Word Mercenary

$1.2 Billion in Med Grants

2009-08-20T07:18:00.000-07:00

Today in Chicago, Joe Biden will announce nearly $1.2 billion in grants to help health care institutions convert to electronic records.

And while gov grants can be tricky, they are well worth the time and effort. We can help save the planet and money at the same time ;)

(and make it that much easier to access our own medical records, thank gawd).

Freelancing in the Sun

2009-07-07T10:54:00.000-07:00

Ok. So it's a ridiculously nice day outside.

So what?

You've got work to do, right?

Days like today make me glad to get an early start. Working your own hours can be tricky - you don't want to work too little and you don't want to work too much. Not having the mandatory 9 to 5 can mean a boon to some and a curse to others.

Making your own hours means a certain amount of freedom. This can be good and bad. On a day like today in Chicago (seventy degrees and sunny) the last place you want to be is inside an office.

My office (these days) is a coffee shop. Next to the windows (if possible). So my solution to this dilemma is simple: I take breaks to step outside. Make a phone call. Stare at trees.

I begin work by 7 so that I can be done by 3. True, I don't NEED to work an eight hour day, but some days it is what I want to do. Now I can look forward to a nice bike ride at 3 p.m.

Some friends of mine (and family) like to poke fun at my freelance lifestyle. It is easy to assume that I spend most of the day in the bathtub or lounging on the beach. The truth is, some days are much harder than they used to be back in 9 to 5 land. If the work isn't there, it's a tough day of drumming up business. And if work comes in droves than it's the stress of making all of your deadlines.

On days like today it's good to know we are not alone out there, punching away at the keys and planning our escape.

So, my freelancing friends, get outside. You deserve it.

*Image credit Ivan Andreevich.

How to talk about the iPhone without being an advertisement for the iPhone

2009-06-25T10:24:00.000-07:00

I haven't a clue how to do it.

Up until last Friday I had never owned a cellphone. The gentleman at the counter was having trouble hearing me as he repeated his question: "What service do you have currently?"

True, I am (and have been) rather hypocritical. I spurned the cellphone, all along borrowing my wife's to make calls when away from home, and allowing friends to call her to learn of my whereabouts.

Now I have my own. I have officially turned to the "dark side." And friends have been quick to point out that I didn't just join the dark side, I reached the far end of its dark corner by purchasing an iPhone, the uber-connector. True, it may be one step removed from the notorious "crackberry," as it is so filled with fun and games it could hardly be blamed for allowing one to work too much...

But it has already helped my productivity. My email inbox is empty. I have already used its gps feature more than a dozen times to find restaurants nearby. I finally have a place to store my contacts, and I will never get lost in the woods and be eaten by a grizzly while utilizing my handy compass and laser-guided assault rifle (okay, the last hasn't quite made the app store yet, but it is surely on its way).

Having the internet at my fingertips is an amazing tool, especially when it looks this pretty. Research at my command.

Really and truly, this is more about me. I am now a part of the cellphone revolution. And I have an iPhone. Sue me.

Writing, in Moderation

2009-06-18T07:24:00.000-07:00

I recall in college (B.A. in Fiction Writing, go figure) listening to those writers in my class talk about their writing habits and feeling like a complete underachiever.

One woman who was a single parent woke up at 5 a.m. every morning and wrote for two hours. Another stayed up through the wee hours of the night cranking away pages of Joycean goodness while slurping coffee.

Typically, I found myself scrambling in the weeks and often nights before deadlines, pounding out prose and berating myself at the same time.

In college my excuse generally centered around my rock 'n roll/metal/prog band. How could I have the time or energy to write a great piece of fiction when I am pouring out bucketfuls of emotion three nights a week screaming into a microphone???

This all-or-nothing philosophy fulfilled its purpose in college, but now has lost its glam (hahah, "glam," get it?? ah, hehe, yeah).

Now I have found a balance somewhere in between. It is not so much about sitting down every day at the same time -- more often than not the desire to write comes at strange times. But I have learned to leave myself open to the possibilities...sometimes late at night, right after dinner, or first thing in the morning. The trick for me is to be open to it when it happens. And I don't succeed every time. In fact, this post almost proves that (my last post was over a week ago).

The important thing to remember is not to hold yourself up to other peoples' standards. Just because Keats was already dead at your age does not mean you should give up.

Resume Vs. Cover Letter

2009-06-09T07:25:00.000-07:00

It's an old argument.

What is really more important, a fantastic resume or an ear-grabbing cover letter?

Signal vs. Noise thinks it has the answer.

And while I will not debate the merits of a cover letter, I would not ignore in this day and age the very real possibility that your resume is being looked at first by a robot (yay!). Here's what this means:

If you are applying for a job with a large company that has an HR department, it is likely your resume will be scanned by one of these automotons. If this is the case, your resume is quite important.

However, if, as the folks at Signal Vs. Noise suggest, you are applying for a job with a small firm that values personality above bullet points (and I praise anyone who does), then your cover letter just might be what gets you in the door.

My suggestion is this: don't kill yourself on either one, but know the job for which you are applying and decide which is more important. Stick to the following for the resume:

Stay on message: make sure your resume speaks to the job for which you are applying
Use great action verbs (see a good list here)
Keep it short and sweet (two pages max, but try for one)
Know the industry in which you are looking to work - it doesn't hurt to throw in some keywords now and then

For the cover letter:

Again, know the industry. Tell them why you want to work for them
If you can, address the letter to a real person
Lighten up (just a bit!) so it doesn't sound like the aforementioned robot
Give them a reason to continue reading!

If anyone has other tips or an opinion on this topic, please weigh in below!

Sign of the (economic) Times

2009-06-07T19:29:00.000-07:00

It happened. After going through our basement storage space with my wife, throwing out old papers and toys and books never read, we dug up my old piggybank.

The goal of our mission was to search through boxes and boxes of papers, which (*shocker*) ranged as far back as junior high school (yes, I am one of those). While digging through bad poetry and old postcards we stumbled upon my Robby the Rabbit piggie bank (or, shall I say, "rabbit" bank?) circa 1982.

I considered for a moment leaving it as is, dropping it back into a box not to be seen for another ten years. But, imagining (or shall I say over-imagining) the groceries we might be able to purchase, we greedily stole upstairs, and while I rummaged through papers, the wife deftly took a can opener to the top.

The result (after an 8.9% service charge from the machine) was $40.32, which was quickly spent on a bottle of wine and other assorted date-night essentials.

So thank you, grandma, grandpa, mom, dad, and various strangers who left their change on the sidewalk.

R.I.P. Robby the Rabbit.

The Word is Not the Thing

2009-06-05T23:40:00.000-07:00

It is 1:41 a.m. and I have just returned from hearing Joe Lally perform live in Chicago and there is only one thing on my mind:

"The word is not the thing / we say war when we really mean rape and murder / The word is not the thing / we say war when we really mean makin' some money / The word is not the thing / we say war when we really mean ideas above people."

The bassist for legendary punk band Fugazi stands in a circle surrounded by a crowd of four dozen people, holding his stomach and singing a cappella. Not something I expected to see. Not something I expected to hear. I was drawn to the music but more importantly to his lyrics, which he sang with complete confidence and understanding in the meaning he was looking to convey.

Was he quoting Polish-American philosopher and scientist Alfred Korzybski with the intention that I search him out on the internet? He might have simply heard the phrase repeated once before and liked it. Either way, it has me entranced. The word is indeed not the thing but it certainly helps to define how we feel...

p.s. no hyperlinks here. I guess anyone reading this will have to mine the ether that is the interweb...

Grantwriting Tip #1

2009-06-03T14:33:00.000-07:00

Don't be afraid.

You'll never get beyond your introduction if you don't believe that you have something important to ask for ($ for your great program!).

Approach the grant like a high school persuasive paper - stop panicking, it won't be that scary - think about your thesis, your central argument. In the industry it's called your elevator pitch.

Elevator Pitch. n. Your idea/project boiled down to a nice, neat little 30 second speech that you can rattle off at will.

Keep this in mind when you begin writing. And ask yourself frequently: does this reference my elevator pitch? Am I still talking about the program, or have I veered off into another dimension?

Write a draft all the way through without thinking. Push the fear aside. You can berate yourself later when it's time for the edit. But for right now, allow yourself to just get it all out.

More tips to come...

How to work with a grantwriter

2009-06-01T08:48:00.001-07:00

Are you unsure of just what it means to hire a grantwriter?

If so, this is a great article on how to work with a grantwriter, understand the process, and get the best bang for your buck!

After reading, come on over to wordmercenary.com for a free quote!

More Resume Tips

2009-05-31T18:20:00.000-07:00

Here's a good article with resume tips clipped from the Tribune. I agree with most of the points in here, especially the following:

Spellcheck!
Be Brief
Include your successes (dollars raised, money saved, etc.)
Include technical skills

Thanks for the tip, dad!

Again with the Spelling Bee

2009-05-29T08:37:00.000-07:00

You've got to love the opening to this piece in the Times of India about the National Spelling Bee.

An "air on inevitability." Gorgeous.

True, the winner, Kavya Shivshankar, was poised beyond belief each time she reached for the microphone. And the tiny smile that appeared on her face as her new word was uttered aloud did seem to foreshadow her win.

Of course, it didn't hurt that her father was in the background with a knowing look, as if to say they had studied that word 100 times before...

Apparently, Indian-American parents have been practicing for this for some time now:

"Why Indian-American kids have begun to dominate Spelling Bee (and its companion event the Geographic Bee) isn’t a mystery anymore. Parental and peer pressure and inspiration have resulted in almost every Indian household pushing their kids into nationwide competitions in every sphere of school life, not just spelling competitions. The results show up in many school-level academic competitions."

A win for "precocious middle-schoolers" everywhere...

Language, not just for adults

2009-05-28T20:14:00.000-07:00

My wife and I desperately scribbled down ridiculous spellings of each word that was uttered at the 2009 National Spelling Bee competition.

I may have come close once or twice to getting the right spelling (off by just one letter!) of some simple words like "menhir" and "antonomasia," but words like "hydrargyrum" and "sophrosyne" remained just out of our reach ;)

Sagittarius

2009-05-26T10:28:00.000-07:00

It has its roots in the latin, "sagitta," meaning "archer."

"Fffffffffflllllllllllllick" might be the sound of an arrow piercing through the air at top speed...or the sound of your Sagittarian writer (yes, December 3) cutting through difficult prose like a triangular-shaped bullet...(is this mixing metaphors?)

Give us a looksee.

Resume Tips

2009-05-07T08:28:00.000-07:00

A few tips to help you along in your next job search:

(1) Keep your bullets in the "present" tense wherever possible
(2) Include accomplishments in bold as a final bullet in a work category you are particularly proud of (i.e. "Raised $1,000,000" or "Responsible for 100 employees"
(3) Leave your educational background at the end of the resume and keep it short and sweet.
(4) Any skills you have in technology can bump you up in the long stack of resumes. Include MS Word, Excel, database software, web design tools, etc.
(5) If an employer asks for references, CALL THEM FIRST. The last thing you want is for one of your references to be caught off guard (or worse, have a poor opinion of you).

Quote Misuse

2009-04-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

This has got to be the most terrifying and inappropriate distortion of a quote I have ever seen.

Paper Mills

2009-04-14T13:09:00.000-07:00

A piece on Talk of the Nation this afternoon led me to this article on farming out your high school or college papers to outside companies that will write them for you. Good deal, no?

The radio piece focused (oddly, I thought) on the idea of guilt. Guilt on the part of students who hired the writers and guilt on the part of writers who did the work for them. Calls came in from both sides, explaining why they did what they did - not being defensive, necessarily, but all offering reasons for their actions.

I posit this: It is a strange phenomenon, and not one I was really aware of at all until today (besides other schoolmates offering the same). I have never written a school paper for anyone or paid to have one written for me, but I was nonetheless intrigued by the notion. This happens every day in the workplace, although we never talk about it.

Do CSO's write their own speeches, their own letters? Do Executive Director's write their own acknowledgments? Of course not. I am not claiming these two acts are one in the same, but I do find it interesting that we are so quick to condemn those that use these essay services (or those that do the work for them) when we all do this in our daily lives. It is almost a rite of passage. Whether a college student pays for a paper or not, one day (if they earn high enough marks, of course) they will most likely be sitting at a desk somewhere, signing documents and letters that they have never even seen.

It almost sounds to me like good practice for the future...