This post is a bit off topic for me, but it is about something very interesting to me. I just finished watching a TED Talk (if you have never watched one, I highly encourage you to do so) and loved it. Here is that video. 

It is a twenty minute long speech about entrepreneurs and how we (our society) should do a better job of providing an environment in which an entrepreneur can grow and be successful. We live in a society where we essentially want everyone to conform to the norm. What I find interesting, and Herold points this out, is that it is the ones who are not normal who are the ones changing the world. Herold rattles off a list of CEOs that are bipolar (the CEO disorder as he puts it) and discusses how many CEOs and entrepreneurs are ADD, bipolar, and other similar issues that we normally consider non-normal and try to "fix" with medication. While I agree with the idea that we are over medicating many people, I won't argue it here. Instead I ask this: what potential are we limiting while attempting to make people conform? Would we have Google? Apple? The Internet? 

Entrepreneurship has always fascinated me and is something I would like to eventually get into. It is an intriguing world where you assume larger than normal amounts of risk and can potentially change the world. These are not traits that most people aspire to, but ones that I already know I want to experience. At the end of the TED talk Herold plays a clip for the audience. If you don't watch the movie above then watch this one. These are the type of clips that make me think I can move mountains… 

via TED

Around New Years I was talking to a friend of mine who was, at the time, looking for her first full time job out of college. She, like many of my peers, was having a rough time landing a job in her chosen field (it happens to be advertising) or even something somewhat related.

I asked her this question: What sets you apart from all the other applicants? She couldn’t immediately think of an answer, but in her defence it is a hard question if you have never though about it before. It is probably the hardest question a company will ever ask you without even asking you. Confused? I have never been asked this in an interview and yet it is probably the single most important you not only need to answer but need to convey to the interviewer without ever even being asked. Whether it sticks out on your resumé or is conveyed in an answer you provide or simply how you conduct yourself, you need to set yourself apart.

I’ve said that this is hard to do, but I think it is even harder in advertising. Some of the most creative people are in advertising and you are up against them. In school I heard stories about people swooning the secretary or having a well thought out item delivered to the office of the company they were interviewing with. Some of the stories were pretty interesting, but this is a new one for me:

Essentially, some guy bought the adwords for the individuals who he wanted to interview with, hoped that they saw themselves when they Googled their names, and eventually thought that this idea was so ingenious that they would have to hire him.

I think it is a great use of a very current technology and something that hasn’t really been done before. At first I questioned whether or not these people would be Googling themselves. Then I remembered I probably do this about once a month.

It is a pretty clever method and will probably be copied now. It has been done, think of your own thing. And for the record… what sets me apart? I wont go into my entire answer, but it involves me being a jack of all trades.

Via AdRants

UPDATE: Apparently someone is doing this with Facebook now. At least he chose a somewhat different medium.