I use to wear hats all the time as a kid, baseball hats that is. Remember when it use to be a big deal to buy a fitted hat rather than one with the adjustable strap. It was always cool to figure out your head size so it fit just right. If I could have, I would have had a hat for every team in Major League Baseball.

I don’t wear hats like I use to anymore, but I definitely wear many different hats when it comes to the game of life. How many different hats do you wear in life?

Here are some of my hats: (they are in no particular order)

1. technology sales professional
2. entrepreneur
3. business owner
4. author
5. blogger
6. professional speaker
7. father
8. husband
9. home owner
10. youth pastor / preacher
11. bible student
12. mentor
13. one who is being mentored
14. son
15. board member

Tim Ferris over at The 4-Hour Work week would not be impressed with all of my hats but you just can’t outsource everything.
What about you dear reader, how many hats are you wearing? How do you make it all work?
Have a great weekend
Justin

Chip MacGregor who blogs about the publishing and writing industry has some great advice on how to get serious about your writing career.

I really needed this advice before I wrote my first book back in 2006.  He has a list of 10 items that would have helped me and will help you now jump start your writing career.  The one tip that I feel is most important is dedicating specific time to write, everyday.  If you are like me, life is jammed packed with way too much activity.  The very thought of writing a book, a daily blog post, or even a weekly article can be daunting.  However, if you dedicate a consistent time every day or every other day you will be amazed at how much writing you can actually get done.  Chip talks about how he chose to write for two hours every morning from 6AM - 8AM.  If he didn’t write at that time of the day he would have never wrote anything.  I love the idea of waking up at 6AM to write but for some reason my body doesn’t seem to function very well before 7AM.  Then it takes my brain another hour to wake up.  I would say by 8AM I am ready to write but not before that.  Can you write before 8AM?  Do you like the morning time or evening for writing?

The same idea can be said about blogging.  I have really determined for 2008 to get serious again about my writing and blogging.   If I don’t set aside a few minutes everyday to consider what I am writing or blogging about it will never get done.  I have never been diagnosed with A.D.D. but I sometimes wonder if I don’t have it.  Therefore it can be hard to focus on writing or finishing a post.  The phone might ring, an email will ding, a new text message has arrived, etc…  You know exactly what I mean.  If it isn’t one thing it is another.  However, if we are serious about our blogging and writing career we must try and push through the distractions to actually get some work done.

Hop over to Chip’s blog to read all about his great post in getting serious about your writing career in 2008.

Well I think I have finally found a theme that I like.  Thanks to Derek Punsalan over at 5thirtyone.com.

What do you think?  Post a comment to let me know.

Justin

As some of you reading this post know, I recently left my first professional job at the Pittsburgh Technology Council. I was there five years, and thoroughly enjoyed my time at the organization. In fact, I was an intern with the Council before they hired me on full time back in 2002. They took a chance on me which I will be forever grateful for.

Since leaving, I am beginning to live my goal of being self-employed. My first and well only client is EduLink Inc. I am doing business development work for them; working with school districts, colleges, and municipalities. We offer them database management solutions.

Now that I have officially been self-employed for a whole two weeks I thought I would share with you what I have learned so far.

1. Businesses pay way too many TAXES!
2. Health insurance is expensive no matter which plan you chose. Be grateful to your employer if they pick up a large portion of the monthly premium. To match the health care coverage I left behind at the Council would cost close to $1,000 per month!!! (By the way, government health care is not the answer either.)
3. The freedom to work with multiple companies at one time is liberating.
4. Any new business I land for EduLink or in other ventures will happen as a result of NETWORKING not cold calling or cold-emailing.
5. Office supplies are taken for granted at every corporation. Ironically enough staples, tape, paper clips, post it notes, and pens do not grow in cubicles. Someone had to actually order those items for businesses to use. Weird huh?
6. IT professionals within corporations are grossly unappreciated. When you are your own tech support you will quickly realize this.
7. Macs really can be used as a business computer, much to the chagrin of every Microsoft-centric IT professional in the world!
8. Self-motivation only happens when you love what you do.
9. It takes time to start anything new.
10. Nothing happens over night, even in the private sector.
11. Someone can make the switch from the non-profit or government sector to the private sector and succeed.
12. Your parents / spouse / siblings / friends will always be cautious when you leave a “safe and secure” job to step out into the great unknown of entrepreneurship. Mainly because they care about you and don’t want to see you fail.
13. People are jealous of people who succeed.
14. You really can invest without a 401K or pension.
15. IKEA is a great place for office furniture.
16. LegalZoom.com makes forming a corporation very easy.
17. Your accountant will be your new best friend and maybe even your lawyer…. nah, on second thought, let’s just stick with your accountant.
18. Business expenses are far reaching – another reason why your accountant will be your best friend.
19. The greater the risk the greater the reward – thanks Richard David
20. Not all technology entrepreneurs get out of bed at noon and work until midnight.

I am sure there is more items I could add to this list but this is good for now. If you have taken the plunge into self-employment or entrepreneurship drop me an email; justin at justindriscoll.net

A colleague of mine sent me a link to a really great web site called “The Cool Hunter.” Here is how they describe themselves:

The Cool Hunter is an Internet-based hub for the best and coolest of everything. Created and engineered for today’s demanding and discerning pop-culture audience – highly invested in stylistic and cultural trends.

Click here to view the amazing offices spaces from Cool Hunter.

They posted an article along with some great pictures of workspaces from different companies around the world. These companies have taken painstaking efforts to understand what type of work environment will allow their employees to operate at the most innovative and creative level. They have also thought through, or maybe I should say thought past, the assembly line mentality that most corporations still exisit in, from an office space perspective.

Think about it - when we went to school how were the desks aligned? They were perfectly formatted in straight lines and everyone even sat in alphabetical order. We were taught not to step out of line, not to stand out from the crowd. The best students were those who blended in, earned high grades, and high SAT scores. The students who were looked down upon were those who didn’t fit the mold of public education. Anyone who stuck their head up was considered a trouble maker and would not be tolerated. Why does it surprise us that the majority of office environments are nicely aligned rows and cubes? We have been sitting in them since we were old enough to attend school. The only exception would probably be kindergarten, but after that the condition began.

Therefore, when you view a web site like the one I linked to above it is almost baffling to consider working in an environment like that. It doesn’t fit the mold. It doesn’t compute with most of the current workforce.

I have a couple of questions

1. Have you ever worked at a company that had an office environment like the ones featured over at Cool Hunter?

2. Did it really make you more creative? Were you able to be more innovative?

3. What would happen to a company from a staff perspective if they began to impliment very different office environments like Coll Hunter is touting? Would people leave? Would it attract a new type of employee that your company was never able to attract in the past?
4. Can I keep my over-stuffed, high back office chair if I am working at a desk made out of a mini-van?

5. Most importantly will I still have a work enviornment where I can plug in my iPod if it runs out of juice during the work day? As long as that is possible I guess I can live with the mini-van in my office.

6. Since we are all reading about the up and coming labor shortage, will an office environment that promotes an innovative and creative culture attract a younger workforce? Will it attract the millennials that Ryan Healy advocates for over at Employee Evolution? (By the way, I am one of the people he is talking about.)

7. Is the return on investment going to be there if a company spends a boat-load of money on an office environment? How practical is this type of decision for a small company who is bootstrapping their way through life?

8. What type of company is optiimal to consider these radical office changes?

9. How will you measure your workforces improvement by offering such an environment such as this?

I am asking these questions because I don’t have all the answers. Feel free to offer your two sense by commenting on this post. Overall I love the idea of drastically shaking up the office space of companies around America. We live in a knowledge economy and should act like it. We no longer work on very many assembly lines in this country. We deisgn them but we don’t actualy work on them. since that is the reality our office environments should reflect our new way of working. A couple of recomendations for CEOs and interier designers:

1. Office environments don’t need to be uniform

2. They need to foster collaboration, team work, innovation, creativity

3. Fitting the mold in life is no longer cool

4. Being different is in an no longer considered wrong

How much longer can we really stand sitting in these boring cubes?

Question: Do you believe that job searching happens by divine providence?

My reason for asking such a thought provoking question is because this topic of divine providence in job searching does not get talked about nearly enough, at least not from what I have seen in the blogosphere. I am sure many of you reading this article today could point to times in your career where no matter what you did it seemed like doors kept closing on you during your job search. And then suddenly, as if by divine appointment a door opened that you never considered. The doors that you were knocking on were doors that in the natural seemed like logical choices and wise moves but for whatever reason they all led to dead ends. And the door that opened and proved to be the most fruitful was the one door that you never even considered knocking on. It was the one that probably never entered your mind or consideration. However, it was the one that brought the result you were looking for right from the start.

The inspiration for this article comes from my brother Ryan. After years of knocking on the most logical doors with little or no results, his unforeseen door opened this week with a new job at Fed Ex Ground here in Pittsburgh! Even though he applied for hundreds of jobs on the Internet Fed Ex found his resume on Monster.com and quickly interviewed and hired him. He didn’t know about the job nor did anyone refer him to the position, they randomly found him with no effort on his part.

Here are a couple of items that I am sure some of you can relate to:
Sent hundreds of resumes via online job boards and corporate web sites.
Countless phone screens and face-to-face interviews
Endless networking encounters
Frustration over the lack of communication from human resources departments (By the way, what is wrong with many HR professionals around this country? This is the one group that is supposed to be the best at communication within a company but when it comes to recruiting they display a pitiful example of good communication. If you interview someone multiple times for a position please have the decency to call them and let them know they didn’t get the job!!!!)
At one point a very large company gave him a verbal job offer only to never make any contact with him again. The words, “You have the job…we will send an offer soon” actually came out of HR’s mouth only never to hear from them again. I guess corporate priorities change on a dime now-a-days. Unfortunately the communication side of HR is slow to adapt.
Countless more hours of trying to come up with alternative plans for your full time job to ensure that you can put bread on the table, a roof over your head, cloths on your back, and gas in your car once you finally get the call that your time with your present employer has ended.

I believe that God has a plan for our lives and that our steps are ordered by the Lord. You may not be a Christian or believe that God has a plan for your life but you must admit that there are situations in life that you simply cannot explain or take credit for. The next time a new job or business opportunity comes your way unexpectedly or effortlessly you will have to ask yourself how this happened? Why did it happen to you at this particular time in your life? Some decisions and events are simply unexplainable except by Divine intervention.

jd

After much thought and consideration I have officially decided to resign from the Pittsburgh Technology Council effective December 21^st, 2007.

My decision does not come as a result of unhappiness.  In fact, I have nothing but positive comments to make about the Council and will continue to be a large supporter of their efforts.  I have greatly appreciated the time and resources the Council has invested in me over the past five years.  I will be forever grateful for this organization because of the chance it took on me right out of college and as an intern.  The skills, contacts, and people I have met along the way will not soon be forgotten.

However, I have been carefully considering my career goals over the past six months and feel that continuing on in the association world / workforce education world is not ultimately where I want my career to go.  I have therefore chosen to take a position in the private sector in a business development role.

My new venture will be one of an entrepreneur.  I have officially launched my own corporation, Education Meets Industry, which will be a consulting company in the education space.  My first and primary contract is with EduLink Inc, www.edulinkinc.com.  I will be helping them grow and expand their business by offering technology  solutions to K-12, higher education, and municipal governments.  They are a database management and information systems company.  I am extremely excited about what lies ahead for this company.

In addition, I hope to continue to add more value and resources to this web site in the way of articles, podcasts, vodcasts, and ebooks.  My goal is to grow my portfolio of resources for students and young professionals to help them find their passion in life and not a job.  These developments should start to pop up after the New Year.

Sincerely

Justin Driscoll

If you have read my book you know that I tell a story about my two uncles, Uncle Pete and Uncle Bob. In the book I make the point that their hard work over the past 40 years has sustained them in jobs. They have both retired since I published my book but as a follow up I wanted to share a picture with my Uncle Bob’s retirement party that took place this past Saturday.

Congratulations Uncle Bob! Over 40 years at “the can company.” Well done, you deserve that gun and golf clubs for your service!

And yes… that is my twin brother Ryan on the left.

In honor of my friend Josh Shipp I wanted to make you all aware that May is Foster Care month.

Check out their web site and check out Josh’s latest version of HeyJosh.tv.

Here is another Top 5 List for the Pro Blogger Writing Project.

A simple list of five ways to ensure that you always have a job or will get another faster if you lose your current one.  This isn’t a magical formula but more of a practical list.

Top 5 Ways to Always Have a Job

5. Hard working

4. Ethics Still Matter in Business

3. Innovative Employees will never be unemployed

2. Those that aren’t afraid to change are invaluable (flexibility / teamwork)

1. Your professional network is more valuable than you could ever measure