Johnson & Associates, LLC

Spring 2013...

Been a busy year thus far with new clients and new openings. One means I gauge the market activity is by how many calls I receive from third party vendors needing to place 'their' consultants with my clients and how many other recruiters need additional candidates for their openings. These deals are difficult, typically require the same amount, if not more work, and also end up being expensive. We continue to monitor these situations and evaluate carefully the people we work with and the reasons why. For our clients' sake we place top priority on direct client business and have thus far only needed to place 1099 and W-2 consultants. It does make a difference.

Windows 8 and WP8

As I wrote previously I switched to an iPhone from over a decade on the Blackberry platform. It was hard to give up the qwerty keyboard and I still struggle to type some days with the iPhone's. I've also bought two Windows Phones to try - The Nokia Lumia 900 and newer 920. The phones are large, have beautiful screens, excellent cameras, and their new tile system is wonderful. Typing is a bit easier as their intuitive word suggestions make it a cleaner entry system than iPhones. But the advantages end there. You've all read/heard about how the applications are endless for iPhone and limited elsewhere. I suppose it is true but my use of thousands of apps is limited. I use the phone to communicate and stay organized. My base is my work pc with Microsoft Office and Outlook as my center. You'd think a Windows Phone would accomodate this better than the cross platform iPhone. It doesn't. I've researched the best methods and means to sync my calendar/contacts/tasks etc to the WP8 device to the native WP8 applications. Doesn't work without creating a live.com or Microsoft account, copying over individually your calendar appointments and dragging/dropping your contact folder into this system on the cloud. Then you sync with Outlook which then automatically syncs your WP8 device. Tasks don't so you need to change how you schedule ToDo's into calendar meetings or appointments. The sync is buggy and you no longer have a local USB option to sync. Proponents and Microsoft claim that local syncing is so 1990's. Get with the times get on the cloud, man! Well, do you trust your personal and business information on a free live.com system? There is an application, DejaOffice, which is outstanding. I use it on my iPhone and tried it on the WP8. Limited views on the calendar and the contact views are difficult to get used to as well. It took me an hour to setup the WP8 and sync over my information. It took me five minutes to find the device unacceptable. My iPhone works, is intuitive, and simply flat out performs. In a day when the younger generation wants app driven systems I'm not quite understanding the push to WP8 and Android devices when the iPhone is simply the simplest, easiest, and best system out there to use for personal and business use.

Have a great Spring 2013!

Market Thaw

2012 was a strong year for Johnson & Associates. We enjoyed our strongest year to date, brought in new clients, and recruited more quality talent than in any year since we opened. Thank you to all our clients and consultants!

As is usual for our business we declined in new activity during the holidays starting with Thanksgiving. Some peers I spoke with have remained busy with their niche or unique clients but most tend to slow around the year end timeframe.

Normally our market will improve in the March to April months. This year we're seeing increased recruiting and requirement activity compared to years past. Let's hope it continues.

Need strong .Net developers willing/able to work remotely on long-term assignment with Agile experience. Strong P&C industry knowledge a plus.

Trainwrecks...

What is it today with our celebrities and athletes?

Oprah and Lance Armstrong?  Miss O says there's so much material it has to be seen over TWO days. Rrrrighhhttttt.

Mante Te'o and Notre Dame? Unbelievable that any normal person would have an online romance of that length and not see the person or meet the person. Does anyone believe the guy was just a rube?

Ray Lewis the Saint. Please, already. Does anyone remember January 31, 2000? From Wikipedia, Lewis is a Christian, and his commitment to his faith was featured in a Sports Illustrated cover story in 2006. He has six children by four women.^[9] His son, Ray Lewis III, has committed to the University of Miami for the 2013 season. Back to 2000, Ray plead to obstruction of justice to implicate two others for the murder of two people in a late night/early AM fight to which he was present. Sounds pretty great, doesn't it?

Tiger Woods. Geez Louise - anyone else think you can maintain a level of superiority in your craft when you're a cockroach? And now, Rory McIlroy switches clubs to Nike because they're going to pay him enough money for the next four generations McIlroy's or more. He's been on a tear and on the cusp of hitting stride to dominate the game and he's willing to add a monkey wrench to his pursuit of greatness. For money. Friends say that the equipment doesn't matter - the players are that good. Changes to improve are one thing but changes simply to make more money usually backfire. Whatever happened to an athlete staying loyal to the team, the equipment, the people that help you get where you are?

Let me know how the Lance interview goes...on second thought, don't.  

Microsoft Windows 8 and WP7/WP8

I've been using Microsoft Windows and Microsoft business products since their beginning. I love Outlook - best email system out there for a small company or individual user. I have business products that run virtually within my Outlook system that help me run my business. Windows 7OS was a great upgrade over anything I've ever used from MS. Am I looking forward to Windows 8OS? Not sure...

I recently puchased two phones after giving up on Blackberry. The iPhone and Nokia Lumia are both nice units. The Nokia was half the price of my iPhone which is the 64GB version. iTunes is simply terrific. As a latecomer to iTunes I figured I'd be playing catchup for a few months. Nope, simple Simon. Also thought using Zune and integrating my Windows Phone with Outlook would be a terrific game changer for me.

Nope, didn't happen. Why? Windows phone doesn't integrate with Outlook directly. I'm a small office user and have my own hosted domain and email server. Syncing with Outlook is a requirement of my mobile devices. Blackberry was a pain and required a syncing product to get it where I needed it to be. After a few years you get used to the process and forget the headaches you went through to get to this point. The iPhone simply lets you set up your email and voila I get it pushed right to my phone just as I would my Inbox working from my PC in the office. I was also able to do this very easily from my Windows Phone and iPhone.

Syncing contacts and calendars to my iPhone was a snap. Picked Outlook through iTunes and as I seem to say alot now - it just works. With WP7 I have to first set up a Microsoft Live.com account with my established email address then download a Hotmail Connector. Once downloaded you create another email folder for the Hotmail address (similar to another .PST file) and it then sends your information to the Cloud. Oooooooohhhh, the Cloud! How marvelous! But my Contacts and Calendars don't just get there. You have to copy or create them in the separate Hotmail Connected file you created for your Microsoft Live.com account. Then it simply sends magicmatically to your Windows Phone! Sounds simple and very, very cool. Problem is you can't copy/paste your calendar. You can move them or copy/paste them individually from one to another but all the instructions and forums I've researched have not found a way that works to take your entire calendar to cloud. Contacts can be taken from one to the other file but then they leave the one and enter the cloud forcing me to recreate them on my local drive - which I need. Or, I could export them to a CSV file and import them into the cloud. But the cloud driven Microsoft Live platform doesn't like to import that many contacts which isn't really that many. Less than five thousand records!

So, iPhone syncs with Microsoft products better than Microsoft products. If you've ever played with the Windows Phone you'll see that the phone system is actually a phone system and not simply an app driven 'eco system' as the techies like to call it. It's very, very easy to do things on a Windows phone. They're fast devices, intuitive, and have terrific hardware specs. But tell me again why an iPhone integrates more intuitively with Microsoft products? If you really need to download 'connectors' to make devices communicate with software from the same vendor do you really think the platform is stable?

Neither do I. I am looking forward to WP8 and Windows 8. The metro tiling is a terrific UI. Once you get through the initial mapping of your Facebook, Twitter, and other social connectors you'll be amazed at how well this runs and how intuitive it really is.  Unfortunately, the conncectivity of their mobile devices isn't quite there.

Microsoft Windows 8 and WP7/WP8

I've been using Microsoft Windows and Microsoft business products since their beginning. I love Outlook - best email system out there for a small company or individual user. I have business products that run virtually within my Outlook system that help me run my business. Windows 7OS was a great upgrade over anything I've ever used from MS. Am I looking forward to Windows 8OS? Not sure...

I recently puchased two phones after giving up on Blackberry. The iPhone and Nokia Lumia are both nice units. The Nokia was half the price of my iPhone which is the 64GB version. iTunes is simply terrific. As a latecomer to iTunes I figured I'd be playing catchup for a few months. Nope, simple Simon. Also thought using Zune and integrating my Windows Phone with Outlook would be a terrific game changer for me.

Nope, didn't happen. Why? Windows phone doesn't integrate with Outlook directly. I'm a small office user and have my own hosted domain and email server. Syncing with Outlook is a requirement of my mobile devices. Blackberry was a pain and required a syncing product to get it where I needed it to be. After a few years you get used to the process and forget the headaches you went through to get to this point. The iPhone simply lets you set up your email and voila I get it pushed right to my phone just as I would my Inbox working from my PC in the office. I was also able to do this very easily from my Windows Phone and iPhone.

Syncing contacts and calendars to my iPhone was a snap. Picked Outlook through iTunes and as I seem to say alot now - it just works. With WP7 I have to first set up a Microsoft Live.com account with my established email address then download a Hotmail Connector. Once downloaded you create another email folder for the Hotmail address (similar to another .PST file) and it then sends your information to the Cloud. Oooooooohhhh, the Cloud! How marvelous! But my Contacts and Calendars don't just get there. You have to copy or create them in the separate Hotmail Connected file you created for your Microsoft Live.com account. Then it simply sends magicmatically to your Windows Phone! Sounds simple and very, very cool. Problem is you can't copy/paste your calendar. You can move them or copy/paste them individually from one to another but all the instructions and forums I've researched have not found a way that works to take your entire calendar to cloud. Contacts can be taken from one to the other file but then they leave the one and enter the cloud forcing me to recreate them on my local drive - which I need. Or, I could export them to a CSV file and import them into the cloud. But the cloud driven Microsoft Live platform doesn't like to import that many contacts which isn't really that many. Less than five thousand records!

So, iPhone syncs with Microsoft products better than Microsoft products. If you've ever played with the Windows Phone you'll see that the phone system is actually a phone system and not simply an app driven 'eco system' as the techies like to call it. It's very, very easy to do things on a Windows phone. They're fast devices, intuitive, and have terrific hardware specs. But tell me again why an iPhone integrates more intuitively with Microsoft products? If you really need to download 'connectors' to make devices communicate with software from the same vendor do you really think the platform is stable?

Neither do I. I am looking forward to WP8 and Windows 8. The metro tiling is a terrific UI. Once you get through the initial mapping of your Facebook, Twitter, and other social connectors you'll be amazed at how well this runs and how intuitive it really is.  Unfortunately, the conncectivity of their mobile devices isn't quite there.

Mass Media Election Influence

How many times has our President (or First Lady) been on the Jay Leno Show? How many times has he been on TV excluding the debates, commercials, and news?

When I hit my favorite websites I see Michelle Obama's face eyeballing me asking for my vote indirectly by the campaign to register and vote early route. I don't recall ever seeing a First Lady campaigning so diligently for her husband on television and the internet. Moreover, she's not even asking to support the President's agenda. Just vote! Because they know the uninformed voter can sway the election.

This is a big election for us all. The debates were interesting and entertaining. There are so many issues that are going to impact our lives and our childrens' lives I am hoping for a favorable outcome. But do I want the masses of people on the internet and watching Jay Leno choosing our next President?

Well, if they're informed voters and have a strong feeling based on facts I do. And, I don't care who they vote for if both of those conditions are met. But I'll bet the farm that a large number of people watching Jay Leno are influenced by the left wing appeal his show provides. Let's just hope that his audience isn't anywhere close to the 'Jay Walking' segments he's so famous for uncovering.

We 'Hope' was what won it last time, right?

We're to blame for what we get...

Ask anybody who isn't a political junkie if they're tired of the election cycle and you'll hear a definitive 'yes'. Both sides are so far apart in their beliefs and blames that I can't imagine anybody is going to really win this year. I've been advised to not write political blogs and I'm not here to criticize one candidate or the other. In my view I wouldn't complain if they both lost. You either want the current President to continue on his path or you want Romney to come in and undo the past four years of policy.

The problem as I see it is complicated. We have lifelong politicians making decisions for our country while enjoying the perks of privilege and insider information that allows them to become wealthy. Without reasonable term limits we'll never have a Federal system that is fair and works as designed by our Constitution.

When our nation and media is divided on whether or not the President said Benghazi was an act of terrorism within the first two days or two weeks we might have our priorities mixed up. Is the issue to be 'right' or to solve our problems internationally? Did the current Administration mess up by not protecting our Ambassador and staff overseas? Without a doubt. So why is the focus on mere words in a debate the central issue? It's as if our election has become a bad reality series and we all know that we have enough of them already.

Lastly - we're being lied to folks. Our media lies to us. Our government lies to us. If you believe what you read and what you see someone saying on television as the truth you're naive. Take for example one commerical that our President approved. It takes the narrative from the 60 minutes interview with Romney and twists around the conversation to make the argument: "Do you want to elect a man who thinks it's fair to pay less taxes on $20M than you do for $65k?" Well, the obvious answer for anyone with common sense is 'No'. But just because the question being asked in the advertisement exists doesn't make it germaine to the point or the election. Romney's 14% taxation rate is the going rate for Capital Gains. He already paid taxes at the much higher rate on the ordinary income he earned before he invested the money that now serves as his income and is taxed accordingly. Romney goes on to say that he did believe that it was fair he paid 14% because the lowered Capital Gains tax rate serves as incentive to invest, save, and make intelligent business decisions. Would any American who stands for Freedom, Democracy, and having a Free Market Economic System argue otherwise? The Obama approved advertisement misleads us to think we're deciding an issue that distorts the truth of the matter. And the heartbreak of it all is that Obama supporters actually believe that Romney is being taxed at a 14% rate on his $20M because he's wealthy and corrupt and not because that is the way the LAW is written. Some actually believe that isn't 'fair' that he has so much and others (themselves) do not.

My fear is that our nation is in trouble financially, economically, and morally. We're more in tune with our iPods than our communities, nation, and world. When entertainment is the prime objective of nearly every person today what can we expect? As a parent of two athletic children I can attest to the upside down priorities to which I'm a willing participant at times. When we vote and think in terms of making the most money we can make while paying the lowest amount of taxes we can pay is that really what 'Pursuit of Happiness' meant?

Federal Government today is too large, too flawed in it's execution, and too incisive into realms it does not belong. Realms like commerce, education, healthcare. The private sector creates jobs and knows how to process, improve, and improve processes while providing public benefit. The public sector kills jobs, slows processes while rarely improving them, and reduces the benefit to the public. There isn't a perfect system that is fair to everyone. There never was and never will be. But this writer feels the most important first step is to never allow our elected officials to lie to us or to be in office more than four years. Anything longer invites corruption and if it takes longer than four years to 'learn' the ropes for new Congressmen/Women, Senators, or Presidents then perhaps we're not electing the right people and perhaps our government has outgrown it's rightful place.

But if what we really care about is that Romney has more money than us or that Obama didn't declare Benghazi a terrorist act as soon as he could have how do our problems get solved by either man if elected President? When our system becomes clogged by partisanship continually how will our nation become stronger and less divided? If we keep electing the same clowns and allowing them to keep digging holes we may never pull out of is it really their fault? We're to blame.

Into Fall 2012 and my commute

The market appears to be getting stronger for contracting with more year end projects and new projects commanding solid candidates. We're seeing terrific activity in the Midwest and hope that it continues into the election cycle and beyond. We're averaging more submissions and openings per week than normal. Candidates are open to some travel and to better work opportunities.

I drive the freeway from West Des Moines to downtown every day. Some time back the City of Des Moines installed speed cameras enforcing the limit of 60mph. Dozens of friends and acquiantances have been issued tickets. They clock, record, and send the ticket to the registered license plate. I haven't had one yet but I also drive 60 to 63 mph on the freeway. Navigating the lanes during busy times is difficult and this time of year with the sun low on horizon we'll have daily accidents clogging up traffic. I'm a cautious driver and keep the speed down to avoid tickets. And EVERY single day someone flips me off for driving too slow. I get passed by drivers doing 70-80 mph and I just hope they're getting ticketed for obscene gestures, too. Makes me want to go back to my home office some days.

 

 

Summer 2012

As I prepare for Fall and the on-coming school year I wanted to put out some thoughts on the summer this year. The family is busier than ever with new opportunities for academic, music, and sports reaching beyond imagination. Recruiting becomes more difficult in the summer. Some candidates wind down and spend time with their families or on themselves. Some react to the general unease in the economy and bunker in their current roles seeking extensions or remaining employed. However, I have come across a good number of candidates who have been seeking a change or an opportunity for an extended period of time.

At dinner the other night with a client I was asked how the 'market' is doing. It has been busy with several key clients providing large numbers of consulting contract opportunities. We haven't landed our normal percentage of them and thus have not grown over this summer but the business climate, in general, is encouraging.

One trend I've been experiencing with candidates is one of concern. Follow up and responsiveness by candidates has been declining this year. With some I suspect it is a product of a discouraged candidate. Others are relatively new to seeking new employment and contracts and come across as displeased with their situation and carry an attitude. And, as always, there is a small percentage of candidates who communicate with us and the clients as if the client needs them more than they need the client. My solution is to find and recruit more heavily than before to eliminate the reliance on suspect candidates.

Today's political climate and upcoming election should impact our potential in 2013. Not as much as the media and other 'experts' would have us believe. Regardless - we all keep plugging away looking to help our candidates find jobs and our clients to find the good candidates.