Anthropologically Bonding Business Intelligence to Personal Descriptions and Dispositions

BUSINESS OPS

A couple interesting links about Business Intelligence:

+ Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

+ Business Intelligence

+ Defining Web Analytics: Market Intelligence

+ Marketers and analysts—bridging the communications divide

+ Marketing Analytics to the Rescue: The Next Big Thing?

+ Sales and Marketing Analytics

+ Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals

+ Open Source BI: The Great Leap Forward

+ Business Intelligence - Empower Business Decisions: a blog

Woowee. . .the things I'm learning during my job search.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL BONDAGE

+ Band Societies

+ Lineage-Bonded Society

+ Land-Bonded Society

+ Village-Bonded Society

DESCRIBING A CHANGING IDENTITY

Last week, someone I hadn't heard from in 9 or 10 years contacted me. We've exchanged a couple e-mails and both have expressed sentiments of wanting to continue keeping in touch. This situation has provided me with an interesting challenge: how to initiate identification with each other, describe where I am now and how I got from there to here.

Some part of the issue comes from a tendency I have shown in the past of getting intense with people that I like. I can get so excited that I scare people away. Another element of intensity comes in the form of me trying to describe every little detail of just about everything. These odd characteristics of mine come, I believe, from an innate desire for mental stimulation and my focus on many details that form something, which includes personal history, probably symptoms of ADHD on some level.

Albeit, any person can change a lot in a span of 9 to 10 years, especially when that decade spans the later high school years, all of college and most of my young adult life and 20's. That detail, in itself, provides me with some level of comfort. We both probably feel similarly uncomfortable in that we both don't know where to start or possibly even how detailed to get about it, especially if we're not sure how close we want to become again.

Most people probably also have the difference of self knowledge between now and then. Comparably, however, I can see myself having more of an issue with the self knowledge thing than most people. Many people in my past have commented that I have a good amount of self knowledge (or they can say I have a good explanation of a social situation, which I don't necessarily have -- it's just over confidence). I think the big difference that rewards me with such a compliment comes from people knowing themselves on an implicit, non-conscious, instant access type of way compared to my explicit, very conscious but more difficult access type of knowledge. So my attention to these kinds of details doesn't come intentionally, but more as a way coping with the way my self conception and mind works.

Back when this person and I hung out, I probably had that nonconscious relationship with my self conception. I, honestly, didn't much like myself then and also didn't feel as if I was getting the types of things that I wanted. Sadly, I had no idea how to get these things.

Ironically, I could get these things if I felt more comfortable with myself and the peole around me. Impulse control didn't really rate high on my nonconscious way of being, even though this personal issue didn't cause too serious of problems, except for the numerous car accidents and moving violations. I, otherwise, simply pulled a bunch of faux pases and caused a few people some semi-long term discomfort and others short term discomfort. Not only did I feel uncomfortable about myself, I also didn't know how to play the etiquette games and be necessarily considerate of other people.

My lack of consideration has been somewhat diminished over the years. More often than not, I'm probably over respectful. Back then, my way of showing consideration was by being silent and not acting when feeling uncomfortable while letting myself go, just about saying and doing anything for a bit of excitement. Nowadays I show plenty and sometimes too much grace for fear of affecting people with my lack of impulse control.

Over compensating with too much consideration works well enough along with a tendency I have these days of thinking too much about ways to deal with a problem and trying to take into account everything. I get along and receive the benefits I generally want from life and society. Even the end of long term projects that have frustrated me to no end have an ending that has come into sight.

All of these things do help me feel good. Nonetheless, I miss that spontaneous side of me. Being so self conscious of myself and the direction my thoughts go has somewhat annoys me when I reflect on my everyday life, the types of ideas that I come up with to investigate or write about, the approaches that I take toward things, my general sense of being. . .it has become more grounded, which does have its benefits, but I feel a certain loss for that other part of me that I expunged somewhat back in the summer of 1999 while going through an incredibly rough night that I won't relate here.

A couple months ago, another friend of mine complained that his friends had lost their sense of adventure. I had gotten somewhat offended and challenged him on that claim, but maybe he's not so off from the mark. Nowadays I really don't take the kinds of chances that I would've taken years ago, the days when I had hung out with this guy.

For instance, this weekend while we had our friend visiting. The fiancee and I had visited him and his wife around their place about a year ago. I felt awkward a few times during that visit because I would say something, probably something that I thought was funny, and no one would laugh or say anything. The fiancee and a few other people would just ignore me (Oh, that's just The_Lex being The_Lex), but this guy and his wife had a noticeable pause. At the time, I felt offended on some level because I felt some negativity/hostility directed toward me.

This weekend with the friend help me get some perspective on that interaction, however. Throughout the weekend, I noticed him not saying something to fill the silence, make a joke when there was a chance or, as I read it, not take his turn in an interaction or conversation. I also remained conscious of the times that I stopped myself from saying something that didn't fit the situation. This time, I didn't feel that rejection/negativity/hostility coming from the friend. I, instead, noticed that I had the desire for social stimulation while he didn't have such a need.

Before leaving for Chicago, a friend and I touched upon this topic. Reminiscing about our pasts and comparing the now to the then, we both realized that we had shed some hang ups to become a better participant in social occasions and to gain the benefits of those occasions. We changed in ways other than taking on positive behaviors, though. Our tastes for the activities in which we wanted to participate and the things we wanted to accomplish had changed (for instance, then we wanted excitement and instant gratification -- now we have an interest in securing society's, our own and the world's future, getting gratification from knowledge and overall accomplishments and other adult things). Not that we ever wanted to avoid becoming adults, but the fact that we changed in the ways that we did surprised us.

I can't say that I've reached any kind of logical or even intuitive conclusion in the writing of this rambling essay. If anything, I should just try doing what seems the best path: relax, get comfortable, sit back, come up with something appropriate to say or do and enjoy getting to know this person again.

AS THE WORLD TURNS

The links at the top of this entry really about says what I did today.

I finished up the notifying business of my change of address then moved onto the job search.

To follow up on a resume submission a couple weeks ago, I researched Business Intelligence to learn more about it and give the company an interesting article about the topic. That took me a few hours.

I also filled out an online profile at a temp agency and submitted a resume.

Darn, there really isn't that much time in the day, even when I'm not officially working. Oh well. . .over the last year or so, I did keep hearing about how the job search is just about a full time job and more.

AND FOR THE NEXT ENTRY

Surprisingly, I have written about a topic that I thought would get addressed seperately and hadn't mention earlier. Go figure. Other than what I mentioned last night, then, I don't have much else to address. So I guess I've just got the following left for tomorrow (it's amazing how easily the ideas pop up when resting, playing and not really trying to accomplish anything):

+ The importance of having an objective when embarking on a quest.