Virtual Magpie (the equivocal adventures of Megan M.)

5. Most staffing agencies will administer several tests which tend to be time consuming, annoying, and occasionally demeaning to find out if you are reliable. We would rather just ask: Are you reliable? Explain.

Have I gushed to you publicly about how much I love this company? I haven’t? Man, you’re in for a treat. I gush like nobody else.

I imagine that it’s a turning point in anyone’s life when they find out they’re not alone in the world — who wouldn’t be thrilled to discover such a thing? When I started Virtual Magpie I was searching for the thing that felt like who I was, and I expected (fairly, I think) to be unique in whatever that thing turned out to be. As I went along, I found out that part of what made me me was the way I wanted to treat my clients — like real people, like grown-ups, like friends. There was a lot more that made me me, but this issue was a huge part of it and became more and more important to me as time went on and the company grew around me. I felt that I was building an empire, but I expected to build it mostly by myself.

Enter Cloud Nine, as you’re already aware, and every week it becomes more brilliantly clear to me that I’m not alone in this. Some of you know what a riot it is to work with people who continue to surprise and delight you, and that’s what I’ve found here so far — even just today, reading through the hiring interview, I found that little piece up at the top. We would rather just ask: Are you reliable?

Isn’t that awesome??! I could just die of happy. You want to see something else, in the same file? Take a look at this:

How do you prefer to be appreciated?

When was the last time an employer asked you that!?

I’m afraid to have any caffeine.

I have too many ideas already.

My head might explode.

As with all impending purchases of hardware, I’ve been obsessing non-stop about the Drobo in Virtual Magpie’s future.

We’ve been doing our backups with external drives (SmartDisk CrossFire 250s, recommended by a friend who knows his stuff — these drives have proven incredibly reliable), but for the last few months I’ve been thinking of putting together a better solution, of which the Drobo is an obvious first step. (If you’re not already familiar with it, you might want to take a look at their website. It takes a few minutes for non-techies to mete out exactly what it does, but it’s well worth the exploration. This thing is awesome.)

Now, if you know anything about Megan, you know that her hardware obsession doesn’t stay dormant in her office after she stops working for the day.

Last week, very much in possession of an ass-kicking sinus infection, I had a dream about the Drobo. It was about my remaining hard drive space, and how I might improve on that free space. Sleeping, I was analyzing files for deletion or removal to DVD. More extra space, I needed to free up more space. In the dream (as always) it was very important to me to have the largest possible amount of empty space available.

Of course, being in possession of said ass-kicking sinus infection meant that it was necessary, at a certain point in the wee hours of the morning, to wake up enough to climb out of bed and hack something up — a particularly large glob of sinus obstruction, in this case. It was awe-inspiringly gross, even in my semi-somnolent state. A gigantic gob of ew. Into a tissue it went; thence to the trash can.

And as I hobbled through hypnogogia, back to my bed, I thought: Dude. I bet that freed up a ton of drive space.

In November I’ll be visiting Youngstown for a long weekend for business (and birthdays!), with no clear idea of what net access will be available. My flights there and home are on Thursday Nov. 1st and Monday Nov. 5th, respectively, so if I go incommunicado you can expect me back the 6th (Tuesday) or thereabouts.

With Youngstown business so much on my mind these days, I would have liked to extend my visit — which I think I’ll do when I go in February. There’s a lot to see and do in Youngstown these days, and I don’t know the half of it. (Don’t worry, I promise to find out, and report back…)

If you need anything in the meantime, you know where to find me. ;}

I had never heard of “sunk cost” in my life until Kyeli posted about it at Cloud Nine. Do people really do this??

What I understand from various references is that “sunk cost” describes the amount of time and effort you have invested in a particular course of action. Therefore, a business person who is playing on your sunk cost may draw out the length of your meeting, give you plenty of paperwork to fill out, spend a lot of time getting to know you, etc. Someone who does this with sunk cost specifically in mind may be hoping that once you’ve invested that energy, you will continue to work with them, continue at this course of action, despite any conflicting details that become apparent.

The “sunk cost fallacy” explains that it makes no sense to do this. And that’s what I would think, too! Just because you’re sinking a lot of time into a solution doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do, especially if you find out along the way that it’s definitely not the best solution. There are really people who use this on purpose? For real?

Ironically, doesn’t this tactic create a sunk cost situation for the business person, as well as the client?

Ha!

I have the best clients in the world.

I needed something to get me thinking again, so I asked Brooke what she thought were the five most incredible things happening in Youngstown right now. I know, I know — I shot low — and she confirmed it:

Only 5?

Oops.

I think that the most incredible thing happening in Youngstown is intangible: the energy. The amount of excitement and opportunity, and that swell of feeling that envelops everything as people start to realize what opportunity really looks like. It’s the acknowledgment that there is so much we can do and nothing holding us back (or at least, nothing that we cannot change in order to get what we want).

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

If you need a refresher, though I know that most of you frequent my personal blog, I’ve been talking about Youngstown intermittently for the last few months. Mostly in one long swath, and an inkling a couple of weeks ago — because the situation there is so interesting, but also heavy on the economics (and politics!) in ways that boggle my mind just a little bit. The big picture, however, doesn’t change the fact that Youngstown’s businesses, its people, its very basic energy could benefit from a handful of changes that, well, everyone benefits from, for the most part. The biggest of these is in changing the way it thinks.

Ha! I know you knew I was going there. You know what started it, for me personally? Psycho-cybernetics. I just couldn’t believe that someone out there had the idea that you could change what you are by thinking about it. And maybe I was a little bit skeptical in the beginning… maybe I wasn’t sure. Hell, nobody’s ever sure. But if I’d waited until I was sure to run this thing full-time, who knows when I would have gotten there? I think it’s something you feel, in your gut, go for. And I’m not saying there aren’t a few really practical solutions for Youngstown’s situation, because there are (and don’t be too surprised if that’s my next post), but the big one, the really powerful one, is in the thinking.

This makes me bubbly and excited. It is still very new, but take a look, say what’s on your mind. This is what we’ve been talking about for ages now, developing in our minds, all in separate particular ways, learning, growing, coming to really interesting conclusions, wanting to know more. The site is called Connection Paradigm, and it’s an incredible idea:

Businesses care about their customers and want to help them. Farmers grow food in harmony with the surrounding ecosystem. Governments seek to serve their people. Lovers love their mates. Marketers seek permission to offer their products to those who might be helped by them. Workers seek to support their co-workers. Parents nurture their children. These words are connection words. The connection paradigm is an alternative to the control paradigm.

Link.