I’m about to grab a Southwest Airlines flight. This leg of the trip will take me to Pittsburgh.
On the modern application process — here we go. The online application process has become a major problem for recruiters. Many companies are moving toward home grown online recruiting communities. Some firms have had to resort to utilizing recruiting firms to fill major vacancies. Online job postings make it easy to apply for jobs. Zero barrier to application has flooded recruiters. Most companies rely heavily on referrals from employees. The market might be primed for a new option. Perhaps a new model could help make it easy for recruiters to analyze candidates and pick the right ones for interview. The new system would never have to actually pick the best candidate it just needs to filter down the list to an acceptable pool of candidates for interview. I would probably set it up to do a personality profile and then develop a series of tests to evaluate candidates. Candidates that pass the first phase of questions would then receive a screening interview which would be done via recorded webcam. Employers could access the personality information, evaluations, and screening video for any candidate. This framework could be deployed within existing job sites after it was developed.
I sat a little closer to the front of the airplane than I usually sit. The last few flights I have sat behind the wing near a window. I’m not sure why it matters to me, but it does. If I’m going to fly, then I like to be able to look at the window from time to time. My main goal during any flight is to hammer out a few pages of prose. Sometimes I do not even write anything meaningful. To keep my mojo working I have to stay in the habit of writing. Writing when the mode strikes no longer will cut it. I have not been able to coast by trying to catch lighting in a bottle for years now. I used to wait until the gold was flowing and try to capture the moment no matter the cost, but that strategy will no longer works.
Sometimes the prose I produce is much better than others. The quality of my work has not been truly consistent for years. My work product has its highs and its lows. For what it is worth most of it seems to be just about in the middle. Sure middle of the road prose would be acceptable in certain professionals, but to really stand out within the academy my prose needs to move to the next level. The academy has a certain standard that is upload by peer reviewers, but that is not enough. To be truly timeless prose has to illicit passion from the reader. It has to be compelling. It has to drive them to want to act. It has to be more than just words on a page. That might seem like a ridiculously high standard, but that is ok. It really is ok. Trying to write something that will stand the test of time is a worthwhile dream. We have to dare to dream. We cannot be afraid to make a dent in the universe. Anything less would wash out against the rocky shores of the commons.
Southwest Airlines wanted $8 to connect to the wireless network. That just does not seem worth it for a flight under 3 hours. Last night I went out to Twit TV and downloaded a couple webcasts for the flight. I graded This Week in Tech, This Week in Google, and This Week in Enterprise Technology. My HP Envy X2 has a relatively small screen. Right now I’m both watching This Week in Google and writing on the airplane. Leo spent a few minutes talking about American public intellectuals. Leo was speculating about the future of forums for public intellectuals. It made me think about the nature of modernity. Andy is right to assume it made me think about the intersection of technology and modernity.
People have access to a large amount of information. Some of it is historic and some of it real-time. Most of the real-time content quickly fades away. Large portions of the internet are not very accessible or searchable. For the most part search engines bring forward relatively filtered content.
I tend to watch Leo Laporte content from Twit TV in spurts. I will admit that over the last few years the quality of This Week in Google (TWIG) has been pretty consistent. Jeff Jarvis and Gina Trapani are great guests. They tend to have a well-reasoned discourse that lasts about an hour. TWIG is probably my favorite ongoing webcast. The Vergecast was my favorite webcast, but it has now come to an end.
I realized about an hour into the flight that I should have downloaded my in progress publications to my X2.
