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Category: Business & Communities

7 ways professionals help you recruit better

Published March 9, 2009 by Jo Jordan

4 new jobs created!

Just before Christmas, I helped out a charity who needed an extra pair of HR hands to get the specs for 4 new jobs onto their website before the Christmas shutdown.

I spent a day poring over their project plans and notes and generated ONE four-and-a-half page document that

  • Summarized the project
  • Listed the project team
  • Described FIVE and only five responsibilities for the Project Manager and the Project Officers showing the links between the two levels
  • Named FIVE competencies which had the same headings for both positions
  • Distinguished the positions with sub-bullet points listing the competences without prejudging where candidates may have gained their experience
  • Pinpointed the minimal experience that someone would need to be promoted into the position
  • Made sure experience gained at one level was a clear promotion track to the next
  • Highlighted unusual contractual provisions
  • Outlined the selection process.

Hmm, everything for 4 jobs was on 4.5 pages except for the the pay levels and a template of the employment contract.

Today, the charity rang to give me some feedback..  These are the 7 benefits they spontaneously described.

7 benefits of a successful recruitment campaign

1.  The response to the advertisement was quick and good.

2. Candidates said they understood immediately what the job was about.

3. An interviewer co-opted from a sister charity said that if she had seen the job in time she would have applied for it!

4. Appointments were made to all 4 jobs on the first pass, yet another team recruiting at the same time, in the same organization, in the same town have not been able to appoint and are starting again.

5. Staff within the charity felt comfortable with the list.

6. Candidates felt they were able to talk about what they COULD do.

7. A broad range of candidates applied and the charity is pleased to appoint an ‘expert team’ of people who compliment each other.

Next steps in evaluating the recruitment drive

Of course, the final evaluation is whether the team clicks together and whether all four new members of staff are happy and productive.  I’m sure I’ll hear from them one way or another!

What other gains do we deliver for our clients when we assist them recruit staff?

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4 fold plan to map your own future

Published March 5, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Botrychium lunaria
Image via Wikipedia

Take charge of your life, please!

I’ve just watched a Reuters slide show of people looking for work in the States, China and Japan.  Sometimes we have to look for work!

But to do it without having a larger plan is the most frightening and desperate thing we can ever do.

It is a mistake to define our life by the opportunities created by other people.  It would depress me.  It would depress anyone.  It will depress you.  It is such a bad idea.

Finding a job is like traveling abroad

A young friend of mine described choosing a career direction as being in a foreign country and asking people for directions.

Have you ever noticed that the locals in a foreign country don’t know where anything is?  It’s not surprising really.  They go to the same places every day.  They don’t know what is useful to a visitor or newcomer.

My young friend has made the gustiest decision he will ever have to make.  He has decided not to rush it.  He’s continuing with his student job while he works out what he really wants to do.

What I’ve suggested to him is that he pretends he is an adventurer in an uncharted place and draw the map as he goes.   So to extend the metaphor,  when he sees a mountain, put it down roughly.  When he sees a lake, add that to his picture.  And so on.

He’s contributed a pretty nifty metaphor that completes the other three I wrote about this week.  This is how they work together.

1  Define your core value (five minutes)

  • Scan a list of flowers and their symbolic meaning to capture your sense of the value you deliver.
  • I found btw that I want a red carnation for me (meaning I carry a torch for you) and lunaria for my company (meaning prosperity).  I don’t mean I just want my company to be prosperous.  I want that, of course.  I mean that the job of my company is to deliver prosperity to other people.
  • Which flower captures the value you deliver?

2  Resolve to do well by doing good (relax)

  • Be like my neighborhood restaurant in Olney.  Do what you think is right and do it for free.
  • Don’t be so focused that you only think of getting a job or how much money you can make out of other people.
  • Let people help you.  And you will find that people do.
  • People want to applaud you success.  Let them have have the pleasure!

3  Each day find 1 signpost and 1 person who is closer to where you want to be than you are now

(1 hour searching and 10 minutes recording)

  • Do a daily exercise finding a website representing activities that take you one step further and make contact with one more person who is closer to where you want to go than you are now.
  • Do this daily, and don’t break the chain!  Then add a rough diary of what you did during the day and WHY IT WENT SO WELL!
  • You’ll have 30 websites and people at the end of the month.  In month 2, each day also discard a website and person each as you find another pair.  (Or put them in another box.)
  • In this way, you’ll edge towards the place you want to be.
  • I don’t know how long it will take, but you’ll be surprised at how fast it goes.  My guess is 3 months.  You tell me when you’ve tried.

4  Draw your map (7 minutes)

  • And each day add to your map.
  • What is the landscape of your field and its future as you see it?
  • Keep adding features as you go.
  • And whatever you do, don’t try too hard.  Your map might mutate into a map of the underground or something like that.  Just don’t jump to defining answers.  Doodle!  We want your creative juices flowing freely.

Who should do this?

The recession is so severe, everyone should be doing this.  If you are in a good place right now and it looks secure, then sure, do it intermittently.  Jot down websites and people intermittently and review the box once a month.

For everyone else, I would say this exercise has fairly high priority.  The bankers say they didn’t know what they were doing.  The government says it is uncharted waters – meaning, they have no map.

We are all in a strange place asking the locals for directions.  Best to start drawing the map!

And don’t aim to come out with a job that is defined by others.  Define your own future.  Let other people stand in your queue!

Is this possible?

Of course it is.  How do jobs get made?  They get made by people like me and you.  But you know, they followed their dreams.

Will we always be an employer?  No.  Sometimes we will choose to work for others because hitching a ride on their wagon, so to speak, makes sense.

But we don’t want to feel desperate.  If that is what you feel.  Do this exercise.  You will feel better very rapidly, I promise.

If you are not feeling desperate, begin now and gather around you the people you need on your journey.  They will be grateful.  They want company too.

Talk to me!

And let me know how you get on.  I like company too.

Thanks to my young friend who helped me finish this series.  I appreciate his help – again.  Actually we are friends, despite the difference in our years, because he has helped me before.  As now, he didn’t set out to do anything in particular.  But he added value to my life.

That’s how it works, isn’t it?  We journey part of the way with other people and we help carve out a future together that we believe is worth having.

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Tip 3: find your future now not after the recession

Published March 5, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Male and female ostriches "dancing".
Image via Wikipedia

Don’t ask who will be employed now

Today I commented on Jon Ingram‘s post about the way HR managers are responding to the recession and remarked that we should not be like the proverbial ostrich – head in the HR sand, butt in the breeze, where it is likely to be shot off!

Ostriches can run really fast (I’ve ridden one). A kick from them will also de-gut you as effectively as a kick from a giraffe.

So why don’t they run or attack, which they sometimes do?

Well, partly, they are none to bright (easily dazzled and then captured by reflecting the sun off your watch into their eyes).

But they are hoping that if they are quiet, that they will be safe.

So I am not going to be quiet.  It does not make me safe.

But I’ll also be kind, and tell you why I am blathering on about the wild animals of southern Africa.

Is the knowledge I acquired in southern Africa of use here?  Well, some is and some isn’t.

The point is that the competencies of yesterday are not necessarily valuable tomorrow.

We must distinguish what of yesterday we can take forward to the future.

We can respect the rest.  We can reminisce about it. But some belongs to the past and will not contribute to the business models of tomorrow.

Don’t bury your head in employment sand!

The questions we have to ask, and should ask each year in our strategy review are:

  • What competencies is this business or my career based?
  • How are these going to change? Incrementally, or suddenly and discontinuously requiring radical back-to-school training?

And in a bad downturn, we should also ask:

  • Can I use the slow time of the downturn to re-train and get some early experience in these new technologies?

Strategies for employers and employees

Employers should be actively building their team around the technologies of tomorrow.

Employees who have switched-off employers should be networking hard to find and build the team that is coalescing around the markets and technologies of the future.

Ask who will be employed in the future?

Here is a simple procedure

1  Grab an old shoe box

  • For one month, on an A5 envelope, every day write down one url to the future of your field with some notes about why you think it is important.  Date it!
  • For one month, on an A6 envelope, write down the contact details of a person who seems to be heading towards the right future and the nature of your contact with them.  Date it!
  • On the back of some other suitable scrap, jot down a daily diary of “what were the main events of today and WHY DID IT GO SO WELL”.  Keep your rough-and-ready diary in the box.
  • Print out a calendar.  Mark off each day and “don’t break the chain”.  Get the creative thinking charged up and humming.

2  At the end of the month, review and repeat

  • But this time discard one of the A5 and A6 envelopes as you add a new pair each day.
  • Keep the rough-and-ready diary going and remember to end by asking the question “WHY DID THE DAY GO SO WELL?”
  • And remember “don’t break the chain”.  Do this exercise daily however roughly.

You’ll be in the future before me!

Now, you’ll be in the future before me, so let me know how it goes. I’m particularly interested in how many months it takes you.  My guess is three at the outside.

And when you’ve done this,  we’ll “make a plan” to come back to rescue the ostriches!  We’ll have a figured out a role for them by then.

Right now, lets go out,  scout the future and be there when it happens!

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Olney, United Kingdom on the internet

Published March 4, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Olney Snow Feb 2 2009 Flower Shop pikniked
Image by joolney via Flickr

Have you built a community site before?

I’m working on a project at the moment building a community site for the town of Olney, in the UK, where I live. I’m building it on Ning, which is a read-write platform, like Facebook.

This platform, like so many others, is basically free to use and can also be make completely private so you can use it like an intranet.

There are three interdependent parts to this project

  • People
  • Site
  • Internet presence

Olney’s intriguing art gallery, IceTwice, championed the site from the outset and have contributed hugely to its vibrancy.  On the day of our Pancake Race, they illustrated the proper use of a social network beautifully by offering a discount on recipe books should a customer bring in a receipt for a pancake.

The site itself can be time consuming to maintain.  There are members to greet.  Warnings that Olney may be flooded by the River Ouse to put up and take down.  And the rich format of Ning to be explored.

And we need to build up our internet presence.  Yesterday, I was disconcerted to see that chatter about our site, Olney100, had displaced the site from the number one position when we search for Olney100.  Obviously something I don’t quite understand about SEO and prompting an important decision. Stick with the Olney100 or try to capture the keyword Olney?

So in a month, I’ve suddenly become pretty efficient about Flickr where I am joolney and in partner YouTube where I use the account name joolneyuk. I’ve linked up a Delicious account for Olney100 to the site.  I’ve learned a fair bit of CSS and HTML.  I read up Traffic Estimations and Analyse Keywords with aplomb.

And I’ve met a lot of people who’ve rapidly made the site their own integrating it with their blogs, their Twitter accounts, fundraising, and inevitably Facebook.

Will the community site help Olney to flourish?

The ultimate question though, is whether the site helps Olney to flourish and prosper.  We should be able to do more, faster, and more profitably.

Reviews please!

Would love any comments.  You can read the site and if you want to leave a comment, you can login into the guest account using the email olney100 at gmail dot com with password olney100!

Love to see you there.

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79 flowers to brand your work

Published March 3, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Carnation~
Image by edzahid via Flickr

I’m carrying a torch for you!

A red carnation.  I think that is mine.

I set 5 hard questions about business models in the age of the internet that I am having difficulty answering myself.

So let me start close in, so to speak.  Which flower represents the commitment a psychologist has to client?

A red carnation – I am carrying a torch for you.

Which flower captures the heart of your work?

Do bookmark my blog and come back to tell me.  Please.

Sorry, the flower page seems to have been removed.  I’ve looked around the internet and haven’t found one I like so much.   Have a look at pages listed under “flowers meaning”,  just to help you put your finger on the essence of your relationship with your customers.

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Who will earn more and who will earn less because of the internet?

Published February 28, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Is the internet good for you?

Was it this week that we had the media telling us that Facebook would give us cancer?  And a professor telling us that the internet makes us scatty?

Well, I won’t go where angels fear to tread, but I do know this.  The world has changed in a fundamental way and it is very important THAT YOU GET IT!

The internet has changed the way we make a living and before you go off and spend 5 to 10 years getting a qualification and doing low paid jobs to get experience, have a look at the business model of the profession you are entering.  Will your profession survive the intenet?

And don’t ask recruiters and HR officers either.  They rarely know the answers.

Ask experienced people who are responsible for strategy in their field and don’t join up unless they can ask clearly!  Invite people who have a hig profile in your future career to talk to your school, university or service club, and ask the questions you need to ask!

Managing risk

At the heart of any profession or occupation is the management of risk – yep that thing that bankers didn’t seem to understand.

Very simply, we cannot know everything in the world and when we have an unfamiliar decision to make, we turn to professionals for advice – doctors, lawyers, teachers, plumbers, and even, bankers.  Even my lowly purchase of a loaf of bread at the supermarket is the purchase of advice.  I am trusting my supermarket to sell me something wholesome and good at a reasonable price.

But how do we know who we can trust?

We have several mechanisms.

  • First is a system of licenses.  A body, like the British Medical Association gives a doctor a practising certificate, for example, to indicate the doctor has the training and knowledge that we expect.
  • Second is a system of audits & inspections.  Chartered Accountants like KPMG and Deloittes check the financial affairs of a business and tell us if it is a going concern.
  • Third is the business model itself.  Newspapers, for example, would verify information is correct before they printed it and it was for that verification that we would pay a shilling or a dollar for our paper, though we often felt that we were buying the content.  They are motivated to get information correct so they stay in business.

The internet adds another way to manage risk

The internet has changed the game of business, and importantly the careers available to us, because it adds, among other things, an additional way to manage risk.  This additional mechanism for managing risk affects how consumers get advice and who gets paid for giving advice.

  • Google Search, for example, allows us to pull up information from all over the world in the blink of an eye.  For many particularly simple matters, we can find information for free and save ourselves the fees of professional advice.  Knowledge has become more easily available and much cheaper.
  • Twitter provides recommendations with equal speed and allows customers to speak to each other. The wisdom of crowds gives us assurances that previously were only available from auditors and inspectors.
  • Blogs, YouTube, Flickr make us all citizen journalists.  Collecting and transmitting data is now so cheap and easy that events like a plane ditching in the Hudson are transmitted as they happen.  No paper or TV service can report events so quickly.

But there is so much rubbish on the internet

Indeed there is.  And it is very important to treat the information for what it is.  IT IS NOT information provided with a stamp of approval from a professional body or a well established business.

This is frightening for many people.  And so it will be until they think clearly about what is happening and act accordingly.

We have two tasks therefore.

  • First, understand how to verify information on the internet.
  • Second, to understand how the internet changes the value of various professions and how much people in those professions will earn in the future.

A lot of people write about the first task.  I am interested in the second.

How does the internet change the value of various careers and the salary you can expect to earn?

Whether you are in a profession or ‘old school organization’, or if you are changing careers and thinking about your next move, these are the questions that I think you should ask.

5 questions to ask about the value of information in your profession or organization

1   Why did you want to go into this career?

When you chose this career, what value did you believe you would add to the world?  Why did you undertake the qualifications instead of just opening up your business?  What did the qualifications teach you that cannot be taught elsewhere and freely on the internet?  How are the systems of knowledge maintained so the knowledge of your profession is deeper and more valuable that information on the internet? To what extent is the profession protected artificially and will these artificial barriers be stripped away by the internet?

2  How do you maintain integrity?

What are the promises that your profession makes to the public and are these promises genuine?  For example, do you send someone to jail for breaking these promises?  What areas of malpractice does the profession look out for?  How do you check that your core promises are being honoured?  When your customers are able to talk directly to each other, what aspects of your service can they inspect better than you can? If they are able to check themselves, of what value is your guarantee?  What aspects can they not check and is the responsibility of your profession?

3  What does your online profile say?

Are you on professional groups like Facebook, Twittter, LinkedIn and Xing?  If we Google your name, can we find you?  What issues are Googled by your clients/customers/patients and what do they find? How do you maintain your profile?  How good is your understanding of information traffic on the internet and the way Google chooses what to show people?  How is your profession learning about the internet and the way it is developing?  How is your profession managing the conversation about the internet among your members?

4  What is your ‘authority’ on the risk management issues which have been the basis of your profession?

What are the issues on which your profession is expert, experienced and willing to help other people, albeit for a fee?  Who in the internet world defers to your opinion and how do they link to you?  How does your profession monitor your online authority?  How do you manage your online authority?  How do you manage the way one member of your profession competes with another for internet domination?  How do you ensure that your clients/customers/patients get access to well debated information and ‘honest authority’, so to speak?

5  How do you help your customers/clients/patients find the information they need and make intelligent choices?

What choices are your customers/clients/patients making on a daily basis?  What information do they use?  What do they search for?  How does information find them and are they able to process it safely and to their advantage?  How has the internet changed this process? And how have those changes, and ongoing changes, changed the basis of your business model?  How you make a living, in other words, and how future members of your profession will make a living?

Your comments?

This is the first time I’ve written about these issues.  So I’d be very interested in your views – or comments – or indeed questions.

How do you think the internet changes our work and our long-term potential to make a living?

What questions should we be asking leaders of professions and encouraging our young people to ask before they invest in an expensive training?

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Can I give you some feedback?

Published February 26, 2009 by Jo Jordan

An irritated face at my door

Some one came in to my office and said to me: can I give you some feedback?  Yes, of course I said.  Sit down.  Would you like a cup of tea?

My interlocutor had though, absolutely no intention of giving me feedback about anything.

Feedback is not about me

Feedback means the distance between where we are and the goal we want to achieve.  And preferably, contains information that allows us to steer towards the goal.

If my interlocutor had such information, they should not have been keeping it to themselves.  That would be poor team play indeed.  And if they really had feedback about our joint goals, why would this be cause for embarrassment?

Oh, you have a complaint?

Of course, my interlocutor really wants to make a complaint.  They feel annoyed or irritated with me about something.  And as these are rather hostile emotions, they feel embarrassed.

No one likes to feel embarrassed, so they’ve become indignant and righteous instead.

Am I feeling playful?

Now if I were in a mischievious mood, I could let them sweat.  But as I wasn’t, I thought I would let them off the hook of their own anger.  Grab a chair, have a cup of tea, and tell me all about it.

Anger is such difficult emotion

It can be so difficult to give up anger.  Anger is to do with status.  Someone has ‘dissed us’ and we want our status restored.  So often we want nothing else.  Just an apology, an acknowledgment, and a sense that we are appreciated.

But it is too embarrassing to begin the conversation – you dissed me – so we dress up our anguish in other terms.

So feedback was just a request for an apology?

Of course, sometimes there is more to someone’s complaint than anger.  And we can address whatever specific issues arise.

But most times, the redress and correction is easily done.  What’s really wanted is for status to be restored.

How was that cup of tea?  Do you feel better?

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Finding supporters for our goals

Published February 23, 2009 by Jo Jordan

From long-tail

15 months ago, this blog was my ‘miscellaneous’ – the place where I thought through up-and-coming ideas in management, psychology and HR.  I didn’t worry about readers or structure.  I just jotted down the things I was thinking about and followed my own thought process.  Not surprisingly, my posts tended to be a bit abstruse and relevant only to a very small group of people interested in the same field.

To body

Nonetheless, this blog surprised me by growing quite nicely and Zen poet, Ned Lawrence, who has been part of this blog from its outset, has encouraged me to write for a lay audience.

I’ve been trying to find the focal point and particularly, the joint project that we would be undertaking together.  I have lots of online conversations with people around the world about management and careers.  Those are one-on-ones.  The question any serious blog should answer is – what would readers like to talk to each other about?

In what way can this blog facilitate this conversation and the capacity of people around the world to find each other?

Types of blogs in management, psychology and HR

I see the new ideas in management, psychology and HR as being on two continuum (or continua to be pedantic).

Continuum One

On the first continuum, our interest stretches from self or personal leadership on the one hand, to building a team or group on the other.  The first end looks at personal development, motivation and happiness – all topics I have been writing on at some length.  The other end looks at finding support, mobilizing teams and finding the joint path where many of us can travel temporally together.  Issues much like focusing a blog, for example.

The first end is well covered in the blogosphere.  Steve Pavlina, Steve Roesler and many others, some giants in the field like Steve Covey, talk about personal development, productivity, emotions and interpersonal interaction.

The other end – attracting support and developing critical mass for our projects is barely covered – or I’ve missed it!  So that is the end that I think this blog should cover.

Continuum Two

The second continuum stretchs from a place to be defined, to the mysterious world of management.  Some time ago now, I worked with linguists who taught me some tricks for analyzing language and they made me very sensitive to passive sentences.   One of my linguist colleagues believed that when we are unwilling to name the actor in a drama, we are usually staring at some kind of corruption.

In 18 months in the UK, I’ve noticed that many people whom I respect and admire are given to ‘reifying’ organizations.  The organization does this and the organization does that.

No – Organizational Behavior 101.  Organizations don’t do – we do.  I get a lot of traffic, particularly from India (hello!) – to my posts on HR and the recession.  I am still interested in HR and the recession.  I’ve spent a good three decades in HR.  But I lose interest when we pretend that organizations are magic.  Organizations are us.  If we work for a bank that has been running foolish systems, that is our failure and our shame too.  If we took out an overpriced mortgage – well, we took out an overpriced mortgage.  The organization is us.

The end of the continuum which talks about management in a rather disembodied way is also well covered in the blogosphere.  I don’t need to go there.

I’m interested in organizations were each and every person takes responsibility for what we do as a collective and where each and every person speaks freely about where we are going and their part in our venture.  I cannot accept anything less.  I am interested in management where we are the managers, and we take responsibility for the effects of our actions – all our actions and all the effects – the surprising ones too.

The positioning of this blog

So what I am going to do in this blog is tilt it towards an area that I think is neglected – the quadrant where we are mobilize support for our ideas.  I’ll say that again where WE mobilize SUPPORT for our ideas.  The quadrant where we negotiate a common cause with other people.

I would like this blog to bring together people who are pursuing their own dreams and who are interested in the dreams of other people.  Our common cause will be our sense that we have a mutual journey together and that an essential part of our journey is negotiating our shared activities.

Topics

These are the kinds of topics I am going to write about, at least until I get some feedback from you.

  • Where is work is going? What exciting areas of work are emerging?  Who is doing this work? Where is it happening?
  • How do we find like minded people? How does the internet offer us opportunity to work with like-minded people across the globe?
  • How do we make organizations where we can work together respectfully? What are the principles of working effectively and fairly together?
  • And finally, how can we be our own HR managers, so to speak?  While we are busy working, how can we keep an eye on the issues that HR managers usually manage?
    • The future of work
    • Interpersonal relations, organizational structure and employment law
    • Pay (!) and attracting the calibre of people we need for the project we have in hand.

    You are invited!

    I hope you will come with me on this journey and find companions along the way with whom you can share information and maybe even conceive and execute mutual projects.

    Please don’t forget to bookmark the blog, or better still subscribe in Google reader or your usual aggregator.  Save Flowing Motion in Delicious and Stumble it too!

    I’m looking forward to this journey with you and arriving at end of the recession, richer and happier, and with vital, interesting and healthy connections right across the globe.

    Yours respectfully,

    Jo

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    A plan big enough to include now!

    Published February 22, 2009 by Jo Jordan

    Feb 8 2009 High Street South & Steeple snow pi...
    Image by joolney via Flickr

    Will your degree really take you where you want to be?

    I’ve just read story in the TimesOnline about a mature student who returned to university and read psychology, very successfully, only to find that there are insufficient places for students to complete their professional qualifications.

    I am sorry to hear this story. There is a breach-of-confidence here that shames us all.   When students go to university, they accept in good faith our implied promises of progression within their degree and access to their chosen profession.

    Very sadly, these promises are often made lightly.  And quite often universities deliberately conceal the facts, if not by commission, then by omission.  They quite consciously don’t collect information on student destinations, and they just as consciously don’t make these facts available.  It is certainly time for regulators to insist that these facts are published on University websites and kept up-to-date!

    Not only do I think publishing student pass rates and destinations should be mandatory.  I think universities should loan fees to students and recover the loans themselves!

    Caveat emptor

    Until the day that regulations are tightened up, then I afraid it is a matter of caveat emptor, buyer beware.  Students need to be wary of making large investments in services that have no warranty!  Should they discover that the university’s promises are inflated, they will be able to recover neither their money nor, more importantly, their time.

    Craft a life plan that is far bigger than uni and the professions

    So what can students do to avoid this trap?

    The advice from contemporary positive psychologists is this.  Don’t plan your university studies around a specific job and employment route! Neither is guaranteed.  Indeed, we have seen from the banking crisis that nothing in this world is guaranteed.

    Rather, see your university education as a supplement to your life plan.  Let me give you this example.

    Young Nick Cochiarella from my village of Olney has already launched his first social network, SpeakLife while he is at college.  He’s a hardworking guy and he also has a job at the local Coop.  He is taking a slightly circuituous route doing technical training before he goes to university.  But he is not waiting for anyone.  It is true that his hard work still guarantees him nothing.  But he is not deferring his dreams, and his university training supports, rather than defines, his life’s purpose.

    But I need a job now!

    It can be tough to start living our dreams.  We often get into an enormous tangle.

    The biggest distractor is the desperate belief that we will somehow be safe when we follow a road carved out by others.  But it is not safe, as we have seen.

    And even if it were safe, why do we think that other people’s dreams will be enough for us?

    Wouldn’t it be better to have our own dreams and to work with others to find where we can temporarily work together to make the path easier and broader for both of us?

    A plan big enough to include now

    Ned Lawrence has been challenging me to refocus this site on the needs of the ordinary person – the person who lives these dilemmas.

    What do you think?

    Is it possible to make a plan that is big enough to include now?

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    Young Olney to Australia! And back?

    Published February 20, 2009 by Jo Jordan

    Ben Thompson at MuchAdo
    Ben Thompson at MuchAdo

    Brits leaving for downunder

    Ben is leaving us today for a year long working holiday in Australia.  Sad for us.  Happy for him!

    I’m sure many young people in UK are checking out jobs in Australia.   This is an inevitable upshot of the recession.  Actually, I think it would be a good thing to upgrade the agreement with Australia that allows young people from Britain to work temporarily there and young Aussies to work temporarily here.

    Swap young people during the recession

    I think we should go further and set quotas to swap young people.  We should even provide an year return ticket!

    Build a resilient young generation

    Experience abroad broadens the mind, expands our skills, deepens our resilience, and rekindles hope.  We will be stronger country for it.  Our future at the end of recession may depend upon a better reservoir not just of skill but of character (selfish, aren’t I?).

    MuchaAdo Cafe

    I’ll miss Ben.  He’s been with MuchAdo Cafe in Olney since it opened a year ago.  I understand he began his career as a schoolyard at the Courtyard Brasserie tucked away in Rose Court off Market Place.  He went off to Australia, came back, and is now associated with a very successful start-up with the most delectable food and friendly adaptable stylish service.   MuchAdo have a daily blackboard menu with food from the delicatessen next door and they happily adjust the dishes to your taste.  They’ll also send you home with delicacies too and the recipes to prepare something special.

    Bon Voyage, Ben! Enjoy the sun and sand.  And be back soon!  We’ll be waiting for you.

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