Needle, Meet Haystack

The advertising world is in a tumultuous state right now, with traditional methods of advertising like print and TV on the decline, and companies spending less during the recession.  But many firms are finding a new way to stay in business, and stay profitable.

This recent article from Advertising Age highlights several agencies and their projects that are less about advertising and more about creating their own products.  It’s a fascinating case study in how businesses and their employees are evolving to changing trends and social demands.

Creating a Legacy Beyond Ads (via Advertising Age)

The great thing about the Intertubes is that there’s no shortage of reading material.  Newspapers and magazines put up their archives for us to purse through – FOR FREE.  Hopefully, this trend will continue for a long time.

I’ve been going through some of the stuff in Esquire, and there are a couple of amazing profiles that you should definitely read – one is on inventor extraordinaire and possible crazy person Dean Kamen (he created the Segway, among other things) and how he might save the world; the other is on film critic Roger Ebert and the aftereffects of his life-changing cancer surgery.  Both are fascinating reads that will not only give you something intelligent to talk about around the water cooler, but give great insight into the human condition.

How Dean Kamen’s Magical Water Machine Could Save the World and Roger Ebert: The Essential Man (both via Esquire)

If you haven’t looked around the blog lately, there have been a few changes organization-wise.

The categories have been completely redone to reflect the different areas that the posts fall in more specifically.  You can easily navigate between them using the drop-down menu at the top of the left column.  In a few weeks, a new page will be added for further accessibility.

The links page has been expanded to include many of the links that were on the old blog but do not fall into the “blogroll” category – you can find employment resources, other blogs and great time wasting pages at a click.

The NMH on the Web page contains links to everything from the blog’s Twitter and Facebook pages to email and RSS subscriptions and even the old site.

If you’re looking for a collection of posts that have been featured as guest posts on other blogs or as Brazen Careerist featured posts, check out the Notable Posts page.

And speaking of guest posts, did you read my guest posts from this week on Ophelia’s Webb and the Gen-Y Examiner?

Have a happy Valentine’s Day/Chinese New Year/Arizona and Oregon Admission Day/Anna Howard Shaw Day!

I submitted a story to Sharalyn Hartwel‘s  Gen-Y Dating Disasters Series, which was just posted today!  And as proof that it is indeed mine, I requested that my name not be anonymously attached.  After all, the best defense against libel is the truth.

So if you’ve ever wondered what the third-worst date in my life was like, check it out!

Alone on Valentine’s Day (via Gen-Y Examiner)

I got the chance to be one of the bloggers to contribute to Elisa Doucette’s awesome All You Need Series on Ophelia’s Webb, and my guest post is up today!

So this is my first guest post on another blog ever, and I’m really happy that it’s Elisa’s because her blog is totally awesome.

And if you read the post, you might notice that there’s a picture of me that isn’t a stylized logo or a haystack image!  I’m actual people!  Shocking, right?

Love Can Come From Everywhere (via Ophelia’s Webb)

For all of those who check out the official NMH Twitter account, you may recall that earlier in the week, I posted that I had just started reading Gene Simmons‘ Sex Money Kiss.  Well, I finished it.

In the book, Simmons espouses his philosophies on life, relationships and business.  And while I may disagree with some of the points he makes (re: marriage), he still makes a lot of sense.  A master of branding, merchandising and marketing, Simmons lets the reader into his head to see how the relentless promoting machine he calls a brain really works.

There are some great tips on expanding business, personal branding, motivation and fiscal responsibility that should be required reading for anyone interested in going the entrepreneurial route.  But be warned: some of the ideas presented in the book may seem misogynistic or reprehensible.  Nonetheless, it’s a fascinating read, and it belongs on the bookshelf right next to Seth Godin and David Ogilvy.

Sex Money Kiss (on Amazon.com)

The unflappable, ineffable, completely awesome Thursday Bram has released a terrific ebook upon the denizens of the Internet, Discover Your New Job Online. I might be biased because I’ve known Thursday since college, but trust me when I say that this is essential to any job seeker.

She covers everything: the early planning stages, makin’ yourself all professional-like, utilizing social networks and job boards, and that tricky little thing called landing the job.  And she writes well, delivering the information very cleanly and concisely without it ever getting boring.  And at just over 50 pages, you won’t get bogged down by unnecessary content or long, boring, irrelevant language.

The ebook is only $8.99, and you get it right away!  So if you’re a job seeker or know someone who is (and in this economy, we all know someone who’s looking for a job), take a look!  it’s definitely worth it.

Discover Your New Job Online by Thursday Bram (via Stepcase Lifehack Books)

A few weeks ago, one of the student newspapers at my alma mater interviewed me for a series on alumni entrepreneurs.  It’s more stuff that relates to my professional life, so read away if you want to find out some stuff that was left out of last week’s series.

And I swear to you, I had nothing to do with the title.

Finding the American Dream (via SixThirtyOne)

Not too long ago, I was looking for a way to make a digital resume that would stand out more than a standard Word document or pdf.  After all, the digital format offers more opportunities to be creative and to innovate the old format.  BriteTab is a free service that allows you to create great-looking digital resumes for free, with videos, links and images.  So if you want to create a resume that better represents who you are, check it out!

BriteTab

I’m a huge fan of Lifehacker.com, and in addition to all the stuff about green living, cheap fixes, awesome recipes and general lifehacking, they sometimes put up some great advice about job seeking.  Here’s a few posts that they’ve done recently that can help your job search (and career) go a lot more smoothly:

• Go on an Unsubscribe Purge with a Simple Search Some companies and job boards will automatically sign you up for their newsletters when you send in an application.  If you want to keep your mailbox less cluttered, this post offers an easy fix to getting off of all those mailing lists.
• Web 2.0 Suicide Machine Offs Your Online Identity If you simply have too many…questionable items on your social network profiles and want to scrub your Internet presence clean to create a more professional personal brand, this post directs you to a program that will take care of almost all the dirty work for you.
• Flexamail Helps You Social Network and Browse From Behind a Firewall Sometimes when doing research or working on a project, you’ll come across a site that is essential for you to see in order to complete your work but is blocked by your company’s firewall.  Here’s a way around that.  (NOTE: Do NOT use this for looking at NSFW stuff.)

All posts for this week’s Sunday Link via Lifehacker.