From the category archives:

Work/Life

I’m tired of hearing people complain that so many don’t read newspapers or vote or participate in their communities. The belief that Americans have become apathetic, complacent conformists is accepted as conventional wisdom, when, in fact, I believe it is about to reverse and correct in a dramatic fashion. I would go so far as [...]

7 comments

Why I Don’t Make Lists

by Dave Atkins on April 7, 2009

in Work/Life

Well, actually, I did make a list. But making a to do list, more often than not, is a tiring postponement of what should be done right away. However, I thought it might be helpful to illustrate how I spend my “leisure time” these days now that I’m not working…and maybe I’ll get this stuff [...]

9 comments

I’m looking forward to a social gathering and speech tonight where Dan Schawbel will talk about “personal branding”–how you market yourself to other people. I’ve had an amazing amount of interest in my story of using social media in my search for work, including a number of media interviews, most recently a front-page story in [...]

7 comments

Here’s a peek at what I’ve been up to at Heroix, where I’m blogging about my experiences in the technology trenches. The items below are excerpts from the longer entries…click on over to the Heroix blog to read the rest of the story… Subscribe to RSS headline updates from: Powered by FeedBurner

10 comments

My “Stop Down” Story

by Dave Atkins on March 11, 2009

in Advice to Unemployed,Essay,Work/Life

I was asked to summarize my situation as a potential “human interest” story…so I wrote the following copy. Some of this is clearly redundant with previous blog posts… Dave Atkins is a veteran of the up and down world of start up companies. Prior to his current job, he worked in Silicon Valley during the [...]

3 comments

This economic downturn is different from 2002, especially in the tech/internet space because of how people are responding to it. I was speaking with a reporter from TheStreet.com yesterday who was interviewing me about my layoff situation, and it struck me that perhaps my outlook is not uniquely optimistic, but shared by many others. I’m [...]

5 comments

I had the opportunity to speak with a local reporter about my layoff and search for work. One of his questions was whether I had advice for other people. I was hesitant. I don’t have a complete success story to tell yet, but I can describe what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I [...]

12 comments

Update 2/20/09: The policy I purchased, after the long analysis below, turns out to not satisfy the minimum requirements of Massachusetts law. It fails to provide insurance adequate for an individual to avoid paying the penalties Massachusetts imposes on individuals who fail to purchase health insurance. If you are willing to pay those penalties, you [...]

14 comments

Massachusetts has some of the best social insurance programs of any state, but a confusing array of choices and misinformation makes it impossible for many to get the help they need. The process is needlessly complicated, but could be fixed with a checkbox. A few weeks ago, I blogged about what I’ve learned about the [...]

10 comments

Waiting on the Phone

by Dave Atkins on March 11, 2009

in Advice to Unemployed,Work/Life

This is not a blog about unemployment. But many laid-off individuals have told me they found my posts helpful, and I hope that has made things slightly better for them. I want to illustrate another problem and solution here that I hope gets the attention of someone who can do something about it… This morning, [...]

14 comments