Marc Van Norden

Being out in the field looking for a job is certainly a change of pace. Over the last 3 years I can’t count the number of interviews I have been a part of. In the last 6 years I probably been on the other side of the table a handful of times.

I went in for an interview last week and everything was going pretty good. In my opinion any interview should just come across as a good conversation for both parties. Not one side asking questions and the other one answering them. I felt we were having a good conversation that was flowing and painless. The hour we spent talking seemed to fly by. Towards the end of the conversation the interviewer asked me a simple question and I dropped it! It was something so basic, something I have asked candidates hundreds of times. A question that you ask just to get a sense of a candidates web savvy, “What are your 5 favorite sites?”. And I dropped it! I remember stammering out, “ESPN of course…”. The one site any employer would rather not hear, “The World Wide Leader” in killing productivity. I think I also threw out Mashable.com but for the life of me I can’t remember anything else I might have said.

Even as words were coming out of my mouth I knew this was a question I should have a very easy answer for. After the interview later into the evening I was still thinking about the botch and actually trying to answer it for myself. The patterns in which I consume information have shifted. In the past I would have 9-14 bookmarks and maybe 10-15 rss feeds to go thru on a regular basis. But when work starts piling up the last thing I had time to do was go and peruse sites. I would bookmark, star, tag, digg and add to delicious. But then the list of tagged items would be long and over the course of time the list of must visit sites and rss feeds grew unmanageable.

It took me awhile, but then I realized, I don’t have 5 favorite sites! I still get information, links and opinions, but it is not necessarily from an aggregate site like Digg. Instead of being directed to content that is surfaced by general popularity, I have chosen to be influenced by individuals that I respect and trust. Twitter, and the people I follow has somewhat replaced my need to subscribe to any particular site. And the content that the individuals do surface tends to have a more direct connection with my interests versus most popular. A lot of the times I am connecting with the individuals who are writing the content for the sites we visit. For example I follow:

Andy Carvin

NPR NEWS

Ken Wheaton

Writer for Ad Age

Jeremiah Owyang

Sr Analyist, Forrester

NASA

NASA

Kevin Rose

Founder of Digg

Peter Cashmore

Founder of Mashable.com

Michael Lebowitz

Founder of BigSpaceship

This is a good cross section of news, science, advertising, social media, and technology trends. And for the most part these people are pretty consistent with engaging thier audience. Not that it is necessary, but you will watch or hear about stories on twitter before I see the article come out from AdAge (who I also follow) or NPR. Twitter has cut down the amount of scanning I need to do (but don’t have time for) by 60%. I obviously still do explore on my own, and if I had to pick 5 sites (after much deliberation) they would be:

Adobe Labs

http://labs.adobe.com/

QBN (News Today)

http://www.qbn.com/

Slate Magazine

http://slate.com/

The Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Mashable

http://mashable.com/

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Since Barrack Obama took office in January I had been following his qeues on the stimulus package. Coming out of the holidays the economy did not look any brighter, and I think real concerns of job loss started to hit home. So I watched and listened even more intently to the daily updates and pundits on what they thought was going to be in it, whether we needed it, who was going to fight it etc. We’ll fast forward to Feb. 12, my fears became reality, I was laid off from work. Three days later Feb. 17th a massive (although some think not massive enough) stimulus bill was passed. What this meant, I had no clue. Even when I called the IRS and Dept. of Education, they didn’t know. It was too early.

Well today one of the other people laidoff shot out an email to the group. In it are the details of how part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is being used to help unemployed Americans. Personally, this helps me out a heck of a lot more than giving anymore money over to AIG! If you are unemployed, or know someone who is recently, please send this information:

On February 17th, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (HR 1) to help stimulate the US economy.  A major component of this new law created temporary changes in COBRA and the employer’s obligation under COBRA.  I have spoken with Conexis and they are working feverishly to send out instructions for employers.   They should send you something by next week.  The new policies become effective March 1st and plan employers have until April 17th to notify eligible COBRA beneficiaries of the changes.  At this time I wanted to let you know the latest information about this issue:

1) I have written a short summary of the changes on my blog:
http://www.benefitscafe.com/blog/2009/02/economic-stimulas-and-health-insurance.html

2) The US Department of Labor sets policy for COBRA and their guidance info is here: http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/COBRA.html also, I found the “COBRA Premium Reduction Fact Sheet Helpful.”
http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/fsCOBRApremiumreduction.html

3) The IRS has sent out some guidance on how employers recoup the premium that they pay on behalf of eligible COBRA beneficiaries here:
http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=204708,00.html

All of this is happening very quickly and this impacts every company in the US with 20+ employees. DOL and the IRS are trying to figure out what to tell people in order to comply and how to adjust their automated payroll tax collection system.  The COBRA administrative companies (Conexis, Infinisource, etc.) are trying to figure out what to tell their clients. Payroll companies (ADP, Paychex, etc.) are trying to figure out how to change their systems to integrate the credit on the 941 forms.

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This weekend there was a lot of discussion about who would be tweeting at the oscars, what peopling where saying online. Last weekend it was the same thing with the NBA All-Star game (particularly Dwight Howard for Adidas). Well Monday night I followed a live event although not as sexy.

Sitting on my couch at 1:44 am, thinking I shouldn’t have taken that 3 hour nap at 7pm; my mindless ESPN watching was interrupted by a tweet from @NASA: “OCO launch update: Liftoff is now set for 4:55 EST. Catch it on www.nasa.gov/ntv“. This was a lot more interesting than watching the rerun segment of sportscenter for the 4th time straight.

OCO stands for “Orbiting Carbon Observatory”. The mission as described on its site is to: “After launch, the OCO mission will collect precise global measurements of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists will analyze OCO data to improve our understanding of the natural processes and human activities that regulate the abundance and distribution of this important greenhouse gas…….” So I shot off the TV and started intently watching the 320 x 240 feed. The video was not that great, but the audio was perfect. The system checks and pre launch activities added to the excitement. I tweeted a couple comments about the activity. Then I twitpic’d a shot of the lift off. To my suprise someone re-broadcast my tweet. Then it dawned on me to see if other people where following the launch. I went to Twitter Search and was suprised at the amount of people who where following it. There were people who were watching it online as well as people who were able to see it overhead. It just made the entire event that much more exciting. Check out the NASA search results here.

Unfortunately, what you will hear about the project is how it failed…About 3 quarters of the way thru the launch, launch command called for the contingency plan to be implemented, “Nobody leave the room, nobody call out.”. A little while later they say that, “The faring did not separate from the spacecraft”. A press conference will convene in 2 hours…The excitement of the event was immediately replaced with a feeling of disappointment. I think my emotions were heightened (good and bad) because of sharing it with these other individuals. Unfortunately the mission failed. Unfortunately not enough people pay attention to what NASA does (we pay for this!!!). One positive, we have access to watch events like this.

One other interesting aspect of this whole event. Some people will read up on the events and news of Monday’s launch. It is a unique experience to follow it live as it happens. I will be watching more NASA launches in the future. Hopefully more people watch these events. Hopefully more of them will be successful. #FAIL!

Update: Launch Archive and Press Conference

I have attached the video of the launch for your viewing pleasure. I have also included the follow up press conference to why the mission failed.

Part one of the briefing.

And if you are still awake. Part 2 of the briefing.

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Over the last year there have been a lot a lot of really good sports related ads. The NBA and Nike in particular have had real success. In my opinion these are some of the best sports related ads. I just wish baseball could do as good of a job, instead of those FOX post season ads stuck in my skull.

NIKE: Leave Nothing

The Steven Jackson vs the Steelers ad came out before this seasons start. I think this ad did influence where I wound up drafting Steven Jackson in fantasy football (big mistake). “Leave Nothing” is  the best of them, but the series of ads was great. I think there are a ton of similarities between this ad that came out last year, and the new Nike Basketball ad that just came out. What do you think? Too Similar? (NOTE: I don’t mention Shawn Merriman because he was suspended 4 games for steriod use, in case we forgot.)

NIKE: “Lead the Charge” Become Legendary

This a great new ad for Nike Basketball. It was the catalyst thos post I liked it so much. All the other ads in this list have been out for awhile once this one came out it was the breaking point! So many great ads! What actually got me thinking is how similar to the Nike Football ad from a year ago it was. Fast Motion, slow motion, hard video cuts, epic music. Both have a similiar style, I think the Nike Basketball ad builds up a bit more at the begininning with some locker room/hall way shots. When Chris Paul gets to his part, it almost sounds like he is cheering. “Be Agressive, BE, BE Agressive!”

Nike: “Fate”

Another Nike Football ad that appeared late last year. This ad is predominately about the build up and coming to a head. It is with LT (not the original LT Lawrence Taylor but Ladamian Tomlinson) and Troy Polamalu. The music gives it a old western appeal much along the lines of “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”. Not as good as the “Leave Nothing” ad in my opinion, but still great.

NBA: “There Can Be Only One”

In classic Hilander fashion! “I am Colin McCloud from the clan McCloud…”! “There can be only one!”. This campaign ran thru the NBA finals last year and it was great. With each round they paired up key players all the way to the finals. During the finals they aired the Magic Johnson / Larry Bird “Rivalries” ad. I must admit after watching all the others, it did kind of creep me out to see Larry Legend in a jersey. But it was a great way to cap off the campaign….Respect! You can see all the ads here on the NBAs’ YouzTubez Playlist

Garnett and Lebron: “Respect”

Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant:”Fear”

Magic Johnson and Larry Bird: “Rivalries”

NBA: “The Game Happens Here”

This is a purely biased opinion on this ad. If you watched KG come to Boston and answer questions week in and week out, you remember some of those press conferences. I think the ad does a great job of building the tension all the way up to the Finals. And what is great about it is the consistency in the message KG has from day 1 to winning.

These are the last of the photos from a great trip. I lost my ID flying into DC, lost my iPhone flying out of DC, and on top of that I stood in one spot for 6 hours freezing and got sick. But none of that could ruin the experience. I just kind of realize that it has been so easy to be negative about so many things. And sometimes it’s easier if you just let it go. (not my iPhone though….I think I might be getting it back!)

I would like to take the time to thank all the people who where appreciative of the live commentary and updates during the event. It was nice to be able to convey my thoughts and emotions during this historic event, and to provide a different lens for people who could not make it. It made the whole experience that much more gratifying.

Thank You

Lasty, while I do not have my iPhone, I have not been able to upload to the FB app. but people are still uploading content. It is a really great cross section of peoples perspectives.

http://apps.facebook.com/inaugreport

Enjoy the pictures

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