I was speaking with a student yesterday who brought up that his internship wasn’t really what he wanted and not all that much fun.  This student was kind of disenchanted and wondering if he had made the right call on a few things.

The truth is that not everything is a lot of fun, but it CAN lead to really big changes and potentially some different new paths.  New experiences tend to give you new tools to utilize.  I’ve been recently considering the different things I work on now and how they are giving me a much broader perspective on how to achieve results in differing businesses.  Even if you don’t LOVE every last piece of work you are doing, you may well be adding to your skills in such a way that will pay dividends long term.

Case in point, today was my first day of being a board member for St. Paul Smart Trips.   A friend of mine who is also interested in Sustainability had told me he was leaving the board membership and that I’d be a good fit.  He asked if I’d like to apply, which sounded cool, but I didn’t know if they’d want me.  I’m the exact opposite of what they are striving to achieve as I drive myself to the job at 6:30am and then drive home.  Kind of a poor example, right?  Well turns out that there are a lot of people like me and having that experience and perspective IS valuable.  I interviewed with the executive director and am now in a two year term for the organization.

Is this always going to be fun?  Probably not.  It’s additional work, no getting around it.  But I love meeting new people and learning new things, always, and this is a prime example of it.  There is a LOT of value to understanding more about how a non profit works, especially one that is so closely intertwined with the city planning and council.  I’m already positive it will be a good experience for learning new things and adding tools to the tool belt, as well as some fun occasionally too.  It’s really all perspective.   So if you look at things in a different light, as an experience that will empower you for having gone through it, that might change your appreciation (or dissatisfaction) for it.

I’ll try to write more about my work with St. Paul Smart Trips as well.  It seems like a great organization and really fits my outlook too.

It’s been difficult, but I’m slowly learning to accept that from a working perspective it’s not possible to control and manage every last thing.  I’ve never been someone to be anal about tiny details, but everything under my role was always handled with precision and “perfect” execution.

The most visible aspect of this change is my email box at work.  In previous lives, my inbox was my “to do” list, which was NEVER so overrun that scrolling was necessary.  The scale of those jobs was just so much smaller that any tasks assigned could be handled in an easy to handle time frame.

Now projects are longer, more complex and have more sources of information.  So one detail about a project has to be “saved” instead of compiled into a list for future communication (if you just write something down, it’s difficult to recall where it’s from and the expectation for the person on top of it.)  So the email box is now overrun and needs purging every two weeks.  But it’s alright.  The projects are still getting completed on time and quality, just not quite as ruthlessly.

Adaptation to change is an important asset for everyone today, and will be even more so as we perpetually increase our speed for change.

Posts have been incredibly light this month. Basketball and other things taking up time.

Just wanted to take this moment to point out that, the Categorical Imperative is my center of thought on what is or isn’t “ethical.”

Too lazy to click and read?  You’re in luck!

The basic idea is that you shouldn’t do things unless they are acceptable if EVERYONE does them.

Throw some trash on the ground?  Well if everybody did it, it would suck.  So don’t do that.  You can apply this principle to everything for a good feel if it’s right or wrong.

Keep that in your back pocket next time you’re pondering a decision being ethical or not so.

I like to read quite a bit, but I often get caught up reading only about business or things of that nature.  Reading other materials is important and business is truly only one small part of my interests.  Education, sports, science and classic literature also interest me greatly.  So over the holidays I decided to read a few books that weren’t as focused on business.

The first was Pygmy, which I wrote about recently.  Odd, but a nice switch into contemporary fiction.  The next was “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!“, an autobiography of sorts written by Richard Feynman.  Why did I pick up this book after having never heard of him before?  I read a brief blog post about Feynman who recommended watching this video:

After watching the video, I found his thoughts in terms of describing things and explaining things very interesting and figured I’d give his book a try. There were many others, but this one seemed good enough.

The book is a series of small adventures that Mr. Feynman had throughout his life.  Some of these interesting stories include is jobs such as fixing old radios as a child, working in hospitality, working on the atomic bomb at Los Alamos (The Manhattan Project), and learning to draw and sell art.

It’s quite easy to get a good feel for Mr. Feynman and how he viewed the world.  His voice is very strong and it seems obvious that he was a person unafraid to learn and try new things.

He is quite accomplished as a physicist, having won the Nobel Prize (which he states as more of a problem than anything, he didn’t really want the prize).  The book goes over so many anecdotes that it’s difficult to fully explain the concepts and what you take from it, but it’s a whimsical read and certainly worthwhile for people interested in historic figures.

Perhaps the best way to recant his disposition is to quote his final words, at 69 while seceding to cancer:  “I’d hate to die twice, it’s so boring.”

As mentioned briefly as of late, I haven’t spent much time trying to promote this blog anywhere.  I’ll post a link on Twitter every now and then, but not much else.  I also haven’t spent any time reviewing my traffic, so today I blew the dust of off Google Analytics and dug in.

Slightly over 3,400 page views in 2010.  Under 3,000 of those were unique page views.  2,400 visits, roughly.  Average time on page:  2:28.   There’s quite a bit more there, but nothing all that important.

A lot of the traffic I’m getting is coming from organic search, which seems odd to me as my site really isn’t optimized.   Google has added some really nice things into it’s analytics package.  I forgot how nice and simple the UI is, very clean.

I can see how working in the internet realm in SEO or website development would be a lot of fun.  It’s very scientific in that you can test so much and tweak accordingly.  Lots of different things affect why people get to your site and how, marketing around that (especially today with things in a state of flux) would be pretty interesting.

Most people never get the experience of building a website and understanding how it works, but it’s pretty simple stuff.  I don’t code, but learning to do it and applying it are not impossible for your average joes like me.  In fact, there are some really good free resources out there to assist you.  I’m really tempted to learn to code, simply because the space is so riveting.  I doubt I’d ever be a professional programmer, but understanding the ins and outs of development would be a good thing.

I have a few aspirations this next year. The first is my weight, I’d like to get back to a 165 lb. or so. Less than that is fine, but I think that would be where I should be. Health is a really large aspect of life and it’s time to set my life straight in that regard. The bottom line is that in grad school, you are so damn busy that working out and eating right are actually very inconvenient. Then you go to work and for my line that’s a lot of sitting. So that’s aspiration/resolution numero uno.

El segundo es Espanol. This is a slow and steady thing, but I need to watch more Spanish television and practice more.

But honestly, those are the boring things.  They’ve already been decided on.  When you think about the time we live in and what we are capable of learning and doing, it makes me a little sad that we aren’t taking advantage.  I spent $90k on going to business school, a worthy investment for the professional connotation associated with that paper, but I COULD have learned it all outside of the institution.  We live in an era where you can learn and do almost anything you choose to!  That’s impeccable.

My mother asked me if I was happy to have accomplished so many of my goals the other day. The question seemed very odd to me as I don’t feel that I’ve accomplished all that much yet. I mean, certainly, I’ve done the things I’ve set out toward. College, Graduate school, marketing management, etc. There are many things I’d like to accomplish in the field, but that’s just one aspect of my life. I ain’t dead yet!

The idea that you get out of school and just kind of hover in the same space and get “good” at that thing repulses me. Aren’t we capable of going after bigger things? Aren’t we only constrained by one true resource, time? Why in the world would I ever stop learning and pushing at new areas? Of course, I won’t, and neither should you. If you’re lucky enough to be in a position where you can choose what you do, shoot for the stars.

But that leads me to the next question, what SHOULD I be working on right now? Where should my focus be going? I really like to build skill sets that last, much like building things that last in the business world, spend resources on things that improve the product visibly and over the long haul. My health and learning another language definitely fit in those categories, but that’s not enough!

There is such a huge proliferation of choice today on what to learn. I love technology, so maybe it’s time I learned to code, or about user experience, or something else?  I don’t know yet.  I can also state with certainty that you can’t take on too many things and expect to do them well.  I made that mistake in former years and you end up dropping all the plates.  You have to pick two or three BIG things and do them really well.  This year I have two of those things picked out, but I’m starting to think I may need something else.  I am planning out a wedding and thinking of getting a dog too, so maybe 2012 will be filled up with all that, but maybe not.  I’ll keep my eyes open on this and update again later if a project presents itself.

It’s that time of year again.  But I have left myself very little time to think about the best music of 2011.  Luckily I have a Last.fm page that covers my last 12 months.  I don’t know if I’ll do 10 albums this year or not.  There seems to be a backlash against the year end top tens this year.  I suppose it is a bit trite, but I really do like having my music chronologed.  Ugh, WHY ISN’T CHRONOLOGED A WORD?

Here we go.  Remember, albums don’t have to be this year, they just have to be new to me.  Also no double dipping for artists, only one album per artist:

#10:  Elton John’s Greatest Hits – What can I say, dude represents.  He has a great voice and he’s really someone that I struggle to understand how anybody would dislike him.  Just a really impeccable artist and I hadn’t gotten into him until this year.  Kudos Elton.

#9:  Aesop Rock, None Shall Pass — This is an odd pick as I’ve owned the CD for a long time, but hadn’t been feeling hip hop for a while.  Then early this year I just started rocking this disc nonstop.  Aesop is my favorite rapper.  He created a dadaist genre all his own and really no one else has come along in the same manner.  He gets a lot of haters for it, but it’s the bomb dig chron in my opinion.

#8:  Leanord Cohen, The Best of Leanord Cohen — Another new classic artist for me.  Leanord is a fantastic writer.  I mean really, really poetic and has a gentle touch with his bars.  He also sings in a very soft and subdued tone, which makes for great mood music.  Well worth checking out.

#7:  The Mountain Goats, All Eternals Deck — Darnielle put together a really nice album.  I actually listened to “We Shall Be Saved” a lot this last month as well, but his work is still stellar.  Some songs like Outer Scorpion Squadron really add depth.  It’s just a terrific effort, per usual.

#6:  Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues — First listen to Fleet Foxes this year.  Both of their albums are good, but their first took some time for me to really get into.  This album opens up with Montezuma, and doesn’t really let you go.  The band seems like one that is built to last and we’ll keep seeing great things from them in the future.

#5:  Communist Daughter, Soundtrack to the End — This is a Minneapolis band a friend told me to purchase.  They put out some really good indie pop; I’m still yet to see them live but will in the future.  They also get bonus points for being named after a Neutral Milk Hotel song.

#4:  Bon Iver, Bon Iver — I really got into this album at the start of summer.  I don’t know which was better, For Emma Forever Ago or this, but it was good.  Since then I haven’t listened as much, but it definitely deserves some pub here.  Perfect for chilling out, much like last years winner, Beach House.

#3:  Bright Eyes, The Peoples Key — Conor Oberst shows up again.  Of all the Bright Eyes albums, this one took me the longest to get into (at least of the albums I actively listened to).  It’s a very sci fi heavy album and the first track slowly lets you in.  The songs get very upbeat though, and it’s well worth the price of admission if you’re willing to listen.

#2:  The Decemberists, The King Is Dead —  I played the hell out of this CD.  It’s folky and country Decemberists, which is somewhat new to me, but wow Colin Meloy is good.  He has this fantastic voice and an ability to make arrangements in different types of music.  Their last progrock album was actually good, but not something I’d play over and over.  This was an epic album that I played for months.

#1:  Tallest Man On Earth, The Wild Hunt —  Much earlier this year, I picked up this album.  It was quickly apparent that this was going to be album of the year for me.  Kristian Matsson is a singer songwriter in the mold of Dylan.  He sounds different, not a singer by traditional means.  He has a quirky voice, but his lyrics are fantastic and his songs are simple but approaching timelessness.  Very few artists put it together like this, do yourself a favor and pick up any of his work.

Recently while at a coworker of Teresa’s, I was given the book Pygmy and told to read it as it’s a great way to learn about Chuck Palahniuk, who I’ve been told is brilliant.  I somewhat dislike being given books as I feel though it has to be read very quickly, I do not like having other peoples’ things.  Many people seem to have  no worries about having others’ things for a long time (I honestly don’t care if someone has my things) but for me it’s no really acceptable.  Weird, right!?

I do not have time for a full fledged review explaining the book (you should ask, why write about it then?) but I wanted to get something down before the end of the year.  The book is about a group of expatriate students coming from an unknown country who plan to unleash an operative that would kill millions in the US.  The main character narrates in a broken English and details the various happenings within a small community throughout the tale.

I don’t think this was the best first read for Palahniuk as reviews detail that it’s quite deviant from his other books.  That said, it was a pretty good read.  I was actually quite interested in it right away and though it waned a bit toward the end, it was well worth reading.  And I desperately need to diversify my reading at this point.  I read primarily about management and business, which are good things, but variety is necessary.

I’m now reading about Richard Feynman, but after that will likely return to business reading.

You have likely already heard of this book, if not read it.  In 1997 it was incredibly popular and by some hailed as Darwinian in its ramifications for human history.  Jared Diamond wrote it, and it’s essentially an exposition on why human societies have formed and developed throughout modern history.

The most common thought processes historically for how humans have evolved and developed as a species, as well as why certain groups of people have flourished and others have not are mostly racist in nature.  The assumption is based on an incorrect hindsight bias that those groups who have persevered  throughout the ages much naturally have been more sophisticated in their genome, smarter and more capable of conquering (supposedly) opposing societies.

Even in my lifetime I’ve heard people say that “We [eurasians] conquered the native americans because we were smarter, I mean, I don’t feel good about it, but it’s survival of the fittest.” To a certain extent, it’s an understandable assumption, but it doesn’t truly get into the details of why “we” were supposedly smarter.  ”Guns, Germs and Steel” is meant to dispell this notion.  And it does so quite well.  The major operative of the book is that societies became capable of colonization of other lands due to the advanced nature of their weaponry and endemic diseases which had already been assimilated and defeated through microbiology of concentrated groupings that came to rise due to advancing food production of farmers, as opposed to the more widespread hunter gatherer tribes.

The book is not meant to be a high level overview of details regarding the evolution of human societies, though it does so much more admirably than your basic textbook.  Diamond meticulously covers multiple aspects of variables that held sway over how groups would come to establish advanced technologies, the most primary of which is food production.  Hunter gatherers are at a great disadvantage to farmers in the macro trends due to concentration of peoples, which allows for exponentially advancing technologies in positive feedback loops of creating value for societies.

As a brief example, as a small group of people establish farming as a viable way of life, the need to travel for additional food becomes obsolete.  As the need for travel becomes lesser, the ability to proliferate with additional family members adds value.  Whereas previously the constraints associated with carrying young children on journey as well as offering additional food were an issue for hunter gatherers, but for farmers those constraints aren’t nearly as apparent.  In fact, as we’ve found out in modern society, farmers often want more young to help with the daily work associated with the vocation.  To further the example, as families proliferate, so do the broader groups of people in such a community, at which point the collective intellect of the group will focus intellectual output on other means of harnessing values for the community.  This likely leads to the advancement of technology and civilization in general.

Broad groups of people also will be exposed to and distribute disease faster, which in turn leads to immunity.  That broad based immunity inherently offers advantages over those people that cannot be exposed nearly as quickly.  More advanced versions of epidemics have the power to wipe out other communities not exposed to more preliminary versions.

It should not be assumed that people are less or more intelligent based on outward appearances.  People of hunter gathering groups were not unintelligent, but merely focused their efforts to understand what was more pressing in terms of survival.  This is Darwinian in itself.  Examples from the book include those tribes in New Guinea who understand incredible amounts about the forests within which they live and can accommodate quickly to alterations in environment and  needs, but couldn’t utilize most modern innovations.  The point is that people aren’t inherently more intelligent than one another (at least at this stage of our evolution) but are born into societies which foster different types of thinking.

Toward the mid to latter part of the book, I got a bit bored with it, but overall it was a very good read and holds huge amounts of knowledge for your open mind.  I’d recommend reading it to anyone and everyone who has an interest in anthropology and a general curiosity about life and evolution.  This was VERY well done.

I see a lot of bloggers without comments sections now.  I am considering getting rid of comments for a few reasons.

First off, people don’t really comment here all that often.  I haven’t really tracked my traffic for sometime, but when I last did it was around 30 hits a day.  Definitely nothing earth shattering, but considering I don’t do anything to actively promote my writing, it seems decent.  I really admire blogs like AVC that have a killer commenting crowd and value is derived there as much as anything, but as of now that’s not the case here.  I’ve often thought about how to build a community here, but haven’t really taken any initiatives to do it.  The bottom line is that I’m VERY tech oriented and comparative to most of the people I know, they don’t necessarily read a lot of blogs or want to be active in communities, whereas I do.  I’ll ruminate on this.

Additionally, the spam bots are trolling HARD.  It’s gotten worse and I’m not sure what to do about it.   So there doesn’t seem to be a lot of downside there.

Maybe I’ll give it a test run and see if there are any issues.  It’s not as if I’m closed off to communication, there’s always Twitter or Gmail.  We’ll see.