It's been a quiet week ...
Yes, I winged my way back to the USA for a few days. You lose a day or two when you do that, but the change in scenery makes up somewhat for that.
I had a productive meeting with a potential employer here, only in the sense that we a little less wary about one another. Will see where this goes. At the same time, no sooner had I left Germany than one of the major German companies actually proposed a Vor-Vorstellungsgespraech in response to recent Bewerbung from me. Gee, guess the official seal on the ZD clinched that.
Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and a billionaire by way of Broadcast.com, had a nice post entitled Getting Paid to Learn, looking back at some of the interesting jobs he has held over the years and how they helped him to move along to where he is today. It's an interesting take for those between jobs, because one of the natural tendencies for many of us is to re-tool by going back to school. Mark's take is to re-tool by doing.
It is nice to see a billionaire who is not totally removed from how an organization makes its money, but then again as he has pointed out in other posts he was a founder and not just a "hired gun." Many of those at the top (CEOs, CFOs, etc.) of the large organizations have no idea how their companies actually make money, which goes a long way to explaining why they are more interested in doing deals and jettisoning employees than selling product to customers.
I'm not a billionaire yet, but when I get there, I hope I remember how I got there. BTW, I liked Mark's story about learning how to cold call. During one stint as a stockbroker, I learned to dial and smile as I called roughly 100 people per day to pitch them on why they should give their money to me and XYZ Co. From that experience I have developed a great respect for the people on the front-lines of a business whose job is to separate the client from their money in one fashion or another, hopefully in a free and fair exchange of value.
I had a productive meeting with a potential employer here, only in the sense that we a little less wary about one another. Will see where this goes. At the same time, no sooner had I left Germany than one of the major German companies actually proposed a Vor-Vorstellungsgespraech in response to recent Bewerbung from me. Gee, guess the official seal on the ZD clinched that.
Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and a billionaire by way of Broadcast.com, had a nice post entitled Getting Paid to Learn, looking back at some of the interesting jobs he has held over the years and how they helped him to move along to where he is today. It's an interesting take for those between jobs, because one of the natural tendencies for many of us is to re-tool by going back to school. Mark's take is to re-tool by doing.
It is nice to see a billionaire who is not totally removed from how an organization makes its money, but then again as he has pointed out in other posts he was a founder and not just a "hired gun." Many of those at the top (CEOs, CFOs, etc.) of the large organizations have no idea how their companies actually make money, which goes a long way to explaining why they are more interested in doing deals and jettisoning employees than selling product to customers.
I'm not a billionaire yet, but when I get there, I hope I remember how I got there. BTW, I liked Mark's story about learning how to cold call. During one stint as a stockbroker, I learned to dial and smile as I called roughly 100 people per day to pitch them on why they should give their money to me and XYZ Co. From that experience I have developed a great respect for the people on the front-lines of a business whose job is to separate the client from their money in one fashion or another, hopefully in a free and fair exchange of value.
posted by Mike B at 4/09/2006 12:59:00 AM
2 Comments:
When you are a billionare, will you give me a job? I went and read his post. It's funny. I spent the last 10 years preparing to be an Academic. Now I am a small business owner. Most of my time is now spent chasing customers and the rest teaching English. Making cold calls are scary!! I am getting better at it though.
claire: I was going to ask you for a job! They won't let me start a business.
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