I believe that losing one job can often be the best thing that ever happens in your life. Do you?

Let’s face it.  Layoffs are all to common right now.  It’s a rough economy.  However, I think it’s easier to get back to work than people realize.  All it takes is a different perspective on your job search.

This fall, my life has really forced me to examine how I focus my attention and intention.  In October, I was laid off from a nice consulting gig where I was writing requirements for some of the larger hardware companies in Austin.  It was a really good job, and layoffs are never easy.

However, since then, I haven’t had much trouble finding projects to work on that keep my belly full and my tank full. They also keep me busy and learning.

Since that Friday in October, I’ve gotten involved with several projects, all of which challenge me, and none of which require me to commute regularly.  Not all of them are paying gigs yet, but all of them have a clear path to getting paid for the quality of my work.  For the gigs that aren’t paying me yet, I’m basically operating as a temporary volunteer.  And I know when I’ll walk away if I’m not getting my needs met by a certain date.

Aside: Volunteering will get you hired.  I worked for 2 years at Tech Ranch Austin, and that position began unpaid.  It took 2-3 weeks for me to convert the job from volunteer into part time, and another month or two after that to go full-time.  I highly recommend that you find volunteer opportunities for yourself.  It’s one of the best ways to get a better job.

I’ve gotten to where I enjoy the challenge of only getting paid when I’m adding significant value to the company.  It means there’s no ambiguity about what I’m accomplishing.  I am either making a measurable contribution and getting compensated accordingly, or I’m not making a contribution, and I’m not getting paid.

It’s a scary proposition at first, because there isn’t a guarantee that I’m actually going to get paid.  But the other side of the equation means that I can earn more money if I do better work.  For the time being, it’s a good arrangement.  I’m not saying I’ll never accept a full time job again, but I am saying that right now, I have found a variety of good projects to work on, and I’m enjoying them all.

Examples: I’ve done a blogger outreach for the Ronald McDonald House’s Lights of Love last week, which shattered it’s fundraising goal for 2011, or logo and branding work for the 2012 launch of the World Entrepreneurs Network, and a few other projects that I’m looking forward to talking about as they develop.

It’s not been a seamless process for me by any means.  Transferring from a job to a more entrepreneurial existence requires a different way of thinking.  For example, it requires a higher level of focus because nobody is telling me what to do.  On any given day, I have to figure out what needs to be done and decide how to do it.  I decide what I accomplish in a given day, and when something gets done, I get credit.  If something doesn’t get done, I have no one to blame but myself.  I have to (get to) make it up as I go along.

Sometimes it freaks me out not having a rule book or instruction manual for my life.

Google "focused" and you get pics of Jay-Z and P-Diddy. Men in possession of legendary focus.

But, if I remain focused on what I want to accomplish day to day, I’m likely to get it all done.  But when I’m unfocused, I get so much less accomplished in a day.

This applies directly to your job search as well as building a solopreneur business.  The more focused your attention is on what you want to accomplish, the easier it will be for you to accomplish it.

If you’re going to go volunteer, you’ll have to be focused.

When I suggest people volunteer, I often see varying degrees of emotional reactions, varying from an openness to the idea, to a slight wince, and my favorite is the shudder going down someone’s spine.  The shudder says that the conversation is over.  They don’t want to stop sending resumes in on Monster. Volunteering seems too risky and unconventional.

For those who want to volunteer and create new opportunities for themselves, I’ll share the Top 10 list of things that I do to create Volunteer Opportunities.  These will help you find work you love to do almost immediately.  Feel free to apply any of them to your life as you see fit.  Some of them will work great, others may not work for you.  Don’t be limited by my experience.  And if you think I’m full of it, let me know.  

1.  Network 3-4 times a week - make sure you get out of your house and talk to new people as often as possible.  Even going out for a beer with acquaintances has turned into paid work multiple times.  Things happen by accident a lot of the time, and the more you put yourself out there, the faster those accidents happen.  It’s just like dating…
2. Ask people how you can help them first - This is the secret to building a network.  Make as many introductions as possible and people will remember you and they will help you out when the time comes.  
3. Email everyone you meet within 24 hours - Frequency is critical to building a solid network.  The more visible you are, the easier you are to remember.  And if people remember you, they will help you out.
4. Make a list of people that you admire - Then go interview them about their business.  Don’t talk about you.  Just ask questions about what they do.  You’ll learn where they could use a volunteer to solve a problem for free.  
5. Know how to ask questions about someone’s business - “What work do you need done” doesn’t count.  ”What problems are you facing this week / this month” is a much better question.  Everyone has a dilemma that you can solve.  You just have to find out what it is first.
6. Make a specific offer to volunteer - It must have a simple objective that you know the other person cares about, and it must have a time limit.  ”I want to help you reach out to bloggers for this upcoming event by emailing them individually so that they will share your event with their readers,” is awesome.  ”How can I volunteer for you for a month,” is too ambiguous.  
7. Know how to ask for more work, and ask to be paid for it - The goal is to get paid, right?  And if you’re doing work that matters, it’s a no-brainer for you to get paid for it.  Volunteering is just an unconventional, and really effective, way to get yourself in the door (Read: It’s better than a resume).
8. Know when you’re going to walk away - If a month passes and you don’t see your volunteering leading to work, it’s probably time to go.  Say thanks to everyone, write thank you cards after you leave, and keep everyone posted on what you’re doing next, but don’t hang around waiting.  This is about creating your own opportunities, remember?
9. Make sure that you’re doing work you actually want to do - Because if you’re volunteering you’re not getting paid, so you better enjoy what you’re doing.  
10. If you’ve done good work, but you didn’t get paid, ask for a reference - This is a gangbusters way to keep your resume filled up while you’re in between gigs.  If you’ve got a gap in your resume, make sure you’re doing short-term work in your field, even if it’s volunteer work.  Showing signs that you’re a go-getter is a hirable trait.  (NB: During job interviews, it’s not always helpful to mention that you’ve been volunteering, but not working.  It can complicate the interview process.  If you’re asked, be honest. Don’t ever lie in an interview.  Get hired because the company knows who you really are, not because you’re acting.  But you may not always need to explain the circumstances of your work, just explain what you accomplished along the way.)

I’ve done all of these in various capacities over the past several years.  All of them are effective network builders, and all of them build your personal brand.  None of them are a waste of your time or energy. 

If you’re curious how to create an amazing LinkedIn profile, or want to update your online resume, let me know.  I’d love to talk to you about that in person.  If enough people are interested in reading about that, I’ll be happy to write a post about how to make your social profiles bring employers to you.

You can answer these questions in the comments:

• Which items on the list is most surprising?  
• Are there any of those steps you already do without even thinking about it?
• Do you think any of those are a complete waste of time?
• What’s your #1 Tip for Savvy Networking?

I’ll be curious to see what you guys say below in the comments.

Thanks for reading.  I hope this helps.

-Austin W. Gunter

Ask the Penguin why the Open-Source economy will save us all

Yesterday Tom Kane walked in the door, and today I have an e-mail from him with an essay titled Coase’s Penguin (For a TED talk, among others on this topic, click on Tom’s name).  For those of you who don’t know that Linux’s log is a Penguin, it is.  What Linux did to computing was beat Microsoft at their own game (creating an operating system), and it was done by millions of programmers all over the world contributing a bit of programming for free.  These programmers represent 3-4x the computing power of Microsoft.  Another example of how open source dominates previous models is Wikipedia vs. Encarta (Google them to figure out who is the reigning champion).

Here’s the point.  Allowing people all over the globe to volunteer on a project means that the project will receive more hours than a project with a small team of salaried workers.  It means there will be relentless innovation and improvement.  It means that everyone will have access to the same relentlessly improving information.  And it means that this information is free.  I’m not talking about Linux anymore.  I’m talking about a sea-change in our economy.  I’m saying that decentralized individuals are creating more efficient software / hardware than even the giants like Microsoft can.

This is very important when I think about the work we’re doing at Tech Ranch.  Kevin will be able to cite some very specific sources to describe why lowering the barriers to entrepreneurship is so important, in the days to come.  For now, this post serves as a way for me to gather my thoughts on why opening the model of entrepreneurship is so vitally important, especially for my fellow recent-graduates for whom the job market is being unkind.

What I see this meaning to us is nothing short of a re-education of how we are to think about working for the rest of our lives away from a 9 to 5 existence, and into a much more organic work environment of loose, opportunistic coalitions of “freelancers” coming together to take down a project that has an interesting dollar amount associated with it.  The group will form ad-hoc, delegate responsibility, act quickly, and once the objective is completed the group will most likely disband as the individuals go in search of other opportunities.  Seth Godin had it right.  The economy is getting Tribal
.

This loose organization is very important because it assures individuals that suddenly have the power to do something revolutionary: something that heretofore only the privileged have had the power to do.  This open-source model gives you and I the power to say, No.  No to our boss.  He doesn’t exist anymore.  No to pain-in-the-ass clients.  No to an employer relocating our family.  No to the alarm clock even.  You and I get to say no, because our participation was voluntary to begin with.  The economy is becoming open-source, and there is too much work to go around for any of us to be doing things that we hate.

Liberation say to to the things we hate means the freedom to say YES to the things we love.  Our lives, and the world will be better for it.  Just ask the Penguin.

So do yourself (and the rest of us) a favor.  Ask what you said “NO” to recently.

I hope this helps.

In this, the Age of Twitter, I propose a new category of attention spans.  Let’s call it the

“Twitter Attention Span.”

Wanna go ride bikes?

The Twitter Attention Span resides between someone highly focused on one thing at a time, and a classic ADD case of someone who can hardly remember the last thing that came out of their mouth.  Someone with a Twitter Attention Span can focus intently and process basic information on about a dozen topics or people an hour.  I fit the Twitter Attention Span.  I skim a lot of information and retain the big picture for almost all of it.  I don’t become an expert on any of what I skim, but I am able to filter what may be a useful resource for me my network, whether it’s a business connection or simply a place selling something really cheap.

A recent example:

When my close buddy Ken set up his Hi-Def TV up for our Super Bowl Party this year, he used an HDTV antenna that he saved around $70 bucks on.  He saved the money because I randomly came across www.monoprice.com, (via @TechCrunch) which sells Home Theater accessories at wholesale, not the ~2400% mark-up that Best Buy typically adds.  Without MonoPrice, Ken would have spent over $100 on an antenna.

His girlfriend, Andrea, asked how I found the website, and I didn’t have a good answer on the spot because I find lots of useful things without thinking about it.  The real answer came to me this morning: I wouldn’t have seen that link and sent it to Ken without Twitter.  I spend about 20 minutes a few times a day reading my TwitStream and the things people link to.  I stumbled upon MonoPrice during one of my Twitter excursions.

I like learning new things, having new experiences, and especially meeting new people.  I have a ravenous appetite for things I’ve never done before.  At some point I realized that I was often “the guy who knows the guy.” I’m not the only person who does this, but I am really good at it.  With it’s constant stream of new information, Twitter is a great tool for a guy like me.  But most of the population hasn’t caught on to this yet.

For example:

One of the many blogs I stumbled upon today was titled “Is America Rooting for a Twitter Downfall?” I skimmed the article enough to come away with the following statistic: only about 17% of people with a Twitter account regularly use the service.  That means 83% of people who sign up for Twitter don’t stick around and use it.

I wondered why, and came up with my “Twitter Attention Span” theory.  Twitter delivers a TON of potentially information, unfiltered, in an entirely novel way.  Not everyone is cut out to filter all the information Twitter provides for usefulness.  They either get overwhelmed or get bored and quit using it.

On the surface, Twitter may appear to be a bunch of narcissists shouting their ordinary lives into the digital ether.  To a certain extent, it is just that.  However, it’s also the only place on the internet with a live feed of people’s reading lists, their sudden epiphanies, their fears and worries, and their suggestions for “life hacking.” All this information is being shared by folks just like me.  There is a lot of valuable information that gets tweeted out every hour if you have the ability to filter and sort it all for the gold nuggets in the Twit Stream.

That’s why I love Twitter.  I hop on my Twitter Stream, skim the posts 140 characters at a time, and click all the links that seem interesting, and then skim that content.  Sometimes it’s a rabbit hole.  Other times I save my friends money.  The other day someone at Tech Ranch Austin even told me that he met a future company executive through my BarnBuildr program.  I never know what I’m going to learn, or who is going to gain big because of a piece of information that I happen upon.

Helping someone get the one thing they need makes my day.  And Twitter is one of my favorite tools for doing just that.  You should use Twitter.  Here’s to everyone having a Twitter-Span.

I hope that helps.

The 3 steps that I am going through the following:

1. Find a URL and design a logo accordingly
2. Find the right project manager to build out the site network
3. Find a Drupal Developer who can build the site we need to support the community

The URL we found is barnbuildr.com.  It’s very web2.0, isn’t it?  At this point I needed to get a logo designed.  For this, I turned to Crowdspring.com to “crowdsource” the logo design.  Crowdsourcing, in this instance, means that I posted my need for a logo as a project, said that I would pay a specific amount of money for it (it was very reasonable) and then I let hundreds of graphic designers “bid” on my project with their designs.  This process was a roaring success.

I received 77 submissions in the course of the 7 day auction.  This blew me away.   Not only that, but I commented on each of the submissions to say what I liked and what I disliked about each.  By commenting extensively, I was able to steer the submissions in the direction that I wanted to go.  We wanted to communicate the purpose of the BarnBuildr program as well as we could via the logo, and receiving so many submissions helped us understand what we need to be communicating.

Vetting the good from the bad was fairly easy.  There were 5-10 good to great logos submitted.  Many were just average, and I had a few submissions from very persistent designers that were pretty bad (warning: that link leaves little to the imagination).  Take a look at the completed auction if you’re interested in seeing what the Crowdspring process looks like.

I recommend using Crowdspring if you want a logo done quickly and cheaply.  I know that Andy Salo also loved the site and blogged about it recently.

The logo was printed on 100 business cards and I handed about 30 of them out at the Door64 Christmas party at Six, downtown Austin, last Tuesday.  Stay tuned to www.barnbuildr.com as I blog there and roll the site out.

I hope this helps.

Change Minds to Change the World

Big Deal.

These stories are known and celebrated throughout the world, and to be honest, they are stories that I have ignored in the past.  When a conversation turned to Gandhi or Mandela in the past, I’ve gotten that glazed look in my eyes that resembles my look after eating a huge plate of turkey and dressing at Thanksgiving; right when the tryptophan is kicking in.

However, (Hooray, a however!) last night I had a breakthrough in how I understand these stories.  Last night was the first time that I could break the stories of Mandela and Gandhi into meaningful chunks.  It was the first time I understood how these men sought to change their communities and ended up changing the world.

I’ve been reading Changing Minds to Change the World
.  The book takes a cognitive (as opposed to behaviorist, I didn’t know that one either…) perspective on the traits shared by world changing leaders like Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.

The book analyzes how their actions affect prevailing opinions and worldviews.  Gardner outlines that in order for leaders to change the world they must always change peoples’ minds first.

Sometimes great leaders change a few powerful minds, and sometimes they change the minds of millions.  Gardner shows how this happens.  Mohandas Gandhi peacefully effected the mind change of the British imperialists in India, and the entire world felt the ripples of this change.  Nelson Mandela also used peaceful methods to change minds, and the state of South Africa in the process.

Gardner boils down the changes of Gandhi and Mandela into two basic elements.  The elements are meaningful to me directly at Tech Ranch Austin and with the growing BarnBuildr process.  Gardner illustrates that Gandhi and Mandela had compelling stories revolving around the better world the envisioned, AND each man’s life was congruent with the stories that they told.  Both showed the world that changes on a national level are possible peacefully.  Both sought reconciliation of disparate populations by accepting the past and moving to a new future.

Change Minds to Change the World

Gandhi’s insistence on peace nearly cost him everything, yet he pressed on through hunger and the risk of death.  Mandela spent 27 years in prison, but in his belief in reconciliation was so strong he elevated his one-time jailor to a position of prominence.  Both men’s lives resonated with the story they asked their nations to believe and participate in.  Their lives had to resonate with their stories in order to make the difference.  They lived it.  Without hunger strikes, Gandhi is a run-of-the-mill dissident.  Without his jailor sitting on the front row for his presidential inauguration, Mandela has no credibility.

I’m going to be spending my cycles in December establishing the story that BarnBuildr tells.  Part of the story is in place already.  We have established a program that connects entrepreneurs with free help.  This represents an opportunity for Austin-Area entrepreneurs to build their ventures forward, so to speak.  As we move to the next level, we will have to change the general perception about how business is done.  The story of how we do this together is being written.  The title is called BarnBuildr.  The epilogue shall begin: Austin drove the success of entrepreneurs by connecting unique opportunity to the Tech Ranch community of entrepreneurs.

I invite all of you to join the BarnBuildr cast of characters.  I can’t wait to meet you as the plot thickens.

I hope that helps.

Two Jobs in a Down Economy, Is that greedy?

One of the more challenging things about graduating college in 2009 was finding a job in a down economy.  Our economy’s outlook was so severe that even George Martin, St. Edward’s University President, spent most of his graduation address on some hard facts about the reality we faced once we walked the other side of our stage, diploma in hand.  He didn’t pull any punches.  By flipping our tassels to the “college graduate” side of our caps we were stepping into an uncertain future.  Our diplomas might be worth very little on today’s job market.  We looked around at each another, decked out in our robes and new clothes, each of us started thinking, “grad school looks more appealing” thoughts, and, “getting service-industry” thoughts, and, “living with mom and dad” thoughts.  None of us knew where our jobs were going to come from in the coming months.

I’m six months out of college now.  Three of those months I spent in limbo.  But since the week before my birthday in August, I’ve been working two jobs at Austin-Area start-ups.  I’m in the minority of my classmates.  Even my valedictorian with the double major is working at a burger joint, I hear.  I consider it a blessing.  I’ve been getting paid (not much, but seriously) to work and LEARN how to start a business from people who are actually doing it.

I’m working as a part of a small sales team to do market research while we open the sales pipeline at company called Conformity.  Conformity has made huge leaps in Cloud-Computing security.  They have developed a platform for Identity and Access Management across multiple Software as a Service Applications, like Salesforce and Xactly.  This ability is a huge deal for a publicly traded company that must adhere to federal SOX compliance standards.

I also work for Tech Ranch Austin, the entrepreneurial accelerator that is going to network Central Texas Entrepreneurs and create value through education and bootstrap resources.  The Tech Ranch was started by serial Austin entrepreneurs, Kevin Koym and Jonas Lamis.  They started the Ranch as a way to involve themselves in as many local start-ups as possible by providing one-of-a-kind resources to accelerate ventures as a compliment to the Venture Capital model of start-ups.

How did this Writing and Rhetoric major get jobs at start-up companies?  I have no idea. I do know that my rhetoric classes have come in handy working with Don, my sales manager, as we constantly refine the sales and marketing pitch.  Surely my passion for communicating has made me an asset at Tech Ranch.  My writing degree has made me the go-to guy for certain kinds of content at both places.  What I do know is that the education I’m receiving at the hands of two sets of entrepreneurs is laying a foundation for future ventures that I may start.

I’m not sure where I will end up yet.  But I’m sure that my future will materialize shortly.  At the moment, I’m too busy to worry about it too much.  After all, I have two jobs to work.

Hope this helps.

There is a huge upside to the downturn.  In the past 10 years, more than 60% of the jobs created in the United States have been in groups of 10 people or less.  Read: Entrepreneurs will save the economy.  Read: Accelerate your local Entrepreneur.

BarnBuildr helps both entrepreneurs, as well as the unemployed talent in the Austin Area.  How do we help both groups out?  We provide ventures with a huge network of volunteer help from the local talent pool currently in full-time job search mode.  The entrepreneurs benefit from what they can achieve from free help.  The talent gains because by volunteering they are able to hone their experience, add a project or two to their résumés, or even get hired.

The thing that we do is build the bridge between the entrepreneurs and the talent so that they know who to go looking for.  Our network helps people bridge the chasm of knowing who needs to hire someone.

I was hired to work at the Tech Ranch because I volunteered my time there.  I met Kevin at a networking event and told him I loved how the Tech Ranch was helping people start their own ventures.  I asked if I could volunteer at the Ranch while I looked for work.  After a two or three weeks, I had proven myself with my work and they hired me.  My volunteer time turned into an extended interview process.

Don’t you agree that this process is more effective than blindly sending out résumés?

Check out www.barnbuildr.com if you’re looking for new opportunities in Austin, Texas.

I hope this helps.

Bridging the gap to network entrepreneurs

This blog is going to take shape according to my work with Tech Ranch Austin and the BarnBuilders.  People ask me pretty regularly what it is that I’m doing at the Tech Ranch that I’m always so excited about.  I have a hard time coming up with a static answer because the things that I do are constant only in their ability to change every day.  This is frustrating for my listener as well as for me because I often stumble around for catchphrases or conceptually rich words that will clearly illustrate that which I spend all my time and energy doing at the Tech Ranch.

The catchphrase that I have started using most often, Social Architect, has, thus far, not done much to clarify my nebulous rhetoric.  I’m going to fix that right now, and define Social Architect as I see it.  So for those of you looking to cross-reference at Urban Dictionary, don’t.  It won’t be there.  This is Austin defining Austin.  Who woulda thought, right?

When I use the catchphrase, Social Architect, I am referring to the process of building a social connection, a bridge, if you will, between formerly disparate individuals.  The goal is to create a connection that would otherwise not exist between two people.  This connection allows both parties to engage in what I call a dialogue of value where each party freely shares knowledge and resources with the other.  The dialogue of value, where each party shares their unique information, means that both parties are measurably better off by participating in the dialogue because they both received specialized information for free.  This free information may be put to use to take an entrepreneurial venture to the next level, or to create a new product.  Other times the information results in a partnership between the newly connected parties.  However, the inevitable result is a net gain for both parties as a result of their connection.

As a Social Architect, my job is to facilitate that connection and build bridges between people who will have a tangible benefit to one another.

This is the basic idea behind the Tech Ranch BarnBuilders. More information may be found at the link, and I’ll write about it in my next post.  The BarnBuilders is a group of Austin-Area entrepreneurs and local tech talent helping one another out.

Hope that helps.  Until next time.