Escape from Cubicle Nation

First sneak peek at the galley version of the Escape from Cubicle Nation book

Good day everyone!

I had to share my enthusiasm upon receiving the first bound galley version of the Escape from Cubicle Nation book.  It has been a long time in coming, and all you blog readers have been CRITICAL in its development.

View the footage here (Direct YouTube link here):

We still have a ways to go until it hits the shelves -- projected for April 30, 2009 -- but I couldn't hold back in sharing this important milestone.

Thanks again for all your support! I am a lucky person to have such an amazing community.

I will of course share a lot more information about the book roll out here -- stay tuned for more.

Enjoy your weekend!

How many Lehman employees do you think have backup plans?

My heart broke as I watched dejected Lehman Brothers employees carry their personal effects out of their offices on Sunday.  As much as they were aware of strain in their company, if they are like typical corporate employees, most did not expect the bankruptcy outcome.

I was so fascinated to see this right as I am polishing the chapter of the Escape from Cubicle Nation book on why corporate employees are afraid to leave their jobs to start a business.  A very common concern is that their "cushy" situation is as good as it gets, and they would be foolish to leave the "stability" of a corporate job for the "uncertainty" of entrepreneurial life.

I would bet that those Lehman employees who had small gigs going on the side:  consulting projects, eBay stores, blogs w/ad revenue, niche products, are feeling a little less panicked this morning.

The New York Times said yesterday (my paraphrase) that now might be a crappy time to leave your job to start a business. (must register to read). (hat tip to Carlos for referring this article)

Yes, things feel quite bleak in the market today.

But, I would argue, if you are sitting back with your head between your knees gripping your corporate job like a favorite teddy bear, you are putting yourself at risk.

I learned from my martial art days that the safest thing to do when under attack is to keep your eyes wide open, ground yourself, leverage your strengths and let curiosity, not fear, be the emotion your opponent sees in your eyes.

Like in any crisis or economic downturn, some people are going to thrive and grow despite the chaos. These are the people who are not afraid to try new things, work on side projects, network like crazy outside of their day jobs, and maintain a balanced and positive outlook on life.

What position are you in, feet firmly planted on the ground with your eyes wide open, or crouched in your chair waiting to see what will happen to you?

photo credit:  Reuters

The growing email overload: more like killer algae or kudzu?

OK, I am having serious metaphor issues.

As I am cleaning the first chapter of the book, "I have a fancy title, steady paycheck and good benefits. Why am I so miserable?" I am working on a section called "blood from a turnip."  You know what I am talking about, where your life force is squeezed from you as you desperately try to keep up with outrageous amounts of work, since they doubled your workload after cutting half the staff last round of layoffs.

So when I get to the part about the overwhelming volume of email in a corporate setting these days, I think "This would be a great place for nature metaphors. Something like that algae that is taking over ocean wildlife, or the crabs who hide under ships from China and jump off in San Francisco Bay and eat all the native creatures."

So I google "predator sealife," or some such thing, and come across this fantastic book, Killer Algae by Alexandre Meinesz.

It reads like a suspense novel and science fiction nightmare, only it is a true story and happening now.  Here is an excerpt:

In the early 1980s, the curator of the tropical aquarium at Stuttgart, Germany, noticed the exceptional properties of a beautiful green alga, Caulerpa taxifolia, used as decoration in the presentation of multicolored tropical fishes. In contrast to other algae, it does not wither, it grows with astounding vigor, it resists cool water temperatures, and it serves as a secondary food source for herbivorous tropical fishes. Specialists quickly learned about these qualities, and public aquaria acquired cuttings.

This is how it arrived at the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, where it was cultivated beginning in 1982. Two years later, the alga was discovered in nature, under the windows of this celebrated building. At that time, the beautiful stranger occupied only a square meter of Mediterranean bottom. Six years later, the alga was noted on the French coast five kilometers from Monaco; its detrimental impact on coastal ecosystems was deplored. The alga grows everywhere, from the surface to the lower limits of underwater vegetation. It grows as well in front of capes swept by storms and currents as on the soft bottoms of sheltered bays, on the polluted mud of harbors as on stretches of bottom with a diverse flora and fauna. Highly toxic, it barely interests herbivores; they have not hindered its spread. It is thus growing unrestrained, covering and then eliminating many plant and animal species. A new equilibrium is reached when the alga forms a dense, uniform carpet that persists from year to year (highlight my emphasis).

"A new equilibrium is reached when the alga forms a dense, uniform carpet that persists from year to year."

Isn't that a delicious metaphor for email?

So I vet it with my Twitter friends and it seems they prefer the killer plant Kudzu, an import to the Southern United States from Japan that grows about a foot in one evening and eats everything in its path.  More here.

Some people even suggested bunnies gone wild was a good metaphor for out of control email, but, come on, where is the terror in bunnies?

Zebra mussels and non-native Python snakes in the Everglades have all been thrown out as alternatives.

So I am asking for your vote: 

Metaphor for the out-of-control growth of email:  killer algae or kudzu?

If you vote for bunnies gone wild, I might just have to eject you from this forum.  :)

Channelling Olympic focus to finish The Book

I have been fascinated watching the faces of Olympic athletes just before they compete in a race.  Swimmer Michael Phelps has a quiet and intent look and is always connected to his iPod.  Gymnast Raj Bhavsar has a look of calm and peaceful confidence.

I imagine that they have the following thoughts right before competing:

• I see gold.
• I am meant to do this.
• I am present. All that matters is now.
• Breathe in.  Breathe out.

When the mind is calm, the body relaxes.  And creativity flows.

What most (winning anyway) athletes would not be saying right before a race is:

• Why didn't I train more last month?
• This is an impossible task.
• My competition is better.
• Why did I have donuts instead of granola this morning?

Top athletes know that great performance is really a mental game.  All the physical preparation in the world means nothing if your thoughts don't align with your desired outcomes.

So, in the wonderful coincidence that put the Olympics in my path just as I am finishing my book, I am going to channel Raj from this beautiful story on NBC (link here if you are reading from RSS):

With less than five weeks to go before my book is due (Sept. 15), I am going into my own miniature, suburban Olympic preparation zone.  This means:

• I have copies of my book outline taped everywhere in the house.  At the foot of the bathtub.  In notebooks by the stove in case an insight comes while making spaghetti.  In my purse if it hits while in the parking lot of my son's school.
• I am playing the mental game.  Although I could entertain hundreds of negative "I shoulda" thoughts as I complete the massive undertaking of excavating my heart, mind and soul for just the right information for the book, I am choosing to believe "I will finish.  It will be the right information for the right people."
• I will write fewer blog posts.  It may be a bit quiet on this part of the Southwestern front for the next month, so thanks for your patience!  In a perfect world, I would have written 12 posts ahead of time and scheduled them to auto-publish, but let's get real.  As Anne Lamott said about a fellow writer in Bird by Bird:  "Now, Muriel Spark is said to have felt that she was taking dictation from God every morning-sitting there, one supposes, plugged into a Dictaphone typing away, humming.  But this is a very hostile and aggressive position.  One might hope for bad things to rain down on a person like this."Quick links or questions or pre-recorded podcasts may appear at random, but don't expect a lot of action.  If I don't cut back on blogging, I will never finish the book.
• I am letting go of the expectation that I will be responsive to regular emails.  I set up a dreaded auto responder that annoys my regular clients, friends and family members, but will hopefully let prospective clients and new readers know that I am not ignoring them on purpose.
• I will delight in the fantastic stories and metaphors that come out of this process, such as the insight that there is a whole genre of writers focusing on "knitting humor" (thanks to Amy) and hearing precious examples of the insanity of corporate life like this from John:
  
  "Our department was asked to do a process improvement project to improve the delivery time of our projects.  I hadn't been with the group that long and pointed out that a) we had no formal process that we could improve and b) we had no baseline data (since we had no process). The logical conclusion was to do it anyway and use our 'best guess' for baseline data.  Our next 3 projects showed a 900% improvement in delivery time.  We were embarrassed that our baseline was that far off. Management, however, celebrated our success.  We were asked to develop a (3' x 6') poster and present at an internal process improvement conference.
  
  
  Later a cross-department project was initiated to define a software development process. 4.5 months later a 4-up (17"x22" at 12 pt font) flow diagram in PowerPoint appeared.  It had 8 stage gate review points and at least 120 individual boxes and diamonds.  One tiny box was labeled "write code".  There was no support for iterations or incremental development. No software developers or development managers were consulted by the analysts that created the flow."

I cannot explain why a ratio of 119:1 peripheral tasks to writing code is so funny, but it made me laugh till I hurt.

I also laughed last night as I thought of the common metaphor that "writing a book is like having a baby."

Having just gone through the birthing process, I can attest that parts of this are true:  pain, agony,  anticipation, fear, joy and overwhelm are emotions childbirth shares with writing a book.

But the key difference is that whether or not a Mom thinks positive or negative thoughts, or meditates, or eats right or exercises, in nine months or so, the baby will come out.  The force of nature that makes this happen is so awe-inspiring that it cannot be measured by a Richter scale.

A book has no such luxury.  It can languish between your ears for months, years, even decades.  People die with great books in their hearts because they could never quite muster up the courage to push through to the end.

So with this post, thoughts of all of you dear readers gently pushing my back, the watchful eye of my publisher and my own personal challenge of tackling an Olympian task, I am going to finish on top.

As Raj says, whatever that looks like, I will already have won.

(photo credit, USA Today)

Have you been simmering a business idea for years?

I am working on a chapter of my book about testing and prototyping business ideas.

I would love to talk to a few people who have had a great business idea kicking around for years, but have yet to do anything about it because they don't know where to start.

Ideally I would like a mix of product, retail and service business ideas.

Does this sound like you?

If so, please send me an email to pcs (at) ganas (dot) com with the following info:

• Email subject "Testing business idea" (kindly use this, it really helps to sort the messages)
• Your name and contact info
• Your business idea (don't worry, I won't share it with anyone unless you give permission)
• What you have done so far to develop the idea (business plan, notes, prototypes, etc)
• What has been holding you back from acting on it

Thank you so much!

Book update and request for information

Good afternoon!

I hope all of you are doing great on this Monday.  (Anyone have a case of "The Mondays?"  -- Insider Office Space joke)

I wanted to give you an update on the Escape from Cubicle Nation book, and to request some input. (For new blog readers, here is the  background on the book.)

Update first:

•  I am approaching the writing in a bit of a non-linear fashion, working on a number of chapters simultaneously.  I have outlined all the sections and chapters and am writing notes with key salient points to cover, and juicy stories to tell.  To use a term coined by my friend Anne Zelenka, I am a bursty worker by nature, so bouncing around a bit at this point in the content development feels good.

• However (and my editor reads my blog, so she is well aware of this, right Emily?) I have about 16 solid weeks of writing before it is due (September 15), and 16 chapters to write.  Do the math -- I need to crack out a chapter a week, or a little more aggressive, since I need room at the end to tighten and edit.  Although there is a bit of pressure, I am worthless without a deadline, so this will work in my favor.
• I have lined up some really great subject matter experts for chapters that deal with complex topics, or areas that are not my strength.  I am really looking forward to conducting the interviews and collaborating with some of the best minds in business.  That is the great thing about writing a book -- I have a great excuse to approach really smart people for input.
• My Escape from Cubicle Nation Advisory Council has been wonderful -- very responsive and supportive.  (Even after I asked them to re-send all their emails when my computer crashed!)
• Besides responding to social media network requests (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) I am not spending a lot of time thinking about marketing the book yet.  That is actually the most fun thing for me, so I am holding off, lest I go off on a tangent promoting something that I have not written yet!  Once I hand off the manuscript, I will plan for a small live book tour, blog visits, media, web promotions and the like.  If anyone has any great ideas for book marketing, please let me know!
• Also after the manuscript is done, I will integrate my blog and website onto one platform.  (Still evaluating options, but I am leaning towards WordPress).  This has been a bit of a thorn in my side since I would really like my web presence to be in one location, and currently it is fragmented.  But since it is a big project, I will take care of it when I have the time.  Most likely I will have a page under my own name (pamelaslim.com, which I finally reserved, thanks to Tara!) that is something in the spirit of my friend Penelope Trunk.  Then for escapefromcubiclenation.com, I will have both my blog and services accessible from one domain, like my professional crushes Jonathan Fields and Christine Kane. (here is Christine's page like Penelope's -- great photo, no?)  Aren't their sites gorgeous and easy to navigate?  Even though they discuss commerce, aren't they open and inviting?  Makes more sense, don't you think?

On to the request

• I am looking for the best possible subject matter experts on how to get insurance for the self-employed (particularly someone going from corporate to entrepreneur).  I would love someone who is objective and knowledgeable, and who can handle gnarly questions like what to do if you have pre-existing conditions, how to choose between a variety of different plans, whether to do COBRA or not, etc.
• While medical coverage is a concern in other parts of the world, for the most part, I would like a specialist for the U.S. 
• If you have anyone in mind, (or you are this person!) please contact me at pcs (at) ganas (dot) com with "Benefits SME" in the subject header.  I am so thankful for any referrals.

That's it for now!

Thanks for all of your encouraging emails and blog comments.  They keep me motivated and writing!

-Pam

It is finally real: The Escape from Cubicle Nation book will be published by Penguin Portfolio/Berkley

After many months (years!) of talking about writing a book, it is finally a reality.  I am delighted to announce that Penguin Portfolio/Berkley will be publishing both a hardcover and paperback version of Escape from Cubicle Nation. It is scheduled for publication in the Spring of 2009.

The book will be a comprehensive guide for making the transition from corporate employee to entrepreneur.  It will cover not only the nuts and bolts of starting a business, but also guidance on how to get through the fear and anxiety that accompanies the process. Just the kind of stuff we talk about here on the blog!

Portfolio is the home to such great business books as Purple Cow by Seth Godin and The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki.  It is headed by Adrian Zackheim who has edited some of my favorite books like Good to Great by Jim Collins, The Dilbert Principle by Scott Adams and The HP Way by David Packard.

My editor will be Emily Rapoport, who is one of the smartest, most encouraging and savvy people I know.  I feel very lucky to work with her.  She is the one who championed this book and made it happen inside Penguin.

My killer agent Joelle Delbourgo, who made the leap herself from corporate to entrepreneur a number of years ago, walked me through the totally foreign and sometimes daunting process of writing my first book proposal.  I truly could not have done it without her, and I am so grateful for her expert guidance.

I can't avoid an intolerable academy award-like acceptance speech since I have so many people to thank for getting this far, so please bear with me!

• My coaching clients not only read my blog religiously, but part with their hard-earned cash to work with me.  I am truly humbled by their bravery and honored to have worked with each and every one of them.  Getting into the deep, personal issues that the transition from employee to entrepreneur entails is not always easy.  As a coach, I know I don't have all the answers, so the search for what works, and doesn't work, has shaped what I think needs to go in the book. 
• Fellow authors Bob Walsh, Ramit Sethi, Garr Reynolds, Andy Wibbels, Glenda Watson-Hyatt, Matthew Scott, Sophronia Scott, Andrea Lee and Suzanne Falter-Barns, my mentor and inspiration for building platform with this blog, have all been incredibly helpful and encouraging.
• Home girls and boys Marilyn Scott-Waters, Laura Back, Suzanne Babb, Philippa Kennealy, Lisa Evans, John Dodds and Robert kept me sane and made me laugh in moments of anxiety.
• Exceptionally kind and connected local Phoenix entrepreneurial mentors Francine Hardaway and Peter Burns welcomed me to a new city when I arrived from the Bay Area 4 years ago and made me feel at home.
  
• My Mom and bonus Dad Larry encouraged me to have fun and make time for myself, my husband and my kids while blogging up a storm.
• I got great early support for this blog from the uber wise posse of Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Kathy Sierra, John Jantsch, Bob Sutton, Srikumar Rao, Rich and Jeff Sloan, and Hugh McLeod.
• Martha Beck and my coaching comadres Brooke Castillo, Meadow DeVor and Michele Woodward are true sisters and make me proud of our profession.
  
• The unwavering faith of the "Original 6" readers of my blog:  my Dad Lewis, bonus Mom Dee, sister Gretchen, brother-in-law Gary and best buddies John Fritz and Desiree Adaway gave me an audience when no one else would listen.
• My husband Darryl is my biggest supporter and my kids are my creative muses.  21-year old Jeffery keeps me young and reminds me of the power of love.  When Josh was 6 months old, I started my blog.  Now Angela is 4 months old and I got a book deal.  Coincidence?  I think not. :)

But who do I really want to thank?

YOU.

Thousands and thousands of you have sent emails, commented on posts, shared your personal stories, given feedback on surveys and outlines, sent interesting articles and URLs, linked to this blog and offered me really great advice and encouragement when I needed it. 

This book proposal would not have sold, and this book will not get written without you!

Thank you so much for your generosity and support!

Would you like to help me write the book? Join the Escape from Cubicle Nation Advisory Council

I know that I am going to have lots of specific questions in the next 7 months as I write the book.  So instead of driving all my blog readers crazy with a nitpicky posts every 5 minutes, I have created a special group, the Escape from Cubicle Nation Advisory Council.  Those that join this voluntary mailing list will act as a source for things like:

• expert advice
• personal stories
• questions about the direction of chapters
• referrals to great resources

I would love a whole bunch of different kinds of people to join:  corporate employees that are thinking about making the leap, other entrepreneur coaches, subject matter experts, new and seasoned entrepreneurs.  Anyone and everyone is welcome.

You can jump off the list at any time by hitting the "unsubscribe" message at the bottom of each message.  I will be clear what I am looking for in my email subject headers so that you can easily scan and delete messages that don't apply to you.

What I would love is a list that I can send messages to in the spur in the moment, without worrying about people feeling spammed to death.

I will still ask for feedback from my blog readers, just on a less-frequent basis.

If you want to join this advisory council, enter your name and email here:

Please make sure to confirm your subscription by responding to the auto-generated email that will come to you immediately after you sign up.  If you don't get this message, check your junk mail filter.

That's the story and I'm sticking to it!

After all this excitement, I have come to the realization that I now have to WRITE the book!

My Aunt Char, also known as Miss Beadle from Little House on the Prairie, sent me the following email after receiving three messages in a row from me yesterday about my excitement at the book deal:

"Yikes! That is fabulous. Now stop reading all these congratulations and get to work!"

Good thing there is a pragmatist in the family.

So I am off to the races.  I am going to follow the advice of Bob Walsh, who tells me the only way  to get it done is to write every day.

Let's get started!

Any juicy stories about parents horrified by your desire to start a business?

I am working on a chapter of the Escape from Cubicle Nation book about getting your friends and family on board with your idea to start a business.

For the section about talking with your parents, I am looking for a specific example of someone's parents who freaked out (initially at least) when you told them you wanted to leave your stable corporate job to start a business.

One example is a friend whose Dad escaped Nazi Germany to come to the U.S.  He is absolutely perplexed by his son's desire to find meaning in his work.  Such a concept is so far from his own life experience that my friend struggles to explain it to him.

My own parents are wildly supportive of everything I do, and that has included some pretty wacky things like going to Rio de Janeiro by myself to study martial arts, taking the bus from Caracas to Bogota (advice in retrospect:  don't do it!), starting a business and moving to Arizona to marry a Navajo medicine man/entrepreneur.  I don't think there is anything I could do that they wouldn't support, unless it made me unhappy or broke a law.  I realize that they are the exception, not the rule.

If you have a juicy story (can be short), please comment here, or drop me a line at pcs (at) ganas (dot) com.

Time is of the essence, so the sooner the better.  Thanks!

---

Update 1/22:  I had to share this response, from Felicia Ryan -- it was too precious!

"When I told my father that I was changing careers from my comfortable 65+K per yr as a marketing/fundraising professional to start my business as a life coach he said, "Well, we will love you no matter what." After what seemed like a long time my mother got on the phone and said, "Your father thought you said you were going for training to become a life guard. He didn't know what a life coach is." This is from a man with a high school education and the same job working at the Boston Globe since he was 18 years old. Here I am with a Master's Degree and working on my 20th or so job since I graduated from College. So in his own way he was telling me that he would support me.

My father is partially deaf and really has no idea what a life coach is. So in his mind he translated it to the closest thing he could relate to. It was pretty funny. "

Survey results from Escape from Cubicle Nation readers

Thanks again to everyone who took a few minutes to complete my survey.

I asked for your input on both what was unique about this blog and what you thought would be helpful to include in a book.  The results were tremendously interesting to me, and re-affirmed the path I was taking with my book proposal.  I will share the link for you to read the results yourself, but here are the major points I am taking away:

• I have the nicest readership in the blogosphere.  The comments were so positive and encouraging that I can't wipe the smile off my face.  Thank you so much for taking the time to not only offer specific feedback, but also to add an encouraging word.  It really motivates me to keep going, and to do an extra good job.
• It is important to keep the voice of my blog in the book.  I write about a lot of personal experiences on this blog, in addition to those of my friends and clients.  Many people said to keep that voice, and not to make it boring and generic.
• Focus on the emotional side of the transition from employee to entrepreneur, not just the practical steps needed to get a business up and running.  This is certainly at the heart of my blog, and what I think will be a distinguishing aspect of the book.  I see it as a companion to something like Guy Kawasaki's Art of the Start, where there is great advice for what to do, but not information about how you deal with your fears and anxieties in the process of "getting it done."
• Describe a clear process with steps for going to employee to entrepreneur.  While I know that I can't cover everything involved in starting a business, I should take the reader through a logical process that allows them to focus on the right things at the right time.  Jeff and Rich Sloan from StartupNation have done a great job of covering the nuts and bolts of business startup in their book 10 Steps to Open for Business, but don't tie it directly to the transition from corporate employee to entrepreneur.  Once again, I think this book could be a good companion to theirs.
• Include checklists and tools.  This book will be about ACTION, not theory, and I should include tools and tips for making progress.
• Include lots of stories of real people who have made the transition from employee to entrepreneur successfully.  I already have lots of stories in mind, many from my own wonderful clients.  That is where the good meat is:  hearing how real people faced a challenge and got through it.
• Offer motivation without getting sappy.  Encourage readers along the path to entrepreneurship, but don't go over the top with shallow and meaningless cheerleading.

If you pick up any other themes as you read through the survey, please let me know in the comments.

I have decided to keep the survey open for awhile longer, since I am thankful for any input I can get.  So if you want to add your two cents, go right ahead.  Link to survey here.

My book proposal is due to the publisher on Monday, January 21, so this week I will be madly organizing, synthesizing and writing.  I might be light on blogging, so forgive my silence. 

As I progress through this process of writing a book, I will share my experiences with you so that we all learn together.  I am sure that many of you have books brewing inside just waiting to be written.

Here is the link to the raw results.  On the open-ended questions, click on the "view" button to see the responses.

Enjoy!

P.S.  Some of you were kind enough to put a personal note in the answer to #7, with your name or email address.  Since I am sharing this publicly, I removed those references to respect your privacy.  Thanks!

Last chance to take Escape from Cubicle Nation book survey

Hey folks, happy Friday!

Today is the last day my survey is open for the Escape from Cubicle Nation book proposal.  Explained here.

Thanks to all who have contributed already!  There is so much great information.  Made me blush!

I will close it at 5pm Pacific today, then share the results with you tomorrow.  Shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes.

Link to survey here.

Thanks!