Was just remembering this thing, don’t know what triggered the memory, but back in 2000, when I had just come out of rehab, I ended up in a Salvation Army halfway house in South Norwood (in South East London).
Anyway in an attempt to stay sober I had to find things to do during the day so I’d spend a lot of time at the library there researching ideas online for Buzzsonic.com and iExploreflorida.com (years before I had any idea how to do anything!). I also took a couple of PC certificates at a couple of local adult education places.
Anyway, I’m taking this basic PC skills cert at this adult education school and there’s this one guy I sit next too who I end up helping out all the time and this guy must be close to seven foot tall, older guy. Anyway, after two days I realize that I’ve seen this bloke before.
The guy on the other side of me (fellow drunk Jim) says, that’s David Prowse, who the fark is David Prowse I thought. Then it clicked. As a boy I remember him doing a load of road safety ads for kids (he was the Green Cross Code man!).
More importantly he was the guy in the black suit playing Darth Vader in the first three Star Wars movies (though he was voiced by James Earl Jones). I wished I had a camera back then but it really stuck with me. The second week he was there he had to have a day off one day to go and receive an MBE from the Queen.
The contrast between us both couldn’t have been any, well, contrasting. Here was this succesful guy and I was barely hanging on to my sanity back then, but he was so nice to me, AND I was able to help him and it just struck a cord. I still could be of use, y’know, even to Darth Vader.
Klout says it measures influence across the social web. To sign up, you enter your twitter ID, so your Klout score is based on your impact there.
Klout collects data about the content you create, how people interact with that content and the size and composition of your network. The Klout Score ranges from 1-100 and represents a person’s overall influence.
Both websites Twitalyzer and Twitter Grader tread a similar path. Great fun I guess but hard to see any authoritative value of any of this data tbh and essentially a waste of time unless you need your ego stroked/shot down in flames!
Way back in 1995 I was lucky enough to gatecrash the national pop charts (as the 99th Floor Elevators) in the UK when people were actually still buying records.
When ‘Hooked’ first appeared, PWL saw fit to splash out on a rather cheesy promo video for the track. The video was actually very rarely seen though did make a few appearances on MTV Europe and late night UK TV.
After much searching we managed to actually locate a copy of the original video which of course is now floating around via YouTube so I guess everyone can see it now and see how daft it looks, but hey, all fun stuff I guess and just in case you were curious….
I’m not a fan of marketing guru’s but Seth Godin is a big exception as his words of wisdom can usually be adapted to most fields. Anyway one of his recent blog posts said:
“I think if you’re remarkable, amazing or just plain spectacular, you probably shouldn’t have a resume at all.”
He continues:
“Here’s why: A resume is an excuse to reject you. Once you send me your resume, I can say, “oh, they’re missing this or they’re missing that,” and boom, you’re out.”
What do use in its place? Seth continues…..
“If you don’t have a resume, what do you have?
How about three extraordinary letters of recommendation from people the employer knows or respects?
Or a sophisticated project they can see or touch?
Or a reputation that precedes you?
Or a blog that is so compelling and insightful that they have no choice but to follow up?”
