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Losing your job might get you laid April 18, 2009

Posted by Niels in : Work , add a comment

It’s days like today that I feel fortunate to have my job. I spent the last week combing through data from the General Social Survey, an survey of over 50,000 people’s opinions on social issues. Including sex, of course. And I found some interesting stuff, all summarized in my recent blog post at Tableau. Turns out that more money = less sex.

Now that your taxes are done, we thought we’d explore the sexier side of financial insolvency. Those of you excited about a little more recreational activity in your bedrooms should keep reading. It turns out all these financial disasters may have a bit of a silver lining.

Check out Tableau’s blog for the sexiest data visualization you’ll ever see. And if you like it, I of course encourage you to Digg/Reddit/Twitter/Stumble/Facebook/etc it…

Your thoughts?

An eventful few days February 11, 2008

Posted by Niels in : Personal, Work , add a comment

It’s been a hectic few days. Spoke at Gonzaga Thursday, home on Friday just too late to miss Obama’s speech, but just early enough to grab a couple hours of sleep before running a Friday seminar and meeting a friend after. Saturday was spent caucusing, followed by speaking to the Seattle Lair (very clear now that my target audience is somewhere else, don’t know where yet) and a last minute mad dash to Value Village to find a costume for the House on the Hill’s first ever Eighties Extravaganza (photos coming). Sunday was more sedate, sleeping in before setting up the “cardio theater” for some bike time while watching Hard Candy (disturbing), accidentally being a douchebag to a friend (reparable, maybe, hopefully), then going to a bartending flair competition (awesome).

Lessons learned:

From Gonzaga: The speech went well, especially considering that it was the largest audience I’d done exercises with and a completely new demographic (including one girl who fainted). I wasn’t left with the all-over glowing feeling afterwards that I was hoping for, however. I think the difference is in my audience - my usual clients have made social improvement a huge priority in the life, and the gratitude I feel from them reflects it. Reaching out to a more general audience, I’m going to get a much more sedate “well, this is interesting, and could maybe be useful” attitude. Craig told me he had the same experience when he was speaking professionally, and it made it really hard for him to market himself. I can see that. If I attack a wider audience, most of my audiences will be just fine even if they never hear me speak. On the bright side, I get results, as two girls in the first session met and decided to be roommates, while two girls in the second session became new instant best friends. That was nice.

From the caucus: What a clusterfuck of democracy. It was a cool experience, and I’m glad I went, but I can see the caucus being much more effective when there are only 1000 people in the entire state. There was far less arguing than I was hoping for (one 1-minute speech for Clinton and one 1-minute speech for Obama? what a ripoff!), nearly zero undecided voters, and I got the impression not many people were much more informed than me. And I’m fairly uninformed. But it was a great experience overall, with hundreds of people lined up around the block, and I’m the first alternate delegate behind my roommates for the next caucus level.

From the party: Be polite to police officers. Apparently our neighbor has very sensitive hearing, the officer who came to check out our “noisy party” said she had to park her car, roll down the window, and then listen for a few minutes to hear the music. She was very understanding, we hope our landlord will be as well, and a good time was had by all.

Bartending flair: So sweet. Craig and I met the competition winner from two years ago and after throwing limes at him while he was competing (he asked for it. no really, he did), hung out with him for the play-by-play for the final top competitors. Apparently some of the guys are required to compete in flair competitions by the terms of their visa - the US has plenty of bartenders, they have to prove that their job is special…

Your thoughts?

Hello Gonzaga February 7, 2008

Posted by Niels in : Work , 1 comment so far

I’m speaking at Gonzaga University today. Two 2-hour sessions, up to 200 people per session. That’s big. I really, really, really want this to go well…

Your thoughts?

Maybe I’m a salesman February 3, 2008

Posted by Niels in : Work , 2 comments

Every so often, I take stock of my various skills and brainstorm what could possibly be turned into a career. Somehow I’ve always managed to forget about my sales experience. Leading workshops for Pickup 101, I was responsible for not only being a great instructor, but upselling the students and also performing a platform (mass room) sales pitch to a room of potential customers. With a product that I believe in, I really enjoy selling. I’m intrigued by the idea of discovering a foreign product I could import and sell, or simply finding a local company that needs a salesman. So I’m adding sales to my list of options to pursue, leaving me with, in order: public speaking, sales, Facebook app, internet marketing. If I keep myself disciplined enough to maintain forward progress on something at all times, I have no doubt that something will happen in the next few months.

Your thoughts?

Self-employment fears January 30, 2008

Posted by Niels in : Work , 3 comments

Craig just finished reading Steve Jobs’ biography, in which Jobs fails spectacularly to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars before striking it huge and becoming a billionaire. It does make me feel a lot better about failure and pursuing my own career - what I can’t figure out is financially how to stay afloat in the meantime.

I have a number of ideas that could potentially turn into a profitable career, but they all have a fairly long time horizon. In the meantime, I’ve got about 10 weeks before I’m going to have to tap into my investment accounts, which is not something I want to do with the stock market currently plunging. I’m getting really worried.

In the meantime, every dollar I make keeps me solvent a little longer. I think the solution is to focus hard on my best opportunity for short-term profit, i.e. public speaking. I’m speaking at Gonzaga in a week and half and it’s essential that I parlay the event into more gigs.

That, or fail spectacularly. Hey, it worked for Steve Jobs.

Your thoughts?