Career « Black Marks on Wood Pulp / by Corey Vilhauer

Category: Career

Dear Great Teachers, Thanks for Teaching Us

September 14th, 2011

I was going to be a teacher once. It didn’t work out. Outside of a few transcendent moments from breakthrough students, I simply wasn’t cut out for it.

I respect teachers more than any other profession, especially with the weight of experience behind me; with the understanding that Teaching. Is. Hard. Work. So I often think of the teacher who inspired me to try teaching in the first place: Mr. Hofflander in Biology I and II.

It’s not often you can thank your teachers. But a new site from TBD makes it a little easier: Dear Great Teachers, Thanks for Teaching Us.

I put my two cents in.

Dear Mr. Hofflander,

Thanks for doing biology the right way; which is to say, doing it in a way that leaves a permanent mark on your students, one that pushes them – possibly – to become teachers themselves, and one that helps them cope with the fact that, even though they may not be cut out for teaching, they will find their own niche, just as all successful species find their own niche through a process of natural selection and differentiation.

You inspired me to make mistakes and learn from them.

Your student,
Corey Vilhauer

Grade: 12
School: Lincoln High School
City: Sioux Falls, SD

Thanks, Mr. Hofflander. Again and always.

Via: @sigepcory.

Eating Elephant

May 24th, 2011

Hey, you guys. Remember back in November when I said I was starting a content strategy blog and that I was pretty excited about it?

Well, I started a content strategy blog. And I’m pretty excited about it.

What are you waiting for? Go visit Eating Elephant. And learn about content strategy, you nerd.

Comments: 1

Issues Considered: Blogging, Career, Content Strategy, Eating Elephant, Meta

Safe at work

April 18th, 2011

There are people who dedicate their lives to taking pictures of dangerous things. Not just inside-the-lion’s-mouth kind of things, but truly life threatening things: war zones and protests and countries that don’t respect the press or any of its trappings. Dangerous things. Things they get killed for. Things they do because you know they’re right, and they know they’re hard, and they know they’re awful sometimes and they know they might die.

And sometimes they do die. Sometimes they’re shot. Sometimes they are caught in the crossfire, to break out a cliché.

Sometimes they are snuffed out.

At work.

They die at work. And they die knowing this was something they’d signed up for.

There are people who do the jobs that I could never do, no matter how much I think I could do it, no matter how often I think I could really take a risk and push myself into the nether regions and do something hard and dangerous and edgy.

I don’t. And I probably never will.

There are people like Sabah al-Bazee, killed during an attack in Tikrit, Iraq – a photographer, cut down by shrapnel, leaving behind a wife and three children. Killed. At work. There are people like Ronald E. Johnson, a guard at the Sioux Falls Penitentiary, a plastic bag tied around his head, his body left to die as two prisoners stole his clothes. Killed. At work. There are people everywhere – not just those who put themselves in dangerous jobs, but their families: their partners and their children and their parents, feeding off of adrenaline but still wondering each day whether their job will kill them.

Then, there’s me. Typing on a computer. Creating spreadsheets. Completely safe, never in danger. Alive.

Always alive. At work.

Not only enjoying what I do, and thankful that I get the chance to do it, but absolutely confident that I’m never in danger. That my wife will never wonder if I’m coming home that day. That my kids will never have to find out their daddy died at work.

Thankful that I’m coddled. Thankful that I can merely appreciate the hard work, without having to ever put my body in harm’s way. And still, constantly, awe-fully, amazed that there are people who will.

Comments: 1

Issues Considered: Career, On..., Web

Tonight, we geek

March 24th, 2011

If you would have told me a year ago that there was a community of people in Sioux Falls that cared about content strategy and its related fields – that REALLY cared and REALLY thought it was an interesting thing and REALLY wanted to blah blah blah for however long it took to blah blah blah – I’d have called you a crazy kookaburra and we’d have never become friends.

At the time, I didn’t even think you could get ONE JOB like that in Sioux Falls, let alone find 15 people to fill a sort-of-creepy back room at Monks.

Turns out, I’d have been wrong.

You wouldn’t have been a kookaburra. You’d have been a wise sage. A prophet. Something cooler than a prophet.

Because tonight I sat in a room with a dozen or so people who wanted to nerd out about content governance and style guides and editorial ownership. And, I sat in a room with even more who wanted to LEARN about content governance and style guides and editorial ownership. And, at the same time, I had a boss show up who was willing not only to tolerate my little meet-up, but also pony up the cash to pay for drinks. And, at the same time as that same time, I got to giggle like a 3rd grader about dorky little content things while everyone else giggled along.

To think. This is my job.

It’s not for everyone. But I can’t help but be a cheeseball and say, damn it, sometimes life works out.
Thanks, everyone, for being friends tonight. We’ve got a more robust community than I had ever imagined. See you next month.

(Hashtag content strategy.)

Comments: 1

Issues Considered: Career, Content Strategy

Improvement by proximity

March 21st, 2011

I’m a few weeks behind the pack, but I finally listened to that new Merlin Mann/Dan Benjamin joint, “Back to Work.” And, within 10 minutes, I get this:

You know, you sit around and you go, “Oh, I hope people like me and I hope they friend me and I hope they do all of this superficial stuff that doesn’t cost anything.” But what you really want is to, like, not suck enough that people you really admire wouldn’t mind doing something with you.

Because that’s the thing. The whole thing is getting to where … you know, just getting the opportunity to have yourself and your work improved by proximity to people who are better at what you do. That’s what it’s about.

Oh, god. It’s like this Merlin guy GETS ME, you know? I mean, YES, and, OF COURSE, and, EXACTLY.

Back to Work: Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin

On productivity

February 18th, 2011

At night, when all that’s heard is our whining dog and Kerrie’s tapping on the iPad, I am at my most productive. I sit at the dinner table and marvel at my mobile office, my laptop, my notebook, my cup of tea. It’s all right there, right? Like magic. Like magical magic. Sometimes, when I’m feeling masochistic, I still smile at the novelty of having work so important that it requires an extra hour of my time.

Wait. No.

In the morning, early, when all that’s heard is the hum of fans and the occasional vehicle moving over wet cement, I am at my most productive. I’m in the office, and I’m the only one there. It’s 5 am, sure. And 5 am is usually pretty stupid. But it’s also the one chance I get to pack in two or three hours I didn’t have before. I drink some coffee. I cancel out that fan hum with some radio. I hammer out some weird deliverable that, ten years ago, I never knew even existed.

Hold on.

For a few hours each day, after the clerical tidying up, but before the afternoon chat session, I throw in my headphones and listen to music. Just loud enough to drown everything out. Just quiet enough to still be able to think. Pushed to the limit of deadline, I am at my most productive. And, unfortunately, at my most hipster-ish. That’s when Animal Collective and LCD Soundsystem come out. When I want music I can still think with. Music that helps me grow my ironic moustache.

Well, this is weird.

Because, outside of those couple of hipster-fueled musical hours, I never once said “I am at my most productive during business hours.” And, if you’re disagreeing with that notion, you’re wrong.

Sorry. You’re dead wrong.

Wait, what? No. Stop. I never said “I don’t get work done during business hours.” It’s just that, well, the work is different.

I know we need the basic structure. We need the workday. There’s a necessity in having everyone in the same place at the same time, working on the same things. I don’t even really find it work, to tell you the truth, which is kind of a snotty way of saying “my job is better than yours.” A billion advances in technology haven’t replaced the effectiveness of face-to-face discussion.

But it’s funny how many things at work, during working hours, with working colleagues and working clients, prevent us from working at our most productive. Meetings and conference calls and emails and all of those things that Merlin Mann somehow made a career out of shunning. Which makes it difficult to determine whether it’s a case of being LESS productive at work or being MORE productive in off hours.

Who can I blame for this? Probably Obama, huh?

Comments: 3

Issues Considered: Career

Thoughts on “Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks”

December 20th, 2010

We want it all. We want the championship. We want the corner office. We want Best In Show.

We want success. We want top billing. Too often, we overlook the honor in lesser milestones.

Reggie Miller never won a championship. Patrick Ewing never won a championship. To take it a step further, their franchises – the Indiana Pacers and the New York Knicks – are championship-less since 1973. For all intents and purposes, every season since 1973 has been a failure.

Ask Reggie Miller, though, and you’ll find the opposite.

For Reggie, there were two goals each year: to win the championship, and to beat the Knicks. He never reached the first goal, but for one year, during the 1995 playoffs, he accomplished the second, beating the Knicks on the back of one of the game’s greatest performances.

He didn’t win the big one, but the drive to beat his rival was so great that it counted as success. It gave him peace.

In the end, history will play off the Pacers/Knicks rivalry as a third-tier story. It occurred during the Houston Rockets’ repeat championships, during both Michael Jordan eras, and – even later – parallel to the rebirth of the Los Angeles Lakers. It’s a footnote.

Still, there are few chances to see how a team finds ambition and pride in smaller goals. Each game was a challenge, each series a sort of miniature championship.
They fought not just to win the war, but to win each battle therein.

How often does this happen to us? How often do we feel disappointed when we win regionally, yet fail to find success nationally? How often do we look at a promotion as a step toward the top, not as something to be equally proud of? How often do we treat each project as a massive undertaking, instead of taking pride in each detail?

I’ve never written a best seller. I never became a nationally known copywriter. I have yet to headline A List Apart. But, more than anything, I’m learning that this doesn’t mean I’ve failed.

There are differing degrees of success, and we have to take them one at a time.

Reggie never won a championship. But he’s a few years away from becoming a Hall of Famer. He’s a relatively successful broadcaster. And, no matter what, he’s always got that 1995 series against the Knicks, where, for a few days, he felt like a champion.

Who’s to say he never succeeded? Come to think of it, who’s to say we haven’t, either?