Providing tips on people skills, networking, and making the most of professional and personal contacts (especially for shy people!). As well as other random observations and musings . . .
Here's the technical address .... it's AFTER Dunkin Donuts, in the same building at the Best Western, BEFORE you get to Fresh Pond Mall with Whole Foods (aka Whole checkbook).
Yesterday I met someone for a cup of coffee. We met a few weeks ago at a networking event, he said he might have some leads for me. Sure, what the heck.
I'm not sure if he mentioned he was job hunting at the time ......
He gave the address, I put it in my GPS and was off to meet him. I must have made a mistake because there wasn't a coffee shop there so I called, he gave me directions, I anxiously drove feeling awkward that I was late.
Turned out the address wasn't 876 it was 130 on the same road. Oh well! I made my apologies, said hello, and went to get a cup of coffee to be courteous to the shop.
I barely sat down when he started telling me what's wrong with so many companies and how they waste time not to mention money. He could do such a better job .... if only he could get one.
Which brought up his target list of companies where he wanted to interview.
Hmmmm - why did I agree to this? Oh yeah, he had leads for me. We'll see if they pan out but here's my two cents .....
If you're looking for a job, say so!
Don't bad mouth companies or industries unless you REALLY know someone well. Even then it's dicey.
If you invite someone for a cup of coffee AND you give them the wrong address, pay for the coffee. Mine was only $2. Never mind my time and I probably won't invest time with this person again!
Two things are happening this week: those of us with kids are sending them back to school, and General Mills is introducing a new variety of Wheaties cereal called Wheaties Fuel, aimed at men.
What do those two things have to do with one another?
Ever since the 1930s, the front of the Wheaties box has featured a parade of notable athletes,
from Lou Gehrig to Jesse Owens to Mary Lou Retton to Michael Jordan.
Over the decades, the Breakfast of Champions has exclusively celebrated
achievement on the baseball diamond or in the stadium.
But given that Wheaties sales have been slipping (they've declined
14 percent over the past year), here's what I wonder: could Wheaties as
a brand be reinvigorated if those bright orange boxes started
celebrating achievements of the brain, as well as the body? Would
parents feel better about buying a breakfast cereal that inspired their
children to become rocket scientists, disease-battling chemists,
life-saving biomedical engineers, or billionaire software designers?
And could we use the Internet and Twitter to persuade General Mills to give this a try?
Here's what I'm thinking:
Wheaties, invented in 1922,
occupy a significant spot in American culture. Accomplishing something
meaningful in the world of sports, we all know, is likely to land you
on the front of the Wheaties box.
It is of course important to encourage our kids to participate in
sports. But the career goal of making a living as a professional
athlete is statistically improbable for most of them. Why not present
them with other kinds of champions as role models?
I'd like to see a Wheaties box featuring Sally Ride, the first
American woman in space (who also happened to be an astrophysicist and
Stanford PhD); Internet pioneers Tim Berners-Lee and Vint Cerf; the
great primatologist Jane Goodall; cognitive scientist Steven Pinker;
Regina Benjamin, a physician who works in rural Alabama (and who last
year won a MacArthur "genius" grant); Tesla Motors engineer JB
Straubel; Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus; robotics pioneer and
entrepreneur Helen Greiner; Herbert Boyer, who co-founded Genentech and
helped bring the first biotech drug to market; Dean Kamen, a prolific
inventor of medical devices and technologies for the developing world
(not to mention the Segway scooter); or Kim Ung-young, a Korean who has
the highest recorded IQ of any living person.
And
what about younger smarties, like the winner of the Scripps National
Spelling Bee, the Intel Science Talent Search, or the Lemelson-MIT
Prize, or the top student teams in the FIRST Robotics Competition or
the Global Green Challenge?
The back of these boxes might explain a little bit about the accomplishments of the person (or people) featured on the front.
Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers, the founders of the FIRST Robotics
Competition, like to talk about "changing the culture" of this country,
so that we honor achievements in science, engineering, and technology
as often as we honor achievements in sports.
Why not start in the cereal aisle?
Rather than simply launching a brand extension like Wheaties Fuel,
I'm suggesting that Wheaties could reach an entirely new customer base:
kids who enjoy intellectual challenges as much as sports -- and parents
who want to get their kids thinking about doing something for a living other than dunking a basketball.
Are you with me? If so, here are a couple things you can do:
- Post a comment below in support of the idea. Perhaps you'll
mention an intellectual champion or two you'd like to see on the front
of a Wheaties box.
- Share your support of this idea on Twitter, along with a link to this blog post... and use the tag #wheaties in your tweet.
- Spread the idea any other way you can think of.
- Send General Mills an e-mail, perhaps with a link to this blog post (let's dub this a "Product Issue.")
And if you disagree with me, feel free to post a comment about that too.
If we succeed with this project, perhaps next we can persuade a
certain theme park operator to start awarding free trips to Nobel Prize
winners, not just athletes: "Professor Shimomura: You've just won the
Nobel Prize in chemistry. What are you going to do next?"
It was a spectacular summer night in Boston. I had a good day, just helped some people with networking challenges, and was thinking about what I should do after work.
I typically put events on the calendar with a question mark - then I can decide what appeals to me based on timing, location, who will be there, the topic, and candidly my mood.
I picked a group I had wanted to check out for awhile. It was a forum for women discussing global and local issues and how you can help.
The hotel had a sign when you got off the elevator so I walked that direction. There were numerous options from there. I walked by two women having an intense conversation - you know the boxed in body language that says, "don't interrupt us."
Fortunately I know the hotel function space and found my way out to the deck. There were a number of tables with groups all set. One had a sign so I knew that wasn't what I was looking for. I walked around, didn't see anyone I knew, no one said hello, so I headed back to the front desk to inquire more.
As I walked by the two women still in private conversation, one said to me, "are you looking for _____ group?" She pointed me back to the deck. I said I had just been out there but it seemed like private little groups so I wasn't sure. The two of them continued to explain where the group was.
Hello ... that wasn't the problem!
I went back out with the vapor of energy I had left and thought I'll give it another shot.
I walked around the two tables, no one got up, I finally saw one person I knew, who gave me the obligatory wave (she's one of the hosts), and she went back to her conversation.
Now I was really running on thin vapor. I felt like a complete idiot for attending and was saying a thank you in my head that my guest hadn't been able to join me.
I gave it another shot but walking over to the host. She stayed seated, looked up and commented how there were too few chairs and we would have to rotate who stood and who sat down.
Another person complained that the champagne was flat, cut in front of me to complain to the waiter while another person talked about the summer house rotation.
Mind you the group was advertised as one that is forum for women helping each other.
I ended up excusing myself and networked with my sneakers for a good long walk.
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And
what about younger smarties, like the winner of the Scripps National
Spelling Bee, the Intel Science Talent Search, or the Lemelson-MIT
Prize, or the top student teams in the FIRST Robotics Competition or
the Global Green Challenge?
