Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” – Luke 12:43-44

There have been some recent events that got The Region Business community chattering. Watercoolering.

On more than one occasion I’ve been asked about the situation because of my resourceful insight. So before the events flare up for its upcoming round of speculation, I will give me take on the events:

Last night I went and bought groceries at the local store. Bagels, apples, nothing spectacular.

It was 11:00pm on a Sunday night and the checkout girl Walmart-greeted as I walked in. I thought I was coming in late and she was feigning her happiness. But she was sincere. Smiling, humble, gracious.

Fearing the wrath of the employees – for I’ve been on that side of the time clock - I scrambled to get to the essentials before hustling back so they could get home sometime tonight too.

But as I got slid into her line, she greeted me as soft and penitent as when I first arrived. As did the gentlemen in front of me, looking worn from his fast food gig as he happily scrambled up the change to buy his bag of pretzels.

During the transaction, the gentlemen was raving about a contest in which he just won a car.

“The others, they wanted the Caddys. But I didn’t, you know? I don’t want to pay for those repairs…my uncle has a Caddy…I’m glad I got the Buick.” - was the gist of message.

I said, “No, I hear ya’,” I said as I took my receipt and started bagging my groceries.

The whole time I kept thinking that something was different about this conversation. This wasn’t an ordinary lottery. But before I could sharpen my thought, the gentlemen bagged his bag, apologized for being in the way, and took off before I could chuckle at his absurd politeness.

Then I turned back to the lady.

The checkout girl spoke with almost a sheepish cadence as if she was afraid of getting into trouble. I wanted to apologize.

“I’m sorry for that.”

I finally got my chuckling out when I said there was nothing to be sorry for.

Then it all made sense.

She said, “We used to live together at the (name omitted on purpose) shelter. He just won one of the cars at the donation auction there. Now he can drive to work.”

(I think I get that quote close to correct.)

She went to apologize and I said, “It’s a great story.”

I should have said, “That’s the most beautiful story I’ve heard in a long, long time.”

I would have used more detail but it wasn’t my story to tell. I feel guilty for telling as much of it as I did and I hope their success story continues and they get to tell it in great detail to a great many people many, many times because it’s such the story worth telling.

Being a child whose mother benefited from President Carter’s vision of welfare, I can’t not be touch by that. I can’t not defend that.

These are the stories we need to watercooler about.

These stories of people getting back up, battered and bruised. And getting their hands back into the dirt. And of the many great charities and churches doing good works to help these people who should never have had to suffer.

These are the people I want to rave about, talk about at length, and support and defend with unrelenting passion and vigor if they fall under the mercy of the positioning of lesser people.

These are the people worth commenting about. These are the stories that should be getting the pages of column inches

instead of the petty puff pieces that pander and placate to the public’s prayers to parade vicariously through pirates.

“Second star on the right, and straight on till morning.” - J. M. Barrie

With the thousands of people in The Region alone still suffering the ripples of corporate indulgence, that last thing I want is to be reminded of it, again. Or to give it anymore press.

There are too many other pilgrimages to promote.

Who’s with me?

(the sad truth is that if this story gets any traction, it won’t be because of the good souls I met at the grocery story last night)

NOTE:  If you’re looking for the Indiana Career Connect Site, click this link. If you’re the state and wondering how my post is ranked as high as it is for your domain, you should contact this Indiana company.

According to the Indiana State Workforce Development Self Service Claimant Unemployment Website, all you have to do – once you’re approved for unemployment benefits – is the following:

• Register, post your resume and have your resume available on line for employers to view in our job matching service (IC 22-4-14) at https://www.IndianaCareerConnect.com within four (4) weeks of filing your claim.
• To fulfill work search requirements, submit one application per week (first line of on-line weekly voucher) and conduct two additional work searches per week (second and third line of on-line weekly voucher) in order to remain eligible for benefits. You may apply for work in person, by mail, or online, and be able to document your job application information to DWD upon request. Mailing or submitting a resume for an open position qualifies as applying.

Failure to complete these requirements will cause benefits to be denied until these requirements have been met.

(source url: https://solutions.dwd.in.gov/uplink/uplink-information.htm#benefitRequirements)

I have fulfilled the obligation, as noted below:

As you can read, my Resume is online and searchable by employers.

Yet when I go to fill out my voucher, the state unemployment site tells me the following:

Confused? Me too.

Since I figured it was just a disconnect between:

• https://uplink.in.gov/CSS/CSSLogon.htm (Indiana state online employment claimant site)
• https://www.indianacareerconnect.com/ (Indiana state job boar)

I didn’t think too much about it.

But then today I went to go catch up on my claims and I couldn’t go past the week of 12/12 claim because of the “STOP! Provide information on all links below!”

Midnight hit, and I was allowed to reactive my claim. REASON:  I didn’t “provide all information” within 30 days according to the state claim site, even though I had it done within a couple days of filing my claim.

And today is Sunday so I can’t call. So I went to the only place I can ask questions about my claim online:

https://askworkone.in.gov/

I asked the following question:

I have been approved for unemployment. I have uploaded a resume to the indiana career connect site. I have done all that is required yet when i go to my claimant homepage, it still tells me: SMARTLINKS – STOP! You must provide information on all links listed below. Go to Job Match What more do I have to do?

The site told emailed me with an autoreply:

We have received your message and will respond to you within 7 days.

You may review your message below. Thank you for asking WorkOne!

7 DAYS? U’mmm, no.

I bitched on Twitter, got a couple of nice replies from Noah Coffey & Douglas Karr. DK said something that triggered a thought:

Who the Hell did design the sites?

So I did a little poking around to discover that at the bottom of https://www.indianacareerconnect.com/ is a note:

Well, who the Hell is Geographic Solutions, Inc?

Come to find out that Geographic Solutions, Inc. is a employer software solution based in the Indiana town of Palm Harbor, Florida. Here’s the Geographic Solutions Press Release about their development of Indiana Career Connect. Now I know there’s the joke that Florida can also be called “South Indiana,” but I don’t think that counts as My Man Mitch keeping the work in-house.

So, my guess:

Indiana state’s archaic unemployment claim site isn’t syncing with the Florida company’s Indiana job board site and people like me who need the site are suffering for it.

PROVISO:

I am still not certain that it’s a sync issue. I could have done something wrong with my claim. If that’s the case, then the state’s sites do not properly tell me what more I need to do to correct the problem. Either way there is a disconnect.

I can’t wait to find out and pass that information along.

Check back tomorrow as I give tips in an open letter to the state on how to make the sites suck less.

UPDATE 5/01/2010

Hi, I switched the commenting system on this post and my old comments no longer appear. I apologize.

To let you know, later on that week (first week in January, 2010) I finally got a hold of someone at the state and what they told me was that I had to login to the Indiana state unemployment site once a week or the paused the account. The policy changed in summer 2009 whereas before so long as you were eligible you could go back and do a couple / three weeks worth of the claim at the same time.

The thing that is still unbelievable is that they leave that…

“Stop! You must provide information on all links below!”

With a link to that 20th century Indiana Career Connect site even if you have filled all the information out because, as the guy on the phone told me (I wish I could remember exactly but it’s been 4 months)…

“We leave that link up there anyway so people can go to the Indiana Career Connect site”

That is textbook horrific user experience.

It’s almost hard to believe that big companies believe Indiana is technological behind.

Hey, My Man Mitch, I’m sure you’ve seen this post because I’m outranking the Indiana Career Connect site, I work for a great company – in INDIANA – that could make that Indiana Careeer Site into a valuable asset. Leave me a note.

(“Never Been to Spain” by Three Dog Night. Video by?????)

Talk of Aaron’s Sorkin’s SportsNight at work lead to a talk to about how Season 1, Episode 19, Eli’s Coming, featured not one but two Three Dog Night songs. Yes, very good. The other being Never Been to Spain.

Never have quited figured out the point of Never Been to Spain, but I think that’s the point. So the song blues’, “What Does it Matter?”

This is the lesson I’m learning this week.

When I was 19 I knew where life was going. When I was 22, life was gone. Now that I’m a few (hundred) days older, I’m starting to put it back together. This time, I’m going through life without preconceptions. This way, I experience the adventures and quit comparing to the life I thought I was going to lead.

“What does it matter?”

Case in point:  I’ve got an ungodly amount of buddies who are college professors. Most of them figured I”d be the professor, but sadly the time in the denominational fishbowl made me claustrophobic. Still, Life found a chorus to repeat.

One of those buddies just approached me with the idea of doing a college textbook that incorporates both my bachelor degrees as well as all of my field experience.

At first I felt the fishbowl closing around me. I was a little apprehensive, but it passed. The fact the buddy already has the U’s support helped. I suppose we can all be Corporate Whores, even when faced with old war wounds. But can I face the Denominational University demons and embrace such a challenge?

We’ll, I’m already running the sketch through my head to the tune of Never Been to Spain, reminding myself…

What does it Matter?

the T.O. Show proves that everybody's dreams are different.

I spent most of my weekend within sight of a beautiful day.

I have a corner room and both windows were open. The breeze coming through the windows was as soothing and refreshing as I imagined it during last year’s cabin-fever winter.

At the time of this writing, The T.O. Show is on as I let the stress out. I was surfing and stopped when I saw him and his bodyguard moping about the home after on the day he was cut by the Cowboys. In that moment I could relax and relate with the self-centered jackass. His agony on the show probably lasted as long as his agony in real life – 3 minutes. Then he got signed by Buffalo for X-millions.

This is when I stop relating with him.

Not for the money, fame, press or stone hands in pressure moments, but because he’s on that side of his dream and I’m on this side of my dream. And even though he’s own the downward slope of his playing career, he’s living it and should be able to enjoy the fruits of his dream for a long, long time.

I also stopped relating with him because he packed to bags, bought a fancy house in LA and is now sleeping with the Realtor. At this point I’m starting to think this episode was shot in real time given the flurry of events.

And, T.O., before you let this score go to our head, you should realize that the Realtor played you. AND she got paid, again.

But I watched all the shit from my TV, again.

Time to get to sleep and catch up on my life.

Jesus – now they showed a minute of footage where T.O and his P.R. people ripped on the bodyguard for ripping ass in the brand new Bentley convertable…now he bought a $137, 000 pair of earrings…

This has got Corporate Whoredom written all over it!

I can tell my patience is wearing thin regarding my epic wait for the edits to my Book of Blues. The good news is that I talked to my cousin. I talked to him in that Facebook chat-sort-of-way. I don’t blame him. 70-hour work weeks in the blizzardom of Minneapolis has to hurt regardless of whether it’s indoor or outdoor.

To my surprise he said many a good thing about Book of Blues. He says I write very, very well. He doesn’t give out compliments so that was a suprise. Smiles emanate from him when he can get steal time to read. He says that it really goes quick. These are easily better comments than what I was expecting.

He does think there is some fat to trim. I don’t disagree. I just need fresh eyes to determine where the fat needs trimming. He’s also considering my thought of splitting the book in half given it’s girth. He’ll have to consider it. The second job he has a a book store is sadly being given up. But, he’ll have more time to read it.

I’ll have to consider what he thinks about “unnecessary description” because he’s a confessed skimmer when it comes to description. I’ll need a bigger sample size. Let me know if you’re interested.

As for the little things gettin’ to me, I refer to DB and Max Power at the Whoredom. I need to write more for them.

image can be fond on flicker.com. username: keks.au

This week I got put on the Social Media Team at work. In my case, it was officially putting me in something I already was unofficially doing. A little Social, a little SEO Copywriter Chicago, a little PR, a little analytics…

We talked about how we were going to be transparent. I like the idea. I’m always in favor of the idea. People get mad at me because, unless they tell me to keep something a secret, I’m a proponent to the “freedom of information” act.

It got me thinking about how to ensure protection on the company’s brand. (Bare with me. You might need to Finndex these thoughts.)

There’s a caveat when boldly engaging in social media:  in addition to engaging a dialogue, Social Media is, yes,  supposed to be about transparency and authenticity. And, granted, overt conservatism is starting to fall by the wayside with the election of Obama. But eventually, no matter how far the U.S. political meter shifts to the left, the political correctness of society will collide with the transparency of Social Media. The question will be:  how close do you want to be to the accident?

You can be viral and audacious with your honesty. If you’re starting a career, in the middle of the career, or just trying to brand yourself, the honesty in Social Media will be the fast way to find the bounds of your career’s world. But, eventually, you’ll hit a landmine.  If you’re prepared, you’ll better be able to mitigate the damage.

I speak of someone who’s made blowing up social environments a habit. I’ve set “experiments” in social dynamics with the Man just to see the outcomes. They make for a great Book of Blues (btw – sttil waiting on my cousin who says he’s about done editing said Book of Blues).

Just remember to keep perspective. Social Media authenticity in the U.S. can be such a revolutionary high that you can forget, for most of us, you’re in “free” market America. More importantly, you’re in a capitalist society. I warn against being too engulfed in Social Media Idealism. Eventually, every good idea gets perverted n abused for profit and personal gain. Some call it “capitalizing,” – in the worst sense of the word. Someone will capitalize on your authenticity:  lawsuits, scams, duplication. It will happen. Prepare for it. A new medium still has to obey the existing laws, at least until the laws are updated.

I’m not saying to not engage in social media . Far from that. Embrace it with both arms – n legs if you can. Wrap around it good n tight. 50 years ago a few advertisers had a handful of TV channels and a sprinklin’ of radio stations to get the word out. Advertisers had to be aggressive. Even more ruthless than today. They had to position more. Now, the world is an ocean of information. All you have to do is find the right wave and surf. Enjoy the ride with your clients. You don’t have to try to change the physics of the market to in order to control the tide anymore.

Just remember the Social Media world hasn’t been fully mapped. Venture smart, especially if your dealing with your corporation’s marketing. It’s their livelihood, it’s your livelihood, it’s your friends’ livelihood. For every Lewis n Clark there’s been a Smith n Jones who weren’t as successful.

“Who were Smith n Jones?” Exactly!

My Advice

all great prosecutors think like criminals. All great generals learned how to think like their enemy. All great White Hat SEOs are versed in Black Hat (or they’re getting REALLLY lucky). The best offense is a good defense n vice versa. Insert Sun Tsu s#it here about “all warfare is based on deception”. It’s all accurate.

As Blues god Howlin’ Wolf said: “If you’re thinkin’ evil, you’re thinkin’ ’bout the blues.”

Learn how to think a little evil for your own good.

That’s why I am a Social Media Bluesman.

Finally made it to the local Mecca, Cheeseburger in Paradise. It was theraputic, enjoyable. I’m a sucker for outdoor dining to begin with, but put me within site of a flat panel tv so I can watch the NFL Wildcard games m me n oldold man are happier than pigs in slop.

I got to experience fine SW Florida local minor league hockey. It was a twist from watching FGCU basketball where the announcer there requested the crowd cheered on an optimistic manner. Hockey fans, on the other hand, are playfully mean. It think the Everblades reacted off the crowd a little too much because after scoring 3 goals in the first ten minutes of the game – which resulted in having the opponent’s goalie replaced – the Everblades started to play like the Hanson Brothers from Slap Shot. They successfully killed 8 of 9 of their opponent’s power plays while bruising their way to an easy 4-2 victory despite being outshot 37-20.

Good to see there’d be things to do out here in case I ever moved down. I’ve been watching the local realty channel as I write this. In order to live in the home I’d want – screened-in pool, western gulfside view on the island and “just steps to the beach” (note to local SW Florida realty copywriters: first one to come up with an original version of that worn-out phrase gets the viewers’ attention) – I’d only have to sell Book of Blues Prequel, Book of Blues, Book of Blues Sequel, write n sell the movie scripts, star in the movies, win acclaimed awards, win the WSOP main event, win the lottery, wish upon a star, rub a lucky coin, pray to the applicable patront saints, catch a lepprechaun, and get a little lucky.

Hmph. I got a little writing to do. . And, no, I can’t write the Book of Blues just to sell. The series already themes the values of relating and identifying with people. Because of this focus point, the story is moreorless writing itself. I have to focus on getting the details.

Time to go enjoy my last full day this season in Ft. Myers, Margaritaville. One day, I’ll be able to live at Mecca in some fashion.

I went into the national celebration called Black Wednesday not realizing how much I needed a release. The release came in moments wrapped up in ironies. Real ironies, not the poetic moments people mistake for ironies. Then again, I hold off on that because I might get to the end of this thought and mistake my own poetic moments for irony.

I get claustrophobic which works out well because Black Wednesday (the night before Thanksgiving) is the busiest night of the year and most of the night is spent shoulder to shoulder with people at them there bars.

The more and more I wanted to look at the college girls walking through the door the more I felt like their older brother. It’s the stars in their eyes and their desire for the next five minutes that had me aging. We all go through those stages along our ways. Note to self: GET TO THE GYM MORE!

I listened to a band that spends much of their time sounding like chicks in their effort to play for chicks. This works out well because I’ve been listening to DB go on and on about how the mythical lore which made Rock n Roll “Rock n Roll” has all but completely sold out the Man that it rebelled so hard against. He supposed Marx could have been right: you put down a rebellion by paying off the leaders. Forgive him. He’s been listening and preparing his thoughts for Corporate Whoredom regarding Guns n Roses “Chinese Democracy.” DB’s concerned that perhaps the album was the last remaining hope for real music fans to hear quality music on radio stations again and that the only way Chinese Democracy would have given the music faithful hope would have been to remain but a hope and stay unpublished.

Anyway, while listening to The Unit play for chicks and enjoying them enough to where it feel ironic to the point of traitorous…

The Thriller Dance Contest

I realized that powerful music once named “Rock n Roll” then “Rock” might be circling back around. The reason “rock and roll” was “rock n roll” was for a simple reason. With that realization, my traitorous sensation started to subside. As a line from my favorite TV show, Sports Night, promptly put it:

“And in that moment, Dan was reminded once again of why he wanted to write in the first place. It’s for the same reason anybody does anything…to impress women.”
–Sports Night, “Dear, Louise” written by Aaron Sorkin

And while I listened from afar to the comical antics of The Unit, I felt better about the state of things. “Rock” might now have a fighting chance because there’s no more saviors to wait upon. DB disagrees. So it goes. I can’t wait to read his thoughts.

I continued to listen from farther and farther away because me, DB, Gag and Max commandeered the dart board in the back of the room, bought all the quarters the Franklin House cash register had, and hung out by ourselves in the back all night. I love filling up all the spaces on the dartboard with quarters: “NO ONE ELSE CAN PLAY.”

We threw and threw and threw and threw until the end of the evening came and DB, Max and I started to talk about upcoming posts for both the Whoredom and our own sites. Yes, I threw like crap or I would have mentioned how well I did. I don’t have the constitution of the others so I had to cut myself off and sober up so I could give the others a fair game by the end of the evening. I did spend time thinking about that as well.

It wasn’t until the next day – by the way, “Happy Thanksgiving” – that I realized I didn’t spend time about Book of Blues tthe night before. I didn’t think about how to publish a Book of Blues. I didn’t think about how my cousin’s going slower at reading it that I anticipated. I didn’t think about sequels. I didn’t think about the others that want to read it. I didn’t think about the others willing to give Book of Blues additional fresh eyes to look for edits – it’s print. It’ll take many eyes. I didn’t even think about being how far I’ve come to carve out a foothold as a copywriter from Chicago. I wasn’t looking at the blurry-eyed starlight of the future. I wasn’t measuring the shadows from the past. I was enjoying the moment for a change.

Well, sh#t. Maybe I’m a poet, too.