I've had a few different jobs in my life. One of my favourites was my college summer job where I visited various small towns around Saskatchewan as a traveling cable TV salesman. (Yes, I know a “vacuum cleaner salesman” joke just popped in your head. Don't bother – I've heard it.)
But this job was different from being a “typical” traveling salesman. I was a huge TV fan back then (not so much vacuum cleaner fan) so I was actually selling something I enjoyed and knew about. Mini-satellite dishes like Bell and Star Choice were just coming into existence so my sales job was a lot easier as the only TV entertainment options for people were cable, a giant satellite dish that filled up your yard or the three channels that were available via what my friends and I lovingly called “FarmerVision”. (The Internet wasn't available outside of universities either at that time so no BitTorrent competition either. )
I was paid a decent hourly wage but also had an escalating commission structure on top of that which moved this job into the stratosphere of college summer jobs. This escalating structure meant I got a certain amount for every new cable subscription I sold, a certain amount for every package of channels (we had four) I sold to either new or existing subscribers and even a certain amount for selling extra outlets (for those who'd never heard of a splitter.) I also got a generous per diem that could be stretched quite a bit by sharing hotel rooms with two other students hired to do line work while I did sales, eating cheaply and staying with family or friends in communities where I knew people.
Once I hit various new sales thresholds – 50 subs, 100 subs, 150 subs – and so on, the amount I got for selling any one of those items I listed jumped as well. In my best summer, I sold over 300 new subscriptions, my company won a national marketing award and the escalation in commissions became so lucrative that I made more than half of what I made per year while working for literary non-profit organizations in those four months!
The whole point of this trip down memory lane is that I'm pretty excited to have been given a similar assignment for the next few months at my current job. Although there's no escalating commissions to be seen, I will be on the road pretty much every day visiting each of the 46 rural libraries that make up our region to do some one-on-one computer & Internet training with our branch librarians, holding a drop-in time when local residents can bring any technology questions to me for assistance and doing a one-hour presentation on “Everything You Wanted To Know About The Internet (But Were Afraid To Ask)”. In fact, I'll be visiting many of the towns that I visited while working for the cable TV company all those years ago. I'll have some downtime between sessions in most communities so my blogging shouldn't fall off (it'll probably increase to be honest!)
I thought I wrote about Wikia when I first heard about it but couldn't find anything via my blog search engine. So I guess this will be my first mention of it here.
Radiohead are usually extremely innovative with any multimedia products they put out – from videos to concert films to web sites (although the current version is quite traditional compared to what they've done in the past.)
That makes this hour long video they recently released of them performing all the songs from “In Rainbows” in a recording studio with no other elements except some artsy bumpers between songs a bit disappointing.
But hey, it's Radiohead so on another level, it's all cool.
[Edit: the last song in the video has some “Street Spirit”-esque slow mo. There you go. Cool confirmed.]
Kathleen DeLong, a librarian at the University of Alberta, is conducting a survey on the engagement of new library professionals in leadership roles and activities as part of her LIS PhD.
If you're a recently hired librarian (within the last five years), why not take a few minutes to help her out by filling out this quick survey.
Here is some more information from Kathleen:
This is your invitation to participate in a web survey on leadership engagement of new library professionals. The survey is directed to new professionals who have worked for five years or less since graduating with a Masters degree in Librarianship (graduated in years 2000 to 2007). The survey data is being collected for purposes of a study carried out in fulfillment of requirements for the PhD Managerial Leadership in the Information Professions programs at the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science in Boston, MA. The short survey (shouldn't take more than 15 minutes) probes various factors associated with leadership engagement of new professionals in Canadian libraries. It is your choice whether or not you wish to participate in the survey, participation is entirely voluntary. You can terminate the survey at any time by closing your browser. There will be no penalty or consequence for doing so.
Responses are anonymous and data will be reported without any identifying characteristics.
This survey has been approved by the Simmons College Institutional Review Board. Although I am professionally affiliated with the University of Alberta, this survey is not related to my work with the University of Alberta Libraries.
Presumably they did this in the hopes of driving traffic to their web site but still, was it even worth $5 to do this considering my question, although it got a few “favourite” votes, is by no means a highly visible question that many people will see?
I guess for some people, sure, it's about the cost of a pint of beer and it's a permanent link in a very targeted spot to promote their web site. Plus I know that whenever I post a link to my blog on MetaFilter in relevant discussions (I've done so in a couple library school related threads), I always get a few ongoing hits because of that.
But still, MetaFilter profiles are a bit more buried than the posts and comments that make up the bulk of the web site so seeing this sock puppet/spammy account connected to a post of mine just seemed really strange to me.
Each year for the past ten years, the Edge Foundation has asked leading intellectuals and thinkers, from Brian Eno to Richard Dawkins to Tim O'Reilly for their thoughts on a particular question.
The 2008 question is “What have you changed your mind about? Why?”
You can also find an archive of previous questions such as… 2007 – “What Are You Optimistic About?” 2006 – “What Is Your Dangerous Idea?” 2005 – “What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?” …going back all the way to 1998.
And it appears that they're now producing books based on the question so if you're doing any collection development for your library, you might want to consider purchasing them.
Quinn has posted a great article on his site (I've bolded the really fascinating part below):
At the risk of jinxing things – I think it’s
pretty clear that there’s a historic shift underway between activities
we used to engage in offline and things we now do online. It’s no
surprise, for example, that CD saleswere down 20% this US holiday season while online shopping was up 19%. That’s how it works, right? People are moving from one marketplace to another, more virtual one.
Another dataset released this weekend, however, paints a more complex picture. According to the newest study from the Pew Internet and American Life Center – the youngest, most affluent and most internet-connected adults in the
US are also the most likely to visit a physical library. It wasn’t that
way just 10 years ago. How many
other legacy industries can you think of today that can say their
strongest growth is among young, affluent, power-internet users? Something is going very right in library land. The music business ought to pay close attention to what’s going on there.”
From the people who brought you the endlessly fascinating, Baby Name Wizard's “Name Voyageur” web site which shows the popularity of various names during the past 100 years, a new web site called Nymbler – Your Personal Baby Name Assistant which provides baby name recommendations.
Some of their suggestions when we put in “Jason” and “Shea” as “Inspirations” included: Brian, Kier, Shea (for a boy), Bryn, Logan, Cael, Eamon, Ione, Quinn, Sybil. Not a Pace to be found but I think Shea said that name wasn't in their database at all. And some of their suggestions (I didn't list them all) were on our shortlist so maybe there's something to it? Oh, and if you're interested in this type of thing, the print version of the Baby Name Wizard is great fun as well – even better than the web site because it lists suggested sibling names, categorizes names in a variety of different ways and gives more information about each name in general.
I did this last year and found it a good way to sum up my year so I thought I’d do it again today as 2007 comes to a close.
What did you do this year that you’d never done before?
Became a father!
Did anyone close to you give birth? Well, my wife for starters! My brother-in-law and his girlfriend had a baby six months after Pace was born (if you have kids within the same calendar year, they’re apparently “Irish Twins” so does this make Pace & Dennon “Irish Cousins”?) We know a lot of friends and acquaintances who’ve had babies in the last year or two and it honestly seems like there’s a bit of a baby boom going on right now, probably linked to Saskatchewan’s strong economy and sense of optimism (or it could be a batch of faulty rubbers. )
Did anyone close to you die?
My last living grandparent, Wally Peet died a week after Pace was born. A PhD student at FIMS who was my age named Chris Dixon was also a shocking loss.
What countries did you visit?
A couple shopping trips to North Dakota to take advantage of the soaring Canadian dollar were the extent of our travel this year. Well, we traveled a lot if you consider our weekly commute to Weyburn. And the fact that a large part of my job consists of visiting rural branches covering the entire southeastern portion of Saskatchewan.
What would you like to have in next year that you lacked this year?
Eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.
What date from this year will remain etched upon your memory?
March 31 – start my first job as a professional librarian
May 19 – Pace is born
What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I’m quite proud of the advocacy work I did which convinced a newly amalgamated community of three small villages to join our library region instead of another bordering library region which they were initially planning to join.
What was your biggest failure?
I’m sure there are some but I try not to to dwell.
What was your biggest surprise?
I know it’s 50-50 odds but Pace being a boy was a great surprise.
Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing major though I recently did have an MRI to follow-up on an issue I had about fifteen years ago that hasn’t really been assessed since that time.
What was the best thing you bought?
I just bought a 250GB external USB drive that I’m quite impressed with. Now I’ve got all my MP3’s, movies, photos and various other digital files on a device that’s about half the size of a paperback book (and only ~$150 at Costco if you’re interested.)
Whose behaviour merited celebration?
It’ll sound like ass-kissing but Shea’s been amazing this year. I always knew she’d be a wonderful mother but the amount of work she puts in to that job continually astounds me.
Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Oh, lots of people probably – some that are far away (<cough> George Bush </cough>) and some that are closer to me.
Where did most of your money go?
It’s not our biggest expense but it feels like we’ve spent a lot on gas for the weekly commute to Weyburn.
What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Anytime Pace hit a milestone of any kind blew my mind – smiling, crawling, babbling, eating solid food.
What song/album will always remind you of this year?
I really haven’t listened to a lot of new music this year. Sam Baker’s new album “Pretty World” is great and just the whole story around the new Radiohead album being offered on a pay-what-you-want model is pretty monumental.
Compared to this time last year, are you:
Happier or sadder? Is it possible to be both happier and sadder? As happy as I am to be a father, there are those moments when I realise I’ll never have my young, carefree life again. (But that’s what midlife crises are for, right?)
Thinner or fatter? Fatter, unfortunately.
Richer or poorer? Richer since I had an actual income for most of the year.
What do you wish you’d done more of?
Pay more even more attention to Pace’s development and growth – I want to remember every little detail but that’s impossible when you’re at work most of the day. I’m already scheming to figure out how I can get a much longer paternity leave if we have another child someday.
What do you wish you’d done less of?
I really can’t think of anything off the top of my head. It’s been a fairly “put it in neutral” kind of year in many ways.
How will you be spending did you spend Christmas?
Spent it with Shea’s family then came to Indian Head on Boxing Day for a great visit with some Calgary friends we haven’t seen in years including their new daughter, Hali, who was also born this year. (A librarian’s point of pride – he’s a doctor but he took down a number of the books I told him I’d read in the last year.)
Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
As I said last year, we literally do not use the phone anymore. So I’d have to say it was the customer service lines at Sears, Canadian Tire and various other places that forced us to spend a lot of time on the phone (well, on hold) with them.
What was your favourite TV program?
I try to make a point to watch at least some of Hockey Night in Canada each week – the opening feature, the intermission segments and most of the late game and after hours – but really, that’s it for my TV watching these days.
Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Hate is such a strong word. There are probably people I dislike this year that I didn’t last year but that’s pretty much inevitable, isn’t it?
What was the best book(s) you read?
“The Road” by Cormac McCarthy for fiction and “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins for non-fiction.
What was your greatest musical discovery?
Quite embarrassingly, nothing pops to mind.
What did you want and get?
A healthy happy baby. So far, so good but as I’m sure I mentioned somewhere, everybody tells you how great being a parent is but no one ever tells you how constantly terrifying it is from the moment of conception on.
What did you want and not get?
We’re sort of the in the market for a new vehicle (yes, a mini-van – please check the jokes at the door!) but will likely hold off on any purchase until Shea gets back to work. Oh, and we wanted but did not get twins – thank god!
What were your favourite films of this year?
I think “The Simpsons Movie” was the only film I saw in a theatre this year so I’ll pick it even though it was underwhelming (but how could it ever live up to the expectations?)
What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Went to work, came home, had cake. I turned 34 this year.
What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More time at home.
How would you describe your personal fashion concept this year?
“Jason becomes an adult.” Jeans and t-shirts are replaced by khaki pants and collared shirts. Shaving happens on a much more regular basis. Still resisting wearing a tie as much as my boss would like but I’ll save those war stories for when my contract is over.
What kept you sane?
Early evening naps when I could sneak them in. Long baths where I could get lots of reading done.
What political issue stirred you the most?
Not that I’m doing anything about it but being back in rural Saskatchewan after fifteen years away has been a reminder as to what the issues, concerns and values are compared to urban centres.
Who did you miss?
More ass-kissery but I sincerely missed all my friends at FIMS. Quite a shock to go from being surrounded by smart, young, cool (<smooch>) budding librarians to a workplace which has a grand total of three other professional librarians, one of whom is in a city branch an hour away, one of whom has been a professional librarian for over 30 years and one of whom has been kept busy dealing with various issues at his own city library most of the year – even though it’s right next door to where I work.
Who was the best new person you met?
Besides Pace? One thing I love about my new job is that we have a great group of people at our headquarters.
Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned this year.
“It’s all politics.”
Quote a song lyric that sums up your year?
Ooh, little sleepy boy
Do you know what time it is?
Well the hour of your bedtime’s long been past
And though I know you’re fighting it
I can tell when you rub your eyes
You’re fading fast, oh fading fast
“St Judy’s Comet” – Paul Simon
What do you hope the next year brings?
A new job (hard to believe my contract is half over already!), continued good health and development for Pace and everyone else in our family. Oh, and a Stanley Cup for the Flames!
Here’s
another year-end meme where you record the first sentence of the blog
entry that began each month.
)
