The 60 Second WORKout

Now, I know there are two things we are
not "supposed" to discuss -politics and sex. However, I
am a bit of a political junkie. While you may not agree
with the politicians themselves, the principles they use
to get elected can be learned from (at least the ethical
ones!)

I just watched an interesting documentary on the
campaign for the 2002 election. The politicians hired
GCS consultants to help them with their messaging,
polling, and strategy. The "C" in GCS stands for James
Carvelle. Does that name sound familiar? It may very
well, as he was the architect of the Clinton win in

Recently there was an award banquet for the Young Entrepreneur Awards. The participants were from across the country, and were all under the age of 35.

One of the winners was Melody Dover. She is 34 and lives in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Melody is the founder of Fresh Media Inc., an organization that does web design and branding work on the east coast.

I was fascinated by her story - three years ago she fell and broke her right wrist. Now, you have to understand that at the time, she was a graphic designer. It was a bit difficult to do design work with her wrist in a cast, to say the least!

Ipod is really hot these days. Apple, the computer company, is now "The Music Company". The person behind it all, from the very beginning, is Steve Jobs, Apple's founder and current CEO.

Now, I have a confession to make. I love all of Apple's products. CareerJoy is a Mac shop — great quality products, easy to use, and boy, do they ever know how to package!

Steve Jobs never finished university. He started a computer company in his garage with a friend (sound familiar?) and launched what became the PC revolution. Despite Apple's success, however, Bill Gates still won the war.

You have probably never heard of Chip Kidd, yet he's
one of the most influential non-authors in the book
business.

For the past 20 years Chip has been on the design
team at Alfred A Knopf publishers. He is the Michael
Jordon of the book design business, and has designed
such books as Jurassic Park. He has created
100's of covers and has recently released his own book
with samples of some of the designs; "Chip Kidd: Book
One".

The secret to his success is this; you CAN tell the book
by its cover. His design philosophy is radical and
unconventional. He has a unique ability to combine

Paul - he's been a quarryman, Beatle, Wing, Poet,
Painter, Father, Front Man, Producer, Business Mogul,
and if that weren't enough, a Knight.

You may or may not have seen the new ads put out by
Fidelity Investments. Paul is their new global
representative - using the extra money to pay for the
rising fuel costs in his new private jet no doubt (even
the rich are impacted by $70 a barrel oil prices).

I find it interesting that a financial services company is
speaking to the market about career management
issues. There is another financial company talking
about that issue as well, called Freedom 55.

Brad Chartrand plays for the Los Angeles Kings. He has
been playing hockey for a number of years (except, of
course, for last season!) Brad and 700 other players
had an extended summer holiday.

A number of players went overseas; however, Brad and
his wife decided to move back to Saratoga Springs,
N.Y. To stay in shape, he decided to start playing pick
up hockey with some of the guys in town. Not knowing
anyone, he called the local conveynor of the league to
ask if there was any space on the team. The
conversation went something like this:

Brad: "Hi my name is Brad, is there any space on your

Why are careers so difficult? This question has led me to think about the famous line from Scott Peck's book, "The Road Less Traveled".

Scott Peck, the author of that famous book, died recently at the age of 69. He was a psychiatrist and author and self help guru. His most famous books sold 10 million copies and were on the New York Times bestseller list for over 8 years.

I am not sure if you have read "The Road Less Traveled", however, one of the reasons it is famous is a result of the first line - "Life is difficult" - which essentially was the thesis of his book. Mr. Peck's premise was that once you understood this, and entered into life with this understanding, it would really help to frame your expectations and results. So this is the human experience, imperfect in all its ways.

I was looking at an interview with Gary Moyer, President of Jaguar Canada. He spent the past 5 years working for Mazda, and spoke of his experience working in Japan and his love for the country. He also shared three principles that describe his view of the Japanese culture and their approach to work:

1. Consensus Building and Relationship building: To implement a major decision, Japanese Managers spend a lot of time "nema-washi", which essentially means behind the scenes negotiation with everyone involved. This is a universal principle, however, in North America, we don't seem to realize that this can take a significant amount of time and energy. Gary noticed that North Americans tend to be more impulsive.

One of the most interesting stories to come out of New Orleans and the impact of Katrina is about a small group of 6 Canadians. One of those 3 couples - Jay and Karen Weir - spoke of their harrowing journey.

The three couples were visiting New Orleans for a vacation when the Hurricane struck. They ended up spending almost a week stranded in garbage and corpses outside a shopping mall.

One of the comments that Jay made was as follows; "If it wasn't for our neighbours and ourselves and the other people we met, we probably wouldn't be here. We were better off making decisions together than going it alone."

"I have been considering leaving my technology organization and joining an IT consulting firm - what are some of the career risks and benefits that you see with professionals jumping to the consulting industry?"J.K Calgary

According to the Kennedy Information and Industry Intelligence Company, the consulting industry has grown at a 20% rate since the 1980s. The sector is a $118-billion industry. It is six times larger than 10 years ago, employing between 350,000 and 400,000, and the top 25 global firms make up 60 percent of the industry. The consulting industry is broken up into four key areas: