Rather pleasant, easy flowing story about a young girl’s travels to Brooklyn, NY from the Irish Isles.  While it’s an interesting story from the family point of view, I was a little less captivated in the historic depiction of the big city.  As a native New Yorker (Shh!) I was hoping for more about the city but the family focus was front and center.  Glad I was never in steerage for a trip across the pond, which was described in ghoulish, ”yak attack” fashion.  I’d take this one out of the library on a whim but wouldn’t purchase.

First Family by David Baldacci

A fan of Baldacci and “The Genius” for one, I was dissapointed by this effort.  Didn’t really grab me from a character or story standpoint and I thought it was pretty predictable for those that like to be tossed about and taken for the proverbial ride.  I’d cast this one aside in favor of my next review.

Loitering With Intent by Stuart Woods

Stone Barrington is one of my favorite repeat characters.  I just have an affinity for the guys that can swoop in, attract the ladies, and get away with the “wise-assiest” of banter.   It was quite the coincidence that I was reading a paragraph that referenced one of the characters being in St Thomas or St Martin (I can’t remember which due to the alcohol consumed) as we were pulling out of that very port at that time.  Hmm, where’s Rod Serling when you need him?  This story moves quickly, has great dialog, and is the usual great summer read.  Woods’ consistently delivers; not diverging too much from his tried and true formulas but pleasing just the same.  Definitely beach-worthy!

The MPC is broadly categorized as a passive job seeker. More times than not they are ferreted out by seasoned and respected recruiters, or are the direct result of a referral chain of events. As the old adage goes, great people know great people. Unsurprisingly, there is a significant correlation between a well practiced recruiter and the number of MPC candidates that they generate. Great and lasting benefits always accrue to those that perform their job duties reliably and consistently, with great ethics, over time.

Outliers, a recent book by Malcolm Gladwell, reasons that it essentially takes 10,000 hours of practice to become expert or proficient at just about anything. That’s five years, 40 hours a week. Why would recruiting be any different? Accentuate Staffing, since its inception some thirteen years ago, has focused upon providing an environment that attracts, motivates and retains the best of professional recruiters. In the coming months, we will celebrate two 10 year anniversaries, and a 5 year anniversary, of our recruiters. They will not be our first such celebrations, and likely not our last.

The dramatic increases in unemployment levels over the past year provide perhaps the last opportunity (if one is a believer in the demographics) to more readily locate, and lock up, differentiating talent for your company. Through no fault of their own, many MPC’s have been forced to look up from their work only to realize that their jobs and their companies are no more. Even if you don’t outsource some or all of your sourcing and recruiting activities to an external agency, we encourage you to use this unique market opportunity to internally generate MPC’s and upgrade your personnel.

The next time a recruiter, especially one that you’ve trusted for many years and even more transactions, offers you the first opportunity to interview one of their “rock stars”, give them some love and consideration. They’re saying to you that they are willing to place their reputation on the line. In the midst of their routine, which they perform with great discipline and great skill over and over, they’ve identified an outlier, worthy of your immediate attention. And as we all know, great companies are always hiring.

 I just finished reading the book ‘Joker One’, by Donovan Campbell, who holds degrees from Princeton and Harvard, and the #1 ranking in his officer training school class.  While his credentials may not be entirely unique (although certainly impressive), his choice to fiercely lead men into battle in Iraq, rather than on a random walk down Wall Street, makes his choice of careers rare and noteworthy. 

 The chronicle is a nasty and vivid one.  Ill prepared and less equipped, Campbell’s platoon of seemingly “rag tag” recruits heads into the city of Ramadi (population 350,000) with little expectation of violence.  What ensues is battle after battle against increasingly aggressive insurgents willing to employ the most barbaric of tactics.  Surrounding an RPG “launcher” with dozens of children as cover, or inventorying weaponry in house after house (on the threat of death to its occupants) or mosque after mosque (with the support of its religious leaders), are emblematic of their ruthless intent.

 Campbell’s “servant” leadership style includes performing the same physical rigors as his men, while putting his life on the line with equal frequency.  He is careful to first observe and then put those leaders into place that immediately gain the respect and command of their troops.  He takes steps backwards as his men come forward, allowing them operating space to flourish.  He reacts quickly and definitively, in the face of incredible risk and stress.  He maintains a respectful distance from his men, yet gains an enduring feeling of intimacy.  

 While Campbell is committed to telling the story of his brave men, it is just as much a tale of leadership lessons learned under the harshest of conditions.  The burden that Donovan carries throughout, to return all of his men to their families safely, is one that would likely overwhelm many of us (while at the same time corrupting our good leadership intentions).  While many of us strain to keep our footing in today’s economic environment, few are distracted by AK-47 bullets whizzing by our heads!

 A long time ago, I bought into the concept that leadership begins with credibility.  If your people don’t faithfully believe you, or what you’re telling them, then the mission is lost.  My reading of ‘Joker One’ reinforced the concept that even in the face of the longest odds ordinary people can accomplish great things, given the proper leadership, great teamwork, and a singular purpose.  If you don’t believe me, then honor the “Jokers” and their selfless leader by picking up a copy of their story.

Campbell doesn’t sugarcoat the experience nor does he prop himself up as the hero.  In matter of fact fashion, he tells of the rushed training of his troops, the harsh conditions that they were thrust into, the limited supply of good weaponry, the battles that they fought, and the esprit-de-coeurs and outright heroism of his assigned men.  You get a feel for the tightrope that everyone walked between honoring their mission and “losing it” in the face of resentment, battle, and the loss of friends to death or horrible disfigurement. 

Campbell, a Princeton and Harvard b-school graduate with a #1 showing in Officer training school to boot, shoulders the burden of command and miraculously lives to tell about it.  I think that for those of us that didn’t serve, it is almost a moral obligation to honor his wish that his men be remembered for their abilities and their dedication.

It’s a great testament to teamwork , too, in the face of the utmost of ”stressers”; a tad more difficult than the current economic “crisis” that often seems to paralyze most of us as we face our daily leadership chores.  A true, selfless leader can get much out of his people regardless of the times, or circumstance! 

While defining the characters takes a back seat to the action, it’s still easy to separate the heroes from the villains, and the good guys from the bad.  I’d liked to have seen him embellish some of the main protagonists, however, I’m guessing much more time was spent trying to stay alive, as opposed to building friendships.  And despite any deep development of the “Ox” I have a pretty good visual on a guy that’s great to hate.

So, take the time required to commit a couple of days to Campbell and his mens story.  Remember, they spent more than 6 months in relative “hell” to make sure that you could.

Farmer’s markets seem to be “sprouting” up in every neighborhood, with ever increasing frequency.  Proudly, farmer’s hawk their produce as fresher, and sometimes even as the patriotic alternative! What easier way to end our dependence upon foreign oil, and be American, than to pick a peck of pickled peppers?  The hype doesn’t end with the local farmer. Some progressive and enterprising merchants are now including tracking information on their perishables for food-mile conscious consumers.  What makes good marketing, however, doesn’t always conform to good economic principles. 

The recent push for local consumption is in large part focused around the notion of the “carbon footprint”.  It is argued that the closer to home the food item is grown and eaten, the lower the carbon footprint (or energy consumed).  Well, maybe yes, maybe no.  Don’t you know by now that there are very few absolutes, and that the world is largely composed on a palate of gray!  In the instance of food that is air freighted, the evidence generally supports the “greenie” case.  When food arrives by sea, rail, or road, the data is much less certain.  Let’s toss this “salad” around.

The amount of energy consumed in crop production is much dependent upon the specific farming practices and local conditions.  Think of the (electrical, water) cost inputs in New Zealand, for example, as compared to the western United States.  Potentially, the advantages of a shorter commute to market and a Sacramento table are overwhelmed by the differentials in utility usage / costs.  Growing vast quantities of an item in far away, energy efficient locations often trumps the inefficiencies of small, localized, expensive producers. 

The amount of energy consumed is much dependent upon how a specific item arrives at your house, and how it is prepared.  Making a short jaunt to the local market in your SUV for that half gallon of milk (and nothing else) you forgot is highly energy inefficient.  Fully 45% of the energy demands from a lowly potato, for example, come from the journey to your house, and how you cook it!  That hour baking a solitary spud in your conventional oven of decades past doesn’t earn you many EnergyStar points.   

So, while the intentions of “locavores” may be admirable and pure, it would be nice to find some additional, irrefutable evidence to support their buying and consumption habits.  The next installment in this series will seek to do just that.    

If one disects the rates a little more, one finds that the unemployment rate amongst college-level graduates is at 4.34% nationally, an increase from 4.11% a year ago.  For much of the past decade, this number has fluctuated minimally around 3%.  While the percentage increase from the most recent 10 year average is substantial, the absolute number of unemployed college graudates is relatively minimal.  It is those that have failed to graduate from college that are feeling the weight of the current recession.   Their stories and circumstances are markedly different from those that have achieved academic standing.

Anecdotally, Accentuate Staffing is still having difficulty searching and securing certain skill sets, despite the overall market perception that all talent is abundant.  The old adage that “good people are hard to find” continues to ring true.      

We’re not going to project that times haven’t changed.  On the margin, the local Raleigh-Durham market has moved incrementally from favoring the employee to advantage corporate America.  But to say that we’re mired deep in a recessionary slump for “degreed” talent is untrue.  Generalities may provide the easiest story for the newspapers to recite, and misery does love company, but it is not reflective of the evidence.

Oh, yeah, and how about Hakeem Nicks (UNC) and Andre Brown (NCS) being picked by my G-men.  I can see them rooming together in training camp already!

As technology eases the ability to do just about anything, the capability to do something really bad is equally facilitated.  In the old days,  chances are that mom or dad dropped off a roll of film at the processing lab, where a photo processor and a parent got to “audit” the pictures before they became part of the family album.   

Sometimes progress isn’t really very progressive at all.