Survival strategies

Scary Charts – Labor Force Participation At Lowest Since 1984

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The NFP report confirms the picture we have all known to grow and love – the people “entering” the labor force are temp workers, those with marginal job skills, and making the lowest wages. For everyone else: better luck elsewhere: the number of people not in the labor force has soared by 7.5 million since January 2007, and the average duration of unemployment is 40.8 weeks – essentially in line with last month’s record 40.9. Bottom line – if you are out of a job, you are out of a job unless you are willing to trade down to an entry level “temp-like” position with virtually no benefits or job security.

NFP Payrolls At 200K, Expected At 155K; Unemployment Rate Drops To 8.5%, Labor Force Participation At Lowest Since 1984 | ZeroHedge.

Click the link for the charts.  In prior posts I’ve reproduced Scary Charts on my website.  For these charts I’d like my readers to go to the source, especially if you have never read Zero Hedge.

I spend a lot of my “free” time catching up on the news.  Saturday mornings are my favorite time to catch up on news, think, and reflect.  We all need time to think deeply.

Networking for Survival – HBR

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Without the network, you don’t get new ideas into your organization, you don’t see trends and issues that affect you and your customers, you don’t grow and develop your people with new challenges and opportunities, you aren’t attractive for young talent, you don’t learn about new technologies or business models, you don’t create new markets and you risk deluding yourself with your own ideas. You don’t increase your own value and advance your own career. Without the network you stagnate, you become stale. With the network you grow, provide meaningful and valuable solutions to your customers and not just survive, but thrive.

via Networking for Survival – Deborah Mills-Scofield – Harvard Business Review.

Great post and well worth reading.  One comment caught my eye,

When new forms of communication emerge, don’t just look at how to improve what you’re doing already, but at new ways of doing.

I immediately thought of social media as a new way of doing.  My transition from a dumb phone to a smartphone is a new way of doing (for me).  One of my new projects for the New Year is to create a Google+ business page.  Is this an “improvement”?  Not really.  It’s just a new way of doing.

Change This – The Promise of Entrepreneurship

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We are made to believe that when it comes to business success, bigger is always better. In our super-sized, consumption-oriented culture, not even small business is exempt from the pressure to grow for growth’s sake. We fixate on top-line revenue growth and increasing numbers of employees and locations. We pepper entrepreneurs with questions such as, ‘What are your plans for expansion? What’s next? How many cities will you go to?’ instead of asking what their goals are or why they started their business in the first place. When talk about growth we focus on speed, not sustainability. When we talk about success we focus on size, not satisfaction.

via Change This – The Promise of Entrepreneurship.

From the Change This website:

Adelaide Lancaster is the co-founder of In Good Company, a community, business learning center and coworking space for women entrepreneurs in Manhattan. She is a small business expert and has advised thousands of women entrepreneurs on how to create businesses that meet their needs and keep them satisfied over time. She earned two graduate degrees in psychology from Columbia University and her undergraduate degree from Colgate University. ingoodcompany.com

GYL here – this manifesto really hit home for me.  I am 5.5 years down the Path and I would have to say the effort and sacrifice is worth it.  So if you’re on your Path or if you are not and considering getting on your own Path, you ought to read this.  The link takes you to the Change This website.  Once there you can download a PDF of the manifesto.

 

 

Bob MacDonald on What’s So Hard about Doing the Right Thing?

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In the abstract it is easy to say that doing the right thing is – at the very least – reporting the improper activity. But what if your report seems to be ignored? Are you off the hook and have no further responsibility? Even worse, if you do report it and your boss survives with nothing more than a reprimand, what might this do to your personal well-being and your future with the company? In theory, of course, you could quit your job and find another; but in this economy, is that possible? Is now the right time to put you and your family’s financial future at risk? You could go halfway and say nothing while you look for another job, but is that the right thing to do?  This type of enigma is not an academic exercise. Anyone who has ever been in the business world, with ambitions to be successful and rise up the pyramid and support a family knows this type situation – and a wide variety of others – is more reality than theory. The real questions are: At what point are you willing to dilute or even trade in “doing the right thing,” to protect your career by “going along to get along”? At what point do you break and become willing to rationalize the elements of “doing the right thing?”

via What’s So Hard about Doing the Right Thing?.

Bob’s right.  Read his entire blog post to understand why it is not easy to do the right thing.  Thanks Bob and please keep writing and sharing.

Four Days, Three Earthquakes – Still OK in OK

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Welcome to the USGS – U.S. Geological Survey.

I would like to thank one and all who expressed concern for our well-being this past week.  The most recent earthquake was a 4.7 in magnitude and came in the midst of severe thunderstorm and flash flooding activity.  I heard a loud bang that was immediately followed by walls shaking in the house.  Fortunately I reside around 60 miles from the epicenter of the recent quakes.  Still OK in OK.

You'll find Edmond a little to the left of the star.