Dena's Musings

When asked, most people like to talk about themselves. 

When I used to train people in the corporate world, one of the first things I would ask my students to do is  ‘fess up.  Who are they? Why did they choose this as a profession?  Why this company in particular?  And what do they bring to their careers that will help catapult them into success?

Most spill their answers out with no hesitation, offering considerably more than a short glimpse into their personalities and experiences.  So why is it such a monumental task for people to write their own professional profiles?

Truth be told, the ‘disconnect’ between spoken and written words is not imaginary for a lot of people.  And the frustration you may feel about writing your own profile, whether for a press kit, a resume or a web site is very real too.

Here’s the thing: Think long and hard about whether you want people to read about you having been described in first person or the third person.  Which sounds better?   “I have 5 years experience’  or "Joanne is a five-year veteran” --?

True, it may feel like old home week to blog about yourself, but if you look at the most well-written

 professional profiles, they tend to read more like press releases than individuals expounding on their own virtues.

Still want to say something more up-close-and-personal?  Use a quote, as if you were a reporter writing about yourself:  “I believe in giving back to the community,” says Joanne, when talking about her volunteer work at the Children’s Home. “There is nothing more rewarding than knowing I have contributed in some small way to putting a smile on the face of a child.”

Words are important.  They can move us, inspire us, inform us, pique our collective curiosity, change our minds and, for us writers, anyway, help create our legacies.  The way you sum yourself up is just as important for something that will become your semi-permanent brand in print or online, so I encourage you to give some forethought to how this portrait of you will sound, feel and appeal to others who would read it.

Web site: Communic8or.com,  Dena  Kouremetis' freelance writing service located in northern California.

“Hey listen to this! The entire work force of the state of Virginia had to have ‘solitaire’ removed from their computers because they hadn't done any work in six weeks. “  ~ line from the movie You’ve Got Mail.

Remember when using computers was a novelty?  And when simple games like computer solitaire or blackjack was what you did on the sly at work? 

During an evening when I found myself channel surfing hundreds of cable TV cable channels and coming empty for something notable to watch, I defaulted to the ones that play old movies. There, I found one of those favorite old-ish romantic comedies that seem to crop up around Christmastime each year – You’ve Got Mail.

This re-match-up cutie of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan (of Sleepless in Seattle fame) chronicles the demise of a small, independent bookstore in the heart of the Big Apple run by the movie’s impish female star. Tom Hank’s Fox & Son (representative of the huge chains that took over the book retailing business) has installed one of its newest mega bookstores within a few blocks of Ryan’s “Shop Around the Corner” – the one where everybody knows your name and several generations of New Yorkers can remember buying books when Ryan’s mother ran the store.

I won’t give away the entire plot of the story, just in case you consider renting it sometime in the future.  I will say that the movie remains a charming vignette with that formulaic started-out-hating-one-another-ended-up-falling-in-love stories between the movie’s two stars. What became obvious to me while watching this, however, were all the ironies that have come to pass since this 1998 movie was released.   1998!!  Doesn’t that sound like friggin’ YESTERDAY???

The premise of the mega-store eating the lunch of the small, locally run business has, in this case, already reversed itself, for one.  With the demise and down-sizing of chains like Borders and Barnes & Noble, latte-drinking purist page flippers who used to hang out all day in the big box book stores are now relegated to either finding the small stores again (if they exist) or going totally green and using their Kindles and iPads to e-read instead. That touch screen “flip of the finger” to turn pages will no doubt someday entirely replace the feel of rough paper and the smell of print; those of us old enough to remember the Ray Bradbury  novel and 1966 movie, Farenheit 451, can recall scenes of mountains of printed books in huge bonfires, making us sci-fi shudder all the more...

What’s even more ironic is the premise of You’ve Got Mail, with the two main characters meeting one another online and forming a fast cyber-friendship before actually meeting one another. It carries with it one of the main reasons for the demise of both the small AND the large booksellers: the digital age had just taken root. Remember when we were all slack-jawed by the lightening fast speed (yes, even with dial-up!) at which we could disseminate information and send communications?

It almost sounds like turducken delicacy -- the turkey-eating-the-duck-eating-the-chicken. The megastore eats up the tiny store and then a gigantic computer processor eats them both.

Okay, I pride myself in being able to find myself around a computer fairly well for a person of my decade.  I have seen the world of the communicative arts morph before my very eyes and am still waiting to see where it all ends up, as you read this from your fast-as-lightening word processing modem-spinning desktop, laptop, Android, or iPad2. 

But there is one thing I have not had the heart to give up: my original AOL email address.  The moment I read it off to someone as a way to contact me, they know my age. At times, it makes me feel like Columbus coming to America and never giving up his wooden sailing ships.  Keeping it is like hanging onto an old friend.

That’s why I love one of the self-searching lines narrated by You’ve Got Mail’s main character’s, Kathleen Kelly, as she shuts down her laptop for the evening: 

“Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life - well, valuable, but small - and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when  -- shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void.”

Web site: Communic8or.com,  Dena  Kouremetis' freelance writing service located in northern California.