OCT 24th, 1981 ... now OCT 24th, 2013 ...Day #24
Thirty-two years is a long time.  My son made a nice post on Facebook today congratulating us on our marriage of 32 years, 32 times longer than his.  There is much to be thankful for.

Rear View ...
A few posts ago I commented that cars were all about going forward.  There were few provisions for viewing or thinking about where you had been.  Even the comment "find a place to turn around when you can" implies that doing so will be a bit a hassle, something that takes extra time.  You may have missed a sign, missed a turn or missed your destination but "going back" just is not right.





Crafting one's future involves initiative, some foresight, some ideas, creativity and a few objectives that are achievable. This stupid resume has been a challenge, but I did share (collaboratively, not an email attachment) version 2.2 with the LHH guy late today.  Getting this down is a tangible objective.  Determining where that resume should go, to be seen by whose eyes is a work in process.

The resume typically focuses on your accomplishments, results that may, or should, capture the readers attention.  Perhaps it could be all about your ideas for the future but you are really trying fit yourself into someone's organization.  This is not all about you or your ground-up creation.

How do I look to people?  How do the people behind my back see me?  How do the people covering my back see me?  It appears that they see my shirt tag.  Frontally you may look good but doing a quick 360 degree review is good.    You are attempting to fit in not just frontally but 360-wise.  When I interviewed professional services firms I'd ask for references.  Offered up would be engagements where the solutions were awesome, budgets met and final products delivered on time.  My second round of interviewing always included a request for references where there were big problems.  I wanted to know how the services and product firms dealt with schedule compression, over-budget problems, bad personnel and bad products.  This was far more valuable.

Mr. LHH suggested putting my resume up against a few CIO job postings.  I'm going to do that but I'm also going to review a few more resumes to pick up on those conflict/failure projects.  Most sales pitches fail.  Most wars fail.  More than half of all marriages fail (not yet, here).  Most IT projects are never completed.  How does my success rate fair?  Are there any shirt tags exposed?  I need to tuck those away.  You could suggest cutting it off but those are part of this automobile, guidepost, guideline theme, too.  The shirt does not fit right if you put it on backwards and you're going to do that 50% of the time without a tag.  

Forward Tomorrow...
I did some research on grants today and tomorrow I'll contact the Bush Foundation resource.

Blog Thought...
This has been good.  My fourth copy of "Writing Down the Bones" has not arrived, but neither did the present I purchased for Linda for our Anniversary.  Tomorrow things will come together.