I recently read an excellent article on resume writing.  It was so excellent that I now can’t find it which is usually the way things work.

The really good stuff I forget to tag or file away.  All the mediocre stuff ends up stacked up on the desk, clogging up the inbox, filling up the hard drive and overwhelming the Delicious file.

But I digress.

The point of the article on resume writing was that people waste valuable resume space — and more importantly valuable resume reader time — telling people about personal characteristics that are either (a) presumed; or (b) best judged by someone other than the writer.

How many of you have read — or have! — resumes that include phrases like …  “hard worker” … “detail oriented” … “team player” … “self starter”.

You read those things and you think to yourself “gosh, this person thinks pretty highly of him or herself.”

And you wonder when you are going to read a resume where someone writes:

“sometimes I’m lazy” … or …

“I’m tough to get along with” … or …

“I am capable of doing exceptional work but every now and then I need a good kick in the ass or else I’ll blow it off.”

Fact is we  often promote character traits that most people should expect of someone.  Like being honest, punctual, dedicated.

More importantly, we are rarely honest with ourselves about anything that concerns ourselves.  And while we may think that we are all these things, could it be that we are somewhat biased?

Shouldn’t others be the judge?

I often work with corporate clients on positioning and messaging their corporate brand.  Inevitably they will want to include the term “leader” in the messaging mix.

Funny, I’ve never have a client who wants to be a “follower” … they all want to be a “leader”.

But shouldn’t that be the judgment of others, not the brand?

Better to talk about your accomplishments, philosophy, and what you stand for.

Then letter others make their own judgment about who you are.

This morning I read the Washington Post and found out where all our money is.

It is with all those companies that aren’t hiring.

Apparently they are sitting on $1.8 trillion in cash.  In fact, they have 25% more cash on hand today than they had prior to the economic meltdown!

By contrast, I’m sitting on … well … not nearly that much.  In fact, like a lot of people I’m trying to cut back because experts tell me that I should have more cash on hand.  My new found frugality is upsetting a lot of people.  Guess who is most upset?  The same companies that are sitting on $1.8 trillion in cash!

Companies are saying they are not hiring people (despite having $1.8 trillion cash on hand) because there is ‘uncertainty’ in the market.  There is uncertainty because people are nervous.  People are nervous because they are afraid the companies with $1.8 trillion aren’t hiring and in some cases still laying people off.

We need a way out.

So here’s the JuiceBar’s deal with corporate America.

We’ll buy your stuff if you hire our neighbor.

We can even set up a formula.

If we buy an extra 100 cases of Crest, P+G hires back one mid-level manager.  15 gas grills from Home Depot equals an extra cashier.  Five flat screens and LG has to hire back one technician.

And I’ll only refinance at these incredibly low rates if the bank agrees to hire two recent college graduates with English degrees.

The history and English majors need our help.

And with $1.8 trillion you could buy a lot of them.

Yesterday coming home I was thinking about Einstein, socks, and cab fares.

Let me explain.

There are many things that baffle me.  Mens socks are one.  You never lose a pair of socks.  You always lose one sock.  Every six months I go to the closet and find a handful of socks none of which match.  Where did their pairs go?  So I go to the store and buy a dozen pair.  Slowly the phenomenon repeats itself.  Months later another drawerful of single socks each forlornly in search of its  match.  Back to the store.

Hold that.

So yesterday I was on a day trip to New York.  I took the 8 am shuttle from DCA to LGA.  Caught the 7 pm back home.  Fare to the city:  $38.   Fare back from the city to the LaGuardia:  $30.

Then it struck me.  Why are cabs from the airport TO the city are ALWAYS more expensive than cabs FROM the city to the airport?  It was a phenomenon that has been bothering me for some time.  Just like socks.  I travel a lot.  Boston.  St. Louis.  Atlanta.  San Francisco.  Every time it is the same thing.  Cab fares from the airport to the city are X … cabs from downtown to the airport … less than X.

I’ve tried to identify all variables.  Time of day.  Tolls.  Traffic.  None seem to fully account for the difference.  After I net everything out it is always cheaper to go from the city to the airport than the other way around.

The only factor I can think of is that coming home always seems quicker to me than going away.  This is a phenomenon that is widely recognized.  There are all sorts of theories but as best I can tell they all boil down to how we perceive time.

Things seem longer when you are under stress (going away) and things seem shorter when you are in delight (coming home).

As Einstein once said:

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT’S relativity.”

So I get how the cab ride can seem shorter or faster or easier going one way or the other.

I just can’t figure out the fare part of it all.

And the socks.

I am constantly amazed.  Not only that.  I seem to be constantly amazed at things that happen … well …  constantly.  You’d think that seeing something over and over and over would eventually wear you down and erode wonder, awe and amazement.  Not for simple minded people like me.  I sit back and watch people do the same silly thing over and over.  And I say to myself, “wow!” … “that is amazing!”

What the heck am I talking about?

It is the audacious certainty with which people predict the future.

And I’m not talking the simple stuff.  Things like, “if you don’t brush your teeth will rot.”  Or, “if you constantly lie eventually people won’t trust you.”  Or, “if you’re disciplined and sacrifice today you can reap the benefits tomorrow.”  That is the simple stuff … the natural and predictable consequences to simple actions.

No, I’m talking about situations that are hopelessly complex, that have multivariate and fast changing events, that computers the size of Big Blue could never figure out.

But here we are with our little 3 lb brains and not only have we figured it all out (and well into the next decade no less!) … but we do so with  absolute, unapologetic and unqualified certainty.

This is more than just the “half full vs. half empty” syndrome.    It is not a question of style, character, or even slant.  It is the ability of people to see the same data, the same information, the same images, the same facts and draw opposite conclusions with the certainty of the sun coming up tomorrow.

Welcome to the health care debate.

• It will decrease the deficit.   And it will raise the deficit.
• It will increase abortions.  It will decrease abortions.
• It will help business.  It will hurt business.

The Wall Street Journal says that health care reform is leading to the “wholesale destruction of wealth and capital.”  The White House says it simply is closing a loophole.  According to one Congressman the health care reform will lead to more aborted babies.  According to Bart Stupak nothing changes.  According to columnist and commentator Fred Hiatt health care reform is a ‘fiscal catastrophe.’  According to a former official of the Congressional  Budget Office, Mr. DeWater, it will reduce the deficit.

No wonder the media reports that the average American is confused.  The so-called ‘experts’ are not only disagreeing.  They are violently disagreeing with even more violent confidence and conviction.

I suspect that the average American isn’t as much confused as he or she is simply recognizing the simple fact that all the “experts” ignore.  We just don’t know exactly what is going to happen.  There’s some good.  There’s some bad.  There’s some risk.  There’s some opportunity.

But we just don’t know.  None of us do.

In many ways the health care reform package is a lot like life.  It is hard to know what the future holds.

So what do you do?  You go back to those simple, historically proven, reliable things you can depend on.

Like brushing (and flossing!) so your teeth don’t rot.  And telling the truth so you can earn someone’s trust and confidence.  And working hard and sacrificing today so you and your family can benefit some day down the road.

As for the other stuff, it would be refreshing if someone said what everyone else has already figured out:

“Who knows?”

I’d like to introduce you to an important book.  It is Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not a Gadget:  A Manifesto.”

But first, a few questions.

How are you?  Everything good?

How about your life on social media?  How is that going?

Have you updated your blog? Gotten any comments lately?  Any trackbacks?  And your Facebook page?  What is your friend count?  Who’s writing on your wall?  How about your Twitter feed?  Have you checked in with your Google account?  Gone through your Google alerts?  Charted your progress with Google Analytics?   Have you checked in with Foursquare?  Did you get a new badge?  How are your Twitter client numbers?  Is your following getting bigger?  Are your “retweets” growing?

Is this you?  Is this what social media is doing to your life?

For those who are regular visitors to the JuiceBar you’ll know that I’ve a love/hate relationship with social media.  I think a lot of us do.  And the irony of me taking on social media through social media is certainly not lost on me.

Enter Jaron Lanier, the father of virtual reality.  He is an admitted computer genius and geek but also a musician and artists.  And as he looks around at what social media has done, he’s none too happy.  His recent book “You Are Not a Gadget:  A Manifesto” is a great read.  Yesterday’s Washington Post review had a good summary paragraph up front.

A self-confessed “humanistic softie,” Lanier is fighting to wrest control of technology from the “ascendant tribe” of technologists who believe that wisdom emerges from vast crowds, rather than from distinct, individual human beings. According to Lanier, the Internet designs made by that “winning subculture” degrade the very definition of humanness. The saddest example comes from young people who brag of their thousands of friends on Facebook. To them, Lanier replies that this “can only be true if the idea of friendship is reduced.”

If you think that’s good, try this.  Here are a couple of excerpts from an interview on Amazon’s site.

Here Lanier talks about how Web 2.0 actually works against the average Joe …

The problem is not inherent in the Internet or the Web. Deterioration only began around the turn of the century with the rise of so-called “Web 2.0″ designs. These designs valued the information content of the web over individuals. It became fashionable to aggregate the expressions of people into dehumanized data. There are so many things wrong with this that it takes a whole book to summarize them. Here’s just one problem: It screws the middle class. Only the aggregator (like Google, for instance) gets rich, while the actual producers of content get poor.

And the big problem according to Lanier is this crazy idea of the “liberation” of information — as if what we’re doing on the social media front is akin to the storming of the Bastille.  Lanier writes:

The original turn of phrase was “Information wants to be free.” And the problem with that is that it anthropomorphizes information. Information doesn’t deserve to be free. It is an abstract tool; a useful fantasy, a nothing. It is nonexistent until and unless a person experiences it in a useful way. What we have done in the last decade is give information more rights than are given to people.

Think about that.

With the whole huffing and puffing of social media claiming that “Content is King” … are we in turn making ourselves slaves?

Concept one:  Permanent record.

When you read that what do you think of?

Well, since I don’t hear you saying anything I’ll tell you what I think of.

Prison time.  Felony conviction.  Registered sex offender.  Tatoos.

Anything — like a shadow on a sunny day — that follows you around no matter where you go and no matter how you shake it.

Now for concept two:  privacy.

You may find this a bit odd, but I’m actually a pretty private person.  I’m not a privacy freak.  I’m not overly worried about identity theft.  I’m not concerned about personally identifiable information floating around.   I sign all those release forms when I go to the doctor.

No.  It is just that I’m just very content being by myself.  Never been a crowd or party guy.  And in my corporate profile I note my motto as being “discretion is the price of freedom.”  Translated that means that when talking about yourself, less is more.

Then I realize that I have a blog, I have a twitter feed, I have a Facebook page, a Plaxo page, a LinkedIn page.

And I realize that I’m not a private person at all!

Now comes Gordon Belt’s book Total Recall.  In his review of the book in the Wall Street Journal, Felt writes :

In a new book, principal Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell evangelizes for “Total Recall,” a practice that he describes with this motto: “Capture everything, discard nothing.” The idea is to use newly available technologies to record every moment of our lives, public and private. Each of us will build a vast digital database of our every experience. Mr. Bell claims that soon “you will be able to summon up everything you have ever seen, heard, or done.”

Whoa.  He goes on to write that with all this new technology and social media stuff, we’ll never have to remember anything.  We won’t have to use our brain or our memories.  We’ll just do a Google search.

It may be because I’m prone to lapses of memory but truth be told, sometime I like to forget.  It is comforting.  I don’t know if I want to be able to summon up everything I’ve ever seen, heard, or done.

I certainly don’t want others to.

OK, now I’m a bit nervous.

According to the New York Times, casting directors are now Tweeting as they audition for talent.  The main culprit in the Times story was Daryl Eisenberg.  In anticipation of criticism, Eisenberg issued a “free speech” defense … specifically “There is NO rule/guideline against Twitter/Facebook/MySpace/Friendster. Freedom of speech. Ever heard of it?”

I wonder if Eisenberg would be so charitable if someone else was Tweeting about him every time he, say, applied for a job or pitched a show idea.

And if I use Eisenberg’s logic, does it mean I can Tweet while I interview candidates at Brodeur Partners?  How would that work?  Something like …

“Hold on, you just said something really stupid, funny, incipient, lame, insightful [pick one].  My folks got to hear about this one.  Just a second while I grab my BlackBerry. ”

… or …

“I know I’m not looking at you but I’m listening … really I am.  You have no idea how focused I am on you and your well being right now.   And to prove it I’m tweeting to my 5,000 followers on Twitter — most of whom I don’t know and, to be frank really don’t care to know –  about what you just said.  Can you repeat that again, a bit slowly?  BTW, your mannerisms also crack me up.  Can you do that thing with your hands again?  I may need some time to figure out how to text that in 140 characters.”

To me, the offense is not one of publicity.  Eisenberg didn’t name names.  The offense is one of civility.

There are limits to multitasking — or at least there should be.  Besides, the same NewYorkTimes a week later confirmed what we all have known for awhile — multitasking makes you mediocre.

Mediocre.  That’s worse that being stupid.

Are there places where people should simply not tweet?

Apparently the folks at the U.S. Open tennis tournament think so.  The sad part is that the reasons they give have more to do with commerce than decorum and civility.  (There’s a fear is that it would screw up tennis gambling)

Where are your no tweet zones?

The marketing fad of the century.

No, it is not mobile phones.  Not reality television.  Not Paris Hilton or black presidents with funny names.

It isn’t celebrity endorsements or home spun viral videos.

It isn’t social media, it isn’t Twitter or Facebook or any of that other stuff.

It is free money.

Yup, FREE MONEY.  Throw out all those new fangled, technology-laden ideas.  Simply give people FREE MONEY and your product or service will be a sure fired hit.

The confirmation of this breakthrough discovery came late last week amidst the craze over the “cash for clunkers” program.

For those not familiar, the cash for clunkers program is a free money program for anyone who finds him or herself stuck with an old gas-guzzling car.  You may have that gas guzzler because you were too stupid to see the coming oil crisis coming and had this fantasy that you’d be able to afford tooling around in a half-ton pickup or an SUV the size of a small school bus.

Or you may have that gas guzzler parked in the driveway simply because it has been 15 years since you bought a new car and you’ve been too cheap to buy a new one.

You see, it really didn’t ‘t matter WHY you have a gas guzzler.  The only qualification for free money is that you HAVE a gas guzzler.  The only criteria is possession, not motivation.

Bingo … you get $4,500.  Everybody loves it.  It was so popular that the government stumbled over itself to dole out even more FREE MONEY once the original free money ran out.

[In fact, I'm thinking of creating a gas guzzler secondary market -- I'll buy up gas guzzlers cheap and resell them for people looking for FREE MONEY.  I'll sell you a $2,000 gas guzzler and you can turn around and trade it in for a new car and get double that in FREE MONEY.  This is a secret plan so please don't tell anyone.]

The cash for clunkers is one of a long list of FREE MONEY successes of 2009.

Some five years ago finance companies like CountryWide Mortgage promised people FREE MONEY so they could buy homes they otherwise couldn’t afford.  It was a runaway success in the U.S and abroad.  Those folks at CountryWide couldn’t give away free money fast enough and home sales soared.  Then there was Bernie Madoff.  He promised FREE MONEY to anyone with a savings account.  He gave people FREE MONEY regardless of risk and market conditions.  Bernie was very popular.

But the granddaddy of the FREE MONEY marketing approach has been the U.S. government.  They have bee doling out FREE MONEY for decades for things like agriculture, prescription drugs, military weapons, and all sorts of cheap consumer goods from abroad.  The farmers, drug companies, defense contractors and the Chinese can’t get enough of  it.

Now it is true that CountryWide Mortage eventually went bankrupt.  And Bernie Madoff eventually went to jail.  But the government — God bless the government — the government is like that dog gone Energizer bunny and just keeps going and going and going.

So when you set up your FREE MONEY marketing program, be sure that you’ve figured out how to get the government to watch your back.  There are several strategies that work like tying your FREE MONEY program to something that makes politicians look good (like the cash for clunkers thing).  Oh, and if you’re one of those companies that is “too big to fail” … then the FREE MONEY program is a slam dunk.

So at that next marketing brainstorm meeting, after everyone has trotted out their old-style, fuddy duddy, predictable sales and promotion ideas — iPhone app … Ning site … whacky video contest … blah … blah … blah … blah.

When they turn to you, speak confidently the two secret words of marketing success that we KNOW works in the new millennium.

Free money!

It has been a month.

An the JuiceBar just sat there.  Staring at me.  Staring at everyone.  Doing nothing.  Just sitting there.

Like the towel rack in the first floor bathroom that fell off its delicately secured latches sometime during the winter that you always said you were going to put back …

Or the mildewed lumber stacked up in the back yard that you’ve been meaning to cut up and set out for next Monday’s trash pickup ..

Or the retirement account that you’ve been meaning to rebalance …

Or the stack of New Yorker magazines that you’ve been meaning to read …

Or the dental appointment that you had to cancel and never found time to reschedule …

Or the work project that you know would only take 30 minutes and would have great return but you’re never able to get to …

Or the personnel reviews at work that you still haven’t filed, because you still haven’t done them …

Or the thank you notes that were written several times in your imagination but never were able to make it to your hands and on paper …

Or the meaningful talks that you wanted to have with people you love but somehow never took place …

And the promises you never kept.

Well, it is never too late.

Folks who have followed the JuiceBar know that I’ve a love/hate relationship with social media.

I love it. It is wild, dynamic, open, refreshing, democratic, transparent, exciting … and just plain fun.

I hate it. It is elusive, confounding, over-hyped, out-of-control and overwhelming.

So here’s my quote of the day from Brian Mazzaferri, the lead singer of I Fight Dragons from a great story by Walin Wong of the Chicago Tribune.

“There’s so many things you can do online that make you feel you’re doing something, when in reality you’re doing nothing.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought the same.

Then something happens.  You get curious.

And you say to yourself … log on one more time!