeck is relieved, as well. 

Ken Jennings, your 15 minutes of fame is up. 

I'll tell you one thing.  If it was me who beat him, I definately would have been obnoxious.  I would have probably jumped up on the podium and screamed, "In your face, Kenny boy.   Wooooooooooooooooo."   Then, I would have sung a little "Sha na-na na...."

Link: CNN.com - Publisher: 'Blog' No. 1 word of the year - Nov 30, 2004.

Jeez... this is all moving very quickly.   I think I need to write the proposal for my  new book before other people start jumping on this bandwagon.  I'll do it this weekend.

Link: ESPN.com - MLB - Reports: Mets top Red Sox offer for Pedro.

Well, this makes total sense.  Here's a big name guy with a bad attitude, past his prime and on the decline, asking for too much money.  Oh, not to mention the fact that his health is suspect. 

He fits perfect with the Mets strategy.

I've heard some Sammy Sosa rumors as well.  Again, right in line, and it would be great to have both an overrated pitcher on the decline AND a slugger on the decline.

Is Jose Canseco available? 

Everyone, regardless of profession, should be using a blog to record their employment experience. Resumes dumb down years of experience to one page, failing to capture or oversimplifying the whole story.  A blog that records, semi-regularly if not daily, your thoughts on your job experience, initiatives you've taken, self assessment compared to goals of what you think your ideal performance should be, and potential mistakes and what you've learned from them would go so much further to constructing a complete picture of what you bring to the table.  Blogs are a great record of your demonstrated ability to think strategically and to communicate with written word--two of the most important attributes that employment candidates need in today's sales and service focused economy.  There will be a time when blogs are almost as commonplace as resumes and employers check the blogs of the top resumes screened out as an interim step between the resume drop and the interview invite. 

Blogs are much better tools than social networking sites to connect to others in your industry.  Social networking sites are focused on the connections themselves, which is as forced and feels just as unnatural as networking for the sake of networking.  No one wants to be seen as the person "working the crowd" to see whose cards he or she can get or how many they can dish out.  Network development should be an incidental outgrowth of sharing of interests and connections should be earned by impressing others with your ability to bring something interesting to the table.  Blogs allow people to demonstrate, before you make a connection, how insightful you can be about your field of interest.  A great comment on the blog of someone else who is established as a thought leader may drive them to comment about your ideas, as well as drive traffic to your own blog and give you the chance to earn the respect and credibility of people in a great network.  You can get tapped into a group by the sharing of ideas, as opposed to feeling like you are walking around with "hat in hand" when you are pinging strangers for connections on a social networking site. 

Blogging helps you become a more insightful worker.  Anyone who has written a book will tell you that the process of writing turns parts of your mind on that pay more attention, pick out insights, and develop theories about the subject you are focusing on.  Your "mind's eye" looks for things to write about and attempts to come up with interesting things to write about.  Plus, you find yourself striving to be consistent in what you think and write, because putting all your thoughts "on paper" challenges you to match them all up in some kind of unified pattern.  You can't write one thing here and contradict yourself later.  The same thing happens to people who start taking up photography.  Whereas you might have missed lots of interesting visuals in your world before, part of your mind is now on the lookout for things that might make for an interesting photo, making you more observant. 

Blogging can be a positive outlet for people who are dissatisfied by their jobs or "between jobs."  A professional blog can be a great way to create something that keeps you thoughtfully engaged in your career in the face of a bad employment experience.  Blogging might help you seek out ways to make your job more interesting or help connect you to people who are undergoing the same frustrations.  Written in a careful and positive way, it can also turn into a great discussion of suggestions you've made to improve your situation or the systematic things about your position that make it difficult and how employers might examine their structure to improve things.  (Of course, you don't want your professional blog to be a long list of complaints about your company or boss that might reflect poorly on you or get you fired).   When you are not working, a record of thoughtful discussion of research is a better and more impressive use of your down time than not having anything to show for it except unsuccessful job searching. 

Blogs need better ways of searching the "About" page.  Standardized fields like industry, college, years of experience, areas of interest, etc. should be tagged in a way that allows me to pick out, for example, all of the Fordham graduates blogging in the investment field.  This is incredibly easy to do and it would go a long way to making blogs more functional social networking sites as well as make it much easier for new blog readers to quickly identify who they would like to start reading.

It just occurred to me that I don't actually have a family or holiday category for my site.  I guess that might say something...  I'm not a big fan of the holidays, mostly because my family is a lot smaller than it used to be.  We used to have at least 15 or so people stuffed into either my mom's house, my grandmother's, or my mom's now black sheep sister.  Divorce and death have taken their toll, though, and now, admittedly, the holidays are a bit meloncholy for me.  However, I did reengage myself a little bit this year with the camera, fully intending to blog the holidays in our family.  I also learned that I'm a goofball and didn't figure out how to use the autofocus on my camera until after the photos were done.  So, some of these didn't come out that great, but rest assured, the Christmas pics will be clear and crisp.

Nana and Puba...  I try not to get her excited, because she'll pee on the floor...   the dog, that is.  Puba is actually much older than Nana.  She's 98 in dog years, while Nana is a young 86.  Nana is mom's mom.  She's Sicilian.  Both Nana and Puba have bounced down a flight of stairs in the last few years...  Nana fell backwards down a flight of steps at my brother's old house in Chicago and wound up with a golf ball sized bump on her head.  Puba fell down our basement steps the other day, apparently, and was completely unscathed.  These old gals are unbreakable.

This is my dad checking out the neighbors behind us in the backyard.  They're gutting their house, but instead of moving the furniture from room to room while they work, they just dumped it all in the backyard...  totally uncovered.  Its raining now, and there's a microwave out there for starters.  Bizzare.

They got a new dining room set.  I think it looks nice, but it turns out that small people don't fit in the chairs very well, because they're too big.  My mom's cousin Denise couldn't reach the floor with her feet.  So we only had eight people:  Me, my parents, Nana, Mom's cousin Denise, Jackie (my great uncle's widow), her new boyfriend Jim the Pilot, and my brother Steve.  Steve hates being photographed, but I did get him to take one with me at the end.

Holiday traditions: 

Mom making me a leftovers dish to take home. Dad doing the dishes.  Puba foraging under the table for scraps.  My strawberry tart.

   And yes, Steve does exist.  The funny thing is that Dad's cousin Danny once thought that we only had two brothers in our family...  the guy knew us for 25 years and didn't know Steve even existed.  That's why we used to call him The Phantom when I was younger... he was always off working or at the gym.

Best picture...  My parent's wedding picture in a frame in the dining room:

They're married for 43 years now. 

Link: Consulting Magazine - The #1 Online and Printed Resource for Consulting Professionals.

So my friend Brian just called me up. He works for Consulting Magazine and is helping to lead their web efforts.  I've been trying to introduce him to this whole blogging phenomenon, and, short of reading my own, I'm not so sure he "got it" until today.  He was doing some competitor analysis, which led him to ring me and ask, "Are you familiar with RSS?"

Brian went from being a good journalist to an even better salesperson.  He knows his field very well, and he certainly helped me a ton by editing my Stanford essays.  But, he's never been a cutting edge tech guy, and its very meaningful to me as a milestone that RSS has found its way into his vocabulary. 

Bagel breakfast is on Brian tomorrow, since he'll be picking my brain about what this is all about.  At the moment, I'm at DTUT writing the outline for the blog career book.  This is all gaining traction very quickly.

Link: Worst drivers: Teens, doctors, lawyers - Nov. 18, 2004.

This is really interesting, because if you combine the data from speeding tickets and accidents, the result is that politicians are the best drivers.  They are one of the least likely professions to get in an accident, but one of the most likely to get a speeding ticket.  Therefore, they're driving really fast, but avoiding crashes. 

Link: Inc.com | The Reality of Raising Venture Capital#jump.

Jerry Colonna, who I had the good fortune to meet in person the other day, has a really great response to a frustrated entrepreneur in Texas, but there's one point I want to comment on...

"you MUST get connected. You know that business relies on people connecting with other people and that few great ideas are truly great enough to break through and emerge as successful companies without the founder/entrepreneur/CEO going out and pressing the flesh. So you don't have an MBA. So what? Go out and find a network you can join. If there's none in your area, start a chapter of the Young Presidents' Organization (YPO) or Young Entrepreneurs' Organization (YEO). Go to you nearest university and meet with the professors there."

It is important to be connected, but a lot of people's efforts to get connected are misguided or too forced.  That's why, although I'm a huge proponent of networking, I'm always very cynical about the networking nights that Fordham tries to do with its Young Alumni.  I tried to focus those efforts on a three month mentoring program, where you could build a relationship over time.  To me, networks are what develops naturally out of being a productively functioning and active member of a number of circles.  I never tried to develop a network, but I was always active in pursuing my interests and so my network grew out of that.  If you're growing a network and you don't have one currently, I'd wonder what's going on that is leaving you out of what should naturally be your network given your course of business. 

For example, I have an idea for an online information service related to college recruiting.  That idea comes out of the student mentoring I've done, which connects me to many people in and around the career education world, and some recruiters as well.  It was my participation in this network, because it was an interest of mine, that grew the idea.  By talking to all these people, I found a need and came up with an idea to fill it.  If you ideas are grown in a bubble, away from customers, peers, other entrepreneurs, its probably not a well tested or appropriate product for the market.  If I wanted to shop this idea around a network, I have one already because it is a relevent network that helped grow the idea in the first place.  If you join a network with the intention to see what you get out of it, people will see right through you.

Its a lot like dating.  When you go out to a bar with the intention of hooking up, you're unlikely to build a long term relationship out of that.  People are a bit guarded, because they know you're "on the prowl" and they're trying to play defense.  Its a market that paralyzes its sellers because they're all afraid of getting duped.  Its all too forced.

However, if you just pursue your interests on a regular basis, taking part in activities you enjoy, you will find yourself meeting people with shared interest and you've got a much higher chance of success.  I met lots of great people at the Boathouse in a much more natural and informal way.  I always wonder about people whose only outlet for finding new people is at a bar. 

A lot of times, I find both people who understand this point and people who don't at professional gatherings.  When I'm at ILPA, I talk to the people I like and the ones I find interesting, rather than anyone I feel like it might be fruitful for me to cozy up to.  I think these personal connections are much stickier than those made by new entrants trying to "work the crowd." 

So, not to say that Jerry's suggestions won't bear fruit, they're good suggestions. I just want to point out that networking--the building of really effective long term relationships--happens over time and it happens not because you go out and look for it.  It is the coming together of like minded individuals taking part in activities for their own sake, not necessarily to get connected to other people.  Just be careful not to cross that line between trying to connect and enjoy time with like minded individuals and trying to get something out of them.

They're building a 24 story hi-rise right down the street from me on 83rd and York.  They leveled 4 or 5 walkups that were abandoned when I first moved in 2001 and now they're finally starting construction.  I think these big cranes are wild.  These are the ones that climb alongside the building as it goes up.  It just looks so out of place at the end of this block before the building is visable.  Check out the big hole in the ground for the foundation, though. 

On Thursday night, I went straight from LaGuardia to Bar 515.  PS, the Delta Shuttle to Boston is wonderful.  You literally drive up and park about 500 feet from the plane, and the whole process takes about 5 minutes to get on.  Its a pleasure.  Anyway, so I drove straight to the bar, and parked by one of those Muni Meter things.  They really dropped the ball by not letting you insert bills into it.  I suppose that's done on purpose, because they're counting on you not having change.  Its more lucrative for the city for you to get a ticket than for you to pay the meter.
Anyway, so I've got my phone and my keys and I'm shuffling through the bag in my trunk for change.  The moment I closed the trunk, I was like, "Oh shit."

I know at that moment, without checking my pockets, that I had left the keys in the trunk.  It was like I was subconsciously paying attention, but not enough to remember to put the keys back in my pocket, just enough to notice that I left them lying in the trunk.  Anyway, remembering the commercial, I called the Pontiac Roadside Assistance people and they transferred me to OnStar.  I told the lady that I locked myself out and she's like, "No problem, we'll have the drivers side door unlocked in ten minutes...  I just need your PIN number from you."   

Faaaaaaantastic!  They opened it by satellite.  How cool is that?  Anyway, that only got me halfway there, though, because the keys were in the trunk and I don't think my car has a truck latch inside the car.  I know that's hard to believe, but I really checked.  I'll have to go consult the manual on this, but its certainly not in any place that any normal human being would expect it to be.  So, I had to climb into the back seat, pull the fold down seats to get into the trunk, and climb into the truck from inside the car.  I was literally in the trunk up to my waist with my legs flopping around the inside of the car.  I couldn't see anything and I was just blindly groping.  Finally, I found them, and ended this amusing incident unscathed.  That right there makes OnStar worth it, though.  I mean, being a GM employee, we get it for free, but whatever the price is, that incident definately saved me a good hundred bucks and much time wasted, because I'm sure that's what a tow truck or lock guy would have changed me to Slim Jim their way in. 

This random linking epidsode, combined with some screaming protesters on the street at Union Square last night make me thing that one of the problems with our country, and maybe even the world, is that we spend way too much time criticizing other people and debating issues and not nearly enough time actually creating positive change in our immediate lives.  How much money was donated to political campaigns this year by people who have never given a dime to any charity in their lives before, or even worse, never having given any of their time to any charity.  I try to help people around me...   that's why I want to write the book, that's why I do these mentoring programs, and that's one of the reasons I like the Boathouse.  Not everyone has to spend time in a soup kitchen for it to be a worthwhile charitable endeavor.  Just treating people right would be a start. 

Ask yourselves what are the last three selfless things you did for other people?  Stuck for an answer?  What about the last time you criticized someone or attacked them personally for their political views? 

Now, that's not to say you can't have views and support politicians that represent your views, but the level of derisiveness that we've sunken to has to stop, especially since so few of us are doing our part as quality human beings.  This is not a glass house we should be throwing stones from, people.  Go spend more time with your family and close friends.  Be supportive of them.  Go do something nice for someone... go show your appreciation for someone.  Give of your time to a charitable, as oppossed to a political, cause.  Helping people is the most non-partisan activity you can take on, and there's not enough of it.  Was John Kerry going to save the world? End homelessness?  Comfort the sick?  Take in the tired, the poor, yearning to breathe free?  No, and neither will George Bush.  Its up to each and every one of us individually to, as Ghandi says, to "be the change we want to see in the world."  I'm so sick of everyone being so negative and critical.  And I do it, too, so I'm not saying I'm perfect.  One of my new goals is going to be to encourage people to find positive solutions to as many simple, immediate problems as they can find.  Let's not waste any more time debating this bygone election.  Neither candidate was a great man, and I'll debate that with anyone.  We don't have enough great people around because it seems easier to knock people down than to aspire to be great. 

Who is a great person that we can all get behind?  Is Barak great?  I don't know.  Sein seems to think so.  I honestly don't know enough about him, but his blog is on my FeedDemon.  He's holding town hall meetings and he's asked for commentary on his site.  I think the most important comment was simply, "Thanks for asking."   I never see my local counsel people except for election time.  They're supposed to be representing me, but I don't see them asking me what I think.  I'm trying to get Fordham to do some polling or town hall type things to see what the alumni base is thinking.  Feedback.  Great people are great because they ask a lot of questions and strive to inform themselves about their constituencies.  Great marketers know their audience, and great politicians should be spending half their time in their own districts just talking to people.

I think I'm going to try and make an appointment with my local counselpeople just to talk and see what's on their mind, find out what they do, etc.  I think that would make for interesting blogging.  Let's see what our representatives are up to.