“I KNEW NOTHING GOOD WOULD COME FROM CITY FOLK AND THEIR FLYING MACHINES.”
Cannonball Jenkins warns SpongeBob throughout the episode. It’s the same reaction I sometimes get from those I coach on developing the right personal brand online and offline, in the video resume and world of podcasts. Get to it my human resource savvy friends. Them flying machines are here. They are okay to use!
Make sure you note I was watching it at home while reading Fortune, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, Triangle Business Journal and the Sunday business section of the News and Observer. Okay, I was just keeping an eye onto it as I checked Lou Dobbs on CNN or my old podcast of Louis Rukeyser, my old favorite business guy on PBS. The bottom line was I was doing something else while my kids were watching SpongeBob. Or if you want I was tuned in like nobody’s business to the episode.
So I hear this refrain of the I KNEW NOTHING GOOD…and my son says Why are you laughing? I told him: The writers know what they are doing because that is a funny line, especially the way that craggy old guy is delivering it. So my son says: Wait Dad, he’s going to say it again. So my kids know some SpongeBob episodes, it’s true. Okay, I say, tell me what he says it again. So he gets me to tune in.
Here is the lesson I learned from Cannonball Jenkins. If you don’t understand technology don’t fear it, embrace the positives of it. The Internet is the biggest garbage dump in the world, spewing danger and negative. It’s also a place with great resources and opportunities. Tune into what’s positive about it. That’s true of the video and audio world. Use the leading edge to advance your work life mission and career mission.
And you have a digital footprint anyway. Listen Cannonball Jenkins. You are going to use some form of transportation. Just because you fear the newest form doesn’t mean it doesn’t work or can’t work effectively.
So what happened to Cannonball Jenkins. He uses a car and breaks a silo, he uses a ship and hits a boulder and he shoots himself out of a cannon and nearly kills SpongeBob as SpongeBob heads to the jelly fields.
Now this blog may have more to do with SpongeBob, quarepants and Nick.com than it does with executive career advancement, executive job search, human resources and personal branding issues. Or does it? As is sometimes the case between working for my clients, eating and sleeping, I spend quality time with my children. So I hope it doesn’t hurt me to blog about Spongebob. But it occurs to me that people are acting a lot like Cannonball Jenkins on a Spongebob episode.
If you don’t know the SpongeBob plot then tune in next time. I might have more lessons from the sponged one.