Needle, Meet Haystack

Every month, I get hundreds upon hundreds of spam comments that are caught in my blog’s spam filter.  Last month, the results were surprisingly philosophical; some of them seemed like they could have been written by real people with unfortunate commenter names.  This month?  Not so much…

“Nice content. Thank you for your information.” -Free Keylogger, on The Great Idea Garage Sale

“Hello, I’ve browsed most of your posts on this blog. This post is probably where I got the most useful information! Thanks” -Porno, on The Undomesticated Bachelorette by Elisa Doucette

“My wifes personal computer had been taken over due to pop ups fortunately I discovered this helpful help and advice on how to stop pop ups. I strongly recommend it for everybody having difficulties from unwelcome pop up ads.” -Nursing Schools, on The Top 9 Blogs of 2009 (That Aren’t This One)

“My cousin recommended this blog and she was totally right keep up the fantastic work!” -Gucci Shoes, on Non-Sequitur Saturday: Why I Blog

“According to reports, China National Highway 050 line is southwest passage to the sea, once the accident caused traffic disruption in this important, to 6 pm the same day the traffic resumed.” -Air Jordan Sale Crazy Low Prices, on Non-Sequitur Saturday: Notes from the Spam Filter

“I searched for something completely different, but found your website! And have to say thanks. Nice read. Will come back.” -Ed Hardy Wines by the Case, on Why Don’t Gen-Y Bloggers Talk About Deadmau5?

“Hi and bye.” -Chanel no. 4 Secret Perfume Limited Time Only, on Val Kilmer and The Power of Groups

Maybe the spam filters are getting smarter.  Or at least someone is teaching Air Jordan Sale Crazy Low Prices about how to have a sense of humor.

A while ago, I realized that while Needle, Meet Haystack may be my personal view on things, it isn’t the only view.  So every other Friday, you’ll be getting the chance to read some awesome guest posts from some truly excellent people – the Needle, Meet Haystack Guest Blogger Club.

Elisa Doucette is the blogger behind Ophelia’s Webb, where she shares her perspective on life, love, friendship and finding a place in the world.  She pulls double blogger duty as Portland, Maine’s own Carrie Bradshaw with her column, The Single Slice.  Elisa is also the woman behind the All You Need Series, which includes my first guest post for another blog.  Elisa’s post today is a companion piece to The Domesticated Bachelor.

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Photo Credit: Getty Images - Simon Bremner

You know that soft hazy glow that they filmed Doris Day movies in during the 1950′s & 1960′s? They achieved the look by smearing Vaseline on the lens. Some say they wanted her to look feminine and sweet with a softened view.  Most believe the reason was so many years of drinking, sun damage and smoking had left her skin (rumored to be slathered with Vaseline nightly, coincidentally) leathery and aged.

This is how women used to be seen. June Cleaver managed an entire household without a spot on her pleated skirt dress. Charlie’s Angels kicked lots of ass with perfectly feathered hair and never smeared lipstick. Carrie Bradshaw managed to rock the norm of what women can and can’t “talk about” on television but she did it all while obsessed with shoes and completely unrealistic outfits (seriously, who wears ballet tutus when they aren’t in a recital?!)

As Sir Isaac Newton philosophized, for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.  So if men are losing their affinities for buffalo lodges and beer can-crushing and developing the skills of domesticated bachelorhood then it can only be assumed that women are losing their Vaseline-lensed existence of perfection and Gucci-obsession.

Is it possible that there is a growing population of Undomesticated Bachelorettes?

If there is, I’m pretty sure I’m their poster child.

Sure I’m TRYING to learn how to be more girly by wearing a Dress a Day in May.  And I’ve even been known to cook an occasional meal around the apartment. And sometimes I even manage to do the dishes or clean my bedroom. Sometimes.

The Undomesticated Bachelorette is not a lazy woman, her priorities and interests just tend to lie outside the home. In fact, she is generally a very driven and resourceful woman. How else would she survive and not need a crane to pull her from her house daily if not for extremely adept take-out dining skills?  (I know every place I can get a salad or 250 calorie sandwich within a 5 mile radius.)

She tends to not focus as much on the maintenance of her home because she isn’t there very often. This is not to say that she’s a social butterfly out on the town every night. She may well be, but more than likely, the Undomesticated Bachelorette is instead hanging out with friends at the local bar watching the game or chatting with co-workers late night or discussing the plot and sub-plot of the latest Owen Wilson/Vince Vaughn classic.

Life at home isn’t just hanging out in yoga pants occasionally after the gym; she’s out of heels and trousers within five minutes of walking through the door. The only thing in her fridge might be wine (white, of course, she at least knows that white should be chilled!). Her photo collection is not carefully taped into beautiful scrapbooks with swirls and twirls and girly prettiness, it’s in a shoebox under her bed. The only beauty regimen she knows is soap and water at night and Chap-stick for the day.

So does the Undomesticated Bachelorette NEED a Domesticated Bachelor to be happy? Well I’m not gonna lie, a boy who makes us dinner or can actually appreciate our best friend’s performance in community theatre DOES have its appeal.

But so does ordering Chia Sen’s Pu Pu Platter for two and having two people there to share it!

Things get replaced and upgraded every day.  People get promoted at work.  Software developers release new versions of their programs.  New appliances are purchased.  And in the realm of television, shows go off the air to be replaced by similar shows.  But never in TV history has this action been taken to the extreme as much as it has recently – NBC is replacing Law and Order with Law and Order: Los Angeles this fall.

I’ll say that again: a show was just replaced with its almost-identical spin-off.

At about the time of the shift, it was also announced that if Law & Order Classic got renewed, it would be the longest-running drama in TV history (in the US, anyway), beating out Gunsmoke for top honors.  Instead, Law& Order Original Blend is being put out to pasture.  The only thing that is startling about this is why.

The difference between the stories in Law & Order v1.0 and L&O:LA isn’t as pronounced as in the other spin-offs, where the focus is on special victims or the intent of the criminals.  To an outsider, the only difference seems to be the locale (New York City versus Los Angeles) and the cast, even though Law & Order Grampa Version has had a lot of cast changes in its 20-year run.  So the only excuse I can think of is this:

NBC is “shaking things up.”  Again.

Now, granted, this has been proven to work.  Fans pop up out of the woodwork to support their shows, old viewers return, and people get excited to talk about the program again.  The problem is, this strategy loses a bit of currency every time it is used.

After all, it’s the strategy used for the Betty White episode of Saturday Night Live.

Or the Conan-Leno feud (and hey, I fell for it, too) – the ratings bump that resulted from the publicity from that bad decision was great.

The good thing about “shaking things up” is that it revitalizes a failing brand, creating a conversation about it and bringing in new and old viewers who have been drawn in by the controversy.  This in turn can translate to a surge of popularity and support.

The problem is, coming up with new conversations all the time doesn’t build a lasting allegiance; the numbers are often temporary.  In fact, this strategy of short-term thinking can often damage the brand overall, as viewers become more resistant to gimmicks, and long-time fans may feel betrayed.  Additionally, not taking public opinion into account (again, Re: Team Coco – and yes, that’s a real picture) creates backlash and problems with solvency of many of the brands involved.

So, if one does deign to use this approach, the hubbub must be justified – high quality content, loyalty incentives to keep the new followers while appeasing the old, and continuing to develop a solid brand relationship are all necessary to sustained success.  You can build off of a gimmick, but it requires a lot of work at relationship-building to justify the initial attention grabber.

Even if Law & Order Oh, That’s Still on TV?  With the Guy from ‘Kangaroo Jack’?  I Should Watch That gets a ratings boost and manages to inspire enough petitions to get its historic 21st season, or if the controversy leads to a record number of viewers for the first episode of L&O: LA, that’s no clear indicator of sustainable results.  They still need to earn the trust and respect of the viewers, and that’s not something that can be done as easily as getting that buzz.

So meet the new boss, same as the old boss – we don’t know how long they’ll be sticking around, but things might start feeling awfully familiar.

You remember that kid who was picking his nose in class when you were in high school?  Or what about the girl who didn’t brush her teeth?  Do you work with someone whose work day seems to rotate around sending you stupid Internet videos?  What about that dude at the gym who screams every time he does a rep at the bench press?

Do you snore?  Pick at your teeth?  Chew your nails?  Blame your farts on someone else (or your dog)?  Cut in line?  Do you dislike people who do that stuff?

Bad habits and practices, whether intentional or not, are all a part of a person’s personality matrix, which is a key component of their personal brand (aka reputation).  Having behaviors that are looked down upon by others, whether you blame Puritanical and archaic social mores or not, is something that we all deal with.  But it’s okay!

Back in my high school days, not only was I a jerk, but I also had a reputation for being an overachieving glory hound who looked down on other people and had an unjustly inflated ego.  Okay, maybe that’s how I remember it now.  Or maybe that’s how I am now.  But the point is, despite this negative reputation, I was also known for being an efficient, effective, creative and diligent worker.  As a result, people who might have been put off by some aspects of my personality still wanted to work with me because of my big, sexy brain.

You’ve no doubt teamed up with some of your nemeses (but not your archenemy – ever), people who you despised, because you found the utility in their contribution to achieving your goals.  Whether this was for a book report or a pitch to a new client, you were able to push down your mental list of cons about that person long enough to focus on the pros to get the job done.  Or you were at each other’s throats and sitcom-like hijinks ensued.

When you boil it down, the math for the situation is pretty simple:

reward gained by working together > reward gained by working solo

Or, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Personal branding experts will tell you to put your best foot forward, to carefully manage the flow of information about you, and to maintain your interpersonal relationships carefully (well, at least I do), but that can’t always be the case.  You can’t micromanage your reputation – it’s ultimately not up to you as to how other people interpret what they see and hear about you.

So if there’s a few bad things some people might say, don’t worry about it.  Being a control freak or a procrastinator isn’t the worst thing if you deliver on your promises.  Chewing loudly with your mouth open can be overlooked if you make meaningful contributions to your team.  And even quoting Family Guy every five minutes is excusable if you have killer leadership skills.

So don’t sweat your reputation; just make sure that people are hearing plenty of good things about you, and you’ll be fine.

A few years ago, I figured out this awesome method for determining if you should go to bed.  Please understand that the caveat is that this is rendered null by the inclusion of alcohol or other chemical enhancements.

All you need to do is say the word “spoon” as slowly as you can.  If you laugh, you’re tired and should go to bed.  If you don’t, you’re good to go.

I have no idea where this came from, other than the knowledge that the word “spoon” is intrinsically humorous.  But when one becomes tired or exhausted, its powers grow exponentially.

The Tired Test, as it has come to be known, has been tested the world over (20 countries on 5 continents!) and has been proven effective over 90% of the time.  So if you’re debating going out after that 11:45 PM text about a house party, or looking for an excuse to check out of a lame get-together early, tell ‘em you used the Tired Test.

And if they ask you to explain, just say “spooooooon” – chances are, they might need a nap too.

One of my favorite books growing up (even after I’d gone through The Firm and Rocket Ship Gallileo) was called If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, a story whose basic message is all about event chains, lateral thinking, Möbius strips, friendship, and obviously, mice and cookies.  Here’s an excerpt, to give you an idea of what I mean*:

If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for a glass of milk.

When you give him the milk, he’ll probably ask you for a straw.

When he’s finished, he’ll ask for a napkin.

Then he’ll want to look in a mirror to make sure he doesn’t have a milk mustache.

When he looks into the mirror, he might notice his hair needs a trim.

So he’ll probably ask for a pair of scissors.

Honestly, that’s about the first half of the book, but it explains something I’ve briefly glossed over before: “Give a Mouse a Cookie” Syndrome, where steps are continuously added to accomplish a goal that actually impede its completion.  And we all experience GaMaC Syndrome, though it can come in several ways.  Here’s a few examples:

• You’re done with college, and now you need money to cover living expenses.  So you go out and get a job.  Now that you have a job, you need to make sure that you’re up to date on all the latest industry developments, so you buy a bunch of books at the bookstore.  While you’re at the bookstore, you run into an attractive person and ask them out.  They say yes, so you go out on a date.  While on the date, you realize that you two have nothing in common, so you turn to a dating website.  The dating website tells you that you need an online payment account to join.  So you sign up for the account, then realize you can use it to buy stuff on an Internet auction page.  So you buy an expensive car that you can barely afford.  Desperate for more money, you ask for a raise at work.  And they tell you that if you want the raise, you’ll need an advanced degree, which means you’ll have to go back to school.
• You want to lose a few pounds for swimsuit season, so you decide to get in shape.  You start researching gyms, weight loss programs and at-home fitness videos.  You realize that you’ll need to buy workout clothes, so you go to the store to get them.  On your way to the store, you realize that you should probably talk to a doctor first and get their advice.  So you call the doctor and schedule an appointment next Tuesday.  The nervousness about going to see them about such a personal and embarrassing thing makes you stress-eat.  You’re now pudgier and in even greater need of exercise.
• You’re filing your own taxes.  The old-fashioned way, without software.

It’s easy to create logic chains and event structures around things.  The “if X, then Y, then Z” model is something that is used in everything from computer programming to assembling furniture to deciding what to have for lunch.  By laying out the steps needed to accomplish a goal, things can get horribly discombobulated, and you’ll wind up seven steps from where you wanted to be.

Think of the last time you went to the grocery store to get JUST ONE THING AND NOTHING ELSE and ended up buying a whole cart-full.  It’s easy to blame marketers for their shelf displays and impulse buy arrangements, but what it comes down to is a lack of the 6 P’s.

The 6 P’s, or the 6P system, is this: Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

If you can take the time to plan things out, whether it’s a business plan, a daily to-do list, or even just a few thoughts on how to accomplish a problem, you can weed out a lot of the unnecessary stuff and focus on what needs to be done.  Instead of running around in circles and procrastinating, you can get to the real meat of the problem and find a solution.

Man, all this talk about planning is making me thirsty.  I think I’m gonna grab a glass of milk.  And while I’m at it, maybe I should get a cookie, too…

* Numeroff, Laura J. and Felicia Bond. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. HarperCollins, 1985.

Wow, you guys.  I can’t believe it’s been a year already.  A lot has happened since I started the blog over 340 posts ago, and I appreciate all of you being here with me.  From the casual visitors to the Twitter followers to the subscribers, I’m very thankful for you giving me the opportunity to share some of the lessons I’ve learned from work and life with all of you.

To commemorate this momentous event, I’ve made a little video for you guys to say thanks.  But first, to preempt a few questions:

• Yes, that is Megatron on my shirt.
• Yes, I shot this video outside in Arizona in the middle of May, and the weather was pretty nice.
• Yes, I’m aware of the eyebrow thingie.  It’s an unconscious facial tic that I’ve had since I was born.  Sorry if it’s distracting.
• Yes, it tasted bad.  Not Double Down bad, but close.
• No, I won’t tell you what it actually was.

If you’re having trouble seeing the video, click here.

Thanks again for all of your comments, tweets, links, emails and general terrificness.  Without you, this blog would be a really lousy secret public journal site.

Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow. -Agent K, Men In Black

When I was six years old, I had my first taste of the future.  It came in a beige, boxy, loud hulking machine that sat in a room with its siblings.  As I pressed a button on its back, it hummed to life, a bright flash appearing before my eyes.  Moments later, it righted itself and together, we entered a new world.  I left my corporeal self behind and traveled to the past as someone else.

Of course, I’m referring to the Apple II and the original Oregon Trail.

Up until that point, I had no idea what a computer could really do.  I had mucked around on the Tandy 286 in my dad’s store, futzing with prehistoric spreadsheet programs and playing the most advanced games I could find for it, like Pac-Man and Space Invaders.  To me, the computer was a simple tool that had a long way to go.

I was seeing a new world of possibility – characters and scenes came to life as I found myself engrossed with the possibilities of the new digital world.  Word Munchers and Mario Teaches Typing soon followed, discreetly educating me as I played happily.  Of course, I had no idea that less than five years later, I would be able to play music or watch movies on a computer.

Once that came to pass, I didn’t think I would be able to join communities, find old friends or carve my own niche in the world with nothing more than a laptop and an Internet connection.  Then again, this kind of thought is nothing new.

Charles H. Duell, the U.S. Patent Office Commissioner famously said, “Everything that can be invented has been invented” – in 1899.  Keep in mind that Twinkies weren’t invented till 1930!  1930, people!

Can you imagine what the world would be like if we ran out of innovation in 1899?  We’d have lousy cars, wood roller coasters, coal stoves, really lousy light bulbs, and silent movies.  Can you possibly comprehend the horrible ridiculousness of Avatar as a black and white silent film?

“We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I will spend the rest of our lives.” -Criswell, Plan 9 From Outer Space

People are innovating and creating more and more every day, allowing us to do things that we might have never believed possible even a few weeks ago.  Our culture is becoming more advanced and creative at an alarming rate.  With ideas and concepts as the new currency, the wildest dreams of the turn of the century have already been surpassed.

For a six-year-old playing Oregon Trail on a top-of-the-line desktop box, I never imagined that less than two decades later, I would be playing the game on a small, portable computer that could fit in my pocket that comes with an exponentially larger memory, better music and nicer graphics.  The old game seemed like the end-all, be-all.

But we know that there’s plenty more where that came from, with unknown worlds and developments just waiting to be explored.  Imagine what we’ll know tomorrow.

Well, guys, it’s finally happened.  We’re closing in on the first year of NMH, and there’s been a lot of changes since May of 2009 (most of which are chronicled in links you can find on the about page).  And during that time, I’ve learned a lot.  But it seems that one of the most common questions I still get (besides the ones I answer in the monthly FAQs) is, “Why do you blog?”

The answer comes in three parts, the first of which is best explained by my very first post on May 19, 2009:

This blog is here to help explain some of the mistakes I’ve made (so you don’t) and offer some suggestions on dealing with an uncertain future.  Whether you’re another job-seeker or one of the lucky ones behind a desk that just enjoys some good old schadenfreude, I hope that you’ll learn something.

That mission statement is still true today – I bungled through an application blitz that failed miserably (honestly, it’s because I didn’t take my own advice), I’ve had a bunch of job interviews that didn’t go to well, and I’ve had the good fortune to gain employment not once, but twice.  And through it all, I learned something very important:

You can’t teach what you don’t know.

Everything that I post about is something that I’ve tried, or is something that I have seen done to success.  Nothing I tell you is untested, because it’s essential that any information, advice or suggestions that someone gives you work.  When I was starting on the post-college road, I found a lot of conflicting, untested and batshit crazy stuff out there, and a lot of it didn’t help.  And a lot of my friends were in the same boat.  So as I learn, I want to share it, so everyone can gain more knowledge and that there can be less contention over what works and what doesn’t.

The final reason, as I have mentioned before, is the less altruistic reason that the blog is a great way to keep my brain focused.  Whether it’s the unintentional brilliance of VH1 dating show contestants, Batman’s badassery, my pseudo-attempt at discussing my love life, or even a post that’s been in my head since before I started the blog, it’s been a terrific outlet to vent the ol’ cranium.

So why do I blog?  Because it helps people, and it makes my brain feel good.

Oh, and the spam is hilarious.

Do you remember when you first got the Internet in your home?  If you were like millions of Americans, you had snagged one of the quintillions of AOL discs*, installed the software, connected your computer to your phone line, and jacked in to the Information Superhighway.  Well, after several minutes of the most horrific screeches ever belched forth from a 56k/v90 fax modem.

You would be logged in to see a plethora of options, from news and chat rooms to email and Instant Messaging to weather reports, sports scores, and searches.  Oh, the searches.  The Internet was a new place, and as you would venture forth for your first sojourn into the World Wide Web, you might use Altavista, Yahoo!, AOL keywords, or even that newfangled Google thing.  All this information to explore with the click of a mouse or the tap of a keyboard!  It was truly a marvel of modern technology.

But what happens now?  You turn on your laptop, it grabs a wireless connection, and you’re online as soon as your OS has booted up.  You might head over to Facebook, Twitter, Gmail or some similar social contact site, then head to a news site, tech blog, webcomic or whatever.  If you need to look something up, you can always hit up Wikipedia or Google.  And that’s pretty much it.

And while that might not seem like a big difference, here’s the thing: it’s a huge difference, and a big part of the evolution of the Internet.

The online world used to be search-based; you would look up whatever you needed, testing the boundaries of what was available online.  It was still a static medium in that there was less user interactivity.  You would usually only have a web page if you were a developer, or (later on) if you created a Geocities page.

But as the Internet grew, and people figured out its possibilities and boundaries, it became much more dynamic.  Social networking brought with it an ease of personalized webpage creation.  New resources for sharing like YouTube, IMDB and Wikipedia made finding large quantities of information in one spot easier than ever before.  Social interactions have been forever changed.  The dynamic evolution created a shift, though: the Internet became destination-based.

Rather than consistently exploring, people now have a set group of websites that they visit, a group only expanded through referrals or links by trusted sites that are already used, or by friends.  Even as the scope of information has grown, the scope of attention has narrowed to the degree of selective ignorance.  We move around in niche packs, with fewer and fewer people expanding their views outward.

One of the largest destination sites is Facebook, which has tens of millions of users.  In fact, almost everyone I know is on the site.  Lately, there have been many criticisms of the site’s new privacy policies, causing a large uproar in the online community.  However, most people say that they won’t leave Facebook, as all of their friends are already on the site.  In essence, it’s an Internet-based catch-22.  You want to leave the site, but all your friends are on it, and they don’t want to leave because all of their friends are on it, and so on and so on.  As long as there are no alternatives, people will stay.

This problem presents a number of issues, the biggest of which is not privacy at all: should everyone on the Internet all be using the same website to connect to each other?  After all, we make thousands of connections in our lifetimes, and it might be prudent to have one place to find people to stay in touch with them.  The solution of niche social networks would require some users to become members of dozens, or even hundreds of sites to keep up with their social and professional contacts (not to mention that the main social network building site recently announced that it will be switching to a pay model), which would get too confusing and convoluted.  But when the utility of a site (connecting to everyone) is compromised by privacy issues, where do people go?

The way I see it, there are three choices:

1. Regression: You can always go back to the older methods of communication: email, IM, phones, evites, in-person meetings, maybe even (gasp!) write a letter.  All of these are still solid forms of communication, and chances are that they won’t be passing your info along to marketers.
2. Lateral transition: Twitter is pretty up-front about its stance on privacy, MySpace is still around, and there’s been a video floating about on the net about how good ol’ AOL can make a comeback.  Facebook isn’t the only game in town, after all.
3. Search: Remember what I said earlier about the old pioneer spirit of adventure in the early dial-up days?  Go out and find new communities and services – there might be something better just waiting to be discovered.

The Internet is a wonderful, expansive, open world of communities, communication, and information.  So go out an play once in a while.

*I’m not gonna lie, you guys.  My parents had dial-up AOL service up until last year.  But don’t worry, they got better.