Music to my ears

Over the last couple of years, I've found it increasingly more difficult to discover new music. Whether it's time, laziness or the shear volume of new music, I'm not sure. Occasionally I'll stumble across something via a friend, the radio or the internet. But more often than not I'm stuck with what I know, and that can seem very limiting.

Enter Pandora. This service maps the genome of a song so that it can recommend like songs. It goes way beyond Yahoo & iTunes, where they simply look at what other people who listen to that song listen to. Pandora will match you with obvious stuff, but also some obscure stuff with a similar sound or genre.

I'm trying it out right now and will give you a review in a couple days/weeks. In the mean time, here's an article about Pandora from Fast Company that talks about some of the behind the scenes stuff.

'tis the season for thoughtless gifts

For the last 4-5 years I've struggled with what to get co-workers for holiday presents. Some years I'm really "on" and able to find things that particularly match each individual. Other years, I'm out at Target or ShopKo the night before the last work day before Christmas trying to find anything. One year my wife and I got creative and made chocolate covered pretzels and packaged them in holiday containers for our respective co-workers.

While I realize this is a little late for this year (I hope), perhaps this survey from Shopzilla will shed some light on shopping for co-workers.

Obviously the survey had a motive... drive traffic to Shopzilla, but the stats are interestiing nonetheless. Nearly half have received holiday gifts they felt were inappropriate, and of those, over half have received such gifts three or more times.

So what did I end up with this year? I went the generic route, and did Bath & Bodyworks shower gel for the ladies and aftershave soother for the one guy. Safe, practical and fairly well received I hope.

Here's a handy little guide for you:

Top 5 Rules for Gift-Giving Etiquette

1) No "practical" gifts. People buy vacuum cleaners and hammers for themselves.

2) No "generic" gifts. Rule of thumb -- if you can give the same gift to your mother, sister, brother, AND co-worker it's a generic gift.

3) If you re-gift, use new wrapping paper and make sure it's a good fit.

4) Do not give personal items such as perfume or undergarments to mere acquaintances.

5) No fruitcake!

Free Information Calls

This service I just discovered is appealing on several levels. Free411.com can be used from your cell or landline, and is just that - free information calls.

How it works: You call the toll-free number (1-800-FREE-411 or 1-800-373-3411) and ask them to look up the number you need (business or residential), and they do. Now there is a bit of a catch... if the category of the business you are inquiring about (say, insurance) has a paid advertiser, you will have to listen a 12 second ad from that advertiser before getting your desired info.

Reason #1 that I like this... I'm a big fan of something for nothing. Free is good.

Reason #2 this is a good thing... my wife and I use 411 ALL THE TIME (especially her) and it tacks on $5-$15 a month to our phone bill.

Reason #3 this rocks is that we are in little old Green Bay, WI, and if I can get the ball rolling quickly here at work, we can be one of the first to own our category with an ad - which is awesome!

I'll keep you posted, and let me know if you have any experiences (good or bad) to share. I did test it to look up my work number, and it couldn't find it via voice recognition, but the operator had no problem finding it and connecting me.

Email pet peeves

I think it's safe to say that email is both a blessing and a curse, especially at work. It's hard to imagine doing business without it, and yet, an increasing part of our work day is spent sifting through all the crap in our inboxes.

This article from MSN talks about a study done over the summer asking professionals what their biggest email pet peeve is. There was a tie for number one on the list between the dreaded "Reply All," and receiving gigantic attachments, often for no reason.

Reply All sucks because often the original email has abso-smurfly nothing to do with you, and yet somehow you get stuck in the endless string of replies, forwards and other bits of uselessness.

And stupid forwards are annoying enough, but getting the ones with 2, 5 or more megabyte attachments are the worst. Lately it's gotten to the point where it is litterally filling up my wife's email box. She's limited to 5 MB of storage (whaddya want for nothin'?) and two messages from friends filled her inbox to capacity. Unbelievable.

Something that's not on the list, but should be is folks that don't put a subject line, or put something completely unrelated to the message. Silly subjects are fine for personal communications, but for business, tell me what the message is about or I will likely ignore you. You've been warned.

Weidner R.I.P.

For those locally here in Green Bay you may have heard this, but it is with a very heavy heart that I share the news that the Weidner Center, as we know it, is dead after this season. The UWGB chancellor is in the midst of a press conference as I type this, announcing that 7 of my former co-workers will be let go on January 12th and the rest of the 25 or so staff members will be relieved of their duties at the end of the season. these are people who are/were committed to the arts in all forms and encouraging them in whatever medium they could.

"But Gary, they just canned your ass... what gives?" The Weidner is amazing, and without it, Green Bay will be much worse off. Had it never existed, I fear Green Bay would be more of a cultural wasteland than it already is.

Reasons for this drastic measure are numerous, and date back at least five years (and in some cases before that). Suffice it to say, it cannot be simplified to the fact that it was built on the east side of town, or they "don't get the good shows" as the media or the idiots calling in to the radio would have you believe. If you're looking for a cure for your insomnia, just ask me about it and I'll bore you to tears (right lauer?).

There is some talk that the center will continue as a rental hall in some way or another, details will become clearer on that plan shortly - but I am not holding my breath.

Suffice it to say that the arts world here in northeast wisconsin is forever transformed. Yea, Seinfeld and some other shit appeared there, but the Weidner did so much more for this community in terms of educational programming and exposing this Blue Collar Comedy/NASCAR crowd to real performing arts.

Bottom line, support your local arts community - performing & visual. The folks at ComedyCity, Venture Theatre, Community Theatre, UWGB, St. Norbert, and yes, even Frank's Dinner Theatre and any of the other local arts organizations I've neglected to mention deserve it. hats off to the PAC in appleton for bringing the Wal-Martization of the arts to Northeast Wisconsin.

And if one more moron says that Michael Moore's appearance at the Weidner is the reason for it's downfall, i will kick them in the shins really hard.

Totally viral... and wicked cool

Have you gotten the link to the crazy holiday lightshow set to heavy metal music? If not, you can access it here.

It's an interesting lesson in the power, speed and reach of the internet.

First, yes, it's real. The creator's name is Carson Williams and he lives in Deerfield Township, Ohio. I didn't believe it at first, but after reading more, he has it all controlled via computer and also broadcasts the music via an FM transmitter. Here's a gizmo similar to what he used. Even the folks at Snopes.com were called in to prove the authenticity. You can learn some more about Carson and the display at the Snopes.com entry.

This guy's display has taken on a life of it's own. I've received it from several sources, it's maxed out numerous servers (including the initial link I received to access it at Penn State), and he's even appeared on the Today show.

Second, because I know inquiring minds want to know, the song is "Wizards of Winter" by Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

Third, he recently shut it down. The frenzy was getting a little much for his family and his neighborhood, including a fender bender the other night.

All in all a neat story and interesting how it spread like wildfire across the net and email. In the story above, people were coming from all over the country to see his display, and one woman from Sweden was planning to see it when she visited family in the area later this month.

Socially Conscious or Oxymoronic?

Interesting excerpt from an upcoming book that I put on my Christmas list. The author is Douglas Rushkoff and the book is "Get Back In The Box: Innovation From The Inside Out."

This particular excerpt talks about the companies that paint themselves as socially concious, but often with contradictory results. He cites Ben & Jerry's ice cream here and how they use natural ingredients grown on family farms and go out of their way to promote the community involvment of the company and their employees. On the flipside of all this "good," Rushkoff points to the epidemic of obesity in America, and how can B&J say they are a socially responsible company when they promote obesity (or at least aren't doing anything to stop it).

There's also some interesting dialog that follows the blog entry.

But when push comes to shove, we have to acknowledge that Ben and Jerry's makes ice cream in a nation where 64.5 percent of the population 20 or older is overweight, 30.5 percent are obese, and type II diabetes is at an all-time high. According to the World Health Organization, obesity-related illnesses claim more than 500,000 lives each year. Ben and Jerry's chocolate-dipped waffle cones each pack 320 calories and 10 grams of fat before any ice cream is added. Its homespun ads showing cows on clean pastures make ice cream look positively healthy. Does encouraging charitable giving, environmental responsibility, and fair labor standards compensate for the obesity encouraged by its products and marketing campaigns?

There was an article in Fast Company last issue talking about the focus on doing good at Timberland footwear. The title says it all: "Is it possible to run a billion-dollar public company and save the world at the same time? Timberland's CEO Jeffrey Swartz is trying to find out." Schwartz is trying to strike a delicate balance between seemingly disparate labels - capitalist and idealist... and doing a seemingly good job thus far.

To PDF or not to PDF your resume

One of the first things I made sure to do for this last jobsearch was to create my resume in a variety of formats - word, text, pdf, etc.

The Marketing Headhunter offers a note of caution regarding the use of PDF resumes. While they are convenient and maintain the pretty formatting and design you spent so much time on, they have to potential to be a hindrance in your search.

One fact of life in the modern jobsearch is that resumes are electronically scanned by many HR departments and recruitment firms. And a downfall of PDFs is that this scanning is very difficult to do. So, you're best off with sending Word or text versions.

As he says, finding a job is a numbers game and if you are eliminated before even being considered, you are severely decreasing your odds. You can (and should) always bring the fancy copy of your resume to the interview once you score that.