Attacking the Dropout Rate

Our new mayor is getting serious about his campaign promise to attack the dropout rate in the county. But he might be a little too late. Evidently, the state has taken over the county schools and has their own plan of attack in mind. They fired most of the school principals and moved people around all over the county, giving some promotions and others just re-assigned to where they can do less damage.

I would love to see the schools get serious about making the school campus a safe and pleasant place for our children to spend the better part of their days. If you’ve not been inside a public school lately and seen the awful conditions, listened to the demeaning and humiliating way that the teachers and school staff talk to the students, and actually looked inside their current textbooks to see what they are supposed to be learning – you can’t begin to understand the ginormous problems we are facing in trying to improve or revamp our public education system here.

A Marketing Career

Years ago I wanted to get into “Sales and Marketing” primarily because I felt that the opportunities to earn what you truly deserve are more prevalent in sales positions than in traditional corporate management positions. Plus, sales is very optimistic, upbeat, forward thinking and you when you make a sale it is reason to celebrate your accomplishment. In corporate management, it is a lot of negativity, screwing people over and self serving. The only real reason a CEO has to celebrate is receipt of a fat bonus check earned off the sweat and sacrifice of all the worker bees.

In the early days when i was exploring the sales and marketing route, I asked a lot of my contemporaries, including other successful sale people and vendors, “What is the difference between “sales” and “marketing”? None of them gave me a good answer. It was only on my own exploration of the sales process and corporate structures that I discovered and embraced marketing. Over the years I’ve mastered quite a bit of the marketing principles and techniques in a variety of corporate settings. Now I am ready to step into the new millenium and learn more about internet marketing and search engine optimization.

Obviously I will make use of the internet for a lot of this effort. I have found some good articles about search engine optimization and internet marketing. One interesting aspect of the new marketing is that most of the traditional marketing logic does not apply. You have to shift mental gears into “geek think” instead of what works in the real world, because often they are very different and mistakes on your website can prove very costly and difficult to correct or overcome.

Channel Surfing

Can’t sleep. The past couple of days have been really hard on everyone in the family. I got back to the hotel tonight around 10:00, took a shower and just fell across the bed with the TV’s remote. Watched as much of the local channel news and reruns of sci-fi that I could stand and then I started flipping through the other cable channels. The hotel doesn’t have all that many channels, but there must be something on TV at 2:00 am besides infomercials with Susan Lucci’s skin care and the next great kitchen gadget.

As I was sufing the channels I came across a headshot of someone that I recognized immediately – Steve Cropper. Now I have been a big fan of Steve Cropper for many many years and I was intrigued – what is this show about? Turns out I struck gold and had come upon a special documentary show about Staxx records in Memphis back in the 1960’s. It had info on Booker T and the MGs, Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Sam & Dave, and all the greats of the Memphis sound, narrated by Samuel Jackson.

Great show – what a lucky break that I found it this morning.

College Bound and Down

My step daughter had decided to become a professional student. She goes to school for a bit, then quits. Then a few months later she regrets having quit and signs up again. Then she find a reason to not go. Then she hears about a scholarship program or student loans and she goes again. I think she will be 30 before she ever actually finishes school.

My son is much more serious about getting a college education and we are in the process of evaluating the different colleges and universities to see where he would like to go. Of course, I would prefer an in state school to help save on tuition and take advantage of the scholarships available to residents through the lottery funded programs. But if he gets his heart set on an out of state school then I’m down with it and will find a way to get the money for him.

There’s a cool website that helps kids with their college applications. Here are their top tips:

  1. Proofread your applications for spelling and grammar
  2. Read the instructions carefully and all the way through before beginning
  3. Type the applications and write legibly
  4. Apply to several schools
  5. Don’t use a silly nickname in your email address – get a free email account using your first and last name to appear more serious and professional

Outsourcing HR

A good friend of mine has worked in Human Resources all her professional life. At the company where we worked together for a couple years, she was taking night time college courses to get her Master’s Degree in HR and the company was helping her with the tuition for the classes. She was so proud to finally graduate with her Master’s and I must say that it was quite an accomplishment, as she not only had a very demanding job at the company, with long hours there, but she was also mother to three children in school and wife of a musician who traveled quite a bit and because of his touring schedule he would leave her alone at home with the kids for weeks at a time.

We were all shocked and amazed when our company made the announcement that the Board of Directors had decided to eliminate the Human Resources department and outsource those tasks as part of our staff reduction and reorganization plans. My friend was laid off and we were all instructed on the new processes for HR support within our departments. After the initial shock of losing a friend and co-worker, I must say that the new processes are not bad.

My friend has found another position and is very happy with her new company as VP of HR, and our company is happy with the move to outsourcing their HR. So it was a win-win change for all.