Pause

A Journey Through My Multiple Career Personalities: Employee, Entrepreneur, Child

Reading career coach Curt Rosengren's piece, "Find your passion compass"  on the Right Reality Blog a section resonated with me:

Half the people out there are dissatisfied with their work. Barely one in five actually find their work energizing. I’m convinced that one reason for the disconnect is that people don’t realize how simple it is to start bringing passion into the picture...

Passion is the energy that comes from bringing more of YOU into what you do...Unfortunately most of us aren’t consciously aware enough of who we are to purposefully make career decisions that incorporate it. We’re taught to focus on action and achievement, not introspection, and we end up flying blind as a result.

So THAT's what was going on in my career. If I had to define why I gave notice at my full-time job, before BlogHer was even a twinkle in Lisa's or Elisa's eye, it was--more than job dissatisfaction or extreme boredom--an identity crisis.

My start-up is bigger than your start-up...Web 2.0 one-upsMANship. A story about Valuation Envy

From my post at BlogHer. Are men petty? No no no. That's not what I'm saying. Some of the really rich ones just tend to be shallow and misdirected.

Reid Hoffman Peter Pezaris James Hong Valuation Envy

Her Media, Her Way

Another sell-out story? I don't think so.

Amanda Congdon ABC Guy Kawasaki Old Media BlogHer

Rich, Talented, Gorgeous, and Ultimately Unlovable

My latest on BlogHer. Sucks to be publicly adored...unless you are male. Do I generalize, yes. But I speak for starlets everywhere.

For those so inclined: Wedding Pix on Flickr

Meri provided an awesome solution: Rather than pick and choose wedding pix, post them! I blew my free account quota for the month, so I'll post more later. There's only so much bliss people can take, anyway.

Thanks to my pals, Jim Macove, Steve Fielding, Matt & Mindy Ranney, Teri and Ken Young, Kurt Foeller, and Todd Bronk for the documenting my day.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22956474@N00/sets/72157594371025278/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22956474@N00/sets/72157594371030876/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/foeller/sets/72157594342697656/

Jory Des Jardins Jesse Markman Des Jardins-Markman Wedding Steve Fielding Kurt Foeller Ranney Jim Macove Todd Bronk Ken Young

The Conversion from East Coast Neurotic to West Coast Empath Part II: The Shift in Media

Just over a week ago, Elisa and I were in New York for some meetings. I'd been wanting to see the Hearst Corporation's new headquarters, which is known for being one of the only truly green structures in New York, and this week I'd get my chance. Back when I lived in New York nobody really gave a Swirl lightbulb about green buildings. We were still feeling rather self-satisfied with the fact that we recycled our trash.

The building was magnificent; our host explained that the water that coasted down the diagonal walls in the main lobby was recycled rain collected from the roof; all of the glimmering steel was recycled as well.

The first floors of the building were open and unsegmented. The cafeteria was wall-less and consisted of simple, modular counters decorated with festive presentations of stuffed mini-pumpkins and steaming food. I was disappointed; I'd just eaten a mediocre, unsubsidized lunch before arriving and couldn't partake in the sushi bar.

As I sat down, noticing a media celebrity lunching at the table behind us, a familiar feeling crept over me, one not totally pleasant or unpleasant, just familiar. I remembered my days working in New York, a smartly dressed young editor with overextended credit, working in an impressive building like this and returning to my rent-controlled apartment, where I'd eat a yogurt or maybe half a can of soup for dinner. At work in Mid-town, I went to fancy holiday parties and ate meals at expensive restaurants that I could charge to my corporate account, then I took the subway back to my shared walkup in Brooklyn. The diametric shift in quality of life that I experienced daily in New York was one that I didn't have the stomach for anymore. For this trip I'd flown economy and slept on a friend's couch to save on travel expenses, but this time the company was my own venture. My life matched my work.

The not-so-coincidental rise of Stalk Marketing and the English Major

From my Business Perch at BlogHer.org... No, it's not a real magazine cover. My name's not Natalie.

BlogHer Presents...World Domination via Collaboration

I. Can. Not. Wait. I get to moderate (or be a fat fly on the wall) while folks like Caterina Fake, Jenna Woodul, Jessica Hardwick, and my Business Partner/Offline Gal Pal Lisa Stone shoot the shinola about community today at the Web 2.0 Conference.

A description of our panel:

BlogHer Presents...World Domination via Collaboration
Jory Des Jardins, Co-founder, BlogHer LLC
Caterina Fake, Co-founder, Flickr
Jessica Hardwick, Founder and CEO, SwapThing.com
Lisa Stone, Co-founder, BlogHer
Jenna Woodul, Executive Vice President and Chief Community Officer, LiveWorld

Many companies focus on building community to “leverage” it, skipping a crucial step: Collaborating with users to build a product or experience that dominates the market because it's great. It is possible to strike that balance: Building community, maintaining credibility, meeting organizational objectives. Meet company leaders whose models are steeped in user collaboration.

Now, some of you might think, I care why? Let me be clear: In Web 1.0. days "Community", (read a loyal audience) was a nice-to-have. It meant eyeballs; populated forums meant page views. Today, however, community is a business model in itself. If you don't give it proper care and feeding you might as well go into print publishing and wonder why your circ numbers are falling. Community is a living, breathing, organism, and it matters. Community supplies traffic, content, word-of-mouth advocacy, a low-cost viral marketing channel, and the most sought-after target audiences of key influencers.

And these women know how to make it blossom.

In our panel we'll explore effective, organic community building that impacts the bottom line from people who have and are building businesses based on strong communities. Some themes I intend to cover:

• The unspoken “rules” of community
• How to properly nourish and build community
• How to monetize community while maintaining it
• How to balance pleasing the community with the realities of running a business
• How to enact change within a community
• How to protect the community against trolls, spammers
• How to communicate with communities
• How to establish leadership structures
• How can advertisers/sponsors influence the influencers?

If you are going to be at Web 2.0., stop in! Say hello.

Web 2.0 Conference Caterina Fake Jessica Hardwick Lisa Stone Jenna Woodul Jory Des Jardins BlogHer collaboration

The Conversion from East Coast Neurotic to West Coast Empath: Part I

I remember visiting with a friend at one of my old companies, Time Inc., before deciding to move to San Francisco. The move seemed monumental at the time, like an admission of defeat.

I'd left a job that had become toxic, had made me question not only my competence but my sanity. I'd been recruited by some folks from CNN's internet group to help start a new portal for Baby Boomers. The only catch was that these people wanted to give the company a real running shot and start it where the VC money was, on the West Coast. I was inclined to not take the job, but the pressure at my job was building.

I went to visit with this friend, a man who had become an unwitting mentor, the only person in that department who would tell it to me straight. One of the skills that I'd learned to hone quite well back in those days was how to cover my ass. This was trial by fire, as the first few times I hadn't covered my ass I'd exposed myself to ass-kicking scapegoatdom. On one occasion, when I truly did screw up and we had to eat an expensive mistake, he was the one who calmed me down. I learned something with that mistake: Nobody died from screwing up in a standard white-collar corporate job. It only feels like death.