Q. Tell me more about what you’re looking for.

A. I don’t think about interviewing them for work. I first try to understand who they are as people. I usually have someone’s résumé, but I never look at it until they sit down. Then I say, “O.K., take me through the résumé.”

The most important thing is people need to be themselves. And someone could be totally, on paper, perfect for the job. But they might not have the openness, the vision. I like when people bring energy, creativity, newness to me.

Q. What else?

A. Communicating. To me, this is probably the biggest thing. If it’s the right person, I can barely speak and they understand what I’m saying. But if it’s not the right person, they have trouble understanding, because creative people are not like other people. Any other creative C.E.O. will understand what I’m talking about.

Bobbi Brown, founder of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, tells the New York Times what she looks for when interviewing job candidates.

The spread of multimedia communications and its rich “menu of options” might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web, or to see it only as a space to be filled. Yet priests can rightly be expected to be present in the world of digital communications as faithful witnesses to the Gospel, exercising their proper role as leaders of communities which increasingly express themselves with the different “voices” provided by the digital marketplace. Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis.

Don't know what the practical impact of this will be, but it's got to be a good sign. I mean, if the Pope says we've got to blog, how can we ignore it?

Just because it's Einstein's. I don't think it's so messy.

Today the Supreme Court ruled that corporations can spend as much money as they want influencing American Elections.  If I lived in China or Russia, I'd be pretty happy.

The Supreme Court is made up of justices who demonstrate no understanding of how profoundly the world has changed due to changes in business, technology and communications.  Not surprising, since the average age of the justices is 67, with several members far older than that.   I suspect none of these justices ever worked in a global company.

Corporations today do not belong to any geography.  They belong to their investors.  And those investors can come from anywhere. 

I'm not too happy over the US Supreme Court allowing corporations to spend what they want in elections. The scenarios I built were all pretty local, though. This analysis from Fast Company takes a much more global perspective. Read the whole post for a scenario that isn't very pretty.

23 January

It's not taking long to find evidence for the scenario just imagined.

How to be passionate (when you open your mouth)

Vijay recently asked in the comments on a recent talk:

Thank you for a great presentation.  I noticed that your energy was explosive and  there was absolutely no point in the presentation where I could detect a lull. I am interested in learning if you have any secrets or techniques in  maintaining the focus of not just the audience, but also  yourself as I often space out even when I am working on something that I am passionate about.

Explosive energy makes me think of being a drummer in Spinal Tap. Perhaps I should tone it down.

There are four things going on.

1. My life is at stake.  I have bet I can make a living on my ideas and my ability to express them. I have no guarantees, no salary and no pension. Every time I write a blog post, a book or a give a talk I’m basically an entrepreneur. I’m not half invested. This isn’t a side project. THIS IS IT. I need people to buy my books, hire me to speak, and to tell others about me. When you’ve invested your heart in something, it’s much easier to appear passionate about it, because you are.
2. I believe what I say. I really hate phony people. I hate people who water things down, intentionally mislead, or pretend they care about things they don’t. How much of what is said at work do people truly believe or care about? I think very carefully, and long, about most of what I create, and so when the time comes to give a presentation, or write a book, my points are things I truly believe.  And I’ve worked hard to make them concise. I’m not holding much back because I know it’s easier to get excited about things you deeply believe, especially if they’ve been boiled down to their essence. If you asked me to talk about my favorite tax software, or which 401k forms I liked the most, passion would be hard to find.
3. I’ve extended my range.  If you can only play one note on your guitar, you can’t do very much. Musicians, especially singers, practice to extend their range. Most speakers have a narrow range. They only know how to get from volume level 4 to 5. If you practice, and listen to other great speakers carefully, you’ll notice how wide their range is. They can whisper (volume level 2) or almost holler (volume level 7).  You also have a range of gestures, and postures, and facial expressions. The wider your range the more tools you have to express passion, or curiosity, or humor, or anything. You extend your range through practice and coaching. I never want to be too passionate, as it’s easy to sound like a preacher on cocaine or Billy Mays. Instead my goal is to be at high level of enthusiasm  without crossing over into annoying.
4. I have great respect for anyone who voluntarily listens to me. Speaking and writing are very subjective, and I know that reasonable people might not like me, or what I have to say. But their sense of how much energy and effort I put in is something undeniable. I never want to be dismissed by people for not being sincere. They can hate me, prove me wrong, heckle me, whatever, but at the end of the day I don’t want anyone leaving the room, or finishing one of my books, feeling like I gave half an effort.  Frankly any speaker is burning way more calories per second than any listener, but that’s often forgotten by most listeners, it’s a consumer’s market when it comes to things to consume.

Hope that helps. Let me know if it doesn’t.

Seems like this should be called Words for a Speaker to Live By. Scoot Berkun has been gaining a lot of visibility lately as the author of Confessions of a Public Speaker. This gives a pretty good idea why.