For those wondering why this is news, this is the one man who left Obama speechless and was universally praised and many argued, upstaged the President during his Healthcare summit.

I would respectfully submit that, unscripted and off the cuff, Ryan is the greatest speaker and policy wonk since Lincoln. Bold statement? Watch.

Today is my 41st Birthday. The waitress at the “Eye Candy” bar at the Mandalay Bay assumed I was 30 then guessed a second time at 33. Perhaps she was being kind, or was thinking about the tip-to-compliment ratio. Then again, perhaps I really do look young for my age. My father didn’t wrinkle until his 50′s. Whisps of gray are starting and I’m liking the vibe. The truth is what matters is how I feel. Physically I often feel 50 or worse, the 80 to 100 hour work weeks have more repercussions the day after. Mentally … or in terms of outlook – I do grant myself that older is wiser and it has been a long road of mistakes, mishaps and awkwardness to become “El Dave” as I have been known publicly and as a father to my two children, cabal of three dogs, and as a husband. Each year on this date I pause to take an account of my life, it’s impactfulness and lack thereof. On this occasion – that of my 41st, I sign with a smile more often than with a grimace in that process of analysis. I think the sense of purpose and conviction I’ve not lost over the years has finally shaken hands with a certain self-awareness of accomplishments. I say this because it is best to publicly confess what I would alone deny to myself in prior years and I need to become accustomed to the fact that the Spanish kid from 57 Grove Street in Hackensack, New Jersey didn’t instantaneously go from playing stick ball to spending time in Prague discussing competitive intelligence research capabilities and strategies.

The first 2/3 of life to date was about being uncomfortable in my own skin, and I grant that growing up poor gives you a very different angle to where you fit as much as where you want to be and when you feel comfortable that life has been one well lived.

It’s a process.

My wife will tell you I still have the psyche of someone akin to having lived through the “Great Depression.” I save and I skimp on trinkets for myself in favor of what can I get off the shelf for my 4 year old or getting my son his lunch money. It’s a much bigger, more complicated series of transactions to be sure. Even so, it stems from watching my dad work three jobs back in 1978 – one of them being at a pizza parlor after a full day as a shipping clerk at farbege. It precipated our family’s move to California when I was 9. Had i stayed in that rough and tumble Italian neighborhood where I saw a kid accidently shooting himself on the street and seeing through him … I wonder. Had I continued to see little Italian grannies chasing my best friend with a stick she pulled from a tree to get him off the street … I wonder.

Where would I be?

Pause, reflect and fast forward.

So many instances of where my life was headed in one direction; once upon a time a CIA analyst, an up and coming political aspirant, and once arguing about a new tooth brush purchase — to reboot and start again.

The corporate staffing industry has been my second bride. She has given me many offsprings I referred to as innovation, hope and public service. It has not only put food on my table but allowed me to add entrees to the tables of those known to me and unknown.

I went from recruiter to sourcer to talent strategist. The former being the most fulfilling to genuinely help architect a vision rather than look askance in derision about what could be. I embrace the prospect of solution and experimentation.

I am grateful. I am grateful likewise that I gave as much as I was given – or hope to say someday with warranted reflection accomplished.

All that said, at 41 I will add spontaneity to the “Business Regatta” – a term coined by my good friend , Yves Louiseau, to see and experience life while employing my vocation.

It is a vocation that feeds people, that puts them in the choice of their vehicle class status, and takes them places. It did each of the aforementioned for me and the least I can do is convey its promise to others.

There are more out there. The kids from one neighborhood wondering about the world two blocks ahead. We should all take inventory and be the mentors we would be so fortunate to have experienced in our own lives.

Life is short, it can be sweet if you let it be, and it can be used as a power for good to be impactful for other lives. I am good with that analysis and I embrace it. It’s a happy birthday. The kid from 57 Grove Street has seen street signs in several languages and learned to appreciate all of them.

Thanks Shally, thanks Heidi …. thank you life

I apologize to the masses, but I have been working long hours 7 days a week and preparing to submit an application for a long held goal that will be revealed in the coming months ahead.

Fear not, I live and breathe – but as of late simply toil.

Interviews of colleagues unsung and sung will resurface shortly and all will be well in the world.

By Dave Mendoza, Master Cybersleuth, Affiliate Partner with JobMachine Inc.

Have a great weekend. I think “I’ll watch 3:10 to Yuma” again, then go on a two day camping trip before we welcome the Rehders to view our abode in Castle Rock. Good Times. Speaking of good times, if this doesn’t set your neurons in active mode, what will?

“Apparently this is from Teen Witch. Skip the first 30 seconds or so and go straight to the rapping. I’m at a loss for words on this one.”

View my profile on RecruitingBlogs.com

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By Dave Mendoza, Master Cybersleuth

A little something you didn’t know about me … I am passionate about my love for Spain. Nothing stirs my heart like empenadas and Paella. I last visited much too long ago in the fall of 2000, and after a brief visit to Madrid, I spent the next three weeks in the small coastal town of Torreviejo and proposed to my wife, Heidi, in the Alicante Basilica.

In the “things To Do Before I Die” list I present:

‘BullDoza’s Dream Trip. Hey Shally and Glenn want to Go?

Heidi accepts my love for tomatoes however and will happily oblige me this “Tomatina Bunyol Festival”:

The world’s biggest food fight takes place at the Plaza Del Pueblo in the small town of Buñol in eastern Spain.

La Tomatina happens every year on the last Wednesday in August and is the highlight of a week-long local festival in honor of the town’s patron saint, San Luis Bertràn, and the Virgin Mary. The actual tomato throwing lasts for only two hours between 11am and 1pm

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By Dave Mendoza, Master Cybersleuth

Harry didn’t take it laying down – he knew something more important was at stake in being banned from Facebook for utilizing their application to invite his address book to connect and network.

As someone who lives and breathes social networking as if it was oxygen, I want to take this opportunity to leave no ambiguity where I stand on social networking.

First, You don’t create an app to upload your contacts without announced limits and then punish the user for utilizing the tool exactly as specified. If you create it they will use it, and if you don’t like large uploads of contacts state the limit clearly and by utility tap it out during the processing of the data – no malice is involved, no nefarious conspiracy other than a fan of your social network wanting to shout out to the world that you have relevance in their hearts as the desired preference of choice among other social networks. Period. Harry was processing his address book to do YOU – Facebook – a favor.

Second, there is this crowd that seems to perch itself awaiting opportunities, like this circumstance, to divert the argument into the endless “Is it spam” debate or larger issues such as how recruiters are perceived overall. Wrong case study my friends.

Its not about sides – its about principles. Larger issues come to light:

Is It Networking If?

I subscribe with my whole being that those who argue that networking is about connecting with people you ALREADY know should keep to their Outlook address book and happily email as they please, and I respect that … it’s a matter of the platform. Social networking sites are “Ant Farms” as my buddy, Shally so precisely described it. Let the users formulate the activity within a set boundary and reflect the “open Source” ethos that is every day social activity. We don’t turn away a business card from a stranger because we don’t know him/her, and we don’t refuse a handshake without the awkwardness one would expect. The handshake/business card outreach in daily and common social activity is a perfect metaphor to whether we connect with a stranger online and build a new contact and relationship activity.

For those who subscribe to the alternative, we agree to disagree and you are my respected peers just the same.

About Harry, the unassuming troublemaker that wasn’t

Harry is actually the perfect case study to illustrate the justification for Social Networks and using their rules no less …. Facebook said he could upload his personal address book – PEOPLE HE ACTUALLY HAD A PRIOR RELATIONSHIP WITH – YES, THEY KNEW HARRY, that’s the bottom line. The Facebook app identified his own address book, their argument has no clothes. So for those who subscribeto Socil Networks as their personal “Outlook of already knowns” – he passed the smell test. NO spam to be found when its from a friend who simply invites you to connect, right?

And about this rebel, Harry Joiner: He is among one of the most well respected executive recruiters in this industry who has been repeatedly quoted in the wall street journal, who has the bankroll of placements to add legitimacy to his effectiveness behind his voice, and he is the consummate ‘super nice guy’/ ‘reach out and shake your hand’ phone caller and to have this prototype for social networking treated as disrespectfully as he was with such backfiring effect upon Facebook speaks volumes that recruiters are not merely the lil mice who have roared – we are keeping these new platforms for web 2.o honest.

It’s not the recruitment industry in question – it’s the business that failed its customer. Pure and simple.

Harry you elevated our industry last week, as you do in a daily basis, but this time you did it ever so loudly and articulately. We are indebted to you, and I for one salute you my friend.

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By Dave Mendoza, Master Cybersleuth

El Maestro, Shally Steckerl, Carl “Rotweiler” Chapman, Moises Lopez, each tagged me on this so I can’t let him down. I seem to recall avoiding something like this before so let me try to come up with 8 stupefying, shocking, tabloid quality news flashes about myself that will be the talk of the blogosphere for decades to come!

The Rules:

1) Post these rules before you give your facts.
2) List 8 random facts about yourself.
3) At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names (linking to them)
4) Leave them a comment on their blog letting them know they’ve been tagged!

Eight Random Facts about El Dave:

1. I have two incredible kids, my nearly 15 year old son, Tino, and my nearly 15 month old daughter, Siena Blue. I am Spanish and my wife is Finnish – together my wife amuses herself in saying our kids are “Spinach” – (just laugh along with her). I own the two noisiest barkers in the Rocky Mountains and the biggest wuss dogs a man can own, two Pomeranians, “Reagan” (yes after the Anti Communist champion I met twice) and “Nala” a Finnish name I think attributed to diving in frozen arctic fishing holes (?)

2. Yes the rumors are true. I am a really bad poker player, and I think its particularly funny when I end up being one of the last ones at the table playing. It’s almost as funny as Jason Davis winning each of the last four poker tournaments he put on. I was there from the inside and I can confirm, he won fair and square. I will also be sure to underline that point because no one puts together a mixer like Jason and his wife Michelle.

3. I have been nicknamed “El Dave” ever since I was in university and spoke excitedly about my hero in younger days, “El Cid”

4. I have been lobbying Shally and Stefie to name their baby “El Dave, Davisimo, or “Davina” – oddly enough they haven’t been quite enthused on the array of choices I have served. In classic Shally fashion, the Steckerl’s are lobbying for me to change my name to “Stephan (stay tuned for the glory that could be, will the baby be named after an El Dave Derivative?! Find out on Nov. 28th!) I’m betting against myself here.

5. I did NOT live I Australia, but I am a Europhile. While Shally was eating shrimp on the barbi, I was eating NY style pizza in Hackensack New Jersey until I was 9. It was not until 1998 that I had decent stories to tell of far away lands I’ve traveled, i.e. Sweden, Spain, Finland, Estonia, Czech Republic, etc. My wife and I were engaged in the Basilica of Alicante in the Fall of 2000 and we married twice: first we eloped in a civil ceremony and then I kept my promise to give her a proper wedding amongst friends in her native country of Finland. We had our toasts in the middle of an apple orchard just before a monsoon rain came in. Our wedding song was “At Last” – which is funny because that is the song I sing when I manage to get the kids and the baby stuff in the car.

6. My favorite country traveled thus far is Estonia. A 1.5 hour ferry ride from Helsinki, I was charmed by Tallin, Estonia’s 14th century fortress city, so much so, my wife and I went twice and made it our honeymoon destination. My favorite meals and hospitality was in Prague. The happiest people I ever met were in Spain, nothing says “life is good” like a circle of young college coeds doing a flamenco circle at 4am in the morning. My next overseas target would ideally be Poland to visit war memorials (I’m a history wiz) and I am looking forward to visiting the remainder of Central Europe eventually. If I had a one stop visit, then I would have to say I would finally conquer Barcelona which has eluded me time and again with scheduling conflicts that ended up taking me to some other locale. All that being stated, I hadn’t had a vacation in five years until my wife forced me to. Today my wife, Heidi, is having her heyday in Helsinki with friends she hasn’t seen in three years. See you in 14 days sweetheart! (Psst, if my recruitment colleagues overseas need training in Advanced Sourcing Methods, Shally and I will come visit you your European location of choice!)

7. My favorite food is any variety of wild game (duck, wild boar, venison, spotted owl) with cinnamon wine or a nice sangria with the largest portion of steak that I can handle and then I look forward to basking in the glory of a ceiling fan as I lay in bed groaning in bed asking my wife why she let me eat that. Sadly, I do not jest, I really do that, Heidi, loves to remind me. My other favorite food is more about pure aesthetics – the way food looks on my baby girl, esp when she has gone tribal and made designs throughout her face and hair with the particular meal of the day.

8. My favorite “adult beverage” is a Mohito or an apple martini. My favorite dinner conversation was with Glenn Gutmacher and Shally at Morton’s steak house ERE San Diego, it was noteworthy for the wide array of topics covered and Shally was kind enough to present ‘dessert’ in the form of good tidings of Stefi’s pregnancy. (congrats you two!) My favorite variety show is “America’s Got Talent.” My favorite activity for relaxation is fishing in hip waders in a cold stream looking up at Scraggly Mountain with a nice breeze on a warm day.

Tag Your It!

Recruitment Animal
Steve Rothberg
Dennis Smith
The Chad
Des Walsh
Gerry Crispin
Joel Cheesman
Jason Davis

Have you subscribed to “Six Degrees from Dave” yet? Type your email on the far right corner where it says “Subscribe Me!” and get Pearl off your back!

Thanks Joel Cheesman for introducing this hilarious webvideo to us all

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