I think in the next two weeks, beatcanvas will become what I'll refer to as a gated playground. I'm spending a couple of hours today working on the login page.
I need a couple of trusted contributors to do some light testing in the next two weeks. If you're interested, let me know.
And I think what I'll do is probably take the posts up until the point of gating it in and leave those open to the public, but after that, all posts will go behind the gate.
For those who choose to obtain logins, there won't any expectation to participate in any way. Just if you want access, you can have it, and then come in at your leisure.
I've hired somewhere north of 100 people throughout my life. The interviewing process is something I like doing. It's always interesting to see a person's reaction to questions. I like calling references in advance of the interview, and not after. It makes me a more informed interviewer.
The interviewee wants the job, or they would be not applying for it (unless they're milking unemployment benefits - I've met a few of those). A job means a paycheck, which is something they don't have, so it's in their financial best interest to clinch the work.
I also know of people who have multiple résumés, to showcase different aspects of themselves. That can be perfectly fine, but a few have twisted it. In the interview, they'll say anything. About three / four years ago, I interviewed a woman for a position. She was coming in to be a web developer. She was amazing, she told me. She knew a web development tool, but I explained that I needed someone who could get into the nuts and bolts of it. "Do you code well enough to write it without the tool?" Oh sure, she said. Might need a book nearby as a guide once in a while, but who doesn't?
So imagine her surprise (and consternation) when I produced a piece of paper and a pencil and asked her to write a bit of code by hand to perform a certain task. And after fumbling through it for 30 seconds, she began to question why this was even necessary. "Nobody writes code by hand. Everybody uses some sort of tool. This is pointless." I began to explain to her why it was necessary, and she kept interrupting me. She was flexibly trying to find an answer to suit me. And when that didn't work, to convince me that I was wrong in my request.
(I did end up finding and hiring two great candidates and hired them both.)
We look down on people who will say anything to get the job. Don't you? I mean, why would you hire that person?
The point of every job interview is not to land the job, but to find a fit. Every person will do a certain job differently, but the job has to be satisfying to the person filling it, and the employer has to get what they thought they were getting. I personally think that employers do a disservice when they post a job description and leave off the expectations. It's a disservice to both the employer and the interviewee. Somehow, qualifications are discussed up front (good) but expectations come later, for some reason. Maybe that because it's not always known what's expectated to be accomplished in the role...
Anyway, I'm watching Obama do flip-flop after flip-flop in his campaign. Some people have no problem with this. He's doing what he needs to do to get elected, they reason. That's a good thing, they tell themselves.
Why exactly is it a good thing to fill the most important job in the country with someone slippery like that?
Let's say he picks Mitt Romney. Mitt comes with an organization. But why wait until two months before the election to get the ball rolling? McCain has squandered a lot of time. He doesn't understand the electorate if he thinks we're just looking for experience. And don't get me wrong - Obama is scary in his naivete. But that won't stop his voters from getting to the polls.
It's as though McCain thinks, like Hillary did, that he'll get elected just on his experience alone. That turned out to be rather dumb.
Every day matters. Hell, every hour matters, especially when you're behind. But I get no sense of urgency from McCain or his campaign.
Meredith's circuitous path to small-business success is hardly unusual. Few entrepreneurs' business ideas end up panning out exactly as planned, said Daphne Woolfolk, founder of Essati Consulting in Hyde Park. "I don't know anyone for whom success is a straight path," she said. "It's about moving through failure, not avoiding it."
Many entrepreneurs move back and forth between employment and launching their own businesses. Meredith, who has a degree in information technology from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a culinary degree from Illinois Institute for Art, worked for IBM, McDonald's, Aramark, Lotus and his mother's data-processing company before launching AlterEatGo.
The real trick to making something great often has extremely little to do with the idea, and much more to do with the execution. That's where the real innovation occurs -- in taking an idea and trying to figure out how to make it useful. It's that process that's important, much more than the original idea. As nearly anyone who has brought a product from conception to market will tell you, what eventually succeeds in the market is almost always radically different than the original "idea."
It's not where you start or where you end up - it's the process that matters. It's about the journey. Which is why it kills me to see so many people dream of owning their own business, and doing absolutely nothing about it.
Location is 90% of success. As in, put yourself where you need to be to do the thing you dream of, and it's that placement that moves you forward. Because let's face it - you would look pretty stupid standing there in the place you need to be, doing nothing at all.
This is an audio and visual presentation, so be ready to listen well.
Bottom line: "The problem is that the projection is based upon an assumption that has no historical basis. Using the historical rate of increase, Medicare and Medicaid alone would consume all tax collections by 2044 if the tax rate remained at the 2007 level of GDP."
Medicare and Medicaid alone... that doesn't include:
Social Security
Mandatory spending on other entitlements
Defense
Non-defense, discretionary spending
Interest payments on the debt our country owes
In 2007, Medicare and Medicaid only amounted to 20% of all government spending. So to be in line with the historical trend, in 2044, without raising taxes enormously on your kids to make up for the money needed for 80% of the budget (!!!), the government will only raise enough revenue through current tax rates to pay for Medicare and Medicaid alone.
I came away from this totally ticked at Bush and our Congress of the last eight years. It was on their watch that these problems have grown to the scale that they have.
Electing politicians that seek to increase mandatory spending will only exaccerbate the problem.
While I'm coding a bunch tonight, I'm browsing around during a break and I find this Nobama web site put up by some Hillary supporters. They've coined the phrase, PUMA, which stands for "Party Unity My Ass."
My gosh, if you think I'm political and a little rough with some of my views, these folks are pulling no punches.
Now evidently, there's been a problem because these folks had their blogs reported as spam to Google, and so they were shut down and unable to post. They're not spam at all, but if there were bad feelings before, it's worse now after having their freedom to publish their own opinion stripped of them. (Shame on Google for acting without validating the charges first.)
So now there is a new web site for them on Wordpress. And they're prolific! And pissed! And they believe that the media is utterly complicit in this charade of "hope and change."
So what if a President Barack Obama were to impose 50% or 60% tax rates on these CEOs and other big earners? Mr. Gramm pounces: "When you help a company raise capital, to put its idea to work, and you create jobs, those jobs are the best housing program, education program, nutrition program, health program ever created. Look, if a man in one lifetime is responsible for creating 100 real jobs, permanent jobs, then he's done more than most do-gooders have ever achieved."
Gramm's right, and I'm glad McCain has this guy whispering in his ear on economics. Obama's approach is like killing the horse on your farm because it eats from the oats it helps you harvest.
Question: What if everyone had the personal goal of creating at least 2 permanent and productive jobs in their lifetime?
Sound tough? How about 100 jobs?
Some people have the ambition of creating jobs. How does that even make sense to penalize such people by taking over half of what they earn? No, we ought to instead penalize those people who lack the ambition to do anything productive at all. I expect that there are far more people who want to do as little as possible than there are those who have the ambition of creating 100 jobs. Which group makes more sense to penalize?
Obama has no clue about life. For all his flip-flops, I don't think he understands it well. Too busy hoping instead of doing, I guess.
ETC: Just when I'm warming up to McCain, I see this. Good lord, but common sense fights for air among those who seek the Oval Office this year.
Illegal immigration is an economic issue as well as a homeland security issue. Illegal immigrants are woven into our economic fabric. They're necessary to ratchet up the demand for the oversupply of homes right now. They work for our nation's employers. 12 million, we're told.
Amnesty didn't work before, despite the assurances for funding stronger border security. Does anyone think this Congress is more willing for stronger borders now than that in 1986?
I agree with McCain that it's an issue. But it's not the top issue, and while I would like to believe that those are just the words of another politician, ol' Mac really believes that stuff and authored the most recent legislation.
Agh... would that we had someone who could talk sense about this stuff.
