Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness

What is the Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness Facebook Page About? (Retired version)

In the days before we became a connected planet, we learned from our parents and our elders. We listened to their stories; we learned how to hunt, fish, grow crops, cook and make pottery. We added our experience and made our own stories which we then taught to our children. Along the way we learned how to solve problems, make stuff, make stuff better and make stuff that pleased us. We also learned that when dealing with others if we did this, or we behaved this way, then we got that. So if we wanted others to listen to us, if we wanted them to buy our stuff or if we wanted them to tell others about us, we behaved and did things a certain way.

Standing out in a Sea of Sameness is where Explorers come to learn about storytelling, to learn how to solve problems, make new stuff and make stuff better and more pleasing by developing a mindset and following a process. It's about how to stand out from their peers.

 Standing out in a Sea of Sameness's methodology is based on:

• Storytelling
• Brand Light
• Design Thinking

Storytelling

You are the orchestra's director. It's your job to make your own kind of music. Music comes from stories and it's your job to seek out storytellers who will add to your music. When you talk with a business owner, a professor or someone in your future field, you have access to their story.  If their story resonates with you, it becomes a chair in your orchestra. The music begins to blossom as the chairs in your orchestra diversify. As you add your own life experiences, your own stories, your music evolves into a symphony of its own.

Brand Light

My concept of branding as it relates to the individual, originates in Tom Peters' 1997 Fast Company article titled The Brand Called You: http://goo.gl/bDlG 

Your brand is that gut feeling that people have about you. While you can't totally control how others feel about you, you can behave in such a way that people think favorably of you. How? Be a caring human being.

Personal branding (popular term) gurus teach by relating commercial branding terms like brand assessment, strategy, attributes, audit, positioning and target to the individual. They encourage the person to figure out who they are and who they want to be, create a public persona and then communicate it to a desired audience in a consistent manner. Most of what I've read on personal branding is excellent and if adhered to, will help the individual to establish their brand. For the Explorer who is busting their tail on course work, has a job and is involved in student organizations, it's a bit much. Afterall, you want to do all of that and still have a life, have fun.

My suggestions for building a desirable brand are much more simplistic, yet not so democratic. For instance, I suggest adopting three personal values. You get to choose two. I choose integrity (for you). Building a brand while you are still in school is based on:

• What you stand for
• Values
• Communications
• Image

Design Thinking

If you want people to listen to you and to take you seriously, then you need to build your story with intent. You need to move through your educational journey consciously creating experiences, meeting people, solving problems, devising ways to improve your life and learning from it all while preparing for the road ahead. The best way to do this is to embrace a mindset and process of your own.

Traditional* design thinking is about developing solutions based on a user's needs. Potential users you might encounter in school are your professors, classmates, internship companies, employers, school admin, social media friends etc. Perhaps the most important user is yourself. And your greatest need is to get the most out of your educational experience while preparing for the road ahead and standing out from your peers.

When it comes to design thinking, the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University, has created one of the most legible road maps. Use this guide to help build your own design thinking framework. Use it to tailor a process that works for you and use it now, do not wait until you graduate. Go here for Standford's d.school bootcamp bootleg: http://goo.gl/pMa5O

I look for elements of Storytelling, Design Thinking and Branding in the stories that I post-link out to on Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness' Wall. Use their ideas to spark your imagination, fuel your fire and begin to blaze your own trail.

I often refer to a segment of people as Old Adults. Here's my thinking, and it isn't anything other than: if you're not a young adult, you're an old adult. I think of it as a way to identify potential storytellers. 

*Actually there isn't anything traditional about design thinking. It's becoming a big, gnarly and unruly mass of grayness. There are as many meanings for the term as the number of times that Lindsay Lohan has been arrested. We'll continue to follow Stanford University's d.school philosophy on design thinking.

Stop by the Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness Facebook page today. Thanks!

Getting Real

Getting Real: Helping Teens Find Their Future by Kenneth Gray

Most of today's teenagers either drop out of high school, graduate and go right to work, go to college with around a half ending up with a four-year degree or graduate and not be able to find work commensurate with their degree*. The economics tied to these inefficiencies are mind-boggling. What's important is...what are the long term effects on our children? Janitors and waitresses are noble positions and are actually a thing of beauty to behold when those folks put their heart and soul into their work. But shouldn't we be helping teens to research their strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, ability to research and make sound educational and career related decisions. It's one thing to pursue janitorial work, it's another thing tohave to do it.

Author Kenneth Gray does a masterful job in organizing this work. To begin with he explains his goal which in part is:

To stimulate efforts designed to develop a level of maturity - career maturity - among teens that allows them to make postsecondary plans that have a high probability of success.

The book is broken down into three parts:

1) To explore the state of career immaturity that is rampant among teens, the mindset of parents, the challenges presented by dropouts, and occupational stereotypes that tend to limit occupational choices of teens.

2) To provide an overview of labor market basics, occupational projections, and career development.

3) How to improve career maturity for all teens.

Postsecondary success is the goal.

Every student will graduate from high school having developed a postsecondary plan that is grounded in at least tentative career choices and has a high probability of success.

Career Maturity

Career maturity is as important a term to Mr. Gray's book as the binding that holds it together. He explains here:

"Career maturity is demonstrated by teenagers of high school age when they:"

1)  Understand the importance of narrowing career interests as a basis for postsecondary planning;

2)  Have, by the 10th grade, identified one or more career interests after an objective evaluation of their likes and dislikes, their aptitudes, and labor market projections;

3)  Have, by the end of the twelfth grade, engaged in activities to verify these choices; and

4)  Used these choices to make post-high school decisions.

It's a Process

Mr. Gray clearly and succinctly outlines a plan and process towards postsecondary success near the book's end. I think however, if one examines and puts into practice the following steps that he provides to get real, they'll see that it's also a process towards success in all other areas of our lives.

1)  Make a realistic personal assessment of individual likes and dislikes, as well as strengths and weaknesses as they relate to labor market opportunities;

2)  Make tentative career decisions based on this assessment; and

3)  Explore alternatives and plans for preparing to pursue these interests after high school.

Can You See the Train?

Are you a parent of K-12 kids or someone over the age of twenty-one? When you want to look up something on a person, place or thing you solicit the opinions of others (yes, that's another definition of Google). I suggest however, when you consider Kenneth Gray's book here, you solicit your own opinion. 

1)  As a middle school-er / high school-er, did you have a person of influence in your life who carefully guided you along educational and career discovery pathways?

2)  Is the line of work you're in today what you went to school for?

3)  Are you in debt for that education?

4)  Did you have a researched plan to follow after high school?

5)  Do you look back and wish you would've pursued education and career related decisions differently?

6)  Do you wish that you had someone to help you with these challenges at a young age?

If you feel as if you're in a position to see the train barrelling down the tracks on our teenagers today, why not get real, pick up Kenneth Gray's most excellent book and do something about it?

*I square up these numbers a bit at Rothacker Reviews.

What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20

What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 by Tina Seelig

Over a decade ago, the Stanford University School of Engineering, one of the most highly acclaimed and prestigious university programs in America, recognized that students needed an advantage in the business place. So they created the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP). It is the entrepreneurship center of the Engineering program. It strives to develop and instill the entrepreneurship skills needed to use innovation in order to solve real world problems. STVP's words more or less. I think it helps students get real with what it takes to thrive beyond the books.

In addition to teaching a class on creativity and innovation, Tina Seelig has been the executive director of  STVP for over ten years. An amalgamation of life as a teacher, entrepreneur, author, scientist and kid-on-her-own trying to make it, placed Tina in the cross-hairs of writing What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20, which was based on a series of talks she began giving in 2006.

Professor Seelig states the book's goal is to provide a new lens to view obstacles encountered everyday while charting a course to the future. She goes on to use a bevy of anecdotes to support each chapter's lessons.*

Here's the thing that absolutely screams at me about this book, Stanford University and folks like Tina and those who endorsed this book, understand that in the fields of at the very least; health, technology, engineering and the environment, the typical four-year degree isn't getting it done. Students need an edge. And that's what Tina begins to address in What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20.

Here's the second thing that screams at me, students should not wait until they're in college to begin using these ideas. For instance, let's take a quick look at Tina's definition of entrepreneurship:

An entrepreneur is someone who is always on the lookout for problems that can be turned into opportunities and finds creative ways to leverage limited resources to reach their goals.

Couldn't this mindset be used by students and their parents to help identify tentative educational and career pathways...while still in middle school?

The third thing that I noticed, be it more subtle, is this book screams of design thinking without ever mentioning the ever popular buzz word - I really thought that was cool!

My last observation about Tina's work here didn't necessarily scream at me as much as it caused me to wince and double over in pain. Tina recounts a family friend whom she very much admired, totally dissing her when, as a fourteen year old, she went to him for advice. One of the most precious moments in life is when a youngster approaches an adult for advice. While I would like to see more kids take the initiative like Tina did, we as adults, need to seize and take advantage of these priceless teaching moments when they occur.

What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 should be required reading for every high schooler in the country. And also for every parent who thinks their kids might need an edge in both post-secondary education and their careers. 

*for a deeper look into Tina's lessons, check out Ewan McIntosh's most excellent review.

Exploring Career Pathways: Need Project Participants

For every one-hundred kids who enter ninth grade, approximately twelve graduate from college and find work that is commensurate with their degree*. And how many of those twelve do you suppose are really happy doing what they're doing? Statistically speaking, about 5.4. And these figures are based on kidsgoing to college. 

How do you avoid the agony of not being able to score a job that's commensurate with your abilities and one that you love? How do you avoid the excruciating financial pain of paying tens of thousands of dollars for a college degree only to discover you're really not interested in that field? How do you stand out from the thousands of other young adults who are following your career path?

You explore career pathways or enhance the one you're already on. 

How do you do that you ask?

The secret is to learn from those on the road ahead of you and stay connected to them.

I am looking for a half dozen or so people between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one who would like to participate in a project designed to help young adults explore and or enhance career pathways. The ideal candidate will possess:

• a strong desire to learn
• an insatiable and passionate curiosity
• ease in communicating via Skype and or Google docs
• a commitment to explore
• respect for themself and others

If you fit the bill or know of anyone who is interested, please contact me at david (dot) rothacker (at) gmail (dot) com.

I've been working with one gentleman for the last month or so and we've made considerable progress. It's amped up my enthusiasm to the point where I'm anxious to help others! (Jason is available for a referral upon request).

 We're going to be following the Storytelling and Brand Light points I describe here in my Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness methodology. I am also very big on Design Thinking but for the present will not be using it.

 *Getting Real by Kenneth Gray

Brand Light

Brand Light is all about Brand You. If the intent is to stand out in a sea of sameness from other college graduates, Brand Light will take you from your junior year in high school through your junior year in college. Once you are a senior in college, I recommend another system which I'll discuss in the future.

Your Brand Light is what storytellers and people of influence perceive, think and feel about you.

In conventional personal branding, experts teach people to identify who they are. Often times this requires taking assessments and performing self-discovery exercises. Brand Light makes it easy. You are either a student who knows exactly which profession you will pursue upon graduation, or you do not.

If you are sure about your profession, then you should pursue the knowledge, wisdom and understanding from storytellers that will be required of you in that future field. If you are not sure, then you should explore the ins, outs and nuances of various professions with storytellers. You need to gather intel and other's experiences to help make an informed decision.

Experts also coach people to identify their values and what they stand for. Again, this is easy. You will identify three values and we give you the first one: integrity. Here's a list to help you chose the others.

The final component of your Brand Light is your image. If people are to remember you in a favorable way and you are to stand out, then you must cultivate and maintain a clean, positive image.

The intent is for your Brand Light to shine in the eyes of people of influence and storytellers. To recap:

Who you are and what you stand for: You are a student who knows exactly which profession you will enter upon graduation or you are a student who does not know at this time. You are a passionate learner who is determined to collect knowledge, wisdom and understanding from those on the road ahead of you.

Your values: Number one is integrity. Pick out two more.

Your image: You are clean, sharp and bent on conveying a positive image.

Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness

How will you stand out from thousands and thousands and thousands of others once you have completed post-secondary education? Why would an employer choose you out of an endless sea of others? Here's a hint: It has little to do with your résumé...even if the doctor who invented college career centers personally edited yours.

Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness is designed for young adults. It really is a basic concept. You simply do things on your educational journey that others are not doing. The accumulation of your practices will make you stand out. Quick. When was the last time you handed out your contact card to a non-student? Quick. When was the last time you sent a handwritten thank-you note to someone who took time out of her day to give you advice? Quick. When was the last time you tracked down a professional in your chosen field for information?

The journey towards standing out begins with those who have traveled the road before you. We'll refer to these folks as Storytellers. Your mission is to learn from Storytellers. It also involves developing your own brand through a process which we'll refer to as Brand Light. The intent is, that upon graduation, you'll have increased opportunities and options for employment that otherwise wouldn't be available to you. The hope is that you'll stand out in a sea of sameness.

Visit our Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness Facebook page for more.