67 questions about leadership

I just applied for a management job on the Procter & Gamble website.

After filling out a 6-page online application, including uploading my resume, references, and cover letter, I was prompted to submit to the "Success Drivers Management Assessment," a set of 67 multiple choice questions about leadership.

A sampling of some of the questions and choices:

Do you tend to focus more of your attention on the issues of the present or on the potential issues of the future?

A. Much more focus on the present
B. More focus on the present
C. Just as likely to focus on the present as on the future
D. More focus on the future
E. Much more focus on the future

I chose B.

How have you been able to take ideas in your work and turn them into reality?

A. By using my unique strengths
B. By removing barriers
C. By being patient
D. By being assertive
E. By ensuring everyone is engaged in the vision

I chose E.

Which of these do you consider to be the most important in trying to solve problems?

A. Analyzing information
B. Formulating alternative actions
C. Being well-informed
D. Challenging assumptions
E. Taking a broad view
F. Creating innovative solutions
G. Focusing on the key issues
H. Probing for more information
I. Something else

I chose G.

Which of the following would you find least attractive in a job?

A. Keeping a tight, planned schedule each day
B. Working an extra hour or two many weekday evenings
C. Working weekends whenever the need arises
D. Working by yourself most of the time
E. Starting very early most mornings
F. Working over 50 hours most every week
G. Starting at the bottom, working your way up

I chose E.

Apparently there are no correct answers, but HR should be able to determine my management ability presuming my responses were consistent.

The fact that the test took about an hour to complete, I hope I hear back in a timely manner.

Twelve

A unique collaboration of 12 Boston area directors and starring a local ensemble cast of relative unknowns or actors with limited professional experience, the Boston International Film Festival debuted the world premiere of "Twelve" last night at the Somerville Theater.

This eclectic but unified collection of 12 short stories—each about a different month of the year—forms both a love letter both to Boston and an impressive showcase for the area’s burgeoning indie filmmaking scene, said the indie festival's website when I booked my weekend festival tickets.

Last Friday night, I watched three festival films but the highlight was "Phoebe in Wonderland," an amazing drama starring 9-year-old Elle Fanning as a girl with behavioral issues who reluctantly joins her school production of "Alice in Wonderland" and creates a fantasy world to cope with her troubled life. If/when this is distributed nationwide, I'll be back to see it.

The other two films I saw were "Natural Causes," a well-performed though poorly constructed romantic drama that follows a college couple through flirtation, into a relationship, and break-up; and "Nerdcore Rising," a pioneering and humorous documentary in the form of a concert roadtrip with MC Frontalot, the so-called father of nerdcore hip hop, known to nerds and geeks around the country (if not beyond) for inventing raps about nerdy subjects like "Star Wars," PalmPilots, and comic strips.

But back to "Twelve."

Co-producers Scott Masterson and Steve Oare hand-picked 12 directors to shoot a 10-minute short during a different month of 2007. Each director had creative license to explain a story any way he/she wanted.

The films were directed by Scott Masterson, Seanbaker Carter, Andy McCarthy, Garth Donovan, Luke Poling, Noah Lydiard, Megan Summers, Brynmore Williams, Joan Meister, Marc Colucci, Jared Goodman, and Vladmir Minuty.

Individually, the 12 short films were shot in and around Boston and focus on love, friendship, despair, addiction, and violence using elements of comedy, romance, song, and documentary. I liked each film in a different way, but my favorites include:

• "March" - about a serial murderer and the police detective who tracks him down in a very funny way.
  
• "June" - following the inventive exploits of a teenage boy who builds a flying contraption to escape his alcoholic stepmother.
  
• "August" - an educational documentary about bees and the hive sounds they make.
  
• "November" - a jarring look at inner-city youth who live a life of drugs, guns, and violence.

Together, the 12 films are linked by a tree that changes appearance as the months of the year unfold in each successive short film.

My friend Katie and I thankfully bought our tickets in advance, as the premiere sold out for all 900 seats of theater 1. (Due to demand, the festival is showing an encore presentation tonight.) We enjoyed the film from the sixth row of the balcony.

Searching the web, I see that Justin of Lonely Reviewer also attended last night's show, calling it alarmingly cohesive and effective, and that the 12 directors demonstrated a love of filmmaking. These 12 talents behind the film showed that given something as seemingly simple as telling a story in or about a month can be something more than just a simple story about a month.

For comparison, see Erin Trahan's profile earlier this month of "January" director and co-producer Scott Masterson at NewEnglandFilm.com, and last December's story in The Phoenix when Caitlin Curran interviewed "July" director Megan Summers.

T + P4 = B

Six years ago, I scribbled the above formula into a notebook while listening to bestselling author Laurie Beth Jones keynote at the 31st annual American Society of Journalists and Authors conference.

I thought about that today, not the formula as I had to look it up in my notes but the general essence of that conference, as I hobnobbed with some 40 authors, playwrights, and poets in town for the 4th annual Newburyport Literary Festival. Throughout the day, I sat in on several panels involving children's writing, graphic novel illustration, and poetry.

Which brings me to travel...

Seven months before hearing Jones speak, I had returned home to Massachusetts after a consulting job in California went sour that resulted in a cross-country roadtrip.

Driving over 20,000 miles across 20+ states and half of Canada, I visited the sun-drenched beaches of San Diego and Halifax, the natural wonders of Yellowstone and Acadia, and the urban centers of Winnipeg, Toronto, and Denver. My so-called "Great American Roadtrip" later became a series of workshops at the Boston Center for Adult Education and provided the backdrop for numerous travel essays that continue to this day.

After returning from California, I attended numerous literary conferences in Boston and New York between 2002-04 through illustrious organizations such as ASJA, Harvard's Nieman Foundation for Journalism, and the South Asian Journalists Association (the latter I previously wrote about here).

Perusing through my saved journals from the j- conferences, I see copious notes on writing tips and tricks, finding one's voice, advantages of not having j-school experience and dozens of other media topics from the likes of Barbara Ehrenreich, Ken Burns, Susan Orlean, Roy Peter Clark, Adam Hochschild, Jacqui Banaszynski, Mark Obbie, Adrian LeBlanc, and Victor Merina... not to mention those who have passed on such as David Halberstam, Molly Ivins, and Peter Jennings.

Fast forward to the present, and the first panel I attended, So You Want to Be a Famous Writer, featured authors Terry Farish, Lauren Weinstein, and Natasha Friend.

I listened to an elderly woman ask the women how to discipline oneself to write a novel without distraction from daily vices. Weinstein talked about the importance of pets and Friend spoke of keeping to a calendar, and through it all I chuckled to myself because God knows how many times in how many conferences and how many panels I've heard that same question.

Everyone wants to be a writer, and God bless every one of them. But how many wannabe writers successfully transition from concept to creation?

People, said Jones at the 2002 ASJA conference, are whiners, dreamers, and doers. Whiners complain about what is, dreamers wonder about what could be, but doers encapsulate the raw material of what is and what could be to define a vision and bring it into the now.

Jones formularized writing as T + P4 = B, where T is Talent; P is Passion, Pain, Persistence, and Promotion; and B is Bliss.

Do you agree with this formula?

MA saluted for its PV programs

Did you know that Massachusetts is one of 10 states in the nation, according to the April/May 2008 issue of Home Power magazine, with financial incentives and regulatory policies for solar panel installation?

Reporter Kelly Davidson lists the current state of affairs for California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.

My home state of Massachusetts, with a daily average of 4.6 hours of peak sunlight, is singled out for its new Commonwealth Solar program, administered by the Massachusetts Division of Energy Resources and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative's Renewable Energy Trust, that offers commercial rebates of 30 to 50 percent and residential rebates of 20 to 60 percent against non-competitive installations of photovoltaic projects.

Of note, Governor Patrick pledged the Commonwealth Solar program to help erect 250 megawatts of solar-producing electricity by 2017.

The Home Power article also references the 26-year-old net metering program; and the construction of the country's largest photovoltaic manufacturing plant with Evergreen Solar in Devens (at a cost of $165 million).

Job hunting

I recognize that a prospective manager would want to ensure a new hire is the best applicant in the pool, but why must the process take so darned long?

Moreover, if I take the time to apply for a job, wouldn't you think an employer would take the time to send a response, even a generic one?

Passed over

(cross-posted from my other blog at the Newburyport Report)

"Where is your Passover section?" I asked one of Market Basket's older clerks today as he stocked the beverage aisle in the Port Plaza chain.

"The what?" he asked me.

"The Passover section," I repeated. "Matzahs and such."

"Aisle 4," he said.

I walked to aisle 4 (or whatever number he said) and laughed to myself. He must have misheard me and thought I asked for the pasta aisle.

It was not much better down the hill at Shaw's, where two boxes of matzah sat on the top of a tiny shelf matrix for Middle Eastern foods.

Where do local Jews buy their Passover foods?

Truman Greene

Truman Greene sings and plays guitar in this video in his own advertisement for H&R Block.

It's so bad it's actually funny!

Ted and Niki: Key points

"We can't be interminably bickering with each other," said Senator Ted Kennedy during a WBZ Radio breakfast hosted two weeks ago yesterday at Boston's Westin Copley Hotel.

After listening to radio hosts Gary LaPierre and Dan Rea interview the 7-term senator for about an hour on a wealth of issues, Kennedy spoke about his hope for the future, arguing that youth voters today generally do not care for partisan politics and special interests.

Kennedy suggested that rather than Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continuing to argue over health care, the Iraq war, education, and alternative energy, the two ought to come to a consensus of a common voice.

"When a political leader appeals to the people," Kennedy said, "I think the people respond."

Looking over my random notes, it's worth mentioning some takeaway points from Kennedy:

1. Considering 70% of school violence and unwanted pregnancies occur between 3 and 6 p.m., it's important for school systems to hold after-school programs, encourage parental support, fund English as a Second Language classes, better train teachers, and improve the No Child Left Behind law.

2. Citing 60% of medications have no effects, there needs to be more evidence-based medical research.

3. With coal power plants being 30% effective, siting of new plants should reflect the public interest. Kennedy said he supports alternative energy generation, such as wind, geothermal, and biofuel.

Four days after seeing and hearing Kennedy, I returned to Boston and saw Congresswoman Niki Tsongas talk to faculty members and various public officials at a much smaller gathering at Suffolk Law School.

I jotted down four key points from the freshman congresswoman:

1. Her first vote on record was to support children's health care.

2. Improvements in the domestic infrastructure (roads, buildings, etc.) should be a priority before undertaking betterments in the economy, education, and housing.

3. "Bring the troops home from Iraq," she insisted in a clear tone, referring to a recent visit she made to Iraq and noting that while the Air Force and Navy ranks are doing okay, the Army and Marines are "burnt out."

4. Clean energy is a priority of the House, but the Senate apparently has "lots of questions."

Tsongas also mentioned, which was news to me, that every member of Congress receives an annual budget of $1.3 million to hire 18 staff members.

5 spam emails

With apologies to Hormel Foods and their spiced ham product, has anyone actually read the content of, and clicked the links for, email spam?

Well, I just did. Taking one of my email accounts that was set up primarily for online forms and knowing there'd be a ton of spam, I decided to uncover my slices of spam.

Here are the top 5 spam emails I received over the past 24 hours:

• Become a super-hung giant: The best way to please your lassie like a real Casanova, is to get your love gun bigger!
  
  1. The email points to a website that advertises a penis enlargement pill.
  
  2. The pill may or may not work, but isn't it a tad odd that the site displays the "As Seen on TV" red logo when a google search for the name of the pill yields a mere 8 results?
  
  3. The problem here is while I googled the name of the pill, how many others would?
  
  
• All your meds needs: Stress-free and hassle-free online medication here now
  
  1. The email points to a so-called Canadian pharmacy website that is described on the site as the leading #1 online pharmacy.
  
  2. Googling the website URL comes up with zero results. More to the point, the web domain doesn't even include "pharmacy" or "health" or such keywords in it, but is a random assortment of letters that may mean something in some other language but has no English language connotation.
  
  
• Quality Pills at Lowest Prices: People who used to purchase medications in Canada know CanadianPharmacy for the cheap prices and high quality medications. No other drugstore has such a large selection of products.
  
  1. Canadian pharmacies may be known for cheaper costs, but not when the email address that sent the message is the domain of a Vancouver high tech company.
  
  2. The linked website no longer works, and this email was just sent to me yesterday.
  
  
• suonimit: Get Ready for spring-summer season! Even ostin povers needs our meds
  
  1. Huh? What does suonimit or ostin povers mean? At least try to spell it right to give an appearance of decency!
  
  2. The link points to yet another Canadian pharmacy site, but once again, the URL has no bearing on a pharmacy.
  
  
• Need a gift for your loved one, look no further: Sapphire crystal glass with top grade swiss movements available here
  
  1. "Here" pointed me to a company that stocks 5,000 "replicas" of Rolex, Cartier, Gucci, etc.
  
  2. There are so many links and product descriptions, I almost thought I was on some famous jewelry site. Maybe I was, for all I knew. But shouldn't a customer-oriented web shop have a phone number for customer service? Just a simple contact form, and it was a duplicate to those on the above pharmacy sites.
  
  3. The strangest link was their "terms and conditions," which cited a single sentence of Code 431.322.12 of the Internet Privacy Act signed by Bill Clinton in 1995 that the company's ISP cannot be threatened. Why would I think of that?

Cinematic joy

With film trailers lasting two, three minutes long, and press critiques delving into every little detail, there is a wondrous joy at walking into a movie theatre after only seeing a poster or hearing a whisper of the plot.

The less I know in advance, the more I enjoy the film.

I should know, having watched numerous films in recent weeks at Newburyport's one-screen community theatre, the Screening Room.

Last night, for instance, I was wowed out of my mind with 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and was ignored in the Oscar nomination process. Set in Ceausescu's Romania in the late 1980s when abortion was illegal (the original film title is "4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile"), not to mention typically fatal for the women, the film follows two best friends: one who needs an abortion and the other who helps her through it.

But this is not an abortion film so much as it's about the "consciousness" (to borrow a word from Roger Ebert's review, which I read after I watched it) of abortion, with stunning cinematography and visuals, not to mention the lack of any music. Dialogue or the lack of dialogue carry the film.

Dialogue also carries In Bruges, a spell-binding drama and thriller I saw two weeks ago that kept me guessing the plot until the very end. Co-starring Brendan Gleeson, 53, who began professional acting at 34 after teaching high school English for a decade. Bless the man!

Living in Newburyport, and not typically following the blockbuster stadium movie theatres, I fell in love last night when I saw online that the Independent Film Festival returns to Boston later this month, playing shows at the Somerville Theatre, Brattle Theatre, and the Coolidge Corner Theatre.

Judging from simple descriptions on the website, my top three choices are:

• Stuck, a suspense drama with Mena Suvari and Stephen Rea, which plays Saturday, April 26 at 10:15 in Somerville;
  
• Mongol, an Oscar nominee for foreign language film, about Genghis Khan, which plays Sunday, April 27 at 7:00 in Brookline;
  
• Natural Causes, with no big name actors and no big award shows but is about relationships, which plays Friday, April 25 at 10:15 in Somerville.

That weekend in Newburyport is a literary festival, which I'll be volunteering at. I don't know my assigned shift yet, but it's fair to say I'd be able to see any of the nighttime films. Tickets are not on sale yet, or at least weren't yesterday.

Launch of new ariherzog.com

Frequent readers of this blog will notice that while it is still hosted by Blogger, the domain changed. Look up at the location bar in your browser: www.ariwriter.com.

That's not the only change. Seven years after its creation, I am pleased to announce my personal website at ariherzog.com has a different look.

A work in simplicity, it has easy and accessible links to my writing clips, photos, this blog, and other resources. The site will be updated as needed in the coming weeks.

All in one place: www.ariherzog.com.

Reasonable silence

This blog is abnormally quiet as I'm amid several processes, namely job hunting and related networking, and Newburyport Earth Day publicity efforts.

I'm also making changes to my personal website at ariherzog.com which I haven't updated in a few years, and I'll be incorporating this blog into a new domain I recently bought.

Changes. Life changes. Welcome to my life.

On a sidenote, I used up some vegetables this morning and concocted a tofu, garlic, mushroom, and green and red pepper dish; and a beef, garlic, mushroom, soy sprout, and green and orange pepper dish.

On vices

Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;
The best of life is but intoxication:
Glory, the grape, love, gold, in these are sunk
The hopes of all men and of every nation;
Without their sap, how branchless were the trunk
Of life's strange tree, so fruitful on occasion:
But to return,--Get very drunk; and when
You wake with headache, you shall see what then.

Such are the words of Lord Byron in "Don Juan" (canto II, st. 179) according to a random online site.

It may be reasonable to get drunk but in this economy, alcohol costs money. And when one is unemployed with no regular income, it is more affordable not to spend the needless cash on alcohol when it's far cheaper to drink water.

But no need to quibble. I'll splurge without going overboard.