Using Social Media Without Hurting Your Career or Company

Facebook and many other forms of Internet social media offer us a unique opportunity to enhance what should be a carefully crafted image for ourselves and our business. There is currently no cost for having a Facebook page.

Facebook offers an instant opportunity to communicate; your intended audience need not be sitting at computers to get the message. When a summer concert had to be canceled because or rain last year, we turned to Facebook to get the word out. We also used local print and broadcast media. It's certainly safe to say that online social media give us one more channel of communication.

So why do some people misuse this relatively new channel? I'm talking about the people who take personal beefs public by using Facebook. If you are perturbed with someone, call them, e-mail them, or write a letter. Keep it between the two of you. But don't put it out there for the whole world to see n Facebook.

When you do, the message you deliver is: "I'm so angry I can't see straight and I'm going to embarrass the person or persons I'm angry with by posting it on Facebook."

Few people would argue that this particular approach is just not professional.

Don't sabotage your career or your company image by letting your anger show. We still have other means of communication at our command. Use these to resolve problems and disputes. You only hurt yourself when you make it public.

Use Facebook to reinforce your company's brand and to communicate essential messages, including public thank you notes (do you still send written notes?). But it's not the place to argue with or embarrass someone.

Keep it businesslike!

Family Talk about Future Careers

When I was a teenager, most girls had no idea how broad their career choices really were; we grew up in two-parent families with mothers who rarely worked outside the house. If they did, they were teachers, secretaries, nurses or retail workers. Not one girl in my high-school graduating class became an engineer, welder, architect or builder.

But they could have. Today, the choices for boys and girls are broad and wide and exciting. There are careers - web designer, for example - we never dreamed of a few decades ago.

There's a lot of talk and action in our community today that centers around training local people for local jobs. Company leaders say they want to hire local. But they - and we - need parents to talk to this children about the wide choices of jobs available locally. From CNC machinist to chemist, from welder to college instructor, our community offers a vast array of employment opportunities for people with the right training.

And we've got training, whether it's at UW-Marinette, Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, in high-school shop classes, or on the job. You can get trained for a good solid career (and as a result, experience a high quality of life) right here in Marinette-Menominee.

But, kids and parents, you've got some exploring to do. And the holidays are a good time to start the process by talking and thinking.

Parents, find a natural opening in the conversation to bring up the subject of careers. Kids, think about what your interests are, what you like to do and how you want to live. Use the Internet to check local job listings. Check our Web page at www.mandmchamber.com for a list of jobs and a list of local companies.

Check with NWTC or UW-Marinette about training and education. Both campuses have experts on staff who can give you information to get you started. Don't forget the guidance office at your own school. Talk to neighbors and relatives. Call the chamber (715-735-6681) and we'll talk to you.

I'm betting most local companies would love to give you information about the jobs they offer. They may offer you a tour or hook you up with a job shadow or mentor.

It's never to early to start thinking about the future. It should be a conversation for parents AND children.

Get started now over Christmas dinner.

And Merry Christmas to you!

A Sense of Place - and a Sense of Belonging

These days, nearly every city of every size has some combination of well-known "Big Box" stores and smaller franchises. These businesses offer value and give us a sense of comfort when we travel. We know what we'll find there.

But downtowns offer something different - a sense of place, or at least the place that once was. Because many downtowns have lost their retail stores and have turned into service centers. That's OK, because we all need those services, whether they sell insurance, offer the latest hair styles, or dinner on the town.

We're lucky here, because our local downtowns have retained more than a smattering of retail, along with those essential service outlets. In Marinette and Menominee, you can buy a book, a fashionable sweater or handbag, a piece of unusual jewelry or a home decor item. The merchant you buy from is your neighbor, your friend, your friend's neighbor, or the spouse of one of your son or daughter's teachers.

When you buy from them you are ensuring that 68 cents on every dollar you spend stays here in the Marinette and Menominee area. It goes to other local merchants, to non-profits, to church collection plates.

It builds community - that sense of belonging to something bigger, in our case, a lovely little town that happens to straddle a state line.

True, downtowns don't do what they used to do: Give you a chance to see everyone you know out shopping. But they still retain that sense of place, that unique feeling that says Marinette, Menominee, Peshtigo or further afield.

So in these waning days of the shopping season, please visit our downtowns as well as other local retail outlets scattered around Marinette and Menominee. There's no better way to recapture the feeling we had as kids, the wonderful feeling of wishing Merry Christmas to someone you know who happens to sell dishwashers or bracelets or paint - or whatever.

And remember that shopping doesn't end on December 24!

Dedicated to Making a Difference.

Jon Kukuk of Nestegg Marine is retiring from his post as chamber representative on the Marinette County Tourism Alliance.

He will be missed.

Jon has been an integral part of the chamber for at least two decades. He has served on the board of directors and as the board’s president in 1998-99. He also chaired the tourism alliance, and has helped the chamber and the county work together through a contract to promote tourism, funded by a half-percent sales tax the county levies.

Jon been my go-to person for all things related to tourism since I joined the chamber staff in July of 2007. Did I mention that he was the first volunteer to pay me a visit on my first day of work? He was so early that I wasn’t even there yet.

That’s Jon – always above and beyond. He’s the best.

Three years ago, Jon gave up a weekend to build an office for our tourism director. He recruited a helper - an experienced colleague - and the two worked for several days to make two rooms out of one, building a wall and move numerous fixtures, including a door. Jon gave up a weekend to work on the project. A weekend just before Christmas, I should add. How many people would do that?

In my experience, Jon is a rarity.

He is persistent, works hard and tries always to take the high road. It is my understanding that he wrote our current chamber bylaws, which were approved about 18 months before I came on board. He’s a part of us and always will be, even though he's more involved now in professional marina and clean water projects.


Jon has truly made a difference for the chamber and the tourism community.

-Mary Johns, IOM, Executive Director/CEO

Business lessons from Steve Jobs, the Beatles and Wayne Gretzky

Being an unabashed fan and supporter of all things Apple and Macintosh, I joined the rest of the world in mourning the all-too-young death of technology entrepreneur and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs two months ago. I’ve never met the guy and I rarely gave him a second thought, even while using an iPad, an iPod and a Macbook Pro on a daily basis.

But in the last two months I’ve learned a lot about him.

Turns out he was quite a layered character, at times both mercurial and deliberate, churlish and kind. Complex, as we all are.

Blunt and sometimes plainspoken, Jobs was had an interesting and often unconventional approach to both business and life. He was highly quotable. Arguably his most popular quotation is probably the advertising slogan “Think Different.”

These two words – though technically grammatically incorrect – can be applied to our changing and challenging life today. The past several years and the worldwide economic crisis have changed our lives, at least temporarily while we weather the storm. Our expectations may need to be adjusted; to meet whatever challenges face us, we need to think different, be more creative, try new strategies.

Sometimes our focus needs to be narrowed, our mission honed in on, in order to achieve success. Jobs understood this and when he retook the helm of a weakened Apple in the late 1990s, reportedly cutting back on the many items Apple was then producing, to concentrate on doing a few things well.

Early in life, I was exposed to this approach. My father, who was in the restaurant business, one told me to beware of restaurants with menus that went on forever. “The smaller the menu, the higher the quality,” he told me.

Sometimes – but not always – it is best to focus on what your company does best, and resist the urge to diversify. To do this takes a thorough understanding of your company’s product or service, its values and its customer needs. Listening to your customers is key.

(That wasn’t necessarily Jobs’ approach, I should point out. He eschewed focus groups, and considered himself and his company as tastemakers. “We’ll tell them what they should like,” was his philosophy.)

Jobs, a Beatles fan, once pointed out how the Fab Four worked as a team, complementing each other and working together to produce a great product: Music people of all ages know and love.

The Beatles were successful because they worked as a unit, Jobs noted.

“Great things in business are never done by one person, they are done by a team of people,” he said.

One more thing: A few years back, Jobs said, “There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' And we've always tried to do that at Apple.”

Think different, work together and skate where the puck is going to be.

-Mary Johns, IOM, Executive Director and CEO

(Reprinted from Memo, the chamber's quarterly newsletter.)

Building Community - by Committee

December used to be a fairly quiet month here at the chamber. That is no longer the case. In fact, we have no quiet times - too much going on.

Our work increased - and we're happy about this - recently when our board decided, yes, we do want to build a strong committee structure. So we are asking our board members to serve on committees and task forces that help build a stronger chamber and a stronger business community.

Some people dread committees - I'm not one of them. I like working with people and I like the give and take that produces innovation and new ideas. Last summer, I took a bonus course at Institute for Organization Management that I think will help us organize and implement productive committees - and build teamwork along the way.

By its very definition, a chamber is an organization of people working together to help businesses flourish and to build the kind of community that fosters successful businesses. The latter is the very underpinning of good economic development. We've got to create the kind of community that nurtures success.

And our board members - the people who govern the chamber - will become leading participants in this nurturing process.

In addition to our executive committee, which is made up of chamber officers, and our Education & Business Partnership, which is made up of educators and businesspeople, we are creating a Business and Development Committee, a Chamber Development Committee and a Public Affairs Committee.

From these new groups will spring sub-committees and task forces that will help us build a chamber of substance and significance that truly serves the business sector and the community as a whole.

I'll keep you posted on our progress. Meanwhile, we are seeking chamber members to staff these committees. Please call me at 715-735-6681 if you would like to help.

Happy December!

What We've Done for You Lately - and What We're Doing

I often get asked to define a chamber and what it does for business and the community.

This isn’t as odd as it sounds: Every chamber in the world is a little bit different from the others. It must be, in order to serve the unique community it represents.
Overall, a chamber of commerce is a business membership organization that promotes economic and community development, working in a collective manner through committees, networking and idea sharing.

Chambers of commerce bring people together to discuss and find solutions for common challenges. A good chamber works toward creating partnerships, so as not to duplicate efforts.

We do economic development, but it’s not necessary the part of economic development that you seen. It’s behind the scenes work, or as one of our Chamber Ambassadors put it, “It’s like an iceberg and what the chamber does is often below the surface.”

A good chamber evolves with the changing needs of the community and I think we’ve done a pretty good job in that area. One of the needs that we’ve been targeting lately is the need to make you people aware of all the training and job opportunities that exist locally. We’ve heard again and again that local industries want to hire area residents with a commitment to the community.

Our staff and volunteers work extensively with local schools to encourage connections between officials and business, teachers and businesses and students and businesses. One goal is to teach kids about careers, life management skills, business and local job opportunities.
We also strive to help young people develop valuable work skills and make connection with adults who can help mentor them or serve as role models. Another goal is to keep our young people in the community to get the education and training to fill local jobs.

The chamber supports buying locally and retaining local businesses. Our members have told us they want learning opportunities that give them the skills to keep their businesses well managed and their bottom line healthy.

The chamber supports tourism and small business as well as industry. We manage tourism under a contract with Marinette County. In 2008 we formed a small business council to bring learning and networking opportunities to small businesses. We work in tandem with NWTC and UW-Marinette to bring training opportunities and more to larger businesses.

A good chamber is a work in progress.

And we are.

Reaching Parents and Students

Today's EagleHerald landed on the doorstep with an ominous thump. "Fed chief delivers grim news: Bernanke says economy is 'close to faltering'"

"America has a jobs crisis," the article went on to say.

Fortunately in our community, the news is more positive. Employment in local industries is generally up, after taking a tumble at the end of 2008.

We have jobs. Just about any job you can train for, we've got, from highly-skilled maintenance specialist to research and development engineer. Our factories are clean environments. Machines do the work now; workers run machines.

In our community, you can have a pretty good life working in the industrial sector. But it's not the only choice.

You can get an associate's degree in a variety of exciting fields at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. You can get a liberal arts education that prepares you for life by giving you the skills to think and solve problems. You can also get a four-year degree, thanks to UW-Marinette's partnerships with baccalaureate-granting colleges. You can take college credits in high school. You can try on careers by getting a summer job in a local business.

It's a pretty good time to be a young person in the Marinette Menominee area. Our challenge is getting the word out.

Over the past several days at two separate economic development summits, I've heard local experts say that we've got to reach parents, we've got to tell them that there are many more choices locally than some of them realize.

Our Business & Education Partnership, a group made up of business people, local school officials and former teachers, already works with 8th graders, high-school sophomores, upperclassmen, new educators and school boards. Now it's time to identify ways to bring parents into the picture.

I'm looking forward to this challenge! Stay tuned: I'll keep you in the loop.

The Business-Education Connection

Kudos to our friends at Nicolet Bank for arranging a Business-Education forum that brought industry and school leaders together for a stimulating panel discussion on Sept 29 at Little River Country Club.

Even those of us who have been involved in the conversation between industry and schools for many years left that meeting with new ideas and new challenges. Preparing our students for the jobs our community offers is everybody's responsibility.

Earlier in the week, the chamber and its members welcomed more than two dozen new teachers at an early-morning breakfast. This year, we assigned guests to tables, ensuring that teachers were paired with business leaders. Our goal was to further open the channels of communication between plant managers, bank presidents, and business owners and the dedicated teachers who educate our children.

The conversation will continue Tuesday at the Northwoods Economic Summit at UW-Marinette. This annual event focuses on workforce and economic development. The topic has taken on greater urgency this year as many if not most of our industries are thriving.

There are jobs locally in just about every field, from CNC machining to accounting. We are fortunate to have two colleges that can train young people to do these jobs.

I've never been more excited about the future of our community! As an area native whose roots here go back to the 1860s, I'm happy my husband and I returned to our home towns to live and work. I'm proud of our thriving businesses and our dedicated educators.

I'm equally proud of the chamber volunteers who have worked diligently to forge relationships between business and education to help our students thrive. Read more about their efforts here.

One Community with a State Line that Really Doesn't Matter

The Marinette-Menominee area may be the center of our world, but that's not the case for someone born, say, in Boston, Mass., or Fresno, Cal.

So when I was in college in Madison and I told someone from afar that I was from Marinette-Menominee, they asked me, "What's that?"

My reply was always the same: "It's two cities in two states, but really it's one big community."

I still believe that. In fact, I believe that more than ever. I know it to be a fact. So do a lot of other people.

That's what I was surprised a few weeks back when someone apologized to me for something happening on one side of the river and not the other. I didn't see a need for an apology, just because my house happens to be in Marinette.

What's good for one city is good for another. No one - well, no one who gets it - is keeping tabs on which city scores more new residents or more new jobs. For many years, people traveled across the state line to work, go to school, date, and marry. In fact, that's how I came to consider both cities my home town: My parents came from either side, went to Our Lady of Lourdes, and raised their four children in both states at one time or another.

I would be hard pressed to choose sides. In fact, I would not. I could not. But I have to live somewhere and my husband (a Menominee native like me) happened to own a home on the Wisconsin side.

The M&M Game is just two months away. Yes, this long-standing rivalry between Marinette and Menominee high schools is a lot of fun, and even for a Catholic Central alum like me, there's excitement in the air during M&M Week. It's one week out of the year.

Cheer for your team. Fight like crazy. But when something good happens on the other side of the river, cheer for that, too.

Because when one city wins, so does the other.

See you at Waterfront Festival!

As my grandmother used to say, "There's big doings downtown this weekend."

Yes, this is the big weekend the entire community looks forward to: Waterfront Festival.

One the festival grounds are marked off by fences and the tents start to appear, the excitement is palpable, even a few days before the festival begins.

Downtown Menominee, a lovely place all year long, is especially exciting in summer when it's awash with visitors who come by boat or care to enjoy our marina and the natural air conditioning the bay offers on sweltering days.

But it's especially fun come Waterfront Festival.

The festival is now a few years away from entering its third decade. The chamber has always been involved, beginning back in the mid-1980s when Nancy Douglas and the former Menominee Chamber of Commerce spearheaded the event, which began when the city of Menominee celebrated its centennial in 1983. We were delighted last year when Nancy again became festival chairperson and we tip our hats to her and the hard-working committee, which includes our own Joe Plautz who ran the festival in 2009.

Each year brings some changes and a few tweaks, but Waterfront Festival has become one of the longest-running community institutions in recent memory.

Some people go down for the food, others the entertainment, still others to see and be seen by old friends who are back in town just for the festival. Even if you don't spend the better part of every day at the festival, it's exciting to know it's down there if you want it.

Summer weekends are always busy in our community, but somehow Waterfront weekend marks a turning point. It's high summer, and after this weekend, we'll begin to see hints of the coming season. And that's a whole other story.

Enjoy the festival. We'll see you there!

Why Summer Concerts Matter

As I write this, it's cloudy and not terribly warm outside, but after the lovely weekend just past and more good weather to come, a gloomy day is palatable - more palatable that it was a week ago when we had a string of gray days to endure.

Our first concert of the year on beautiful Stephenson Island in Marinette was postponed until a later date due to wind and rain, but skies should be clear on Thursday night for our first Concert in the Park on the Bandshell in Menominee's equally lovely Great Lakes Memorial Marina Park.

Our staff members Joe Plautz and Sandi Brumbaugh work had to make these concerts happen. Our members businesses generously sponsor them. We make a concerted effort to concentrate on local and area entertainers because we believe the concerts are all about appreciating our area's assets.

How many cities have both a riverfront and a bay shore? How many cities have an island in the middle of town and one of the most beautiful marinas on the Great Lakes?

We are darned lucky to claim these natural resources. We are fortunate, too, that good entertainment is within our reach. By choosing local and regional bands, we've found another way to shop local.

By attending an outdoor concert this summer - Peshtigo and Wausaukee have them, too - you are not only supporting our efforts to shop locally first, you are helping us create a sense of community.

That sense of community is what helps us work together. And that, my friends, is what chambers of commerce are all about.

Report from Midwest Institute for Organization Management

>Whew! It's 92 degrees in Madison today, but inside air-cooled Grainger Hall (a new addition to campus since my graduation from Big Red), more than 100 chamber of commerce and association executives and managers are attending "chamber school," the Institute for Organization Management.

"Institute" teaches business leaders how to instill the very best practices in organization management: In the required 96 hours of courses, we are kept updated on legal, financial, governance, communications, leadership, electronic communication, advocacy, team-building, human resources and consensus building issues and techniques.

We hear each year how protecting the organization from costly missteps is one of the CEO's primary objectives. We learn how to do it the right way. We find out what we can do better to serve our members and to strive for excellence.

You can't run a chamber without it.

Our class started out in 2008 - the year floods inundated southern Wisconsin - as 30 chamber managers. The following year, our ranks diminished due to the weak economy, but we were joined by about 15 organization executives. We'll graduate together at the end of this session, but we will no doubt continue to share ideas by e-mail and social media.

It's always good to be back in Madison, even when it's sweltering and humid. It's especially exciting to face a second graduation here, and come away with ideas and strategies for building a stronger chamber to help our members grow and thrive into the future.

Your Business is Our Business

Nearly 18 months ago, we asked you, our members, what direction you want us to take.

Here’s what you said: Spend more time on business development. Offer more opportunities to help us grow our businesses. Enlarge the chamber’s roll in local education efforts.

I’m pleased to report that we are moving in that direction. Many of the community events the chamber was coordinating in years past are in the capable hands of other organizations or individuals. We are concentrating on business!

Thanks to partnership with UW-Marinette and Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, we’ve offered some great new programs.

In the past month alone, nearly two dozen members attended our Cross Cultural Communications Skills workshop at NWTC. During the workshop, conducted by Alem Asres, director of campus diversity for NWTC, participants discussed how to communicate appropriately with a wide range of people.

A week later, we held a workshop aimed at helping businesses determine if they should work with the federal government and its prime contractors. This was another great partnership with the Wisconsin Procurement Institute, the Procurement Technical Assistance Center of Michigan, the Small Business Association and NWTC.

Both of these programs are aimed at helping local businesses handle and benefit from the growth associated with Marinette Marine’s partnership with Lockheed Martin to build more littoral combat ships for the US Navy.

Our May Business for Breakfast featured Lisa Nyquist and Kathy Leone from Northern Initiatives, a Marquette, Mich.-based private, non-profit organization that offers small business loans and provides information and training for small businesses. (We liked the group’s Profit Mastery Class, a 16-hour training program that helps business owners use financial statements as management tools, understand and predict cash flow and plan for and manage growth. If this sounds like a course you can use, call us and we’ll put you in touch with Northern Initiatives.)

Finally, I’m delighted to announce that the chamber is piloting a Teacher Leadership Academy, similar to our Community Leadership Academy. Offered for the first time this summer, TLA will give teachers a chance to get inside area businesses and industries, develop relationships with plant managers and business leaders, share information gleaned from job shadow experiences, and finally, create a classroom project that links curriculum to area businesses.

This new program is a partnership with UW-Marinette’s Department of Continuing Education. Area teachers, school administrators, manufacturers and business people worked together to help develop it. Teachers will earn 3.2 Continuing Education Credits for their participation.
Finally, I want to mention how hard our Chamber Ambassadors have worked on a Shop Local awareness campaign that now includes lapel buttons urging people to buy locally. In the past, we’ve used billboards, Facebook, news releases and window decals. Now, you can show people everywhere you go that you care about local businesses. The buttons were donated by some of the Ambassadors themselves: That’s dedication!

We continue to solicit your input. We are currently working on revamping this publication. Watch for a readership survey sent to you by e-mail in the weeks ahead.

Meanwhile, drop by on weekdays between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., call, e-mail or message of via Facebook or our Website (www.mandmchamber.com). We want to hear from you!

Customer Service Jobs Can be Keys to Success

I wasn't surprised when a majority of the responses in our Job Outlook Survey came from service provider businesses.

Sales and customer service jobs, it turns out, are going strong in our community.

We all provide one service or another, and even large industries have customer service departments. At the chamber, we consider ourselves a customer service office, and we like to think we make friends one customer at a time. Helping someone find a location on a map, helping them find a phone number, or referring them to a member business are some of the services we provide.

A few years ago, a woman came in looking for 12 copies of a Door County guidebook. Since we exchange promotional material with Door County, we had some to give her. We could have sent her to the Marinette Welcome Center, something we do when we don't have the tourism material that a visitor wants. But we had 12 copies so why not save her a trip? I knew she had recently experienced some health issues and I wanted to make obtaining these books convenient for her. That, to my way of thinking, is customer service.

Customer service related jobs can be stressful, to be sure, but they can also be extremely satisfying. There is nothing quite like helping someone obtain information, solve a problem, or get results. And that's what customer service is all about.

A good customer service provider is a gem. I've heard local employers say when they find a good one, they'll try hard to keep that person on staff. After all, good customer service is often what helps a business get ahead of the competition. I don't care if I have to pay a little more for an item if I know I will have good customer service after the sale.

In our survey, our members are telling us customer service jobs will be fairly plentiful this year. They may go by different names, so look carefully: Service rep, front counter, account manager, or community relations representative. All those jobs and others require customer service skills.

There will be jobs throughout our community in 2011 - and not just in the shipbuilding industry. That's good news for people who've been recently downsized, or are new in town because their spouses fund work here.

The key is remaining flexible. The skills you acquire and fine tune in a customer service job will help you in whatever job you end up in down the line. With a customer service job, you learn to build relationships, listen, solve problems, think creatively and build a reputation for your employer. Every single one of those skills is applicable to just about every job in the world.

Many years ago, I found myself downsized from a publishing job with an Atlanta company. I explored job openings in marketing, editing, technical writing, graphic design and other areas I was familiar with, but ended up in a customer service job. I helped patients find doctors, and then I helped them resolve issues they ran into while receiving care. The skills I gained and polished have stayed with me for more than two decades. It wasn't the easiest job, it certainly wasn't without its stressful moments. But I left the office every night feeling good. And I learned a lot.

In grade school I read a story about a teen-aged girl who learned from a famous violinist to do everything well, no matter how important or unimportant it seemed. The idea was to do it well. Some people may think customer service jobs lack prestige.

I disagree. I don't think there's any job as important as the one that relates to helping people.

How to Survive a Job Search

I'm reading Help Wanted ads these days, hoping to find job matches for a growing number of friends and acquaintances who have recently found themselves downsized.

A few years back, our large industries took a hit, laying off workers by the dozens. At one point, by my calculations, we had hundreds of people out of work. It's gratifying to report that many of those people have been called back to work, thanks to contracts and expansions.

But now, a fair share of people in marketing, customer service, sales and management are out of work.

Earlier this year, the chamber added a Help Wanted page to its Web site (www.mandmchamber.com). We post ads for our members at no cost - it's a benefit of membership. We've also added corporate Web sites for several area companies that offer job listings and we will continue to do so.

Meanwhile, what if you've been laid off? Now what?

The experts to tell you not to give in to the desire to mourn your job by wallowing in self pity, hiding out at home, and eating comfort food. They tell you to hit the ground running in your search for another job. We agree. But we also think a few creature comforts might be in order. Certainly a bit of comfort food helps!

Here are a few tips, gleaned from a variety of sources:

Keep busy. Once you've got your resume updated and are actively looking, find some small projects that are doable and will give you a sense of satisfaction upon completion. Clean a room or a drawer, clean out a closet - whatever. Make sure you get something done every day.

File for unemployment immediately. Having money flowing in will alleviate the stress of not having an office to go to every morning. If you have debts, call your creditors and make payment arrangements. Make sure you have health insurance lined up, if that's an issue.

Get out of the house. Fight the impulse to hibernate. You are not alone. Maintain friendships and professional relationships. Make sure you get some exercise, too.

Network like crazy. Put the word out that you are looking. Ask everyone in your professional circle to keep an eye out for a job that fits your experience.

Learn something new. If you can afford to, take a non-credit course. Read up on branding, or search engine optimization. Keep your skills current, and obtain new knowledge of technology or the Internet. Take up a new hobby, one that keeps your hands busy and eases stress.

Consider a temporary gig. Take on project work, sign on with a temp agency, or start a modest consulting business. One laid-off professional lined up a consulting project even before leaving her job.

Volunteer. Make new friends by reaching out to the community. Help somebody. You may gain new skills and new confidence in yourself.

Keep your chin up. Tom Jackson, a job search guru popular in the 80s, used to say that a successful jobs search is a series of NOs that ends in a YES. Every rejection letter brings you closer to that letter of hire.

You will find a job eventually. It may be different from your last job. I took a job I thought would be temporary - and ended up staying 10 years.

The Perfect Pairing

Occasionally I am asked why the chamber does a wine tasting every year.

The answer is simple!

Our wine tasting is a fund-raising event for chamber operations. Chamber are only partially funded by dues investments. An important part of our operations budget comes from special events and management contracts. Some chamber experts say organizations like ours ought to be 60-80 percent funded by a non-dues revenue stream as a hedge against hard times when some businesses might founder or even go under.

The popular wine tasting and our equally popular golf outing help us raise money to support the chamber's daily operations. Thanks to these events, we've been able to put a new roof on our 43-year-old building and insulate our attic. We've also been able to initiate new programs that help our local business climate thrive.

Moreover, tasting wine has an indirect benefit to many business people. Who hasn't had to take clients out to dinner, or mix and mingle with company bigwigs at social events? Knowing a little about wine so you can order with confidence is an advantage.

About five years ago, I found myself seated next to a CEO at dinner. This world traveler was well-versed in exotic foods and loved to tour wineries. Had I not known a bit about wines, we might have struggled for a suitable conversation topic. As every successful business person knows, keeping abreast with many topics is a must when networking!

Besides, it's just plain fun. The event is always held on a Thursday, a night when the bulk of the work week is behind us and we can all kick back a little bit.

This year's wine list is exciting. The wines are rich and robust. I'm especially excited about an Argentinian Malbec that will pair perfectly with steak. There's also a Riesling I'm looking forward to tasting.

Come join us on Feb. 10 from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the Lauerman House Inn. Tickets, $35 per person, are available at the chamber. Chef Joel Peterson promises tasty finger foods that pair nicely with the wines.

Have fun and support the chamber, too!