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METAFORIX MAIL

Volume 1, Issue 32 March 13, 2001

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CONTENTS AT A GLANCE:

ON MY MIND: ON MY MIND: Reinventing Reinvention
METAFORIX MAIL ARCHIVES
INFORMATICON: Learning to Be a Colleague
WANTED: YOUR OPINIONS!
SITE OF THE WEEK: Clean Your Closet for a Good Cause
MEDIA: "A Question of Ethics"
CYBERSPEAK:"Wetware"

ON MY MIND
[From the Editor]

The Metaforix web site has been up for six months, Metaforix Mail is on its 32nd issue, and we recently received our new business cards, stationery, and promotional postcards from the printer. Most of these paper and electronic publications sport our signature imperative: "Reinvent Yourself for the Information Age."

We chose that statement after considerable thought and intensive, albeit unscientific, consumer research. It has garnered overwhelmingly positive responses. So last week, when a reader e-mailed to suggest that "reinvent yourself" has negative connotations and ought to be replaced, I was surprised and disappointed.

Not only was my creative judgment in question, but the significant investment attached to "Reinvent Yourself for the Information Age" also made it financially impossible to give my reader's suggestion serious consideration. And, until I read this Sunday's New York Times, that was that.

But there in the "Week in Review" section was a column by John Schwartz, "Computers Aid in American Reinvention." In it, Schwartz explores how the Internet has put "persona-hopping," multiple virtual personalities, and even identity theft "within the reach of all Americans."

Schwartz duly acknowledges that "personal reinvention is as old as the American spirit," a lure for various waves of immigrants and a prominent theme in literature and film from The Great Gatsby to The Great Impostor. But his focus is on the dark side of reinvention: fraud, forgery, personal irresponsibility, the "seductive power computers grant to revise endlessly." Nowadays, Schwartz suggests, people are more likely than ever to believe it is possible both to run and to hide.

Despite these unfortunate associations, I still clung to my positive interpretation of what it means to reinvent yourself. Writer that I am, I sought solace and perhaps even justification in my favorite dictionary. I admit, the new American Heritage Dictionary's definitions of reinvent left something to be desired: "1. To make over completely" and "2. To bring back into existence or use." Where was the sense of continual renewal, of creative rejuvenation?

I found it in the root word, invent, whose first definition is "To produce or contrive (something previously unknown) by the use of ingenuity or imagination." Invent comes from the Latin word meaning "to find." Reinvention, as a cornerstone of my business and professional philosophy, is tied to the conviction that organizations and people can discover within themselves solutions to the challenges they face, if they ask the right kinds of questions.

Reinvention is about finding -- again or for the first time -- the courage to take risks and to embrace change. Reinvention is about flourishing in environments whose half-lives grow ever shorter. Reinvention is about imagination.

For me, that's what's in the word.

Cordially,

Lois C. Ambash, Editor
editor@metaforix.com

METAFORIX MAIL ARCHIVES

Access previous issues of Metaforix Mail by date by visiting our archives. Or use the search box on any page of the Metaforix site (www.metaforix.com) to search by keywords.

WANTED: YOUR OPINIONS!

Guest Columnists and Interviewees Wanted!

Metaforix Mail seeks your opinions on how information technologies are (or are not) changing your world of work.

Guest columns are welcome. Contributions are subject to editing for length and clarity.

If your column is accepted for publication, it will be permanently posted on the Metaforix web site, along with a link to your e-mail address or URL.

As a small token of appreciation, you will also receive a $10 gift certificate toward your next purchase at Amazon.com.

Alternatively, you may wish to participate in a telephone interview, which will be written up for publication in a future issue of Metaforix Mail. to be considered, please send a brief note indicating your professional perspective and the topic you would like to address.

To submit a column for consideration or to be considered for an interview, e-mail editor@metaforix.com.

INFORMATICON
[a provocative quote, statistic, or piece of data]

"The Power of Good Advice"
Richard J. Light The Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/2/01

During his first week at Harvard as a Ph.D. student in statistics, Richard J. Light learned an important lesson about "the meaning of collegiality."

At the end of Light's initial meeting with his advisor, Frederick Mosteller, the advisor asked him to review and comment on a draft of chapter he was writing for a major academic encyclopedia. Light returned to see Mosteller later that week, having digested the very difficult material. He returned the draft, saying he had learned a lot from reading it and though other readers would, as well.

Mosteller "had hoped for something different: 'I treated you like a colleague, and you didn't do that for me.' He explained that by sharing his first, rough draft, complete with occasional typos and grammatical errors and imperfect organization, he was assuming I would help him, as his professional colleague, to improve it. So now, as a colleague, it was my job to dig in and to make specific suggestions. . . ."

A few days later, Light returned the chapter, marked up with comments on its form and substance. Although Mosteller did not take many of Light's suggestions, Light recognized that Mosteller had "modeled with his own behavior how working and debating with another person about a work in progress is a way to pay them a great compliment."

When Light became a professor himself, he adopted Mosteller's practice and has used it with new advisees over the past 30 years. "That one act -- sharing a rough draft of a document and asking my new, young advisee to mark it up so we can sit together and discuss it -- is what [Light's former students] remember and mention more than any other. They describe it as the single best moment of advising they got. They say it shaped their attitude toward writing and their view of themselves as young professionals."

SITE OF THE WEEK

Dress for Success

Low-income women seeking to enter the workforce, whether after an absence or for the first time, face a daunting Catch-22: "If a woman doesn't have a job, she can't afford career-oriented clothes -- but without the right clothes, she can't get the job."

Dress for Success, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1996, is dedicated to helping women make "tailored transitions into the workforce." Major corporate sponsors provide financial support; homeless shelters, job training programs, and similar agencies refer the clients; and more fortunate women in 70 cities worldwide contribute their time, their energies, and the contents of their closets.

Dress for Success accepts only contemporary business attire in excellent condition: suits, blazers, blouses, scarves, handbags, and shoes that the donor would be willing to wear to a job interview herself. For those who have nothing suitable to donate -- perhaps because their closets are filled with men's clothing -- financial donations are warmly welcomed. Those who wish to donate online may do so at Helping.org.

Clients of Dress for Success, assisted by volunteer "personal shoppers," receive one suit prior to the interview and another after accepting the job. In addition, once they are employed, clients in a number of cities attend monthly meetings of Professional Women's Groups. The meetings offer expert speakers on various career-related topics, along with opportunities to network.

Although Dress for Success serves women only, the organization maintains a directory of similar services for men.

Each year, Dress for Success sponsors "Clean Your Closet Week" -- and it's coming up soon, March 17 through March 24. To learn more about how to participate in the work of this innovative organization, go to:
www.dressforsuccess.org

MEDIA
[a recent news article, feature, or opinion piece]

Ethics in the Information Age: Whose Job Is It?

Information Week, a magazine for IT (information technology) professionals, recently published the first of a series of articles addressing ethical issues in e-business.

Employee and customer privacy, competitive intelligence, and information sharing of all kinds have long posed challenges to businesses and organizations. As information technologies become increasingly sophisticated, e-businesses are often among the first to be confronted with complex ethical challenges.

Don't be put off by the fact that Information Week applies an IT perspective to the issues. In fact, the IT perspective serves as a useful model. Regardless of an employee's job function or level of responsibility, ethics is everyone's business.

To read the first article in the series and related information on business ethics, go to:
www.informationweek.com/825/ethics.htm

CYBERSPEAK
[the vocabulary of the Internet age]

Hardware, Software, and Wetware

A year or so ago, when dotcoms were on top of the world, the Internet business was so focused on hardware, software, and money that there was hardly time to pay attention to the key element of every company's infrastructure: wetware.

Wetware -- otherwise known as "human capital," "employees," or "people," -- is cyberspeak for the human central nervous system, especially the brain. We all know that computer systems consist of hardware and software, but we often forget the third element, wetware. The Human Capital Index survey conducted by Watson Wyatt Worldwide suggests that companies with the most effective employees, as measured by the index, provide shareholders with twice as much value as companies with the least effective employees.

Downsizings, company closings, and precipitous drops in the value of stocks and stock options have forced the dotcom world to pay more attention to the wetware. With unrealistic salaries and perks all but out of the picture, employers and employees are paying more attention to fit between individual values and corporate culture. That approach is equally applicable to more traditional businesses and organizations.

As Pamela Parker wrote recently, "Prepare to scrutinize your next job applicant like the fate of your company depended on it. Because, of course, it does."

Sources consulted: "Computer, Telephony, and Electronics Industry Glossary" (www.cgsnetwork.com); "High-Tech Dictionary" (www.computeruser.com); and "The Essentials of Rebuilding: Why Wetware is Critical," by Pamela Parker.

Please note that the links contained in Metaforix Mail are current as of the time of publication. Some of them may no longer be operative at the time you access past issues.

To Volume 1, Issue 31 March 6, 2001
To Volume 1, Issue 33 March 20, 2001