jessica lee writes.

Just Another Korean Man.

i'm not really old enough to know what a big deal it was when the Berlin Wall came down. sure, intellectually i get it... but the significance and the impact of the wall tumbling down to Germans on an emotional level, i'm not sure i get. the thought dawned on me last night though - what if North Korea and South Korea were to be reunited in my lifetime? news of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il having pancreatic cancer surfacing this week brought on this thought... and should this happen in my lifetime, the only analogy i could quickly pull was that maybe it might be like my own version of the Berlin Wall coming down. can you imagine? (pictured at right, pieces of the Wall at DC's Newseum, taken by moi.)

and yet i'm a little saddened by this whole ordeal  because in all honesty, imaging this man with cancer is kind of a heart breaking thought for me. call me crazy. call me unpatriotic. go for it. i mean, i get there's some crazy shit going on over there led by him. the missile testing. the website hackings. the detention of U.S. journalists. i don't like any of it. but i hear about reports of Kim Jong Il's failing health and i see pictures, and the truth is, i can't help but to think of my dad. Kim has lost crazy weight. he's looking gaunt. he appears frail. and that's what happens with pancreatic cancer. it's what also happens with stomach cancer, which my father had.

my father's stomach cancer was caught at a reasonable point in time, kind of. he thought it was his ulcers flaring up which he dealt with a majority of his adult life, but it turned out he had stomach cancer. the first round of fighting the cancer was surgery to remove about half of his stomach. and then there was chemotherapy. after both were said and done... he weighed about 115 pounds. and he was 5 feet 9 inches. 115 pounds - that's it. it's less than what i weigh today at 5 feet 2 inches. he had lost crazy weight. he was looking gaunt. and he appeared frail - to say the least. so it was surgery followed by chemo followed by remission for a year and a half and then it came back. the cancer. and then he was gone. it happened too quickly, and unexpectedly.

so the latest news and pictures of Kim Jong Il? all i can think about is how he really looks no different from my how my father did... crazy weight loss. gaunt. frail. take away the hair, the glasses, the outfit... he's just another Korean man going through cancer because really, North Koreans don't look any different from South Koreans. they don't look any different Korean Americans, like me. and rewind 65 years ago or so... we were a single country. a Korean was a Korean was a Korean. but today, on one side of the DMZ, at the 38th parallel, you have North Koreans. on the other side, you have South Koreans. not quite separated by a wall like in Germany... but close. a single country of people, separated because of war. and how strange is that? to look across some artificial separation of states and know that there are people who look exactly like you - some likely related to you - but living starkly different lives because of circumstance.

i have no idea what will happen in North Korea once Kim Jong Il passes away. i suspect we'll see the images of the people of the North in deep mourning which everyone worldwide will mock and look at with amazement... oh, those crazy North Koreans! look at them mourning a shitty leader who starved his own nation and was eccentric. the hair! his obsession with American cinema! he was batty as hell! go for it. i can't wait to hear the mockery. and everyone will speculate what the new leader of the throne will be like - a sense of hope, maybe, for a new leader and reunification. maybe i'll get to see that in my lifetime - that would be nice. i just hope though that folks look at Kim Jong Il with some sense of empathy though. because for me? he's just another Korean man with cancer, born into unusual circumstances and made a leader in strange situations. he could have led differently, i know. but my empathy lies where it does. i've somehow separated the man from his circumstances.

Is Maternity Leave is for Suckers?

if you were take a poll of female CEO's who have children and ask each of them how long their maternity leaves were for each of their children, what do you think the average maternity leave length would be? some possible answers... they didn't take maternity leaves. they took four weeks off. they took eight weeks off... those answers are probable. but i would fall out of my chair if any answered 8 months. or that any took more than a one year break. or that any took ten years off, to raise the kids and get them off to school. would you agree?

i was reading this article today from the Wall Street Journal quoting Jack Welch at the SHRM09 conference saying that, "there is no such thing as work-life balance." and you know what? i think i agree. being CEO of a large company - particularly a multinational, a Fortune 500... that doesn't happen easily. being CEO of your own company that maybe you founded? maybe a little easier... but success takes sacrifices - from men and women both. and so i can't help but to wonder... what's to come of me when i have children? how long can i realistically take maternity leave for? what difference would it make if i had help from family? am i going to have to hire help? do i want a nanny or au pair raising my progeny?

tell me you've found a way to balance kids and your career - and i'm going to probably say in response that you could be doing better if you didn't take those breaks to have kids and all the activities and events that have come along with it. (or at least i'll be thinking it in my head.) i'm just too cynical to believe otherwise... at least right now.  so i can't help but wonder... for the 15 women who are CEO's of FORTUNE 500 companies, or the 28 women who are CEO's of FORTUNE 1000, how many of them have kids? and how long were their maternity leaves? and if i were to look each of them in the eye and asked for their thoughts on this, would they sugar coat the reality of being a female CEO with kids? not that i'm thinking about children today, or tomorrow for me... some day... but it makes me think. what sacrifices will i be making?

Social Media for Personal Branding - The Outline...

just thinking things through in this post for next friday, my chat for internfest... i think i'm thrown off a little because i can't use a slide deck. not that i talk from slides or rely on them when i speak - it's just that i usually pull my thoughts together and come up with the flow of a talk by pulling together my deck first. so this time? i'm starting with just an outline of thoughts. here's the shell and then i'll add the meat in over the next week to flush out my thoughts:

• What’s my story? Recruiter for global PR firm… side interests in social media as an HR blogger.
• What does having a personal brand mean? Why is it important now in this climate in our industry?
  
• How do you define your personal brand, especially as a new professional?
• What are the most essential social media tools to use for personal branding?
• How does using social media for personal branding tie into your job search?
• True stories about candidates and social media - the good + the bad.
• Protecting your online brand.

back to me though - ha! i think i'm a little worried about not using a slide deck. i mean, i know i can hold my own but so much of what i usually focus on in any talk i give is developing a really, really good deck as a backdrop... but without one, it means they'll focus more on me. and i have to really know what i'm talking about! yikes! i'll be fine - i know i'll be fine... but i'll probably just obsess over this during the next week. thanks for bearing with me during that process, lol.

Yikes: Picture Me Talking About Social Media, No PPT Deck, 30 Minutes, 110 Interns... What Could Go Wrong?

next week, i'll be doing a session in NYC for about 110 interns in the PR field at an event called Internfest which is hosted by the Council of PR Firms. my topic? using social media to brand oneself.

i'm going to bet that on the minds of pretty much most, if not every one, of these 110 interns is finding a job once they are done with school. some of them might have already graduated and are just biding their time in internships. but i'm sure... every single one of them wants a job. but when the market is saturated with candidates upon candidates, i'm sure all of them are wondering what can they really do to set themselves apart?

for now, my best answer is social media. especially in the PR world, it has to be social media. if you can brand yourself, position yourself, advocate for yourself, then you are showing employers that you could do the same for their clients and their issues or products or services. it's as simple as that.

but can social media alone get anyone a job? not really. and i'll be plenty clear on that... you can craft this online persona that grabs at people, that makes them believe you've got something, maybe even make them believe that you're an expert, but it has to match your offline/real life persona. and if it doesn't, then you're kind of screwed.

not that i'm not an expert though... but i've certainly had a. lot. of. koolaid... making me a total believer in using social media to brand oneself. i've also done a good job of this myself - so i'm a living example... and i've figured out how to use social media for employment branding as well... but for this session next week, i guess i need to step back and look at what i've done for myself and my company, take those lessons and then figure out how to steer the conversation into a practical one in which i share with these 110 eager interns how they can do it themselves too.

the catch for this session? no PowerPoint deck! eek! given some constraints with the room set up and such, i am the show. yikes! and i've got 30 minutes to wow them... but i don't want to talk about me the whole time though and how i've done it - so what do you suggest i fold into this discussion? and for leave behinds, what should i provide? i'm certainly going to link them to folks like Dan Schawbel and his personal branding empire... but what else?

What Happens When You Talk to One Another...

it's kind of cool watching a junior person develop. in some instances, you help them and prevent disasters you once had to recover from, and in other cases, you see them learn some of the same lessons you learned along the way.

my bosses mantra? let people fail. how else are they supposed to learn? in our business, we're not saving lives. there's not a human cost - so we allow for failure to take place although it's hard, for me at least, to make decisions about situations where i should or shouldn't intervene. i'm learning to let go some though.

an interesting lesson i've seen unfold right before my eyes recently? dealing with managers or people generally who fish for information. you know those types - right? they call you with a question - you give them an answer. they don't like what you've shared so they call one of your colleagues asking a question, hoping for another answer. sometimes they call above you, sometimes they call around you - but they call around. they may be trying to build a case. they may be trying to build allies. they may be desperate and afraid to admit they made a mistake or have dug themselves into a whole. and so they look for information. and sometimes, they'll even take some of what you said, manipulate your words slightly, and try to work that into receiving a different answer from your colleague or manager.

"but jessica said..."

or they'll take pieces of what you said, pieces of what your colleage said, pieces of what your manager said - select pieces from each story they heard - and construct a tableau that fits nicely into their reality. it's so convenient to do that, you know?

i've been there before, trapped in that situation - but you can only let that happen once. so to avoid it? communicate. even if it means over communicating. i like brnging everyone together - one big happy family all in the same room. "i want to make sure we're all on the same page and that there's no confusion..." is how that conversation always starts out. it's uncomfortable. you can watch people's eyes shift so as to avoid piercing stares. but a funny thing happens when people talk to each other - without an agenda, without any manipulation, with complete trust and sincerity. you get on the same page - you uncover the manipulators and cheaters. you uncover those information fishers who are trying to work their way around you or twist your words into an outcome they want but maybe isn't right. and slowly, those information fishers start to feel caught, trapped and you begin to pick away at their game.

so talk. talk loudly, talk frequently, but talk. and you'll cover the truth.

Content + Quiet.

guess what?

i'm completely at ease. i'm content. i'm happy and my heart is full - really full. so it seems i have very little to say here. and until i need to use words to think through an issue... then this bloggy will be silent.

it's funny. when this all began, i didn't know where it would go. i jumped in blindly... against the advice of some friends. but i was stubborn, and wanted to just know what was there... and now here i am feeling things i never would have imagined. that sounds so dramatic, ha. but it's true! who would have thought.

so... let's take a break here. enjoy the silence while it lasts.

New Orleans... Here I Come!

next week, i'll be in New Orleans for the first half of the week. i'm looking forward to the trip as it will be my first time visiting the town... but honestly, it's a little confusing to be heading down there at all.

first, for my non-HR and recruiting friends... i'll be in NOLA to attend the annual Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) conference. SHRM is a professional association devoted to HR people like me and it has more than 250,000 members... but that number doesn't include me. i actually opted out a while ago and stopped being a card carrying member. more on that later. their annual conference though... it's pretty much the biggest gathering of HR people anywhere. previous years conferences have had anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 attendees - scary, i know. it's a lot of HR people in one place.

so the confusing part about being in NOLA for this conference? i've been somewhat vocal about not being a SHRM fan. there are posts i've written... oldies, but goodies on the matter here, here and here. and yet i'll be jaunting down to NOLA because why? they invited me to attend. how bizarre is that?

the scoop... on wednesday, i'll be serving on a panel discussion moderated by SHRM's COO... HR Bloggers:  Who are these people and why should I care? interesting, kind of. maybe. we'll see! i'll be chatting it up with the blogosphere's other finest HR bloggers - Kris Dunn, Lance Haun and Laurie Ruettimann - and we'll be talking about how we've each used the web to add value to our organizations and practices. and the end goal? teach people how social media can have a positive impact on your organization and how you can get started.

the session will be streamed live - you'll be able to watch from here and/or Fistful of Talent as we'll embed and live stream the video broadcast... and you can be the judge of how it goes. and yes, i've thought about whether doing this makes me a hypocrite. maybe. but i'm a capitalist and this is about getting maximum exposure. i'll use the time to connect with folks, network and try to soak in some learning... and i'll also use the time to try to influence and help make HR cool-ish. maybe. wish me luck... and if you're going to be there in NOLA, see ya then.

Yesterday on Fistful of Talent... Recruting is Like Dating.

recruiting is like dating. really. there's the whole process of finding a candidate/boyfriend - and the interwebs are changing that game significantly. and then there's the courtship process where hopefully, there will be some wooing. and then you've gotta hook 'em in - not an easy feat. then you add in maintaining the relationship once hired/married... now that's a whole different blog posting, or book. but for now, head over to Fistful of Talent to check out my post yesterday on how i made the realization that recruiting truly is dating after having a job offer declined the other week. DECLINED. yes! in this economy! i know. there's a pretty good discussion happening in the comments of that blog posting too. enjoy!