Dudamel Will Conduct Nine Symphonies in Three Weeks

The fact that both were featured in the Los Angeles Times Arts & Letters on a recent Sunday is a coincidence. To me, what they have in common is that while both have work, neither have jobs. Not by my definition, anyway.

Dudamel was featured in an article about The Mahler Project, in which he will conduct nine symphonies in three weeks. It will take two orchestras to keep up with him in this endeavor. Then he’ll rest for two days and repeat the whole thing on another continent in 12 days.

Sure, he’s only 30 years old. Youth will do that to you – give you both crazy ideas and the energy to make them happen. But it’s more than that.

Hawking was featured in a book review on the occasion of his 70 birthday. It was 50 years ago that he was diagnosed with ALS and given two years to live. With limited body movement using a voice synthesizer, he taught mathematics to some of the world’s brightest brains, and led the world in thinking about theoretical physics and cosmology.

He also shared his concepts in a way the rest of us could understand through his books, including A Brief History of Time, which spent 237 weeks on UK’s The Sunday Times bestseller list. As the LA Times article said: “He didn’t have time to die.”

On this, my first official day back at work this year, I’m thinking more about, well, work. It seems to me what Dudamel and Hawking have in common is that both have work. Not the toil-and-grind sort of work, although no doubt a lot of that is involved, but the kind of work we refer to as a body of work or an art work.

Dudamel clearly fits into the artist category, and one could argue that Hawking, with his wildly creative thinking, is a type of artist as well. But should work be limited to these extraordinary beings? Or is it something that is available to us all?

Certainly few of us will ever share our work as publicly as these two prodigies, but I believe we could also be doing work rather than toiling at jobs.

What would that look like? For me, it would be something I’m proud of, that captures and holds my attention, puts me in a state of high concentration, and that I would do even if I didn’t get paid.

No doubt there are some days I have a job to do, and I do it. But I strive to have most days ones in which I do my work – the work I am meant to do. That uses my unique blend of talents and skills to make a positive impact – on both me and those who experience my work.

Infographics have always been popular. There’s even a site dedicated to them: dailyinfographic.com. But lately they’ve popped up as a regular feature in Newsweek, one of the most mainstream of media.

Obama at 50: Newsweek 7-24-11

One of the most consistent relationships in my adult life has been with Newsweek. I’ve been a subscriber since college, when a journalism professor went down the long list of all the things I had to read regularly. I picked Newsweek because then at least I’d have a summary of the news when I didn’t get through the rest of his list.

It’s been interesting to watch the evolution as its editors attempt to save the life of the publication. The latest is Tina Brown, a celebrity journalist in her own right, and she’s certainly brought more, shall we say, mainstream content to the news weekly.

But she’s also brought something critical in the digital age – visual storytelling. There’s still a place in the magazine for thousand-word and even three-thousand-word articles, but interspersed are nuggets of eye candy.

The best infographics do much more than impart information – they tell the story in one or two pages.

Case in point: On the occasion of what would have been Princess Diana’s 50th birthday, Brown wrote an article about what Diana’s life would be like were she alive today. You can read the article, or you can skim Diana’s Facebook page, which gives you all the same ideas in a clever format.

Princess Diana's Facebook Page, Newsweek

I recently heard a colleague lament about what a writer can do in an era where people don’t read. Writers are more important today than ever, was my reply. It takes great skill to crystalize an idea into the few words that matter most. When paired with compelling images, your story can make a lasting impression, and may even lead to someone reading the thousand-word article.

“I didn’t have the vaguest idea what being a first lady was and what was demanded of me.”

The solution? “I just decided to be myself.”

– Betty Ford, from the Los Angeles Times

Photo: Courtesy Gerald R. Ford Library

This gem comes from Saturday’s LA Times obituary of our former first lady. One might say she was an accidental first lady. But sometimes accidents have the best outcomes.

Betty Ford didn’t have time to prepare and develop a platform and create messages, all of which can be highly effective. Instead, she just had to jump in and be herself.

It worked because, even when you are developing a platform and delivering messages, what today might be called personal branding, being authentic is the surest road to success.

Authentic is the only way to sustain a brand, especially a personal brand. After all, it is you.

It’s also the best way to engage an audience. One proof point from the Times article: “when he [President Ford] ran for election in 1976, one of the most popular campaign buttons read ‘Betty’s Husband for President.’”

The other part of the story is that, when the pressure of having a job she never wanted got to be too much, she self-medicated.

Thanks to Betty’s authenticity, she turned that into a gift also. Addiction wasn’t something people talked about in those days. Nor was breast cancer, which she also fought and won.

It’s hard to imagine that now, but we can thank Betty’s frank authenticity for freeing us to get the help and support we need.

Being herself was the best brand ever. No consultant could have dreamed up anything better.

While the economy is picking up, the expectation is for slow growth. SLOW growth.

During the boom times, many businesses were able to just hang out their virtual shingle and the money would roll in. Stay in touch with a few contacts and that sufficed for marketing outreach.

Consequently, many entrepreneurs forgot or never learned how to do the core activities to keep business coming in. Add to that the reluctant entrepreneurs – people who have no choice but to be in business for themselves. Some of these fundamentals may not be part of their skill set at all.

That’s why my colleague Donna Chaney and I created re:LAUNCH – a two-day strategic planning retreat for entrepreneurs, which will be held March 4 and 5 in Pasadena, California.

It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day or get overwhelmed by all the possible things you could do to grow your business. re:LAUNCH will build a booster rocket under your business by giving you two days to focus on your business and plan your moves.

At re:LAUNCH you’re not alone. You’ll get feedback from your peers – fellow entrepeneurs. You’ll receive guidance from me and Donna, both experienced corporate consultants and entrepreneurs ourselves. We’ll walk you through a process to give you insight into your business and yourself, and make decisions about how to run your business.

As an entrepreneur who worked alone for many years, I always wanted a strategic-planning retreat to energize and focus me like the ones I had when I worked in the corporate world. So I created one. I hope you can join us to help your business take off.

Getting your résumé in order is always a satisfying first step. It makes you feel like you’re already on your way to a new job. But if your résumé is missing a profile and isn’t loaded with achievements, you won’t be landing that dream job soon.

If you haven’t been in the market for awhile, you might be surprised to find that you are now the entrepreneur of your career. Your résumé is a marketing tool that needs to reflect and express your executive brand.

Whenever possible, your résumé should demonstrate what you do. If you’re a creative professional, you should have a creative résumé. The HR department might need your job history in a standard format, but that will be a formality. What will capture attention is a résumé like Jake Kahana’s.

TheLadders.com is a great place to find contemporary corporate résumé examples. They run a regular feature called “Does My Résumé Stink.” This will give you a sense of the format and features for standard corporate résumés.

You have to use your own judgment as to whether stepping out of the format is right for you, but start by making sure your résumé is at least this side of the millennium.

Many companies used the recession to make changes – to reposition, rebrand and even relaunch. The goal is to connect with how people feel today, and create trust for the future, be that in the next hour, year or generation.

Some branding changes were welcome, others were startling. Some grew on us and others bombed.

bluefeet, along with its partners at Double Vision Design, compiled this sampling of logo makeovers. Enjoy, and please add your input about other new logos you liked (or didn’t).

Organized by Nordstrom and the LA Master Chorale, it was a fun outing for 300 singers in the LA area and their friends who gathered for the experience. It was a surprise only for a few who were trying to finish their Christmas shopping on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

It’s hard to slip 300 people into a mid-sized department store, or ask them to keep a secret. But was it really supposed to be a secret? Didn’t Nordstrom want more people to show up?

It’s a secret?
A couple days before, we got an e-mail saying no posting on Facebook or Twitter or the secret would be out. By then I’d already told many friends, but had resisted the temptation to post it.

To me, part of the PR value was getting people into the store for the experience. Why not be at the Santa Anita Mall Nordstrom for your Christmas shopping instead of some other store or some other mall? That, of course, is also what made it more mob than flash. A half hour before, people were standing around the piano, waiting.

We lack speed.
A bit of flash was also lost in the post-event viral seeding. Speed vs quality is always a challenge in this digital age. For high-level brands like the Master Chorale and Nordstrom, quality matters. But if you’re going to use a viral-event tactic, so does speed. It’s a challenge, just like blogging.

We sang on Saturday at 1:30 p.m.

A friend of mine posted the unofficial video on Facebook 13 hours later, created by someone who likes to make videos, I guess.

I got the link to the official Master Chorale video on Monday.

One clearly represents both Nordstrom and the Master Chorale better. It’s impossible to beat smart-phone video, which is posted almost instantly, but that doesn’t have the likelihood of going viral for an event like this.

Here’s the official video, posted 48 hours after the event:

Here’s the unofficial video, posted the same day as the event:

The definitive Hallelujah Chorus brand example is the Philadelphia Opera Chorus. Most likely, you’ve already seen this one:

At any rate, I now have the Hallelujah Chorus memorized, including the tricky bits that I never before sang correctly. This came in handy the following night when I sang it three times at Disney Hall. For this rendition, I was with 2,000 other people at the annual Messiah Sing-Along.

More than 250 years since its premiere, and people are still performing Handel’s Messiah. You can’t really go entirely wrong with a masterpiece.

The big winner in the Rolling Stone-McChrystal controversy is most definitely Rolling Stone. In an era where every media outlet is fighting for its life, the controversy is a gift to Rolling Stone. It reminds millions more potential readers that Rolling Stone is a home for serious journalism.

There’s nothing like a good controversy to raise your profile, one way or another.

As (former) leader of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, McChrystal knows about fighting for your life, in a literal sense. But he is the big loser here. He forgot or never knew that reputation is a form of life, at least in a political sense.

Media can be a weapon in your arsenal to help you win the battle, but if you’re sloppy or cocky, it will blow you up.

Avoiding media is not advisable or feasible for anyone who needs or wants a high profile, but learning how to handle it will make sure your weapons are aimed in the right direction.