Here again are some of the cool things I’ve found, done, or learned this past week:

Monday
For you iPhone users, MobileScrobbler will scrobble (send data to last.fm) straight from your jailbroken iPhone. A bunch of other features include: lyrics, playlists and recommended tracks.

Tuesday
I’m a huge proponent of telecommuting. I hate spending a half-hour getting ready in the morning, shining my shoes, packing a lunch and then driving / riding the train maybe an hour each morning. That’s 2 – 3 hours each day I could just as easily work from home! Sun did a study on how much a day or two each week could save in energy.

Wednesday
I’ve started making fruit smoothies in the morning which is probably the best thing to happen to my routine (I wrote about how important morning routines are). It’s as easy as buying some bananas, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries–then mixing it (in The Magic Bullet of course). Heck, make a pitcher’s worth for the whole week. Thank me later.

Thursday
My Man in India (my virtual assistant from GetFriday) has done some fun tasks for me lately. For a few weeks I had him go into Facebook on Friday, see who had a birthday in the past week, and then send them a message. I love to send people these messages — just to say hi — but I figured it was a simple enough task to outsource. It went well, I had a few conversations with long lost friends. But! Noah Kagan was wished a happy birthday… a few months early.

Friday
Watch out for Linkedin address book imports. I accidentally (or was it meant to be?) invited my entire contact list to connect. But, again, I re-connected with some long lost friends (including an ex- from two years ago). I should get an award for most people ‘recruited’ to the darn site, though (at least 5 sign ups a day for a few days in a row).

Haha, that’s all for this week… I’m off to Colombia by the time you read this. See you if / when I get back!

Here we are again with some cool stuff I learned, did, and found in the past week:

Monday
Have you ever watched a trailer for a business book? Well, click this link and you won’t be able to say that anymore. Dan Pink (awesome!) writes the ultimate career guide (including manga and all) to answer the question we all ask ourselves at work: “WTF?”

Tuesday
Google Health launched and, well, I’m scared. I want to use it. I think? Do I? Hmmm. Yeah, it’s really something I’d do (if I ever got sick / went to the doctor / bought medication).

Wednesday
Noah’s project, Brand Tags, has become one of the coolest sources of free marketing insight. Any company not looking at his site is crazy.

Thursday
I “launched” my small web-design shop at mindaverse.com. The first person who can figure out the significance of the company name (other than the obvious slogan) wins a $10 gift certificate to anywhere or anything.

Friday
Facebook is doing a great job aggregating my online life so far and I don’t feel like I need to post things to multiple places anymore. Goodbye Friendfeed and Socialthing?

If you didn’t know, my nickname is ‘Dreams’. Try and decode that one. Anyway, this past week I learned, did, and found a lot of cool things. Check it out:

Monday
Dopplr added a carbon journal for travelers to realize how much they’re destroying the planet. Hooray!

Tuesday
I found a nice little Mac app which I’ve been looking for since, oh, I owned a MacBook. It’s called I Love Stars and allows you to rate your iTunes songs from the menu bar.

Wednesday
Communist parties are funny when cats are involved.

Thursday
It was a big week for sports for me. I visited the Twins in Minneapolis. Saw them play the Rockies in Denver. Oh, and I went to a soccer game (Colorado vs. Salt Lake).

Friday
I bought tickets to Colombia. It’s going to be an interesting experience and you know I’ll share my thoughts here.

If you haven’t already added me as a contact on Flickr–be sure to do so. Oh, and Twitter, too.

…unless you’re looking for mediocrity. Because that’s what happens when we

1. boil down our accomplishments into a one page memo, and
2. convince ourselves we can make a good decision based on a one-page memo.

Seth Godin hires interns and notes a resume is “an excuse to reject you.” If you’re truly exceptional you don’t need a resume. I wouldn’t consider myself exceptional but I can recall at least seven jobs (or projects) in the last year where a resume was never even mentioned. Here’s what you need:

• Relationships: Knowing people can introduce you to some interesting opportunities. I tip my hat to noah who is probably responsible for half of the connections I’ve made outside of school. This is how I’ve done work for pbWiki and talked web design with VentureBeat. But, even in school, simply talking to students and professors allowed me to design a number of sites, TA for classes, and land an interview with a big firm–all without a resume.
• Accomplishments: Yes, your resume can help summarize these for you–but let the work do the talking. If you’re a designer, make sure it’s easy to find these things. Heck, do some sample work for the company you really want to work for (Kareem got a sweet job at ESPN this way).
• Reputation: If you do good work, and you are a great person (see the last two bullets) then your reputation will be as solid as a rock. Maintain it, cherish it, and make sure you control it. This will mean less work for you. In college, all it took was a recommendation and a reputation for quality to be offered a job without even soliciting it. Wouldn’t it be nice to have jobs handed to you?

Though, Ben makes the point that college graduates usually haven’t proven themselves and can’t look for these truly exceptional positions: “Yet most college students are not all-stars and shouldn’t…just ignore all existing hiring conventions.” Yes, if you’d like to work at a good-enough company. Again, I’ve had a few offers (some accepted, some not) without ever offering a resume. I know Paul, while still in college, went to work for Yahoo! without one. Odds are he’ll never need one. His brand and website are far more valuable and a portfolio speaks much more than keywords on paper.

So, if you’re looking for those exceptional positions, start being an exceptional person and be an exceptional performer. Don’t use things like your formal education and a carefully edited resume as your only means to getting what you want.

The problem with bosses is they often know what needs to be done but aren’t always so great at communicating why it needs to be done. Some people just rub you the wrong way in how they talk to you, how they do or do not help you understand what needs to be done. Many people just don’t care and want to do the bare minimm. I run into this pretty often and the nature of my work means I have about a dozen bosses (and a dozen more co-workers) all with different personalities, particularities, preferences, management styles, and leadership styles. What a fun challenge!

The first thing I realize is these people have been where I have, do what I do, and have usually already been in the same position. There’s many a time where you will doubt a manager’s understanding of what needs to be done. A lot of times you’ll become frustrated by how your co-workers interact with you. And, unfortunately, some people do get promoted and do end up in places they shouldn’t be. This creates a tough situation that often leads to friction.

I try to constantly and consistently communicate with the people I work with to provide feedback. In other words, “managing upwords” is a great skill to develop. For example:

• I let my boss know my opinion on a task or approach, why I disagree with it and offer an alternative.
• I tell him or her what I think my priorities are and make sure we agree. Often we don’t.
• I make sure that they know what I prefer or how I work and make sure I understand their style, too. Asking for expectations is a good way to start this conversation.
• I immediately confront someone who I have an issue with or who clearly has an issue with me.

Typically this can resolve any friction you have with someone. But, too often you’ll see people ignore the issue, talk behind a person’s back or even give up and maintain contempt for a person. I admit, I’ve done this a number of times.

My best solution to offer is to stop and talk with the person. Walk across the hall, pick up the phone, or simply recognize the opportunity to tell the person right then and there (“John, the way you just asked me to do that? That was borderline rude. You didn’t even request it of me–you commanded me.”).

If you struggle talking directly to a person, perhaps a mentor is the best medium to communicate with them. Talk with someone you trust (preferably in a position above you) and ask them how to navigate the political situation, what the best approach would be, and if they could perhaps speak with you or speak on your behalf.

Have you ever been rubbed the wrong way by a co-worker or boss (no, not that way) and salvaged the relationship? Share your story in the comments.

I’m in a good mood and my brilliant mentor, noah, suggested I create a caption contest for the following picture:

Winner receives a $10 Amazon.com gift certificate. Leave your caption in the comments.

Winner: With my invisible knife, I stab at thee, foul editor.

PS: Photo taken with my new iPhone (on T-Mobile, ask me how!).

If you’re looking to create a quick PDF you can simply copy and paste your document (or spreadsheet) into Google Docs and export it to a PDF. Neat, huh?

Wait, why aren’t you using Google Docs as your primary word processor or spreadsheet application?

Pros

• Access everything from home, work, neighbor’s computer.
• Simple online interface and no bloated software to install.
• Ability to share and easily collaborate.
• Easy to post content online.
• Revisions!

Cons

• Cannot (yet?) access offline.
• Big privacy and security concern.
• No grammar checking.
• Very simplistic styling (cannot change line spacing, header/footer, among others).

All my documents at work need to be done on my computer (in Microsoft Office) because of the collaboration tools we use. But, all my personal documents from now on are in Google Docs. What are your thoughts on online software? Any other pros/cons I missed?

Penelope Trunk is predicting it: the end of consulting. I agree. I call myself a ‘consultant’ but I realized that all the work I’ve done in the last few years has been, in essence, “consulting.”

I’m not surprised, either. It’s easier than ever to become an expert (Wikipedia, right?) and it’s especially easy to work from home (Web Worker Daily rocks!). In fact, I intend to work from home or a number of remote client locations for the next few weeks. Heck, I work for a Big Four and I use Toggl to track my time across clients, projects and many other things.

That’s what I love about where I work. There’s a desire to be entrepreneurial, a leader in innovation. Our partner realizes we need to adapt and I strongly believe we’re all consulting for a variety of people (clients, colleagues, etc.). And once everyone is consulting, no one is consulting.

…not with mentors, and mentors. My company matches you up with a mentor (typically a level or two above you) and you meet with them a few times a year to discuss your career, reviews, future, and so on. This is awesome because we’re forced to meet and do the things that often get overlooked.

Aside: my second engagement since starting work was out in California. On the first day we meet with the client after lunch in a dark room with a PowerPoint presentation on all kinds of stuff I really have no familiarity with. I started doing that head nod, eyelids droop thing. My supervisor across the table from me noticed. Yup, you know that’s going in the review!

So, as I sit here at lunch with my mentor and I tell him this story he stops and says “haha! I’ve got a better story than that…” and proceeds to tell me about how he, too, once started to doze while talking with a client. Score.

That’s what mentors are for. When we see that review come up we can just chalk it up to “first time” and be done with it. No more stress!

Are you a skiier/snowboarder in Colorado? If so, you should check out Colorado Snow at ColoradoSnowBlog.com. It’s my new hobby: to create the best online resource for Colorado snow sports. Let me know what you think and if you want to help out (post gear reviews, trail reviews, guides to resorts/trails/eating/playing just let me know).