Vermont Shortbread Company

More About the Creative Tech Thing...

Sorry folks, I can't get this stuff out of my brain.  I'm exploding with ideas. 

Cathy Resmer from Seven Days quoted me on her blog yesterday regarding the Creative/Tech Career Jam and our evolving definition of what "smart" means.

Here's a great example.  I'm working on a freelance tech writing project today.  It's electrical engineering techie, the style of writing required is quite rigid, dry and quite frankly, I don't have a clue what any of the terminology means.  I feel like an idiot.  Can I do the job?  Yup!  First reason: I know how to write.  I've been doing it forever.  I like it.  It's one of those basic skills, that no matter how high-tech our world becomes, good communicators will always be in demand because computers can't replace them.  Second reason: I've learned how to ask questions.  Yep, I have no clue about what most electrical engineering terms mean.  However, I have Google, Wikipedia, and a mind that asks, "Hey, how does part A connect to part B and how to they work together to run this thing I'm writing about?"   It's just a thing.  They're just words. I can figure it out. 

Is it scary?  Yep.  I feel like a moron sometimes asking the same questions over and over until I get a tough technical concept enough so I can spew it out in prose that my readers understand.  Is it hard?  Yep (but there's nothing like conquering a hard concept to make you feel good about yourself).  Do I want to be an electrical engineer?  No freakin' way!  Blech!   

My advice to any kid entering college would be:

• Learn how to write.  On paper with a pen.  Do it a lot.  Do it well.  Find a mentor who will "bloody" up your pages with red ink edits and then do it again until you get it right.  Read the Chicago Manual of Style.  Read other books about writing and then write some more.      
• Learn how to research.  Not just on Google, but in the library.  Not just in the library, but think of all the people you know who might know something about the topic you're interested in.  Learn how to interview. Find out what people you admire are passionate about and then ask them questions.  Watch their faces light up as they reveal what makes them happy. It's fun.  It's contagious. Just listen to me and the marketing and copywriting chick argue about serial commas or pontificate about what we think are silly words to see what I mean.      
• Last but not least, get to a point technically where you can say, "Huh...I don't much about XYZ software, but hey, it's just software.  I'm going to play with it till I figure it out.  I'm going to subscribe to a forum, I'm going to ask questions over and over, and by golly, I'm going to conquer this silly thing, because after all, it's just a thing.  And by golly, I've got a brain that allows me to figure things out."
• Lather, rinse, and repeat.

Now that's smart advice and I'm sure Cathy R. would agree.  Interestingly, I learned this as a little kid, long before computers.  My mom, who does not have bachelor's degree taught me, at the kitchen table.   She helped me learn how to research, she lead me through algebra (kicking and screaming, I might add), by looking at what I was doing and trying to do it herself, she gave me spelling and writing feedback on everything I did.  She was not afraid to edit the hell out of my work.  I guess what I'm saying is that this stuff, even the high tech stuff, starts at a very human level - with a desire to interact, build relationship, ask for feedback, and improve. 

I'm convinced that's what today's employers, especially those at the creative tech jam, need more than anything.   

Thanks, Mom.  :-) 

I'm Famous at Interstate Rest Stops (for writing)

Last spring I wrote a food article for the Vermont Chamber of Commerce.  I also did the photography.  I just picked up the glossy, beautifully designed magazine (Vermont Winter Vacation Guide) at the Williston rest stop on I-89 and learned that you can also read it here.  My article appears on page 10.  You can turn the pages and read it like a real magazine.  If you really need the real thing, stop at any Vermont interstate rest stop and pick one (or two or three) up today. 

This was the most fun I ever had "working!" 

http://www.vtchamber.com/guide/VVG08eGuide.html

Stuck in Vermont

Check out the video from the Career/Tech Jam last week. Doesn't it just make you want to sing, dance and yell a resounding, gleeful, "YESSSSSSSSSSS!" to the Vermont brand that allows so many of us to live a peaceful life full of beauty and make a darn good living?!?

Yessssss!

Attention Flatlanders: Please Leave Sugar on Snow to Vermonters

First, let me ask you, dear reader: do you "do" sugar-on-snow?  It's a Vermont tradtion.  Each year around early March when the days warm up and the nights are still cold, the maple trees do what maple trees do best.  They get sappy.  And I get sappy watching the ensuing sugar-on-snow parties that warm my heart , my cold hands, and have been delighting children and adults for hundreds of years.   

Maple producers statewide tap the first sap of the season.  In my small rural town, there are sugar shacks everywhere.  At last count, I think there were 11.  One really notices them in March when the steam billowing through their chimneys provides sharp contrast to the brightness of remaining winter snow against the backdrop of the still-stark Green Mountains.  It's a lovely time of year. 

Sugar houses often hold what is called a sugar-on-snow party.  The sap is heated and poured on snow outdoors.  This flash-cooling forces the sap into an amorphous blob of pure hard maple candy.  It is truly magical.

Now here's the caveat:  Flatlanders, please don't try sugar-on-snow at home. 

My dear friend, and old college roomie, Anne Witkavitch (shhhhh...I'm originally a Connecticut flatlander just like Anne, our little secret, my blog reader) called me a couple weeks ago with her hilarious tale of sugar-on-snow, Connecticut style.  We'll never know why this particular experiment was ill fated.  Did Anne Witkavitch use Aunt Jemima "syrup"?  Was the consistency too thin because she used a processed product?  Did she overheat the syrup in her microwave (yes, folks she used a microwave)? 

I have no idea, but if you'd like a good laugh, please read her rendition of sugar-on-snow, Connecticut style.  Real Vermonters (the ones who have been here for many generations) are sure to shake their heads in smug disbelief.  Not-quite-real Vermonters (like me) will spew diet Coke out their noses with laughter:  http://theeclecticwriter.typepad.com/the_eclectic_writer/2008/01/those-southern.html. 

All the shortbread chick has to say is this:  Come to Vermont this spring.  Have some real sugar-on-snow - there are plenty of sugar house tours you can do.  While you're at it, stop by at Beaudry's General Store right down the road apiece and try one of their great sandwiches, an Eddie's Energy Bar and some shortbread.  Tell them Anniezee, former flatlander, sent you.   

The Shortbread Chick and the Peanut Hunt

Happy new year to all.  My buddy, Dina, the copywriting and marketing chick commented that she missed me yesterday.  And I've missed her too. 

After a holiday season that showed a decrease in sales from last year (apparently this was true across the board, not just in the shortbread world), I decided to set up shop on e-Bay with cathartic cleaning of my closets and basement and a commitment to get rid of that which no longer serves me to make space for something new.  I started with the self help books.  I had millions...okay, maybe hundreds of them.  Do you know what a big business the self help book industry is?  Everyone (including me) is looking for that ONE TRUE CHUNK OF WISDOM that will change his/her life.  One cold morning in early January, I decided that the ONE TRUE CHUNK OF WISDOM does not exist in any book.  It's somewhere already clunking around in my brain...and in my heart.  So, one by one, I let the books go (with great profit, the entrepreneur in me is happy to add). 

Then I moved onto clothes.  I've lost a bit of weight lately through illness and nothing fits.  Additionally, I have a closet the size of Rhode Island full of clothes and shoes from the 1980s when leg warmers and acid washed jeans were in.  Yep, I even had a thong leotard for my Buns of Steel class.  Let's face it, there's something very sad about a middle aged woman who hangs onto stuff that doesn't fit or isn't age appropriate to remind her of better times.  I got rid of most of it on e-Bay.  I posted on e-Bay old jewelry from old boyfriends, long gone...reminders of the unhealthy relationships I used to pursue with great vigor, old kitchen gadgets I never used, DVDs and CDs that I'm sick of.  I even posted a discount on shortbread in my e-Bay store!  Check it out; you get a 10% discount through Valentine's Day if you order from my e-Bay store.  Buy some 80s junk or a self-help book while you're there. 

May I just say this cathartic experience has been full of personal epiphanies AND money?  As of today, January 27 I have sold $600 worth of stuff on e-Bay in just shy of 4 weeks.  Not too shabby. 

Between the busy holiday season, family obligations, emptying my life of junk, and just needing a rest, I've been frightfully neglectful of this blog.  Until yesterday.  Something woke me up yesterday and set my creative, introspective, questioning wheels into motion again.  So I'm back to the blogosphere and ready to share shortbread, small business insight and my own bizarre brand of wit and whimsy. 

So here's the thing that thrust me into 2008 and into the 21st century: the Vermont 3.0 Creative/Tech Career Jam.  A day packed with interesting speakers from academia and the business world, an expo, and good company and I came home excited about my professional life...and optimistic about the future. 

You see, for a long time, I have said, "I don't really know what I want to be when I grow up."  I have a degree in English literature (1984).  Having no technical or business background, but with a hefty dose of knowledge about the arts, literature, and music, I entered the workfarce (that was a purposeful typo, Dina...) and clumsily landed in a job where I was forced to work on an old PC (no hard drive, old green screen, DOS).  I had always made fun of computers and the people who worked on them.  "Pooh-pooh," said I.  I assumed these people knew nothing about the arts, nothing of writing, public speaking, public service, classical music.  I was a terrible snob and I loved it. 

And then I realized that in the early days of PCs, everyone was scared.  I said, "Hey, it's just a silly machine...a puzzle...I can figure this out."  So I began reading everything I could find.  I learned how to write batch files in DOS using Edlin (a line editor).  I began taking programming courses on the System 36 (RPG).  I quickly became the go-to person who knew how to help my colleagues out of a computer jam.  I knew how to write documentation that helped them.  I knew how to teach others what I had figured out. 

Here's the secret:  I never really knew what I was doing.  Anytime I was asked if I knew how to do something new, I'd smile and say, "Of course!"  Of course, I had no clue, but always knew I could figure out the puzzle.  And I kept doing that until I got promoted to a programmer/analyst position in the corporate headquarters of the company for whom I was working.  I loved programming, but even more I loved documenting and teaching.  So I became the tech writer before I even knew what a tech writer was.  This all happened in the mid to late 80s, long before there were any degree programs in technical communication.  It probably couldn't happen this way today; I was in the right place at the right time. 

So, on one hand, I had the high tech writing background and on the other hand, I had the right-brained creative entrepreneurial, grass roots small businesss background.  And it perplexed me a lot because I always felt scattered and unfocused.  I never quite understood how it was all going to play out in my future after I got laid off from IBM in March of 2007.  I'm very sure I can't sit in a cubicle and write tech documentation all day, but I'm also sure that I am not CEO material.  I enjoy inventing stuff and marketing it, but I do not enjoy being the big cheese in charge. So what's a mid-life crisis shortbread chick to do? 

So, I went to the first Creative/Tech Career Jam.  I wasn't expecting much, yet I was blown away.  Before me and beside me were folks from the gazillions of little software companies right here in Vermont, representatives from the universities and colleges right here in Burlington, entrepreneurs, corporate types - all with one message. 

The message I got was this.  We are in a new age.  It's not enough to be arts and literature-savvy.  It's not enough to be a math or technology guru.  The most successful people are not the ones with the bright, shiny MBAs, but the ones who know how to figure stuff out...how to ask questions...how to envision new applications to solve old problems...those who are not afraid of technology, but also know how to build a relationship with a human being.  Let's face it - in this day and age of the impersonal, you have to differentiate yourself as a genuine, warm, human...stuff no computer will never be able to do. 

So where do we go with this?  Where do I go with this?  I got some great insight about education for the future which is amazingly helpful as I have a teenage daughter who will go to college in a few years.  I got some affirmation for my own path, which previously seemed very disjointed and odd to me.  I now know that's not true.  I also got some good insight about where I want to take Vermont Shortbread Company in the next 5 years.  One thing is for sure: the perfect job, the perfect business opportunity, is NOT out there waiting for me to find it.   

That ONE TRUE CHUNK OF WISDOM for everyone already exists.  I have no idea what it is for my professional life, but I know it exists.  I know that for me, it has something to do with creativity, technology, and teaching others.  And I'm getting closer to it. 

I am reminded of a peanut hunt at my 7th birthday party.  Peanuts were hidden in the grass, in the drainspouts, hanging from trees.  We were all grabbing hundreds of peanuts and cracking them open to see if there was a meaty nut inside or just a dried up piece of crud. 

Maybe I'm a meaty nut...or maybe I'm getting closer to biting one.  I'll let you know how it tastes.