Although I spent most of my time editing this year, I managed to squeeze in some writing assignments.
Here are the top 10 stories I worked on this year, and a little bit about what made them special:
Boomers Lead with Business Startups – One of the first features I wrote for SecondAct.com, an online magazine for people over 40 that Entrepreneur Media launched in April, attempted to correct the popular misperception that 20-somethings start the most small businesses. I did it by telling the stories of three entrepreneurs who began companies in their 40s and 50s, using them to exemplify trends I culled from small-business think tanks and industry research reports.
Young Entrepreneurs Get the Glory, but Boomers Start More Tech Ventures – Time just named Mark Zuckerberg its 2010 Man of the Year for bringing Facebook to over a half billion members. Digital natives like Zuckerberg, the main character in The Social Network, are part of the reason why people think “young” when they think “startup.” But as I wrote in this SecondAct.com post, more tech startups are hatched by boomers.
Engineering a Career Change from Factory to Farm – I met Chrissie Manion Zaerpoor, an Intel engineer who started an organic farm with husband Koorosh Zaerpoor, at her stand at a Portland farmer’s market. When I heard about her switch, I knew she’d be a perfect SecondAct story.
Civic Ventures CEO Champions the Encore Career – This is a SecondAct.com mini profile and Q&A with Marc Freedman, the man widely credited with popularizing the notion of civic-minded second acts. Q&As aren’t necessarily the toughest assignments. The hardest part of this one was getting time to talk with him, and then trimming down two lengthy interviews to a manageable size while retaining the essence of Freedman’s comments. The other reason it’s special: when we talked in early September, Freedman had just turned in the manuscript of his latest book, titled The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage between Midlife and Old Age. The subject was still fresh in his mind and mine was the first interview he’d given in months, so it was a scoop of sorts, since he’ll no doubt say a lot of the same things in interviews once the book is out next spring.
How Midlife Job Seekers Can Respond to ‘You’re Overqualified’ – I included this SecondAct post because it represents a sub-niche I carved out for myself this year, covering careers for people at midlife. Even if you’re 45 and you’ve got a degree and a job, you still need to make sure your resume are skills are up to date and you can get along with older and younger coworkers. But if you’re over a certain age and out of work, the odds are a lot tougher you’ll be able to find a position – that’s where I come in.
Brightscope Shines a Light on 401(k) Plans – I’ve been a contributing editor at Crain’s Workforce Management for more than five years. In the past, this HR industry magazine was one of my largest clients; I didn’t write for them as much in 2009 when the recession hit trade magazine advertising and freelance budgets shrank. I wrote for them even less in 2010 after I started my editing gig. But I did write a smattering of news, news analysis and features for them, including this profile of a startup that rates corporate 401(k) plans. This piece is a good example of what I like most in a company profile: meaty details, a splash of history, lots of voices and a little controversy.
H(app)y Days – This 3,000-word Workforce Management feature on how the HR industry is embracing smartphone apps was one of the biggest writing projects I worked on all year. I started doing research in April after I got the assignment, did the bulk of the reporting and writing in August, finished rewrites in early September and saw it in print the following month.
The Yawning of a New Era – I pitched Workforce on this story on employee fatigue after a source I interviewed for a different piece mentioned a survey they’d just finished on the subject. Many people lost jobs in the recession, but workers who held onto theirs got more responsibilities, working longer hours and no assurances they’d still have jobs the next week. The result is stress, fatigue and burnout. I reported on how bad it is, and what some companies are doing about it.
A Little ‘Thank You’ Goes a Long Way – Most of my work on Inside Edge, the corporate finance website American Express and Federated Media launched in March, is editing. But in the site’s early months I wrote a couple stories too. This one allowed me to use my background covering workplace issues. It also let me revisit a subject I’d written about before – employee perks – and give it a new spin suitable for a different audience. As a freelancer, it pays to be able to re-use research, and assembling such stories is always easier because some of the writing you can do from accumulated expertise.
The Oregon Patent Report 2008-2010 – There’s no link for this project, a 5,000+ word white paper on the state of the state’s patent industry, which won’t be published until the first quarter of 2011. I did the bulk of the work on this in summer and fall, and will finish up once the U.S. Patent Office releases 2010 statistics early next year. This is one of the more extensive white papers I’ve worked on. It entailed researching the state’s economy and industries, reading past reports, sifting through patent statistics, interviewing sources, collaborating with multiple representatives of the law firm that commissioned the project, and then pulling everything together into a multi-part document with lots of charts and graphs.