The Pragmatic Strategist

Canines, Trains and Really Great Parties

One of my favorite things about the information economy is the extent to which a highly commoditized, social web lowers the barrier to entry for prospective entrepreneurs.  While some of us elect to dive into owning our own business head-first with little or no safety net, that’s not the best way for some people.  Many [...]

Continue reading...

We Never Called it "Cyber Monday"

I’ve been feeling nostalgic this week. After so many years in ecommerce, supporting catalogers and retailers whose year entirely revolved around the Christmas season, I am almost at a loss for what to do if I’m not running around putting out fires from Thanksgiving weekend up until the week before Christmas. Strange as it seems [...]

Continue reading...

Keeping Your Spirits Up During a Job Hunt

Job hunting is rough for oh-so-many reasons. One of the things that is hardest about it, though, is managing your own attitude and spirits. If there is one thing that is liable to get you into trouble during a job hunt, it is unmanaged anxiety. I’ve written before about some of the things that I [...]

Continue reading...

Wendy Laments for the Lost Boys

This week has been a bit of a melancholy week: my former team at Massive (acquired by Microsoft in 2006) has found themselves almost all the victims of radically changing economic conditions. As part of Microsoft’s plan to reduce several thousand jobs in 2009, their Massive division has been almost entirely cannibalized. Aside from the [...]

Continue reading...

20/20 Hindsight – Getting Your Start in a Startup

People who did not meet me until at or around my 25th birthday would never believe it, but in school, I was the Queen of Slackers. Truly. School was too easy, too routine and I spent too long doing it to be able to breath new life into the experience. I could dodge classes, do [...]

Continue reading...

20/20 Hindsight – How Early Career Choices Can Set the Stage

I had a couple of discussions this week that got me thinking back to the early days of my career. Aside from leaving me feeling older than I care to think about, it did spark a pleasant memory or two that I’ve been mulling over since. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about how early career choices [...]

Continue reading...

Nine Unemployment Survival Tips

Not working is easily ten times more stressful than working — unless, of course, money is not a concern in your life. Unemployment or underemployment is difficult to manage on multiple levels, because — just to name a few examples — it has such a huge impact across all spectrums of your life: Financial stability [...]

Continue reading...