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Moving ON Out-of-the-box wisdom for your career in this ever changing world By Mario Persona Smashwords Edition ***** PUBLISHED BY: Mario Persona on Smashwords ISBN 978-1-4661-9201-0 Moving ON 1st. Edition — 2007 Copyright © by Mario Persona www.mariopersona.com.br contato@mariopersona.com.br This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated. ***** Other books by Mario Persona (Portuguese): Crônicas de uma Internet de Verão Receitas de Grandes Negócios Gestão de Mudanças em Tempos de Oportunidades Markeging Tutti-Frutti Marketing de Gente Dia de Mudança Credits: Translation: Marcos Zamikhowsky Lopes Proofreading: Marilyn Gorgas-Cahill Cover Design: Stephan Dirck Klaes Cover Photograph: Clayton Hansen — istockphoto.com/claylib Printed on demand by: www.lulu.com, www.createspace.com and www.bookess.com ***** Contents Letter to an executive Introduction Moving on Hobby New technologies Opportunity Personal marketing Networking Creativity Ambiguity Communication Outsourcing Behavior Improvising Quality of life Fame Exposition Virtual office Blogosphere Aging Resilience Acknowledgments ***** Letter to an executive Hi, Joe. No need to say Mr. Smith; I’ll just call you Joe, because that’s all you once used to be. I want to talk to you. Can I have five minutes of your time? Two? I know that you don’t have time, that you’re in a mad hurry, but what I want to say is important just so you don’t continue to be this way — mad — when the rush is over. It’s true, the rush will be over; nothing lasts forever. How many times recently have you heard the phrase “He doesn’t work here anymore” when you called someone? It didn’t use to be like that, did it? These are new times. Be humble. Much of what you think you have isn’t yours. It belongs to the company or to the position you have. Remember Junior, the guy full of MBAs, who could even speak Mandarin? Look, Joe, you’d better lose some weight, because he’s going to take over your jacket. You used to be the cream of the crop, but not anymore. Things have changed. A hundred days without results and somebody else is going to be picking up the phone at your office and saying: “He doesn’t work here anymore.” You’ll get the red carpet exit, all right. After all, the company has an image to preserve. They’ll say you left in order to develop your own projects (which means “look for a job”), to seek new challenges (“look through the job ads”) and to have more time for the family (“be supported by the wife”). So start getting off your high horse, because, for one thing, it’s not your horse, it’s a rental. Maybe it’s not your job on the line; maybe it’s your employer’s. Businessmen also get fired. By the market. When I was young and was working for a bank, I negotiated the renewal of the bank's lease with the property owner. There was a lot of money involved. Smoking a cigar and bored with the deal over the huge table in a huge office of the huge building of his huge company, he puffed in my face the very high-and-mighty conclusion: “Suit yourself, let’s keep it at that. This rent is what I spend on fuel for my yacht on a weekend.” His yacht must have been really big and burned up quite a bit of fuel, because a few years later he had no yacht, no company and no cigar. Only smoke. Times have changed, so be humble, Joe. What do you mean, be humble? Well, steer clear of the image of an executive I once saw playing golf at a resort. Lofty and arrogant, blaming others for his golfing mishaps, he was quite a show. He drew attention to himself with his temper tantrums, cursing the grass and blaming it for his failure to get the ball in the hole. That was a few years ago. I don’t know how he’s been doing since. You probably won’t retire as an executive. Few people will make it to that point. Get used to the idea of not being at the next convention to see Peter Drucker and other gurus. For one thing, even the great Drucker is gone, like everyone else will be one day, and so will you. So be humble. Learn to live like a simple mortal — stay in line at the bank, take the bus. It may not have the glamour that you’re used to, but it’s less stressful than the life you’re leading now. By the way, remember to leave the glamour at the reception desk along with the badge. It belongs to the company. Don’t get carried away by your network of friends. Many of them go with the flow. When you’re no longer a hot investment, they just won’t be around. Then it might be the right time to call all those business cards you kept for a rainy day. But don’t be surprised if what you hear mostly is: “He doesn’t work here anymore.” Start developing a “Plan B,” a “Plan C,” or maybe even a “Plan Z.” The more options the better. You might end up a consultant or even a professional speaker like me. You can’t imagine what kind of CVs some people who look for me have. They’re after tips on how to give lectures, figuring this is the standard retirement of every executive. It’s hard to believe that I may have something to teach people with that kind of background. Identify your capabilities. Is there anything you know how to do? I don’t know, cooking, sewing, or book-keeping? These skills can be pretty useful when you start your own business as a restaurant owner or swimsuit manufacturer, or stay home doing the accounting for your new clients. OK, you can present yourself as a “chef,” “fashion designer,” or “personal finance coach,” when you do the tax return for friends in your “home office.” You can use these terms if you want to add some glamour to your new activities. But if you don’t know how to do anything, be humble and go back to studying. I have no more tips. Oh, yes! One more: be humble. I’ve said that? All right, it’s my age. And, by the way, what is yours? You know it matters, don’t you? Speaking of humbleness, I know businessmen and executives who’ve worked that way, providing an example of humility and making the act of serving into a trademark of their professional image. During lunch at an event, the owner of an industrial group that had hired me interrupted what he was doing to greet me. What he was doing? Serving tables. Another one, a CEO of a multinational company, took my suitcase and carried it to my car in the hotel parking, before the flabbergasted eyes of those who follow his daily orders in the company. Aloof managers will disappear. Those who don’t mind rolling up their sleeves and doing a little manual labor will survive. So be humble. I know, I’ve said it already. ***** Introduction I visited her in Philadelphia, even though I knew she was in a terminal condition. The experience wasn't very pleasant; it brought only memories of better days. I reckoned I wouldn't have another chance if I didn't see her on that one cold North American early-winter morning. I felt a mix of reverence and sadness as I passed through those heavy doors. It was like invading a pharaoh’s tomb, centuries beyond its glory days. Like ancient hieroglyphics, the lettering on the walls screamed the agonizing message: “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!”. I was actually in one of the Towers Records chain shops, another casualty of new times and changes. Have you realized how quickly things are changing? As a youngster, going to a record store was a major event. It was also a pain because some shop owners had the sadistic habit of pretending they didn't understand the name of the song and asked us to sing a part of it. I really hated that, but I liked to drop by, just to hear another jerk sing. It was hilarious. That’s in the past. If there's still a music store in your town, rush over and take the kids. Someday they'll be able to say they've been to such a place, in much the same way I can tell today I've ridden in a cable car. CD Stores are biting the dust, but not all by themselves. Photo shops are going down with them. Everything’s digital now. You take pictures with your cell phone and have them printed via the Internet. Music? Just download it. And what about the video from the rental store? It's kicked the bucket and is awaiting the band to play at the funeral. The Broad Band. Oddly enough, the one that seemed to be at death's door holds on strong and firm. Older — much older — brother of other media of artistic expression, the book is still outsmarting death and scoring goals. When the first personal computer came up, everyone thought that it would be the final nail in the book's coffin. No one thought about sound or image, since the first machines could only sing “beep” and print photos made of letters. But traditional image and sound media passed away first. Meanwhile, all attempts to separate letters from paper media failed to get the seal of approval from the ultimate judge, the market. The book is a fetish. People want to feel its cover, leaving marks as they slide their fingers through its pages, show it off on the way to work or on a bookshelf. Some bookstores even sell books by the foot, just for ornamental appeal. I saw a guy in a bookstore, looking at himself in the mirror as he catwalked, modeling a book. He chose the one with the best-looking cover, probably just to take it for a walk. So far, so good. The trouble is dealing with the amount of people who write to me wanting to know how to publish a book. They think you're only a writer if you get your book in print. Not true. A writer is someone who writes, just like a sculptor carves, a painter paints and a singer sings. One shouldn't be concerned about whether the world will get to see one's work. To a writer, putting words in paper is a physiological need, a visceral one. Writing is the emesis of the satiated bee; it's the honey. The mistake lies in thinking that getting your book printed is synonymous with becoming rich and famous. People in this mind frame don't really want to become writers; they want to become rich and famous. Most published writers don't even come close. For one thing, you have to enjoy reading. If you hate reading, forget it. Or hire a ghost-writer. You like writing? Start doing it. That's how I got started. But, since everything is changing ever so rapidly, I write in a way I could never have done in the past. This book is a blook. Blook? That's right; the word comes from blog+book, a book printed with an assortment of texts published at first in a blog. Lots of people are now writing this way. In these pages, I gather a selection of texts that I published on the Web as the ideas sprouted. After that, all I had to do was select, compile, improve this, expand that, update and... Presto! Here's the blook. I don't think the old-fashioned style of writing — starting at the beginning, going through the middle and getting to the epilogue — will ever end. The thing is, good ideas aren't always all in the mind of the writer, and the blog is a kind of daily mental corkscrew that helps keep a book alive, even if the author has no intent of writing it as a book. Call it a notepad or a virtual rough copy if you like. Sound weird to you? Well, just wait till you read what's next. This book is being initially published on demand. After releasing six books in Portuguese by a traditional Brazilian publisher, I decided to try what I view as the next great trend of the publishing sector. Books are being produced and sold like bouquets from online flower shops. You access a flower site located in, say, Los Angeles, and send a bouquet to someone in Shanghai. A half-hour later, the recipient receives the flowers that were, in fact, packed and delivered by a Shanghai flower outlet linked to the site in Los Angeles. There is no stock of books, only digital files that are turned into books at the place and time of purchase. This will have enormous impact on publishing houses, as literary output follows in the steps of musical production. Any band that is presently unable to break into the market through traditional means can make their music available for download and, depending on its success, might even be found by an agent and later hired by a renowned record label. Likewise, any author can now put their books up for sale in a matter of hours and, who knows, may be discovered in the traditional editorial circuit. Not only has the book changed, so have films and records. The world around us is changing so overwhelmingly, and that's what I try to convey in these chapters woven with short stories. Why short stories? Well, since I don't know your age, educational background or profession, writing in a storytelling style, rich in metaphors, analogies and parables, allows me to practice role allocation. Your part is to choose the one that best suits you, paying close attention to what's between the lines, which is where I use the most ink. I could list a million other reasons for my style, but I guess the main reason is that this is the way I like to write, much like someone who chats and tells stories. It's more natural, personal and memorable than a book packed with texts full of academic language, topic lists, charts and graphs. Sure, if you want to impress your boss, who might see the book on your table or the nosy jerk reading over your shoulder on the bus, you'd better find something a little more highbrow. And what are you going to do with my book? Use it for bathroom reading. It's inspiring. Mario Persona ***** Moving on The very day he was moving, from his home and city, when any help would have been welcome, guess who came to give Brent a hand? A relative. Not the mother-inlaw, another one. That’s right, the brother-in-law. But how was it that he wanted to help just now when the truck was jam-packed? Brent was suspicious. In fact, he was always wary of his brother-in-law, ever since he met Tanya. When asked why he didn’t like her family, he said he just didn’t. He had no motive. Brent suffered from a kind of “Cain Syndrome,” a desperate need to stay away from anything to do with relatives, causing one to forget that opportunities might come by, even through in-laws. Months before, Brent had been hit by unemployment. More and more people were getting the axe, and the better the job, the higher the fall. Heads of all ranks were rolling, especially middle management, which was being squeezed out by the flattening of the command pyramid. Blue-collar workers with managerial skills now got their orders directly from the president, and commanded their own peers, with no extra pay. Brent knew there was no point in feeling sorry for himself or in continuing to talk about what he had been in the past. When he realized that, in the big city, jobs didn’t grow on trees, he decided to take what was left of his savings and hit the road. After weighing the pros and cons, he decided to move to the country. He knew where he wanted to go, but not what to do. Set up his own business? Render services? Go back to being an employee? He would think about it later. Now, he was only thinking about moving. The chosen destination was a city in Arizona. It looked like a promising spot, an El Dorado, but for those already there, it was too hot, dry, and dusty. Tanya, however, suspected ulterior motives behind the move to such a distant location from the coast. His brother-in-law had even offered him partnership in his small pool factory, quite a break for his sister’s unemployed husband. Brent said he would think it over, but he didn’t even call back. Doing business with relatives was not something he believed in. In fact, he didn’t believe in relatives. To him they were all snakes in the grass. Being caustic, Brent's favorite subject (over Sunday lunches at his mother-in-law’s place) was the failure of family businesses. He liked to needle his bother-in-law, even though he knew successful ones existed. He had even worked for one, but never mentioned it. It was a century-old enterprise, in its fifth generation. Even so, he kept on bashing them, just to be at loggerheads with them. Not much humbleness there. It was not long before his brother-in-law let on how he would help in their move to the midland: he would give them a pool, so the children could cool off on hot days. Brent couldn’t believe it. It must have been an overstocked item, or had a leak, he thought. But before he knew it, the pool was on board, upside down and tied up over the load as they jolted on toward Arizona. Days later, Brent stood dusty and sweaty in the summer heat at the gate of his stuffy rented house. He was the image of desolation: no job, no work, and no swimming pool to swim in. For the pool remained where it had been left on the night they arrived, propped against the only tree shading the flowerless clay garden. In the city, while everyone else was striking it rich, Brent was waiting. If a break came up, he couldn’t miss it. Somewhat distracted, he almost didn’t notice the dusty SUV that pulled up to his gate. “You have a bigger one of those?” asked the rich farmer from the car window, pointing to the pool by the tree. Brent looked at the pool, at the farmer and, weighing the pros of profits against the cons of family hostility, he decided to take the chance. Sounding like a businessman, he responded point-blank: “We don’t have it ready for delivery, but we can have it here next week, straight from our plant.” Then, after a shower, Brent gave his brother-in-law a call. ***** Hobby Today I found out that 29 CDs can be put into a package of Catupiry, the most famous cream cheese in Brazil. So what? Well, those backup CDs, presently scattered in drawers, will now all be kept together in that nice round-shaped box. At least 29 of them. In the old days, the package for this cheese, created in 1911 by Italian immigrant Mario Silvestrini, was a wooden one, and I used to keep nails and screws in it. Times have changed, my needs are different, and cream cheese is nowadays manufactured in a way that would have looked like science fiction a hundred years ago. But the Brazilian manufacturer preserved two important things: the flavor and the characteristic Art-Deco label. What could be improved was improved, and what should be preserved was preserved. Now the package is made of white polypropylene, and I have no more screws to put away, because I’ve also changed. Today I have CDs. Before you ask, yes, in order to store 29 CDs you first have to eat all the cheese in the package. No, the squeeze-type package is not appropriate for storing CDs. Yes, there is a solution for those who have lots of CDs: try purchasing the 8 pounds bucket. Your fourth question might be: What does all this have to do with my life, career, or business? Everything. I mentioned Catupiry, without having been paid a cent of merchandising for it, to show two things. The first one is that, even if you and your career are constantly changing, the essence of what you are must be preserved. Your label — the reputation people have come to recognize — should also stay on. Sure, this is true only for those who are well-seasoned and have a good market reputation. If that’s not your case, then you’d better do your homework before we go on with our conversation. The shape of the Catupiry package remains the same, an analogy I’ll have difficulty in applying to anyone my age. My shape keeps changing, for the worse. But let’s leave the form aside and focus on the utility of the package. Times have changed, the package has adapted itself, and I’ve found new uses for it. Now this applies to you and me. There is always another use for any professional. Some keep on trying to find a position in the same activity they’ve been in for the last century, without noticing that the market has changed. Maybe the time has come for you to change, to find a new use for the old you. But is there an alternative use for you? Well, it’s always possible to find some profit-making activity with your own repertoire of skills. You have to start looking. The first thing one thinks about in a time of change, of switching to a new job or setting up a business is one’s hobby. Is it possible to turn a hobby into a business? Maybe. Some of the most captivating businesses stemmed from hobbies. You probably know many software professionals who turned their hobby into a job. It makes sense. Most of the people behind the revolution and evolution of computers and systems were young people, and young people easily fall in love with new ideas, like to take risks, and they have more free time available for their ideas. That’s the prescription: passion, risk, and time. It’s hard to find any kind of positive change that doesn’t include one of those items. A fourth factor, which you might want to consider, especially if you’re over 40, is meaning. Until the age of forty, we’re too busy chasing the bucks. After that, it usually dawns on us that money isn’t all it takes to get a sense of fulfillment. It takes meaning. The advantage of turning a hobby into a business is that you end up with the feeling that you’re never working. In my case, for instance, I like to talk and write, so I think of the time I spend making lectures, teaching, or writing as leisure time. That’s why I often say that my customers pay for me to have fun. Since these activities take up most of my time, I can even say that I stopped working to devote myself to my hobby. What do I do when I’m not talking or writing? Well, then I rest. Businesses frequently originate from some passion, such as music or photography. Or it’s the poet who has ten thousand poetry books printed and then goes out selling them to friends or relatives. You must surely have run away from one of these types. While a surfer might have his business boosted by the wave of the moment, the poet probably won’t be as lucky. The same passion that drives a hobby turned into a business might make the entrepreneurial hobbyist blind; it could make him believe that the whole world likes what he does, what he spends all he makes on. He commonly believes that others will also want to spend. That’s when the hobby stops being a business and turns into a trap. Some hobbies have too few enthusiasts to be transformed into lucrative businesses. For instance, a coin collector could think that opening up a shop for his hobby in a small town might be a good business. If that’s your case, you’d better get ready to have a tough time explaining to your wife why, with so much money in the shop window, you can’t afford to provide for your family. Fanatic hobbyists who are insensitive to the needs and wants of people end up collecting businesses that are not very profitable. The enthusiast willing to turn his hobby into a business should first be perceptive enough to figure out if there are prospective clients for what he does. Sometimes there won’t be, as in the case of a stamp collector, but his chances might improve if he expands the boundaries of his hobby. How so? I don’t know, maybe opening a post office. Therefore, even if a hobby has all it takes to become a business, that doesn’t rule out the need for a good marketing plan. A good plan can help you determine start-up and maintenance costs, customer profiles, promotional techniques, delivery logistics, and many other variables that are important when undertaking any entrepreneurial venture. Be it a hobby or not. Another thing the hobbyist bent on becoming a businessman should keep tuned to is overspending. Most people who are in love with a hobby tend to be liberal, recklessly spending with the excuse that they don’t smoke, drink, or go out with friends. The hobbyist is a spendthrift who only thinks about the pleasure payoff. The entrepreneurial hobbyist, however, must be an investor, focusing on financial returns, on profits. This is my tip: if you can’t rein in your passion-turned-business, hire someone who can. It can be an administrator, an accountant or an honest partner. If you prefer a tougher and more permanent control, get married. ***** New technologies If you can’t manage to adapt to new technologies, it’s going to be very difficult to change. You know who I’m talking about, the kind of person who faints in front of an ATM, checks the calculator results with a pencil and, when he phones to find out what time it is, he thanks the digital voice and even tries to make a pass at the girl. Worse than not adapting to new technologies, is resisting them and even trying to convince people that life was easier in the old days. I used to resist technology, to the point that I dropped out of my architecture course in college to live in the woods. As a matter of fact, I moved to Alto Paraíso, a small village lost in the heart of Brazil. If you had met me there, you’d have called me a hippie, someone who escaped from civilization to live in the bush, raising goats, chickens and ticks. Your perception would be correct. My intention in those distant 70’s was to save the world from the then-existing technology, but that didn’t last long. I mean, the intention didn’t, because the technology is still around. You see, I didn’t want to save the world from all technology, but only from the oldfashioned, dumb and polluting kind. Obviously, not everything in my mind was offbase, but every young guy has his chance to challenge the status quo with a crazy mix of illusion and reason in his attitudes. At 23, after reaching the conclusion that everyone else was wrong, except myself, of course, I decided to roll up my sleeves and do something. I thought that with my pioneering example, I would be able to inspire the planet’s population to use renewable resources and technology. You don’t get it? I’ll explain. At the time, I was crazy about alternative and sustainable technologies, which I considered “intelligent technology”. Officially, I was in the bush to put into practice my projects regarding the protection of natural resources, research of low environmental impact technologies, and the earth’s sustainable development. Unofficially, I wanted adventure, adrenaline, and an escape from my post-puberty responsibilities. Three years later I came back from the woods, still adept at “intelligent” conservation technology. I was then forced into the computer age. I remember my fear when sitting in front of the first personal computer that I came across, without understanding the personal aspect of that experience. I trembled at the sight of those little green letters that appeared on that dark, mysterious screen. Could there have been a little man inside that box? When I went to work in a company where using one of the first Apple computers was mandatory, I took on an attitude of mockery. That was certainly a fad that wouldn’t stick, I scoffed, trying to cover my fear of revealing my ignorance. When I realized that there was no way out, that it was me or the machine, I decided it was time to tame it. With the excuse of it being a gift to my children, I bought an MSX computer, and spent nights trying to unravel its mysteries. I must confess that part of that time was spent destroying monsters and alien spaceships with my laser beam cannons, but I would rather this not be included in my biography. Further on, my issues became virtual, and I sank into the wired world, to the point that people thought I was an expert on the subject. The Internet was still in diapers and I was already giving lectures, while still foreseeing very little of the potential of that new technology. Everything was new, everything would change, and everyone could make a buck, we thought. Well, the Internet bubble burst, and not everyone gained. I did. I gained experience. With time, I learned to feel at home with the new technologies, and, nowadays, I don’t avoid them anymore. Obviously I haven’t mastered all of them. I still can’t set my VCR clock, but with DVD and later cable TV, I didn’t have to learn that. I now live technologically connected in the comfort of my home-office, surrounded by devices created to make my life easier. Almost all my clients reach me via Internet; I would be just another has-been if it weren’t for information technology. Of course, not everything is perfect. I get packages of spam and viruses along with my clients. Some I delete, others I exterminate. As for clients, I caress them with virtual proposals of real services. Usually my clients only get to meet me face to face at the airport: “I didn’t even recognize you,” they usually say. “You looked younger on the site’s pictures...” I explain to them that, on those pictures, I use Photoshop Lotion for Wrinkles. I don’t amount to much today, but without technology, I wouldn’t amount to anything. I’d still be in the same time biomass of the hippie days, living on air without even having wind power generators to sell.. I even get the shivers when I come across some professional who keeps finding excuses not to use technology. I myself could come up with all sorts of excuses not to use the cell phone since I hate phone conversations, but I use it in order to do my job. The same happens with the computer, a technology that my generation only got acquainted with in their 30’s or 40’s. Some haven’t yet and are still living in the time that secretaries used to type memos. Do you believe that the other day I got an e-mail with those file reference numbers, like we used to have in office mail? I know this person, and I know she prints all the e-mails she receives, and sends and stores them in a filing cabinet. Some time ago I met a friend of mine who is a consultant and told him how I developed my modus operandi. After I found out that none of my clients come to me — it’s always the other way round — I closed my office, hired an answering