I questioned him regarding his other interests in his life and strangely told me his favorite hobby was auto mechanics.  His Dad was a crackerjack auto mechanic and they enjoyed refurbishing vintage autos, that required getting their hands dirty and oily and they enjoyed every minute of it.  He never thought he could put this talent to use, like making a living from it.   In fact he never would even consider placing this "hobby" ahead of his first love Plant Biology.

I told him that I would make some inquiries and get back to him.  The next day I called an acquaintance I had at the FMC corporation.  (The Food Machinery Corporation)   They were an international manufacturer of agricultural and food machinery and were entering into heavy machinery.  

He called me the next day and said they had an opening in Saudi Arabia installing tomato processing equipment.   I suspect Saudi Arabia does not process any tomatoes today with their vast oil wealth.

I called him and  told him to talk it over with his wife and get back to me.  He told me not to hang up the phone and briefly  told his wife of the offer.  He came back to the phone and said "We will take it"

The deal was he had to stay there two years, leave most of his earnings in escrow.  He agreed and did his 2 year stint.

The company liked him so much they transferred him to a division that was involved with the manufacturing of automatic fruit and vegetable harvesters in Florida.   Orange pickers, bean pickers, sweet corn and a host of others.

He soon became a superstar because of his "Multifaceted" abilities that he could directly apply to this division, namely his plant biology background tied into his mechanical talents as designing plants to adapt to machine harvesting required mechanical modifications relative to the limitations they could effect with the plant design.  Longer stems, and various plant characteristics are  needed to be solved in both the biology laboratory as well as the mechanical shop and in field trials.   So all of a sudden you see where this fellows unique mix of talents were being employed to solve some of the labor shortages we have in this country through automated harvesting.  It doesn't take much to observe that he was generating information and inputting it into the companies data base for all the "users" to enjoy. 

So if he wasn't in the green house working with mother nature he was getting his hands oily and greasy in the field. 

John became the plant manager in 3 years.  We visited him on our trip south one year.  When we pulled into the facility we expected to be directed to a plush office in the vast green house propagation area.  Instead we were directed to a field where a group of employees were working on an automatic snap bean picker.  When we pulled up we didn't see John.  We asked one of the men where he was and he said "Look under that machine, that is where he is".

Yes the plant manager was under the machine cussing the machine that would not cooperate with the plants that he had designed and propagated in a few years in the laboratory because it  involved disturbing some of Gods work that can be frustrating at times.  Mother nature does not appreciate being fooled with although there have been many successes where increased yields seem to be acceptable to the man upstairs when it comes to feeding the worlds hungry.  You can better believe when John came out from under that bean picker he had some input to contribute to his staff and customers.

There are many other examples that we have been involved in the past 50 years.  One was a young man that went to college and majored in archeology,  learning about dinosaurs etc.  He too couldn't find a job and this really teed off his father who sent him through college at great expense.  We entered into a  conversation one day on my porch when I questioned what interested him the most about his archeology studies.  He said "DNA"

This was during the OJ Simpson trial and the DNA evidence that was involved.  I asked him if he ever considered applying to the State Police and taking his DNA interest to humans instead of Dinosaurs.   He landed a nice position in about a week when he applied for a position in the state police forensic division.

One more example and this involved a close relative that grew up on a farm and became very mechanical.  Later in life he became interested in computer technology and marketing.

He now has a very successful business selling computer systems that requires remote access to the clients computer over the Internet.  He first designs a system that he eventually ships to his clients all over the world and as in the automated harvester example, you will find him under a desk switching wires, at times taking the cover off of the machines, adding parts as in fax modems and of course utilizing his mechanical expertise nurtured on the farm.

Employers are picky today.  They have things going their way.  They are not anxious to hire people who are one track minded with limited expertise in peripheral areas.

If you can't dig up any unique experiences you have from the past, and apply it in some way to a current need in your present employment or employment that you will seek, you had better go into an interview with more than one thing in your bag of tricks because one specialty may not be enough today in this job market.  You may have to actually take on a very serious study of areas that you can apply to your present expertise.

Study a hands on occupation and apply it to the technologies.

Become multifaceted even learning another language would contribute, don't sit on your ass waiting for the politicians to bail you out.

Some ideas and recommendations

First out of the box would be your current expertise in communications, computer skills,  I-Phone, tablets, Internet capabilities even exploring this new Cloud technology.  If you are an elder that has not taken the plunge into the newest technologies in communications you have nothing else to do but to get your feet wet and there are schools that will provide you these tools.

If you have computer skills and communication exposure this is a good start but hardly enough to make it in today's world.   Multifaceted is the answer and the following is one  specific recommendation.

We covered in the start of our feature plant biology with a mechanical connection, there was the case of the young man converting his DNA love from dinosaurs to criminal applications.  We had another one where an advertising effort was assisted by a mechanical background as the business model involved selling systems that had to be configured and serviced on line.

We feel that the advertising business is and will be one of the most fruitful areas one can enter.

In fact to zero in on one exciting area will be the ultimate tie in to the current communication devices, the TV, phones, tablets etc.  Steve Jobs had a vision before he died and it is in some of his last effort and that is the tie in to the interactive TV and other devices area.  Recently we have learned that Apple is actually building their own TV sets and you can only imagine what they have in the works.

Advertising

We believe that becoming proficient in creating advertising material, videos in particular will be where it is at and making them available to vendors to promote their products.

You see material every time you enter the Internet, Utube in particular where products are promoted some in a amateurish fashion and some really sharp high resolution productions.  Quality productions are imperative and we certainly would encourage you to construct the  highest quality  productions.   Some of the new cameras even Iphones are talking 8 megs of resolution and this would be minimum.  We recommend the new Lumina 922 phone.  Super HD resolution on a phone. WOW!

QR Codes

There are these new instant QR code configurations that should be studied to tie into "Creative advertising"  that only require snapping an image shot of them.  A lot of them are showing up on billboards, restaurant menus, "Tags" in museums to bring up info on your phone as you walk through the museum.  This material doesn't happen automatically, there has to be a creative multifaceted human being involved and there are hundreds of thousands of applications that vendors will beg for.

Next is your role and I am not talking having an advertising exec standing in back of your computer station directing you like a robot , I am talking where you become the creator of the advertising material and this could mean taking a separate course in Advertising media to add to your Multifaceted list of abilities.

Negativity

First for those that have been exposed to the Windows 8 negatives, there will be close to a half a billion individuals that will be purchasing Windows 8, because they are now flying off the shelf mostly in the form of new computers with 8 on board.  Consumers are shy of Windows 8 because of the transition to touch,  although touch technology is certainly more than acceptable to consumers with the phone texting going on.  

Corporations, governments and this includes the military we believe will flock to Windows 8 because 90 % of them already were glued to the Windows platform.  IT departments were glued to the Windows program before 8 and now will be solidly embedded in the new Windows.  There are many that believe the new 8 will attract a large amount of the consumers who will flock to the touch screen concepts.

My Superstar recommendation below.....

My superstar multifaceted use that anyone with a half a brain and a little computer technology can run with this idea all the way to the goal line.  Again you must think being a contributor not just a phone toting user.  Phone toting users consuming the day with foolish consumer applications are a dime a dozen and it only makes the purveyors of these product happy.

Component 1  Windows 8

The first component to this idea is a thorough knowledge of the new Windows 8 operating system, whether you use it on the new Surface tablet or any of the other vendors that are applying 8 to their new machine sales.  Scrape together the funding to purchase a new Lumina 922 cell phone with extraordinary imaging resolutions. 

Component 2  A Suitable AP or APS

This component is where you search the Internet and the Windows Store is a good place to start for  super APs that you can apply to the industry and its needs.  They have accumulated over 50,000 aps in the past couple of months and they will be breathing down Apple and Google's neck in a short time.

Component 3  Basic knowledge of an Industry

For the many that we are advising we believe a basic knowledge of the needs  medical industry is a good choice and how it will deal with the financial nightmare we are facing with Obama care is a  worthy target.  We do believe there are many aspects of the affordable care act that are certainly worthy and overdue.  It is going to be a question of managing what we have to work with.  If it is Obama Care that is what we have to work with,  whether we believe in it or not.  In fact the more flaws in the law the more opportunities there will be for those who are equipped to deal with the flaws.

In the case of medical applications we believe an aspiring entrepreneur should study a particular industry and become somewhat clinically proficient in it and they can do this by perhaps bringing forth previous experiences or taking on student studies of a targeted industry.

VARS

VARS are the perfect example of being contributors.

In our past experience in the computer and subsequently Internet applications there was a concept that was developed and is prevalent today especially with the hundreds of thousands of "APs"  application programs.  In computer parlance they referred to those who capitalize on really the work  of others and they were referred to as VARS, Value Added Resellers.  We have members in our family that are taking parts of this and parts of that and are conducting a pure VAR concept of business.

There are some taking an existing AP and add to the AP itself to make it even more attractive to solving a need.  We believe that the Windows 8 and new Surface tablet will find many real time video applications and this is where in the case of the Surface tablet we would strongly recommend the Windows Pro, 128 gigs of  memory, 4 gigs of Ram.  These numbers are needed for Video and the Pro has outstanding video capabilities on board.

Now although I am sticking by my medical application recommendation there are many other uses that can be applied to a Windows 8 combination.  I have chosen medical applications because of the many issues that Windows 8 addresses in the medical field and I will enumerate them below.

1.  At this time Microsoft has attracted thousands of developers to create medical Aps for their Windows 8 platform.  They are in the process of catch up and when you are sitting on 60 plus billions of dollars in cash, catch up is pretty easy, as long as you have the brains to make the right decisions.  They have the brains that put 8 together and they have the brains to generate  the APS that will be used and created by cooperating developers.

2.  Medical enterprises throughout the world have been glued to the Microsoft platform and 8 with touch screen, desktops, tablets and phones along with their IT departments will cultivate the use of 8 not only in the business areas but there is no question this will bleed over to the consumer market.  The same individuals that are using Window 8 to meld with their businesses will be comfortable using the same tools for their consumer uses. Lets not forget that the Windows gaming departments are not lagging behind.  They are for the most part ahead of the pack in this particular segment of the market.  They will be targeting the consumer market big time.

3. Security will be the main focus in Microsoft's role in the new age.  Most of the serious players will trust Microsoft to  protect the vital nature of patient information.

4. Microsoft has made a huge commitment to the cloud, storage and capacity. Managing this information will be Microsoft's forte and one of the reasons the IT departments all over the world will be embedded in Microsoft.

Final Analysis

So what is the final analysis regarding this Superstar combination, simple, crash course of Window 8 and a multifaceted merge of a basic knowledge of medical applications  etc.  Look for a super AP to serve the need that you will uncover.   I might add a side dish of business principles and how it can apply to the impending medical financial nightmare we are facing.   Now whether this involves a Physicians assistant pursuit or something more involved I am not sure.  A good guidance counselor approach could be smart and I wouldn't settle on one counselor, seek many that will sit down with you.

Last put yourself in position to  become a contributor and not just a user.  You go into a job application go in with how you can add to the companies resources of information not just how you can use them.

We have constructed a special feature that we call the blueprint to success.

It gets into a very specific detail of the tools, the contacts that one would need  to land an important position in an enterprise that would appreciate your knowledge and ability to contribute.  Check the link out below...

http://www.blueeyedcurse.com/blueprint.htm

If you have some ideas that you want to discuss, give me a call before 8 P.M. EST  954-922-9181   I will be glad to help you.

Bob Martino