The Apprentice, Mini
today my boss took me to a very interesting business meeting. before i talk about, i want to mention, if i haven't, that my little gig here at this firm over holiday break has been quite the eye-opener in the sense that this has been one of the rare employee/employer relationships i've had where i really get the feeling that an authority figure is really "looking out" for me and concerned about how i proceed professionally. it is actually an amazing kind of notion and feeling to have your employer really rooting for you and making steps to seeing you develop. and i am not talking about nepotism or anything like that, but a real professional sense of wanting to thoroughly gauge your abilities and then see what kind of challenging ropes you can handle. a lot of my previous employers, and i have had almost 8 now that i am looking over my resume once again, have all seen me as more "production" than anything else. i hate to say it, but i think it the usual mentality of the architectural profession, thinking that "interns" are a dime a dozen, as opposed to potential future colleagues and like it or not...competitors. i mean, terms like "cad monkey" do come from somewhere. now at times i've thought, well alex, maybe you're just not upfront and agressive enough...which i could buy as valid. but on the flip side, i think professionals who are acting not only as authorities but also mentors like it or not in a profession of a"apprenticeship" like architecture, also have a responsibility to really search for "potential" in the young people that come to them.... to pass on the torch so to say.... to someone who deserves it. anyways, before i get into a vicious rant, i just want to say that i think my boss is pretty cool.
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anyways, so she took me to a "TEC" meeting / training session today. she's a member so she brought me as her guest. as far as i understand it, TEC is a worldwide organization of CEO's (or anything who is the head of a business) who get together to try to share experiences and imrpove through collaborative effort and education, the practice of their own respective businesses from a multidisciplinary perspective. now, as far as i know, although fairly "prestigious", we aren't talking about CEO's of GE or GM or what not. TEC seems to be mostly middle market business, that is, still keeping a real feeling of entrpreneuralship... which i personally find enticing as hell. anyways, these groups usually get together and invite speakers who are basically business gurus of sorts.
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at this meeting we had a particular gentleman who ran a market research company who had a very interesting shpill on strategic sale positioning. his basic argument was that of going for a differentiation strategy as oppose to a cost strategy, which much of our economy "seems" to be headed for. his basic premise was that we, as business executives, therefore decision makers, had to see whatever we sell... as not a "product" per se that equates automately to price (and therefore focusing on cost strategies) but as an "agenda" that fits into customer needs of business... meaning... what does the customer need in order to do business in a profitable way for him! instead of selling parts in an assembly line, how does your company assure that his assembly line is performing optimally. if you can get the customer to believe that his business will be better by partaking in yours, than you have an ability to charge premiums...and get away from the cost game.
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very interesting talk. because i was the youngest person in the small group by at least 20 years i would imagine (no google guys here)... i wasn't thinking really about "my" business... but i was sort of trying to test out his "theory" towards something that has been on my mind lately... that is... job hunting. doesn't take much of a stretch of imagination to see, but during the job hunt... what are you selling? pardon the ramification, but you are selling "yourself"... or according to this speaker's theory (which i can't say is "his", bc its basically the same thing i learned in a class at school), i would be selling "my ability to bring value" to a potential employer. and that's how i should frame myself. what is my ability to make your business better? he was also talking about customer selectivity and "control" in the sense that business will favor better by serving ridicuously well their best customers (for them) than trying to serve only at par everyone else. in that light, you must choose your best customers and cast off the rest. n
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ow, framing it into my current situation... the job market is fairly robust at the moment, and hopefully will be till graduation. i hope that this will allow me the luxury of choosing my employers. and i am not sure if i've mentioned this, but i am at a point in my professional life where i need to start making choices that logically matter, not ones that sort of haphazardly could. that means, going after jobs and positions that really have potential, having that "design" of a career and executing it by finding the most fertile place for such potential. this sounds nice and cheeky but it is my goal and hopefully i'll be able to fulfill it. i remember being somewhat stupid and also forced into a corner bc of teh shit economy i graduated undergrad in, and just taking any job i could get... which was only one job actually. but in that defense, that job did have many perks but often i question if it was a fully utilized span of time in my life in terms of professional development... i'm not sure.
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but what's done is done. i can only set goals for the future and work towards them. this week has so far been a sort of shock treatment in the job search, having done the artsy part of finishing a portfolio, this week i FAXed resumes to a few firms that i thought were interesting here in town, since houston is a definite option for after school employment. and i'm excited to say i so far have one job interview scheduled for next week... the last week i am here which just kind of really dawned on me... hence the shock treatment in the job search. but i'll do what i can i guess. this is also my last week at my job...a very fast three weeks it has been... and tons on fun. i can earnestly say all in all, this internship...this whirleind internship has been great fun and has let me see tons of stuff that i am interested in. speaking about my previous lack of many good experiences (there were some) in solely architecture... i'm begginning to think if this is just further sign of what i am more and more becoming sure of... that i probably wouldn't enjoy "just" practicing architecture. sigh....adhd.
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actually speaking of that... my boss institutes a sort of "brigham-young" test as part of her real employment process that she told me about an i found intersting...being as self-interested as i am...and so i said i wanted to take it. so i did, and the results came back today. this particular test is called "DISC"... disc standing for the four "personality" measures involved... one being "dominance", then "Influence", then "Steadiness", and finally "Consciousness". In short, the test focuses on communicative tendencies... there are people who communicate by dominating, then there are those that influence, then there are those that cooperate, and then there are those that "work with the program". i came out as very high D.... meaning i want things my way or the highway, mid level C and I... and a scant trace of S. In short, no bullshit guy who will probably hurt your feelings. haha.
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i will find sometime later to type out the fairly lengthy profile. i want "yall" to see if its right. but in general i think its pretty on the nose...damn. i didn't think i was that big of an asshole. haha.
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whatever...just as long as i get to say.... YUR ASS IZ FAYAD!
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posted by faux chink @ 8:39 PM
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