Over-50

Free from Regret: When shoulda, coulda, woulda leave us alone

Yesterday I made an amazing discovery.  For the first time since I was 11, and had lost my self confidence as I entered womanhood, I was free of regret.  Instead, I had the awareness and the confidence to frame a situation as completely positive.

A little after 8 A.M. yesterday I had packed my attache case, including laptop and smartphone, put $50 of gas in the car, and headed from New Haven, Connecticut to Boston. I was in one of those beauty contests - that is, competing against a lot of other qualified people for a full time job with benefits.

The interview went pretty good, I thought.  When I ponied up the $32 for the 1.5 hours in the parking garage and scanned the list of Boston rentals on the Internet, I got the sinking feeling that maybe just maybe relocating to that city, if offered the job, wasn't in my financial self interest. 

The good news is that I was saved by an email.  A long term lucrative assignment for contract work was being offered me.  I called on my trusty smartphone and said yes, yes, yes.  I notified the company in which I had interviewed that I was now available for freelance but not full time work.  We had discussed the freelance possibility.

Halfway home I settled in at a truck stop which had pizza at $5 a slice, stale candy on sale, and WiFi.  I coulda had regrets at spending a whole day not earning a penny and putting out a lot more than a penny.  But I didn't.  I had test marketed Boston as a place to live.   And I ruled it out.  I had made more contacts. I might get interesting freelance work.  

In addition, at the truck stop I met a truck driver who had been taking the baby steps being a writer.  We talked for about an hour.  By time I had hit the road again I felt like, instead of wasting a day, I had done a useful day's work in terms of my career path.

Attitude is everything.   For me, being able to frame current pain as opportunity came late in life.

Mark Zuckerberg's Investor Relations: Hoodie + sneakers

Boy CEO Mark Zuckerberg is going around the country touting the stock of Facebook before the IPO.  It's funny. Only one analyst has made an issue that the Boy CEO is doing the road shows in his hoodie + sneakers.  That's progress.  I remember when our generation showed up at the revolution with lots of hair and torn blue jeans there were few people over 30 who didn't predict that the world was going to hell in a handbasket.

Of course, I didn't blink an eye when I noticed how Facebook was going about its investor relations.  I was too preoccupied regretting that I wasn't going to get into that deal. 

Smartphone: New rite of passage for Baby Boomer generation

Last night I started my career all over again.  Actually, I just put in-place the symbolism attached to leaving a past of both success and failure behind and opening myself to whatever.  Already I had interviewed for assignments, part-time, and full-time opportunities out of my comfort zone.

The symbolism took the form of unplugging and putting in the garbage two landline phones, along with the stand-alone answering machine I had held onto for years.  That rite of passage is one many of us Baby Boomers are taking a little late in our lives.  Already, Generations X and Y have incorporated smartphones into their lives and how they frame the world.  At my 12-step meetings, those gens fiddle with their handsets.  There will come a time when the leader for the meeting demands not only that phones be turned off but that they be tucked away.

Since I intend to remain working for the next 10 to 15 years it has been necessary for me to reposition myself in a marketplace that has changed so much even from the last time back in 2003 when I had also been forced to change (Download Geezerguts). 

On day one of my new professional outreach I will not superimpose my experience and skills on the world but first look at what opportunities are there and if I can leverage the past onto the present, as well as acquiring whatever else I should be bringing to the table.

My Smartphone: Now I can play in the sandbox with all the other generations

I marked Saturday on the calender.  This was it.  I was going to cross that line from dumb phone to smart.  Of course I hardly slept a wink.  But at 10:00 A.M. I left my apartment (like many aging Baby Boomers I prefer renting to owning).  I got into the car.  I sighed.  Then I headed to the AT&T retail store in the North Haven, Connecticut shopping center on Universal Drive. 

After I left and locked the car I slowly approached the center and it was a miracle of pure determination that I opened the door.  In 34 minutes it was over.  I was the owner of a Nokia 900, with a Windows operating system. 

The get-acquainted with your device was on the web.   To tranfer pictures from the handset to the computer I still needed to buy a USB Micro Cable.  That I did today with my almost $30 of Staples loyalty points.  The one problem was that a sort of error message came up that I couldn't make calls because the SIM card wasn't in.  I checked. It was in.  I returned to the AT&T store.  A Generation Y salesman fixed all that.  He promised me it wouldn't happen again.

Everything under control, I felt like I could play professionally with all the generations.  After a few years of feeling less-than, I felt equal.  At 1:15 P.M. I showed up for an interview for a part time position with the internet arm of a retail operation.  The interviewer had his smartphone on the desk. I put mine in front of me.  He was Generation X.  I was able to stand toe to toe.

Is the lesson here that Baby Boomers struggling unsuccessfully in the employment space should get a smartphone? Maybe it is.

 

Barbie in Cyberspace: She probably won't even flip her pony tail for us Baby Boomers

It was a different time.  We gathered around the piano and sang.  The girls in the neighborhood played with our Barbies almost until we were teenagers.  And no one knew anyone who was divorced.

Now, investors in Mattel, the maker of Barbie, are plenty worried that children not only grow up sooner but what their  idea of fun is being on a tablet or smartphone. Well, Mattel has started to do something about that.  Barbie is now part of cyberspace.  There she will never become a mature brand because she's only part of the whatever.  And we Baby Boomers can't expect any special treatment from one of our oldest and dearest friends.

I look at that development at Mattel for financial information company Motley Fool.  Here you can read all about it.

Over-50 & Still Working in Journalism: Maybe some good news, finally

Here you are over-50 and somehow you have survived all those reductions in force at your journalism job.  There might be a reason to become optimistic that you can retire from that industry.  The magic bullet may be mobile.

I take a look at how mobile is already transforming the newspaper business for Motley Fool, the financial information company.  Here you can check out what I conclude.

Will we be buying stock in the schools our grandchildren are attending right in the living room?

Wall Street is already in the business of education.  Many online schools are for-profit.  Eventually, if News Corp head Rupert Murdoch is on the money all schools will be primarily online ones and also publicly traded company. Yeah, we can buy stock in our grandchildren's schools.  The edge is that we will have the insider intelligence.

I analyze the phenomenon of online for-profit schools for financial information powerhouse Motley Fool.  Here you can read that.

NEWSWEEk: Are old brands worth trying to turn around, should we bank on old names in the industry?

One time queen of the magazine turnaround (think THE NEW YORKER, VANITY FAIR), Tina Brown might be in trouble. Her attempted turnaround of ancient brand NEWSWEEK, to which she attached DAILY BEAST, has not panned out yet.  Recently she told the world, reports Chris O'Shea in FISHBOWLNY, that the work that needs to be done is only 40% there.  Yes, that media outlet is still losing money.

Many of us Baby Boomers are facing the same issue of what we should hold onto in terms of our branding and what to toss.  Here a useful read is "Necessary Endings" by Henry Cloud.

Video: Not our father's 12-step program

Tonight at our 12-step speaker's meeting, the 350-pound leader was mad as hell.  He had found out that last week the speaker had been videoed delivering his talk.   Who knows, that video could be on YouTube and the man's boss see it?

Video, which can be done so secretly, will now be embedded in members's minds as a reason not to be so candid in sharing their experience, strength, and hope. 

Pinterest: Let's us apply all we have already learned in social media

By this time many of us Baby Boomers who operate businesses feel good about how we have mastered social media as a tool.   We have our Facebook brand page, LinkedIn account, Google+ account, Twitter site, and blogs.

So, we're positioned well to exploit the advantages of the new social media networking tool: Pinterest.  As Sarah Needleman in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL points out, it's especially useful for us women and creative types.

But, the advice in the WSJ is not to just jump in.  Learn about this tool by participating as a consumer.  Then go in and make it yours.