Oops, I Accidentally All Night

I’ve learned a lot this semester. I’d venture to say I’ve learned more this semester than any single year of my life so far. Most of what I’ve learned I’ve learned the hard way, and I find myself scrambling here at the 11^th hour trying to damage control to the best of my ability.

It seemed that every time I would learn something in my life, I would go to PDII lecture and the content thereof would match what I was going through verbatim. I would often walk out of class thinking, so that’s the name of what I learned yesterday. I was taught the importance of self-leadership through my failures, and was taught the tools to lead myself in this course. I learned in-groups and out-groups are unavoidable through fights with teammates, this course showed me ways to navigate them. I learned what born leaders are capable of right as I discovered hidden talent on my team, and I learned ways I could make the new leader I was mentoring even better. After listening to different strategies for dealing with attitude, I became more aware of people’s perception of my moods when I am performing in a leadership capacity.

Everything covered in class I experienced in real-time, every frustrating short-notice detail of it, so lectures really sank in.

I think above all the PDII lectures helped me not as much learn lessons about leadership, but the terminology and  theory  behind it, so that I may describe my lessons and experiences to others effectively. I can also categorize the life lessons in my head more distinctly, which will help me remember them much better.

As a course title, I think Professional Development is misleading. I learned very little that will help me in a strictly professional sense. I believe that a more appropriate title would be Personal Development. After learning what this class has to teach (for the most part) I feel like I am a more focused, experienced and aware person, i.e. I feel more developed. Everything I’ve learned can also be applied in a professional setting, but what I’ve taken away from this course is much more.

The section discussions that accompany this course are as valuable as lecture, but for many more reasons.

I am an engineer; I always have been and always will be. I attend a rigorous engineering school. I am not going to say that engineers lack imagination; On the contrary, I think the engineer friends I have are some of the most imaginative people I’ve ever met.

I will concede, however, that (especially when free time is nonexistent) we become very focused on tasks of engineering and coursework- Components, systems, talent allocation, communication, homework,  and learning, for example.

Having the section content be so far removed from my everyday tasks was extremely refreshing for me. Engaging in discussion of topics from politics to farm ethics allowed me to take some time and think about everything else that is going on in the world outside of my busy little bubble.

It was also fantastic to talk with classmates, which is something rarely done on campus. Lectures are silent, labs are strenuous and Troy (and the weather machine) naturally makes people antisocial, so to meet someone new and talk with them for an extended period of time was more than kind-of nice.

Using a blog as a vessel for responses to course material was something I was weary about in the beginning of the course. Yuck, Blogging, I thought. I figured blogging was more or less for angry political activists and cooking shows.

The Jury is still out on that one.

What I can say about the blog, however, is that I am glad my responses to the course material are digital and public. Unlike every other class, my homework was not pages of hand calculation, or a lab report typed in the same 12pt TNR with a ‘right’ answer and a point-value. It was a well-devised, personal thought train that (through a freak accident) some friends have discovered and enjoyed reading. It’s like a very small body of work that I can be proud of, as opposed to the same equation that has been solved by every attending student since 1824. I can’t say that my blog will be maintained, but I think I’ll leave it up for anyone who has a few minutes to kill.

I do not suck up to my superiors. I do not grade grovel. This final post may seem very happy in a this-was-an-overly-fantastic-course kind of way. Regardless, I give credit where credit is due. I’m not going to say that I enjoyed everything in this course (lectures were slow, the reading was oftentimes hard to relate to), or that some of my learning about the course material wasn’t coincidental with other life events, but overall this is a solid course and I will recommend it to anyone that asks my opinion.

As for my section room in Sage: FOR THE LOVE OF HYDRATION WILL SOMEBODY BUY THAT ROOM A THERMOSTAT?

That is all.

KLON Radio

Is it just me, or has regular radio not changed in at least a decade?

I may only be 20, but I’ve been listening to the radio since I was old enough to fight with my alarm clock in the fourth grade. While all the other kids were listening to CD players and first gen IPods, I had a D-cell powered boom box screaming away in my room. By 7^th grade I had probably consumed my own bodyweight in D-cell batteries as well.

Anyway, I love listening to music radio. Rock, alt, and country mostly, which have all shared the same format for as long as I can remember- 50 minutes of music per hour, with three blocks of ads. The ads were always for the following six items: car dealerships, Mortgage loans, bars, concerts, tax help, and whatever the ongoing contest was. They each had a morning show that danced on the line of what was appropriate for public radio, spliced in with traffic and weather read verbatim off of the local news station’s TV channel.

I think the fact that radio’s evolution is so stagnant is why it is so comforting to listen to. In this ever-changing media landscape, no matter where I am there is a rock station I can tune into and get the same thing I’ve been hearing for years.

To be honest, why should it change? The recipe obviously works; I have yet to hear of a radio station that “went out of business.” The events they sponsor are always changing, the music library is (slowly) growing, and the volume of ads has been pretty constant.

It’s just interesting that literally every other aspect of media is changing- we have fifteen different varieties of internet radio, smartphones can download or stream whatever you want to listen to, mp3 players are built into cars, friends can share songs and playlists, and yet WPLR is still going to play the same 6 Eagles tunes twice today, as they have for twenty years.

MmMmMax Headroom Here...

You know, this whole internet/advertising thing could come back to bite us in the ass.

I’ve come to notice a vicious cycle forming. There is a high demand for free stuff- free apps, free video, free services- that is supported by advertising revenue from these products. As we desire more free stuff, advertising will have to provide even more money to support the growing free-stuff industry, so on and so forth.

In my mind, this could end a number of ways, pretty much all bad.

First, I figure that as the volume of ads increases, people are going to become desensitized to them, requiring more adds to sway consumers in the same way. The more ads, the more desensitized consumers will become until, finally, advertising has no effect on purchasing decisions by the consumer. The advertising industry will collapse (perhaps only the portion associated with free stuff), and all the free stuff will no longer be free.

The second option is that advertising will become so intrusive (due to increased volume caused by de-sensitivity) that it will become more and more worth it to consumers to buy some of the formerly free products (think about the add-free version of every app).  A rift will be created between the types of services that are worth it to pay for, and those that aren’t.  As the services become more advanced, they will cost more, until a little advertising would be worth it to take the price down a bit. The cycle of increased adds/pay more will continue until there is a very small handful of products worth paying for, and everything else will spiral out of control with adds until, again, advertising collapses.

Another option is that there will be some other source of money for the free stuff. For example, you can now trade some of your personal CPU power to the cloud for real-life money to buy things. Once advertising collapses or maxes itself out, we will just trade something else instead of our attention for free stuff, but there’s only so much to give.

I’m sure the simple calendar apps and such will remain cheap, but the rate of advance of tech and apps suggests that there is some seriously cool stuff on the horizon. I’m not sure when this whole thing will blow up, but it will be bad.

They Threw Me Into "Public"

I am glad there is such a large emphasis on public relations these days, for two reasons. First, I believe maintaining a good public relation is something that a good leader owes to him or herself, and may be a reward that is overlooked otherwise. Second, because public image is so important, the actions of an entity (especially a large company) are carefully scrutinized, enticing the entity to respond to a problem more admirably than otherwise.

Praise is deserved for those who are doing a good deed; this is not a hard concept to understand. Often, however, people will flaunt their righteousness in the face of those around them. After a time, everyone knows all too well what that person is doing correctly, and are sick of hearing about it, especially if the “good news” is blown out of proportion.

I have found that, just as often, people do a good job and seek no reward for it. Being humble is certainly admirable, but occasionally it becomes a handicap. I have observed people responsible for great success be passed over by their superiors because they didn’t claim their work; the good they did seemed to magically appear and was forgotten by those involved.

Some might claim that the only reward they require is the satisfaction of doing the right thing. If this is truly why you do what you do, then you owe it to those you serve to share with others your charge. People around you will probably want to help by way of supplies, expertise, or space, allowing you to do even more good.

In any event, be sure you claim the good that you do, it’s healthy and deserved.

The other side of this coin is the accountability produced by needing to maintain good public image. Here, I am referring more heavily to companies and public figures.

The first example that comes to mind is the juxtaposition of the corporate response to the Exxon Valdez spill and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig spill. When the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck a reef in 1989 and dumped a huge amount of oil into the ocean, Exxon was slow to react and blamed the ship’s captain for the disaster. Possibly learning from this anxiety-ridden and slow response, BP instigated a massive containment and cleanup effort very quickly following the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in 2010.

Other tragedies, such as Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, were reacted to very quickly by the American Government, perhaps in fear of the same backlash FEMA received for its slow response to the Hurricane Katrina crisis.

It is for these reasons that I believe those in the media spotlight should continue be very mindful of their relation to the public. Not only is it a healthy thing to watch after, it is a great source of learning.

Funnel Vision

 “Hope. It is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.”

I am often struck by how perfectly these words explain how I feel from day to day. Hope is such a wonderful thing- it propels us as humans to achieve what would otherwise be impossible. It is also the fuel that burns our minds when we are unable to realize a goal- without hope, we would not be disappointed.

I can’t tell if the almost-crippling existential crisis I’ve been suffering the last two years puts me on par or behind the curve. I’m slowly figuring out what I want to do with my life, but most of the clues on how to do so have come from my peers- they already seem to have a firm grasp of what’s going on. I’ve had this bad habit these past two years of putting all of my eggs into one basket. I’m a very hopeful and a very unlucky person, so I’ve been subject to some serious heartbreak lately.

I read an article today titled What are You Going to Do with That?, a paraphrased transcription of a speech given by William Deresiewicz. In it, he discusses how young people often let decisions make themselves, and the boring, single-minded elders around us did the same thing when they were our age.

This article is a little assurance that what I’m doing by re-evaluating my life is a good idea. I want to lead myself down a path of my choosing, not let the self-making decisions lead me their way. I’ve always worked towards my own goals, but a lot of the time I didn’t put any thought into what those goals were, as long as they were my own.

There’s a little bit of self-leadership content here, but I recently realized why my peers were figuring out their lives so much faster than me. The truth is that, regardless of how my college sells itself, it is simply a four-year live-in technical seminar. It is not a place to have “the college experience,” the self-discovery that my peers are accomplishing by way of their diverse and new experience at school is nigh impossible for a well-adjusted individual at my school. The socially inept may have the awakening they needed, but those of us with basic hygiene and the ability to ask someone to hold the door are already too far ahead.

I guess I always have to be on guard for surprises like that. Figuring out my life the hard way is a challenge I have accepted, but it irks me a little that I didn’t even know I was being challenged. Habitual tunnel vision aside, I think I’m going to enjoy the more holistic view of my situation. Deresiewicz calls the tunnel vision the funnel- you zoom in closer and closer on one thing and after a while it’s too tight to turn around and look back. Just think, if I had stayed just as clueless, I could have spent just as much time funneling as my counterparts at real college.

It's All About that Fitness

I don’t have a problem with hyper-masculine, fit males in advertising. I’m not really bothered by women in perfect shape all over advertising either. Before you call me a pig, hear me out.

I feel like a lot of the “pressure” that studies have shown is placed on people to have the “perfect TV body” is self-inflicted. I guess that people see the ‘advertising body’ and falsely believe that they should be able to make that kind of body happen with a normal schedule. The truth is that searching for the ideal body in spare time is both unrealistic and possibly not worth it.

It should be known that the people in advertising have the bodies that they do because they are paid to. Their job is to look good when filmed; they have chosen to make their living by staying in shape and representing various products. In a lot of ways I’m jealous- Get paid to work out all the time? That would be sweet.

It’s unrealistic to think that if you have a full-time job you will be able to work out as often as models do. You can’t. You have other things to do. People need to know that one’s value as a person does not just rely on how in-shape they are. Having a family, being successful at your job, enjoying other hobbies and spending time with friends are all components of personal wealth. It should follow that a person must make a decision on what the value of each of these components is and work to maximize their self-worth.

On the other side, if you’re depressed about your body image then do something about it, but make sure your goals are realistic. I’ve heard people openly complain that watching models makes them feel terrible about their bodies. Either decide to make a change and live a healthier lifestyle, or decide your other traits as a human make up for being unhealthy.

Another component of the fight over personal fitness is diet. I’m well aware that healthy food is slightly more expensive and slightly less accessible, but the dividends paid by overhauling your diet and switching to a healthy lifestyle are more than worth the extra effort. Models are, again, paid to eat perfectly so that they may maintain their perfect body. To me, this is not too much to ask, but it’s a conscious decision that has to be made. I often tell people to ask themselves how much the taste of a food item worth in health. Usually that gets them thinking about what they really value. To be honest, healthy food isn’t bad tasting, either. It’s just less mainstream so far less people know how to prepare it. You have to be confident enough in your healthy lifestyle to pass up MacDonald’s with your friends and eat that chicken salad later at home.

I’m glad that models are in such good shape. It lets me know the potential my body has, and serves as a metric for where I am on the useless-fat-blob-to-perfectly-in-shape scale. I don’t look at all of the unhealthy, hygiene-lacking, scared programmers I see around me and become depressed because my coding abilities are pathetic compared to theirs. I have so many other things going for me. Why should fitness be any different?

5 Cent Eggs

During a lecture regarding leader-controlled media, a thought about a catch-22 popped into my head. If a leader’s tenure in power is perpetuated by follower support, and the leader makes the poor leadership choice to spin the media in his favor, he is simultaneously becoming a poor leader and making it almost impossible (especially in the short run) to be discovered as a bad leader.

Putting a positive spin on things has never been my strong suit. I tell the whole truth, every anxious frustrating detail. I do this based on the golden rule; I agree that ignorance is bliss, but I’d rather be aware than blissful.

Anyway…

Critiquing a leader’s performance real-time seems to be to be a very tricky endeavor. Rarely is a leader’s situation unoriginal enough to have a good precedent for them to follow, and even if there was a plan that had worked in the past, different leadership styles can attain the same, if not better, results.

A lot of the time (at least in my experience) followers don’t know what to look for in their leader. This makes those followers both blind to important problems and prone to panic.

All of this occasionally makes the decision to support a leader very complicated. If a leader is doing a good job, but the situation leads followers to become frustrated towards him or her, followers may want to remove that leader.  Removing a good leader will be a poor move, save for the small amount of catharsis. Maybe then it is better to leave all leaders until the end of their term, regardless of their popularity. Clearly, however, some leaders are doing such a bad job that they need to be removed immediately. But how clear is it really? How do we know that we won’t thank them for their frustrating leadership later?

This area is nothing but pure grey. Just think, a leader could be smart enough to hide an unpopular decision as to remain in power and see their good plan through, or they could be dumb enough to hide an unpopular decision because they truly believe their obviously flawed plan is brilliant. Go ahead; your brain may now explode

I guess all I’m saying is keep an open mind when critiquing a leader. Don’t panic, keep your head on a swivel, and be logical. And for the love of decisiveity, know what you want.

NewSong/Submerged

I often end up in arguments with my peers concerning pirating music. It usually gets pretty heated, and I get ganged up on frequently.

Unlike most people my age I don’t pirate music. I pay full price for each song and have amassed a music collection worth thousands of dollars. Most of my friends think I’m crazy. They figure that if an artist is popular enough to be on ITunes, they are wealthy enough to not care about the additional ten cents per song otherwise.

That’s not the point, guys.

I’ve been where these artists are now. I know it may be hard to believe, but I was once in a band. Girlfriends for groupies and parents for roadies, typical high school stuff, but it was still just as much work as anything even mildly more professional.

We didn’t suck, either. Amity Regional High school has an award winning music and performing arts department, and the year we played POPS (the annual audition-and-play-music-in-the-auditorium-for-money event) we performed the only original song. I am proud to inform you that I wrote the chorus music for that song, and figured out how to get my buddy Adam Watts his dope drum solo.

I tell you this because I received absolutely no credit for that song whatsoever. I worked hard to figure out the missing piece to that song, and after a few weeks one of the other guys in the band started taking all of the credit. The other band members, save Watts, started playing along just to piss me off.

The punch line is that I spent some serious effort on intellectual property and reaped no reward. There wasn’t any money involved, either. If I’m so frustrated about simple bragging rights, I can only imagine how angering and unfair it is to pour years of your life into an album only to have a bunch of entitled college kids rip it off your CD and spread it on the internet. It is absolutely the same thing as stealing. The music is the product these musicians are selling, just because you can’t hold it in your hand doesn’t mean its ok to unlawfully take it.

Just for giggles I attached a link to the recording of the song. This was recorded by the band after Watts and I quit. I’ll warn you that it’s pretty lame. Watts and I took all the bite with us when we left.

http://www.myspace.com/music/player?sid=56429366&ac=now