No, that title is not a vacuous tweet. Sometimes you just have to stay inside and crank it out even though the air is warm, the sun is out, the clouds are cumulus and the lake is not far away. Right now I’m in a bit of a lull as far as project work having just finished up a big web/wiki project. So the temptation is there but I can’t. I have to work on a site that won’t make me money for months but may have a longer term financial impact than any of my paid projects. In other words it’s my own business I’m building.

The last company I worked for as an employee, Techrigy, got acquired last week. It was interesting assessing my response to their apparent good fortune because I think they are geniuses and built a really great product (social media monitoring software). On the one hand my stock options hadn’t vested when I left so I didn’t participate in the largess, which isn’t actually that large and will take quite a while to become real. On the other hand I feel good about marketing them from 1 customer to 30+ customers in less than 10 months with no budget. If you’ve been in a start-up you know how important this is. They spent nearly three years working without salaries to get to the point where they are now.

So I guess me working for a few months on my little project makes sense!

Back to work.

Looking for jobs, having a career, job security- these things are no longer the way we are working. The average college grad today will have 15 ‘jobs’ by age 35- which means redefining the meaning of what we do for a living. Everyone is, in essence, a freelancer and a lot of people are struggling with this. Freelancing is an entirely different thing than having a job.

Fortunately Seth Godin has taken his usual way of changing perception and applied it to the work model. Work is going to mean assembling your skills, experience and connections and creating a package that others will pay for. For example I’m building (on a wiki platform) a site that contains everything in Rochester’s waterfront neighborhoods: Real estate, parks, shopping, sights, restaurants, services- everything. When I’m done I’m going to invite residents of these neighborhoods to write about their area.

Once this ‘package’ is complete I’m going to sell exclusive access to it to an area real estate firm or broker. They’ll appear on all the pages as a link to learn more about buying or selling a waterfront property in our area. Leads for these properties are worth a lot of money. You’ll be able to find it at WaterfrontRochester.com. I also own WaterfrontFingerLakes.com and several other cities. They’ll get packaged up too.

The Recession and its downsizings have forced all of us to think differently about work. Those who understand this change and jump right in will do very well. Those who cling to the idea that their old jobs will somehow come back will not.

Can you go totally all out for 20-30 seconds of riding or swimming, rest for four minutes and repeat 3 more times? And do this three times week? New studies show that this kind of very intense interval training can produce results equal to six hours per week of ordinary riding or swimming.

The key to this is total, exhausting effort in short bursts. You can’t just speed up, you must go full tilt to the point where you cannot continue for more than 20-30 seconds. That’s one the reasons running may not be suited to this as they don’t know the effect of the pounding on your feet that this kind of sprinting might have.

I don’t do enough aerobic activity. I walk 2-3 miles every day, as much to clear my head as for exercise, and I have a resistance routine at the gym. I’m going to try this interval method in the pool.

If this works no one has any excuse for not getting in shape. None of us want to have the health problems we see in seniors who didn’t take care of themselves when they were our age- it’s a quality of life issue.

If you try it let me know how it works for you.

For the past week I’ve had a friend from out of town staying with me. She grew up in the Rochester area but left many years ago- though she still has family here. Her visits have been confined to business and family matters and she really hasn’t seen much of the city in the past 20 years. This past week was the Rochester International Jazz Festival, a huge event that fills downtown Rochester with music and music lovers. Since I live within walking distance I took Toni out on several evenings of the fest, including an ad hoc tour of the changes our town has gone through.

Her response was enlightening to me. As we walked by the dozens of restaurants, stores, theaters, galleries, coffee shops, loft developments and more that have opened in the last ten years she could not get over what a different city she was experiencing. It didn’t hurt that there were thousands of people enjoying free and paid jazz, eating and drinking in outdoor cafes and simply socializing in public. We ate at several great restaurants (Good Luck, One Ryan, 2Vine, Pier 45) and had a great time.

On Sunday, when the rain cleared away, we went to Turning Point Park in the Genesee River gorge and walked the amazing boardwalk all the way to the Lake Ontario outlet. There were sailboats everywhere for a big regatta. The city has done an amazing job with the entire Charlotte/River neighborhood. It felt like being on vacation in some hip city!

Rochesterians are known for poo-pooing our city’s ability to change or become a destination. Toni’s reaction was one of continual wonder at how much has changed in significant ways. Her impression was that we live in a very hip and happening place, not the boring and rundown Rochester she remembered. Her perspective cleared my perspective as I got excited showing her all the great things in this town. Sometimes when change is taking place gradually you lose perspective. Take some time to see things from a newcomer’s eyes and you may find that your world is a whole new place.