1993 Letter from the Heartland

Steven B. Zwickel

14 July 1993

Madison, Wisconsin—We learned, this past month, that the Buick floats and the Toyota leaks.

The rains and floods that have hit the midwest have made international headlines and, quite frankly, we are not happy with all the publicity. Reporters and TV anchors have descended uninvited on this part of the country to report on the unnaturally vast quantities of water that Mother Nature has bestowed upon us. Like most of our fellow midwesterners, we are, by nature, publicity shy and don’t like all the attention we have received when we didn’t do anything to deserve it. Case in point: a schoolteacher in Wisconsin won $111 million in the lottery last week and went to the convenience store where he bought the winning ticket to claim his prize. When he saw journalists skulking in the parking lot, he is alleged to have driven on by.

The rains have made some things easier, such as getting new sod to grow in the backyard. At the same time, other jobs have become exasperatingly difficult. The first week in June we prepared to replace the old wooden deck behind our house and discovered that the constant rains made the job much harder. Lifting and shifting 16-foot lengths of wet, green-treated wood in stifling humidity was exhausting. We consumed endless pitchers of lemonade and made countless trips to the hardware store and lumber yard. Working between torrential soakings and tornado warnings that sent us scurrying to the shelter of the basement, we still somehow managed to finish it in just two weeks. If it dries out before winter returns, we’ll try to set up the grill on the new deck and throw on some brats and burgers.

We have had a few nice days, but the endless rains produced clouds of thirsty mosquitos—aggressive, nasty little beasts that have added to the discomfort of this miserable summer. Another by-product of the frequent showers has been an increase in the rate at which the grass grows. Just about every time the sun breaks through the clouds you can hear the roar of a dozen lawnmowers going at once. We are learning to conserve sunshine. It is a precious commodity this summer and we take advantage of every non-raining minute. Last weekend, an art fair drew thousands of people, not, I suspect, because there are so many art lovers in this part of the world, but because it was the first weekend activity in months that wasn’t rained out. (Even this event was interrupted briefly by showers and tornado warnings on Saturday night).

We spent the July 4th holiday weekend visiting our son in Minneapolis and we fortuitously borrowed our other son’s Buick station wagon for the trip. Our plans were only slightly affected by the weather—it rained on the trip north and it rained on the day we helped our son move to a new apartment and it rained when we took our granddaughter to the Minnesota Zoo. Of course, the day we spent watching the Twins play the Brewers in the shelter of the Metrodome was sunny and mild.

The rains did stop on Independence Day and the evening was remarkably clear and comfortable. We watched fireworks by the light of a full moon sparkling in the bloated Mississippi.

We got a late start on the return trip, but we had clear sailing until we were about one hundred miles from home, when the rain began. The heavy rain and water kicked up by other cars and trucks cut visibility to a few feet. After an hour of struggling to see the road, we got off the Interstate and took a highway that runs parallel to it.

The rain got heavier the closer we got to home. Twenty miles from Madison we reached the first stretches of flooded roadway. My wife, a Wisconsin native, urged me on. “Wait for the car in front of you to clear the water, then put your foot down on the accelerator and keep it there. Whatever you do, don’t stop or we’ll never get out of here.” Her advice proved sound. Huge plumes of spray shot up from the tires. Our six-year-old granddaughter clapped her hands and shouted, “Wheee! That was fun. Can we do that again, Grandpa?”

Again and again, we forded the runoff. The drainage culverts along the road were filled with fast-moving, muddy water and huge bolts of lightning bracketed the highway. The pounding rain could only be described as being of “Biblical proportions.”

I made the mistake of relaxing when we reached the edge of the city, in the erroneous belief that it must have escaped the worst of the flooding. 

While we debated which streets to take home, Mother Nature made some decisions for us—we detoured around one flooded intersection and started the last mile of our journey. That was when we reached the deepest, roughest stretch of water yet. I waited for the car in front of me to get out of the way and then I pressed down on the gas pedal. Halfway across the stream, I realized that front of the wagon (now referred to as the “bow”) was drifting towards the sidewalk. I made a joke, “Get me a rudder so I can steer this thing!” My wife yelled, “Don’t let up on the gas.” 

I was giddy from the stress of the past few hours. “Engine Room,” I said into an imaginary intercom. “Give me full steam ahead.” 

“Why does Grandpa want a rudder? What’s a rudder?” the six-year-old asked.

Miraculously, the Buick kept going, foamy wake spewing from the wheel wells. We reached the other side and the tires again responded to the helm.

The State Patrol closed the highway we had been on a few minutes after we got home. My wife told me that she’d  caught a few seconds of footage on the late news of a blue Buick station wagon crossing the flooded roadway.

I didn’t see myself on TV because I went to bed early. Besides, I’m not really interested in publicity I

Steven B. Zwickel

2016 How to Write a Better LinkedIn Profile

How to Write a Better LinkedIn Profile

Steven B. Zwickel, 2016

LinkedIn has become an extremely important tool for job seekers. (See Why LinkedIn Is Not Optional for New Grads by Ed Han <http://www.job-hunt.org/social-networking/LinkedIn-job-search/LinkedIn-new-grads.shtml>. Employers use it to find and research prospective employees, so, having a LinkedIn profile is essential. 

✒ LinkedIn is for professional, not for personal information [it is not Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc] or private communications, so don't use it in lieu of email or a phone call.

1.  Before editing: Turn Off Activity Broadcast

Turn off activity broadcast temporarily, so you can update your LinkedIn profile without letting the world know.

          a. Move cursor over your small photo in the top right of your homepage to see Account & Settings.

          b. Click Review at Privacy & Settings to open Activity broadcasts (or type https://www.linkedin.com/settings).

          c. Click the box to uncheck the option and turn off Activity broadcasts while you edit.

          d. Click Save Changes. You can turn it back on after you’re done editing.

2. Turn Editing On

If you are completely lost at editing LinkedIn, clicking on Complete your profile will take you through a step-by-step process for editing. Clicking Edit Profile will enable you to edit your own way. Now you can work on editing the different parts of your profile:

Parts of LinkedIn Profile

Photo, Name, Title, Location/Industry, Connections, Contact Info, Background

• Summary

• Experience

• Volunteer Experience & Causes

• Publications

• Courses

• Projects

• Skills

• Education

• Additional Info

  - Recommendations - Connections - Groups - Following

3.  Profile Picture

Your profile picture is your first impression, so make it a good one and use a professional headshot and keep it classy. The LinkedIn photo format is square, so keep that in mind when you choose a photo.

4.  Name

Use the full name that people know you by and that appears on your transcript. If you have a common name, use your middle initial or name to help people find you. If you are concerned about search engines finding you, consider adding an "Alternate names/Common Misspellings" section to your Summary.

5.  Title or Headline

Right below your name, LinkedIn fills in your title and your company name.

Write something descriptive of what you do in 120 words or less. Change your LinkedIn headline by clicking on the blue pencil icon next to your headline. Be specific—tell people enough about what you do so they want to read more.

6.  Location & Industry

This appears below the Title. Change these by clicking the blue pencil icon next to your location and industry.

7.  Customize your profile URL

Below the photo is a LinkedIn URL. The default is LinkedIn.com/in followed by a row of random numbers and letters. Click the blue Edit next to it, and you can create a custom URL for your profile. Best and simplest would be your first and last name.

8. Connections

Some people are impressed by big numbers, but it’s not clear how most people feel about this. This section shows people how you are connected to them. 



9. Contact Information

To the right of your URL, there is a button that drops down all your contact information. This allows people to know how to contact you!

Fill out Contact Info using your work information. If you use Twitter, you can link to it here as well and you can list up to three websites. When you put in your website, choose the Other option and write a custom title for the website.  So instead of it simply “Company Website”, call it by the name of your business.

10. Summary

The first category under Background is Summary. You have 2000 characters (counting spaces as characters) to explain who you are as a professional and provide a narrative of your work experience. This is a writing sample and you will be judged on your ability to communicate clearly.

•  Highlight your strengths and your accomplishments. A well written summary will make your profile more than an online résumé and demonstrate that you have good communication skills.

•  Summarize who you are as a professional, not just what you are doing in your current job. A good summary includes information about all of your relevant experience, not just from your current job.

•  Write in the third person If you write about your accomplishments in first person, it can end up sounding like you are bragging and egotistical. Writing in third person gives the reader the perception that someone else is saying these nice things about you, even if you wrote them.

•  Use the keywords and phrases you would find in a job description that would interest you.

•  The summary helps readers understand who you are, what you do, and what you might need to be successful. If readers can’t tell why you love what you do and how you do it better than anyone else, it might be time to bring in a coach or an editor to help you craft something more compelling. Write a crisp, detailed summary of your career.

•  Try to tell a compelling story that includes specifics and quantifiable achievements. Share your accomplishments. Everyone likes a good story. If you can grab some attention with something about yourself that we wouldn’t know from your resume bullets, you’re heading in the right direction. Jason Alba <jasonalba.com> suggests writing PAR (Problem – Action – Result) stories in your summary statement. First, state the business problem you addressed (the reason for the project you were assigned). Second, describe the actions you took to solve the problem for the organization. Third, state the result of the actions you took; quantify if possible.

•  Try to “wow” recruiters with your experience or achievements. Don't just hope that they’ll read far enough into your Experience section to see how good you are. The Summary is your best chance to grab their attention and hold it, so use it wisely!

•  LinkedIn lets you upload media to represent your work—a video, presentation, or portfolio—at the end of the Summary section (and in other sections). Katie Wagner <katiewagnersocialmedia.com> says provide links to your other professionally active social media, to another, more visual digital, or to a life streaming profile. You can also embed or link directly to your best original content (such as: a popular blog post, YouTube video, Vine, or slideshow on SlideShare). You can even embed a short video of your "elevator pitch." To find out which file types and content providers are compatible for media samples on a LinkedIn profile, go to <http://embed.ly/providers>. Only link to professional, high-quality media; anything less will hurt your image. Here’s how to link or embed content:

When you click Edit Profile, three icons appear on the right in each section.

✒The blue pencil is Click to edit so you can edit the text in this section.

✒ The blue box with the plus sign is Click to add a video, image, document, presentation. 

✒ The blue triangle gives you a choice: [add Link or upload File].

✒ The black up-down arrow is Drag to rearrange profile sections

•  Consider saving some of your 2,000 characters for two additional sections to make it easier for employers to find you. William Arruda suggests you add these:

Specialties: add those all-important keywords you want to be associated with. 

AKA/Common Misspellings: so people can find you with a Google search even if they don’t know how to spell your name/nickname or weren’t aware that you were married or divorced and changed your name.

•  Brenda Bernstein <www.careercast.com> suggests you use graphic elements, like stars and bullets from Wingdings or Zapf Dingbats fonts, to break up the blocks of text. Here are some that work: suv n HQ . These will engage your readers and make your Summary a lot more eye-catching and interesting to read!

•  Include your contact information at the end of your summary to enable people to get in touch with you easily without having to look any further.

11.  Experience

This is your chance to write a spectacular online résumé.

12. Volunteer Experience

Use this section to show you did more while at the university than study, party, and play video games. Demonstrate that there are things that matter to you—that you care about more than just making money. You can list non-profit organizations for which you volunteered in this section or under Organizations.

•  Consider very carefully before you list jobs or organizations that are political, religious, or controversial; employers get nervous whenever employees are associated with anything that could even remotely harm their businesses.

13.  Other Options

These appear in a box at the upper right hand when you are in the “edit profile” view.

Organizations is for highlighting any non-profit work that you do or support.

Honors & awards is a place to list anything that you have been recognized for.

14.  Skills & Expertise

There are two parts to the Skills & Expertise section—listing your skills and getting endorsed for those skills.

•  This section offers a way to tell potential employers what you can do. LinkedIn lets you list up to 50 skills, which work like keywords. Because of this, you want to list skills relevant to your business or job and you want to order them with your most important skill at the top of the list.

•  Once you have listed a skill, LinkedIn will ask your Connections if they think you have that particular skill. If they say yes, they will endorse you.

•  The orange help buttons in the Skills & Expertise section give more information about managing endorsements, re-ordering skills, and hiding/showing endorsements

15. Education

For early-career  professionals, Education is one of the most important credentials they have. In addition to listing the college you attended, list any credentials, certificates, or professional training you have earned.

•  You don’t need to post your GPA here, but do indicate any honors you earned for your work.

•  Like Experience, LinkedIn organizes Education in reverse chronological order—most recent degree on top. The nextt line is the name of the school, the second is your degree and major. The bottom line is gray and contains the dates you attended that school.

16. Recommendations

It is not clear how sincere and credible Recommendations on a LinkedIn profile really are. It’s possible that people write recommendations spontaneously, but it seems more likely that they are responding to specific requests.

Treat LinkedIn Recommendations the way you would treat anyone you ask for a job reference. When you ask someone to act as a reference, you should:

•  Tell them how (and how long) they know you

•  Remind them of what you have accomplised

•  Emphasize the skills and characteristics you would like them to include in their recommendation.

17.  Additional Information

Both Interests and Personal Details are out of place in a professional profile. Save this for your FaceBook page or other social media. You may want to use these as talking points when you get the job interview.

Use Advice for Contacting to give your business email addresses, phone numbers, and other contact information. There’s no reason to give out anything personal on LinkedIn.

18.    Proofread your Profile

Your LinkedIn profile is a professional writing sample. Mistakes will reflect badly on you. You must edit and revise to make it as perfect as you can. There is no excuse for having any errors of spelling, grammar, or usage in your Summary. No one will hire an engineer who is careless. Lying or distorting your background is a particularly stupid thing to do in the age of Google. No one will hire anyone who is a liar.

19.  Request Connections

Some think you should connect with as many people as possible because of the compound effect of multiple connections. I think it is much more impressive to have connections with people who are influential in your field than to have connections to large numbers of people who have nothing to do with  your career. It may be that a large number of connections impresses readers, but there is no way of knowing how many you "should" have, so don't worry about the numbers.