Wow, how long has it been since I’ve encountered an area of scientific research and thought “that would be really cool to work on!”  But this article on computational linguistics really captured my imagination.

I was beginning to wonder if I even still had an imagination.

Check this out:

“Traditionally, decipherment has been viewed as a sort of scholarly detective game, and computers weren’t thought to be of much use,” Barzilay said. “Our aim is to bring to bear the full power of modern machine learning and statistics to this problem.” – extracted from the article below at www.mnn.com:

Here is a link to the complete article

Don Appleby has served since 2004 as an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where he teaches in the Information Engineering and Management Program. He has over three decades of professional experience in the information technology industry. Prof. Appleby is retired from IBM.Thanks to ProfAppleby.com for this article.

If you haven’t read his article on job creation in the July 5 – July 11 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek, you really ought to read it.

“What kind of a society are we going to have if it consists of highly paid people doing high-value-added work – and masses of unemployed?” (Quote from former Intel CEO Andy Grove)

Here’s a link to the article

Very insightful.
Don Appleby has served since 2004 as an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where he teaches in the Information Engineering and Management Program. He has over three decades of professional experience in the information technology industry. Prof. Appleby is retired from IBM.Thanks to ProfAppleby.com for this article.

If you are starting a new business and you really believe in what you’re doing, just go for it. Don’t sit on a great idea and never try it just because you don’t know how you’d be able to swing it.

I know this one guy. He is one of the smartest, most like-able guys I know. He is in his 50′s now, but right after high school he started at veterinary school. Being a vet was his dream job. About halfway through school, he got married, had a baby, and chose to pursue those things instead of his vet career. Now a granddad, he works 50+ hours a week (sometimes arriving and getting off at 3, 4, 5 in the morning) at a job he hates, so he can “pay the bills”. He and his family live on an income that barely gets them by. They are constantly counting pennies, getting into debt, and scraping by financially. He is a happy person, but it is safe to say he is not very fulfilled.

Then there is this other guy I know, who bounces around from job to job. And when I say job, he is in his thirties, holds 3/4 of a college degree (he, too, ran out of money to finish), and works pizza delivery type jobs to support his wife and kids.

For both these men the goal was paying the bills. Not happiness, not personal fulfillment, not working at a job you love instead of just one that just gets you by. They have no ambition and no drive for life.

A friend of mine commented on this situation really well when he said “The difference is the mindset. For you, it is about making a job but for them, it is about finding a job”. Both men want to change careers, but instead of making for themselves a career they love–by staying focused on what they WANT instead of what they can live with—they are choosing to put in applications at Papa Johns and Publix because those are the places who “are hiring”.

I don’t know about you but when I look out at my life and my future and I think about what my children are going to remember me as being, I don’t want pizza delivery guy to be how they think of me. Don’t get me wrong, I love pizza and I’m glad people deliver them, but to me those are the kind of jobs that “pay the bills”. If I could advise these two guys I’ve been talking about I would ask them why they aren’t using their extra time to carve out a career they WANT.

I get that babies have to eat and the lights have to be paid for, so sometimes you have to hold down the job that best supports your family and that is a noble, responsible thing to do. But while you’re doing that, be planning, be saving, be thinking, of how you can get from where you are to where you want to be. If your dream job is a pizza guy then go for it! But if you want something more from your life, then MAKE IT HAPPEN. Stay focused on what you want and don’t wait on life to hand it to you.
Dr. Dale Callahan is the IEM Program Director for the Information Engineering and Management Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a contributing writer for the IEM Blog. His thoughts here represent the types of topics covered in the Entrepreneurial courses he teaches the clients of the IEM Program at UAB.

Thanks to DaleCallahan.com for this article.

“Something small on reverse interview: I talked to my boss and asked him how he got to where he is today. I used the reverse interview technique. This worked well, he opened up and this has helped improve our relationship. I now find him making more eye contact with me during meetings and I feel more comfortable in speaking up.”

This is one of the powerful things you get from this reverse interview – you get to know people on a more personal level. You open up the doors of communication and find common ground by getting past the corporate sterile conversations.

Dr. Dale Callahan is the IEM Program Director for the Information Engineering and Management Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a contributing writer for the IEM Blog. His thoughts here represent the types of topics covered in the Entrepreneurial courses he teaches the clients of the IEM Program at UAB.

Thanks to DaleCallahan.com for this article.

Well, I did the other day and this AMAZING article helped me fix it.

http://lowendmac.com/practical/10sw/zooming.html

Apparently, if you want to zoom in (this is all while your web browser is open, this is not an entire desktop thing). To zoom IN you press Command == (the +/= key–next to delete), If you want to zoom OUT, you press Command — (the minus key next to the “zoom in” button we just discussed).

Obviously, these instructions are for a mac. If you have a PC you’ll have to do your own google searches. Or buy a mac. Which I recommend.
Anyway, read the article if my synopsis doesn’t make sense, but congratulations! You no longer have to view your browser one letter at a time.

MIT’s Technology Review website offers some great insights about distance learning.  Here’s a link:

http://www.technologyreview.com/CareerResources/career/qa/online.aspx

To quote from the website above:

“In a recent survey conducted among Boston University online students, almost half of them indicated that their online programs were superior to a face-to-face classroom experience. Many students noted that they have forged lasting personal and professional relationships through their online learning experiences.”

For quite some time, we’ve been planning to extend the IEM Program to a wider geography through distance learning, offering the same content and quality as the on-campus version.  We are now in the process of rolling that out.  It’s an exciting time for the program.

<em><a href=”http://iemprogram.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Prof-Don-Appleby-01.jpg”><img title=”Prof Don Appleby 01″ src=”http://iemprogram.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Prof-Don-Appleby-01-276×300.jpg” alt=”" width=”104″ height=”113″ /></a>Don Appleby has served since 2004 as an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where he teaches in the Information Engineering and Management Program.  He has over three decades of professional experience in the information technology industry.  Prof. Appleby is retired from IBM.</em><em><a href=”http://profappleby.com/professional-development/online-graduate-programs/”>Thanks to ProfAppleby.com for this article. </a></em>

The huband was talking about how his brother had lost a job. Not only that, but the job the brother had just applied for that he thought was a shoe-in, had fallen through. So now my friend found herself listening to the hard-luck story about her brother-in-law trying to pay bills.

Now, obviously, the story is tough. But as she listened, her first reaction was “How free he is now!” This guy just lost his job, he doesn’t have income. That’s the bottom. It can only go up–he can finally CHOOSE what he wants to do.

But what was he doing? He was putting in applications at every local shop in town and sitting back, waiting on a job to waltz across his threshold.

She was shocked.

“Doesn’t this guy have a degree in mass communications?”, she asked.

“Yeh” the husband replied.

“Then why isn’t he contacting some people in mass communications or searching out internships in that field, or even starting his own business doing something he likes? He doesn’t have anyone to answer to anymore. He’s free. He can go for his dreams now. Why isn’t he?”

My friend was at a loss for words.

When you are out of a job, you have two choices: you can find a job, or you can make a job. Odds are that if you make for yourself a career that you WANT, you’ll be much happier, much more fulfilled, and most likely, you’ll make more money.

So if you’re in this boat, where you need a job, then MAKE ONE. Go out today, right now, and MAKE YOUR DREAM JOB HAPPEN.  The alternative is to to be sitting at home waiting to hear back from applications. So why not give it a try? there’s no better time than now.

Dr. Dale Callahan is the IEM Program Director for the Information Engineering and Management Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a contributing writer for the IEM Blog. His thoughts here represent the types of topics covered in the Entrepreneurial courses he teaches the clients of the IEM Program at UAB.

Thanks to DaleCallahan.com for this article.

But, even though we know these things, it is always nice when we get to see other people hold this same opinion.
Like when we received this email. He starts off by telling us about his current career and what an MBA was like:

I recently graduated from [College that shall remain nameless]‘s MBA program and have not really found it to be providing any of the opportunities that  I had hoped for, even given the current economic and employment conditions. I have a desire to change careers… I have no technical training or experience. I have been doing [my current career] for 10 years, and I have hit the wall. I have to do something else, but I am having a very hard time finding what that something else is exactly as well as how to get there. I just know there is more out there, and I know I am capable of so much more than what I do or have done up until now, I just have no experience in anything else. Constantly surfing employment boards and firing out resumes is not getting me anywhere...I have looked at the [IEM] curriculum and videos. IEM sounds like a great program and I actually wish I would have known about [IEM] before I started the MBA program. It also sounds like there will be much more employment opportunities and opportunities in general through this program. I thought that a MBA would provide these for me, but it really provides someone who already is in a career of their choice a means to move ahead with that career.”

Sound like You? Yeh, it sounds like a lot of people. IEM can give you the headstart you need in your career. (OR help you start a new one) How many MBA programs can do that? NONE. For a real career boost, you need the IEM Master’s Degree. Check us Out. You won’t be disappointed.

A recent article on the USSBA website, says that “For many Americans born between 1946 and 1964, retirement has a very different meaning than it did a generation ago. According to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, 63% of non-retired adults in the United States plan to work in retirement; two-thirds say enjoyment of work is the key reason.” (see full article here).

But did you catch that? ENJOYMENT of work is the key reason. Well, you’d think that was a no brainer. Of course we have to enjoy work to do it on into retirement, right? Well, maybe it is really that we need to re-adjust our thinkers surrounding what WORK really needs to be.

We have responsibilities that need to be met, and having a job and money help us meet those requirements, but if we plan well (and we do a job we LOVE), then we don’t have to live for retirment. In fact, once we reach “retirement age” we will actually WANT to keep on working.

Think Mother Theresa or Ghandi. Not really into that kind of work? Ok, what about Clint Eastwood or Paul Newman? All of these people are examples of people who worked on into their age-ed years. All of them were mid-project when they passed.Working at something they loved.

Start now, plan ahead, and re-think your retirement.

According to their website, “Our goal is to build a stronger, more innovative Prince Edward Island by helping businesses create sustainable employment and economic opportunities. In order to achieve our corporate objectives, a series of programs and services – ranging from business counselling to financing — are available to help Island based businesses grow and prosper.”

Their website lists several different programs (view them here) that the company sponsors for PEI. The one I clicked on says that it will give $400,000 over 2 years to eligible small businesses. The idea is to help businesses get started so that the island becomes self sustaining economically.

But the cool thing is that there is this whole company that got started (and all the jobs that they provided because they needed people to help run the new company) by being a business for businesses.

Pretty, well, innovative.