Sometimes You Just Have to Take a Break

It has been a while, a long while since I wrote a post or even visited this blog.  I was taking a break, one that was only suppose to be a few weeks that turned into a few months and well...  But I am back now rested and refreshed and with a notebook full of ideas for blog posts.  

I just did not feel like blogging and was struggling to write something that I felt was quality and awesome enough for people to enjoy or learn from.  What started as a I will only hit the snooze button one time than I will get up turned into a hit the snooze button four more times then turn off the alarm.  I hate when that happens but am working on improving on that so it won't happen again as much.  

A break is a good thing it lets you get some rest and come back fresh and ready to go.  Whether the break is from a level in Angry Birds or from a current project being able to set it down.  If you planned enough time you will able to come back tomorrow with a new approach and new ideas.  For me, I did this a lot in college mostly when I was studying architecture and had models to build.  Instead of constantly having to pull all-nighters I would do some work each day and allow myself to have enough time to come back in the morning. When I did that I would always have better results and feel better about my work than the few times I had to work on the model for 20+ hours straight.  I also need to take a break after I read for a while, after about an hour I stop absorbing the information and start wandering.  I found what works for me and stick to it.  

Do you include time in your life for breaks?

What do you take a break from?

Photo Credit to: HikingArtist

An Open Letter to Perspective Employers

This post is a continuation of my blog post I am a Position Player.

Disclosure this is very much a rant blog post to get out my frustrations of not being where I expected or wanted to be almost one year after I graduated. 

Finding that perfect job or any job right now is frustrating.  To help understand some of the frustrations I recommend you read this post about the Young, Educated, and Unemployed. You are looking for an entry level employee who can do a lot more than any entry level can and 3+ years experience be realistic, that is not entry level.  I understand there are people who have this experience and are out of work, but try to make the posting for them not a recent college graduate.  Also experience isn’t everything; sometimes it is better to have no experience.   I am able to do a lot but not everything in your job requirements, and I am aware of the hassle of hiring an entry level employee who doesn’t know everything… but that is what makes me entry level.  My experience and education has taught me a lot.  And my continual education has taught me even more.  I don’t want to be micro-managed but would like to have someone I can go to for advice or help.  As mentioned in, My Promise to Myself I have many areas of expertise in which I am comfortable working in.  I am also trying to add a My Resume to my blog… but honestly it’s not turning out good and still needs a lot of work.  In the mean time you can see it here on my LinkedIn.  Soon I plan to go into the two marketing agencies in Appleton I would love to work for and give them an offer they can't refuse.  I have done my research on the companies and know what they do and that I can do that.  I am almost to the point of working for minimum wage just so I can get more experience and get a relationship with the agency.  I am close to the point of no longer waiting for a job to open and going and make the job.

Thanks for sitting through my rant.

Raymond Lutzewitz

Continual Education: Always Learning

I graduated in December 2009 and I am learning MORE now that I am out of college. All being self taught for my enjoyment and to stay on top of the changing trends in the business world. I am putting more time and effort in now than I did during college.  I am also having to absorb a lot more because of how much information I am taking in daily.  Honestly I am not sure how long I will be able to go at this pace.  I am currently teaching myself about SEO, proper social media use for different brands and other topics.  My class load is huge right now and it is getting harder for me to retain this information.  To help aid myself in this task I am starting to teach myself like this was a class and taking notes to review later and less like a hobby.

How am I continuing my education?

• Watching numerous webinars on topics that interest me including social media, marketing, and engagement. 
• Reading numerous books on marketing. Some books I recommend are UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging (affiliate link if I did it correctly) and Twitter Works.
• I read numerous blogs every day a quick list of my top 5 because of the content, quality, and consistency are:

1. Social Media Examiner
2. The Brand Builder
3. Jim Raffel
4. UnMarketing 
5. Translator Digital Cafe

• Writing blog posts talking about marketing and getting my ideas out onto the web.
• Conversing with other marketing professionals on Twitter and Linkedin.

Photo credit: ZadorSpain

What webinars are you watching and participating in?  What books are you currently reading or would recommend that I and others read?   Which are the blogs you read daily, I read more than those 5 but they all offer consistent quality posts.

Social Media Experiment Part 1

In an effort to get some comments and increase my interaction with my online community I will be posing a question across my social media accounts to see where I get the most interaction then I will share the results with you, my readers.

The most difficult part is coming up with a good question that will invoke a response to comment. I have known for a while what I want the question to be, just not how to word it. I choose this question because I never get the same answer, and it is hard for me to answer about myself. It can be my Achilles heel of job interviews, so your input and views would be highly appreciated.

The Question:

What adjectives would you use choose to describe me (Raymond)? Or what personal impression(s) do you have of me?

If you can give a reason to why you pick or feel that way, and I will be glad to give my opinion of you as well. If you never meet me that is fine since when I write I try to insert my persona into it. It's human nature to have an opinion on anything and everything and I want to hear it. When I write want to be honest, so if you do meet me in real life you will get the same guy who is writing this blog, or sending out those tweets, or posting stuff to LinkedIn. (Is that the correct verbage for LinkedIn?) I want to come across the same on all medians, well maybe more laid back on Twitter.

Thanks for your input

If you want me to give you my opinion of you feel free to ask it in the comments.

Ideas are Worthless (by itself)

There is no such thing as a million dollar idea.

What is valuable and creates worth is the action that is taken. If you have an idea and don't do anything with it then there is no difference if you had that thought or idea or not.

This is why I blog.

I blog to put my ideas into the world, albeit a small and select world of 10's of readers. But one solid idea or post is all one, or I, need to peak interest and increase my reader base. I also blog to help create my own identity and brand and to allow myself an avenue to market my thoughts and skills. This idea came to me at 3 am so I found a pen and paper and wrote my thoughts out until that pen died, then I grabbed another. This is not an original blog topic I have read some similar blogs but I am trying to incorporate my personal touch to it.

I hope that by blogging one of my marketing ideas which is the main focus of this blog will be original and have you my readers thinking to yourself why didn't I think of that.

Photo from Ethan Gibbs

So many ideas so little time.

I have many ideas, most of them will not succeed or at least not as well as I plan and hope. I know this so I put the most effort in those few ideas that I feel have potential and develop those ideas further, then hopefully post a blog on them.

"I didn't fail. I found out 2000 ways how not to make a light bulb.' But he only needed to find one way to make it work." - Thomas Edison (National Treasure)

Step 1: Idea

Step 2: ??

Step 3: Profit

Step 2 can be more than one step and could be done many ways but an action of some kind must be taken. This step is what makes ideas have value and not be worthless.

For me Step 2 usually involves blogging the idea, or telling someone who could use this idea and make it a reality.

Do you agree that ideas are worthless? What is Step 2 usually for you? Do your ideas just sit in your head or on a piece of paper that no one knows about? How do you determine which ideas are worth developing?

Trying different templates

I am attempting to find a template that works in 1024p resolution, having some difficulty but going to keep trying and messing with them, liked my old template but the images and borders were static and enlarging the width to 1024 left lines over the text. Also I still remember some html... how would of thought I would not me. If you have any suggestions or opinions please let me know. I don't want to keep writing articles and want these to be blog posts with a community. But thanks to my 10s of loyal readers.