Leave the money and run

A trendy topic in digital media and advertising today is return on investment, or ROI. Given the volume and complexity of data that is available on the web, advertisers want to understand how their buys perform and what kind of benefit they are deriving from them. Whereas in the past, the lion's share of research used to go into understanding the initial investment, there is now a strong focus on the returns that can be produced.

A similar thing can be said for many twenty-somethings' approach to their careers today. If you're going to invest $200,000 dollars for a college education, shouldn't you pick a first job and career that can produce a commensurate return? Or, at the very least, shouldn't you chase an initial high-salaried position so that you can build up your savings before pursuing your passions?

From one perspective, there is little to fault with this approach. The reality is that most first-, second-, and third-year jobs will share many of the same disadvantages of undergraduate-level positions: low visibility, subjectivity to a manager's whims, and lots of "bitch work." If you're going to have to deal with those obstacles in most early-career corporate, government, and non-profit roles, why not get paid lots of money to do it? Dealing with bureaucracy is a little easier when you can drop $500 on a fancy dinner or bar tab later that night.

Nevertheless, there are some who choose to break the mold and travel the less-trodden paths, pursuing careers with high short-term risks or lower long-term salary potential (and often both).

It seems that an increasing number of people have been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, although a large proportion of those people choose to pursue entrepreneurial roles at larger, more established firms rather than diving into a true startup. Similarly, while many people state they want to "help the world," most resort to donations and weekend charitable work rather than taking a position with an impact-generating non-profit organization.

What seems to be lost in all the hype around career ROI is that in general - and, of course, there are exceptions - it is never easier to be poor than when you are just out of college. You probably don't have a spouse or family to support; the interest on your student debt has just started to accumulate; you haven't yet developed expensive habits like eating caviar or jetting off to Rome for the weekend. (Again, there are exceptions to this, and having gone to a good college, you probably knew some of them.) If you're going to risk it all, why not risk it when you have the least to lose?

With a good degree, you're likely to bounce back from most failures, and there's always graduate school to bail you out and to raise your earning potential. And, more importantly, by pursuing your passions early on, you can start to better understand your calling in life as well as develop the experience you need to obtain more senior, meaningful roles in your late 20s instead of in your 30s and 40s.

Not everyone is cut out for the less glamorous world of startups, NGOs, and non-profits. But for those who are, an early gamble can have considerable payoffs.

Inspiration for this post came from Ravi Mishra, founder and CEO of Athleague, and Katie Kaplun, Associate for Insights at Teach for America, both based in Boston, Mass.

Reading for expertise

One of the things most twenty-somethings need to come to terms with is their own cluelessness.

As much as we strive to learn in high school and college, the reality is that we will likely graduate into the real world with little to no knowledge in many areas our jobs and social circles require. Sure, we may be experts in mechanical engineering. But can we have an intelligent conversation about the government's clean energy policy? Or do we have a good understanding of the significance of Stravinsky's music?

In an era where the proliferation of content seems never-ending, we can be excused for not knowing everything. After all, if we are going to compartmentalize and limit our extracurricular learning to certain times of day, it may be impossible to be as cultured and knowledgeable as Renaissance men and women of yore.

So what can we do to compensate for this inherent weakness?

If the proliferation of content is a double-edged sword, the benefit of this proliferation is that it is usually easy to find basic information on any topic. And I don't mean just Wikipedia (although that is often a good place to start); the explosion in niche blogs and news aggregators has led to a steady stream of content relating to just about anything.

If there isn't a book, newspaper, or encyclopedia to answer a question, there is likely a blurb or posting somewhere on the web that can help start your research. A well-curated blogroll or Twitter feed can be a great way to keep track of the latest news in the areas you are most interested in. Combine this broad and up-to-date awareness with in-depth reading from subscriptions to a few choice magazines, and you, too, can sound as intelligent as those square-frame glasses-wearing, satchel-toting, cappuccino-drinking know-it-alls in the movies.

Plus, since you never find time to make it through an entire novel anymore, you might as well as get in snatches of reading on your mobile device of choice. Do it on a 3G iPad, and you can be trendy as well as educated.

Inspiration for this post came from Shekhar Lodha, a serial entrepreneur and scholar of the world from Saratoga, Calif.

The art of small talk

Try this experiment.

Pop out those white iPod buds the next time you are on the subway, at Starbucks, or even when you're sitting in your cubicle. Listen to the conversations around you. Don't participate if at all possible; just observe and note. Ideally, do this sometime between 9 AM and noon.

Anything seem strange to you?

What you may notice - if you haven't already - is that people talk an incredible amount about the weather. It's not just, "Oh, isn't it beautiful / miserable outside!" No, not all. Typically, it's an extensive conversation about how the weather will affect their commute, how unseasonable it is (no matter what season it is), and why they should just pick up and move to California / Florida / the Bahamas.

And, as luck would have it, you'll probably hear the same conversation from them... tomorrow.

It's true that especially in a politically correct era, there are few topics as universal and inoffensive as the weather. Everyone is affected by it, and generally, that effect is not shaped by gender, sexual orientation, or race. What is easier to talk about than the weather?

Precisely for that reason, the weather seems to dominate small talk wherever groups of unrelated people gather. Unfortunately, it is just about the most uninteresting and least memorable subject of conversation.

So if you meet someone new and want this person to like you, remember you, or even just not be mind-numbingly bored by you, what can you do to avoid talking about the weather?

It's true that topics like politics are probably good to steer clear of. However, there are plenty of other things two unfamiliar people can talk about. Sports, television shows, current events, emerging technology, this day in history, favorite flavor of coffee, a crazy advertisement they just saw... this partial list is only the beginning. If you want to be considered someone worth talking to, just being spontaneous and different will increase the likelihood of you achieving your goal.

And, if you get really good at the art of small talk, you might even make yourself memorable. But that's a topic for another day.

Sustaining the love for learning

In college and in high school, teachers and administrators often speak of fostering a love for learning. Beyond the grades, test scores, and accomplishments, students are encouraged to consider how they can change as scholars and as people by the things they learn. A love for learning is inherently intangible; there is little that can be done to measure it or to bottle and serve it. It must come from within, but for those who find it, the rewards can be plentiful: passion, perseverance, and even the success that follows.

Perhaps one of the most difficult adjustments from college to the working world is a shift from working for yourself to working for The Man. Gone are the days when you set goals for yourself and molded your effort and expectations accordingly; instead, you are forced into tasks, deadlines, and evaluations that are created by an entity above you. It's worse than being subject to the occasionally arbitrary nature of grades - now, almost everything you do can seem arbitrary or imposed.

Suddenly, all thoughts about loving learning seem distant. No matter how much you learn - and you will likely learn a lot - it may feel like you are doing it for the paycheck and for the career advancement. Looked at one way, every job is simply a stepping stone to the next.

Not only can this be extremely frustrating, but it can also be self-defeating. In your focus on tangible success, which is generally only evident through infrequent performance reviews and/or raises, you may find yourself doing not what is right for the product or the client, but you think is right for you.

Of course, if you stop and think about it, is that in fact right for you? Liberal arts curricula are based on the idea that the tools you acquire, the way you learn to think - that is the most important asset an institution of higher learning can bestow upon you. Can something similar be said about your career and the jobs along the way?

I don't know the answer to that question. What I do know, however, is that the times that I've felt most enthused about my job and my career is when I've learned something new, gleaned an insight that I did not anticipate, or otherwise added something to my mental toolkit. At the end of the day, learning is fun; just like a two-year-old is overjoyed by stacking blocks successfully, piecing together the puzzles that we encounter day-to-day can give us a sense of accomplishment that is very fulfilling.

So what does this mean for our careers? It seems to be important to seek out positions and roles that challenge us in ways that enable us to think and learn about issues that are important to us. Don't choose the job that you can do easily or the one that will be nearly impossible; find one that builds off of your expertise but that will force you to stretch your faculties. If you can reintroduce that little bit of intellectual stimulation in your job, I think you'll find that working for The Man won't seem quite as tedious. And, in the course of rediscovering a love for learning, you may find a way to do what's right for both you and your organization.

Inspiration for this post came from Chris Nikoloff, current Head of School at The Harker School in San Jose, Calif.

Tools for compartmentalization

Last week, I wrote about the importance of compartmentalization in today's world of enlightened consumption - with the amount of content that is out there, it is essential to develop good habits that enable you to stay current without sacrificing productivity and accuracy.

There are several tools you can use to help yourself do this. First, you can just impose self-discipline - limiting your email-checking to certain intervals, switching off your personal cellphone at work, etc. This is simple and can be enough, but it also is subject to problems when you choose to ignore your own rules.

Another way is to use a calendar client to organize your day. Don't just put meetings in the calendar; use it to set aside time for personal or extracurricular events or tasks as well. This will enable you at a glance to maximize time for working while being aware of when best to do everything else.

And then, of course, there are tools available online to help you compartmentalize. One of these is Mac Freedom. (As the name indicates, this program is only available for Macintosh, although the website insists a Windows version is in the works.) The concept is simple: enter an amount of time, and Mac Freedom will disconnect you from the Internet for that duration of time. There's no way to get around the wall except for restarting, an option assumed to be onerous enough that few people will resort to it. And best of all, there's a freeware version of the program available, meaning greater productivity doesn't have to cost you a dime.

Of course, this option may not be great for many reasons: you need access to the Internet for your work; you rarely need to concentrate for hours at a time; you're just too worried that you may have to restart when an Internet "emergency" arises. At the end of the day, the freedom these tools provide is as much mental as literal.