December 2004 - Posts

INETA and "Me" - on the next Oprah!
16 December 04 02:07 AM | Joel Semeniuk | 2 comment(s)

 Yay – I’m on the Speaker Bureau for 2005. Wow – I’m REALLY stoked and excited.  Close your eyes and picture a short man who needs to lose some weight dancing (perhaps the Salsa) in his basement office…. That could be me right now…

As some may or may not know, I help out with INETA Canada as well – mostly approving group memberships but also to lend a hand promoting or co-planning with any group that needs it (mostly start up groups).  But now I’m in with the “cool” people – and that makes me a happy chicken.  I can’t wait until I learn the secret handshake that for TechEd – and the secret passwords that will get me into the special underground “meetings” where we plan world domination through our sister organization called the Illuminati – err.. was I supposed to mention that publically?

For more information check out: http://www.ineta.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=0&tabid=32&NewsID=1

There are going to be some good times at TechEd for some people – you know who you are… <wink>

Work BurnOut?
14 December 04 02:17 PM | Joel Semeniuk | 4 comment(s)

I’m hearing this a lot these days – burnout.  It’s as real these days as it ever has been.  As a CEO, RD, Father, Husband – I am right on that edge myself – well, I’m actually much closer to the edge than I like to admit right now.

What causes burn out?  Is it really overwork?  Actually, I don’t think it is – I think burnout is when you realize you are not you – that you are the roles you put yourself and somewhere along the way you have forgotten about yourself.  It is really very easy to get caught up in all of your different roles.  I find myself making lists – broken down by role (yes, even my personal roles) and I’m sure this doesn’t helps at all.  I find these lists make me feel defeated – because the lists never shrinks – they are always there to remind me that I have things to do.  Whenever I need downtime – do I go off and read a book? Go for a walk?  Nope – I consult my list – gotta get things done.  This is bad.  

Being in technology doesn’t help.  Being a technology driver/evangelist doesn’t help much either.  This is an exciting time in technology – specifically with Microsoft technologies.  However, in order to keep up with what is coming (that sounds wrong.. shouldn’t we keep up with what exists…) I find myself working all the time.  I volunteer to present, write, etc – all to ensure I force myself into a position of expertise.  I’m sure we are all like this – we truly love technology – yet, it’s killing us.

What I’ve found is that to fight burn out we need to focus on “now” – not what needs to be done.  Anything that allows your mind to focus on you and what is around you at THAT particular instant can fight burn out.  However, when do we do this?  Our list is too big – we have too many commitments to think about “now”.    I used to play in bands – play my guitar for hours a day.  I used to exercise every day.  In those days (it seems before kids) – I worked just as much – even harder – but I had an outlet that allowed me to focus on “now”

I’m really looking forward to the holiday season and hoping that I can throw away my list and live for the moment a bit better.