Off Topic: Cruise v. Hanks

I am on record as stating Tom Cruise is the finest Amercian actor of the last 30 years.

I am also frequently mocked for holding this position. 

Recently, in a fascinating Twitter group discussion, (well chronicled here by Lance Haun), a Mr. Tom Hanks was proposed as at least a rival to Mr. Cruise in this regard. I stipulated that Hanks deserved consideration.Negative Ghost Rider, the pattern is full

So for today's Off Topic post, I am breaking down the filmography (selected) of both of these venerable actors, to determine once and for all who deserves the title of 'Greatest American actor of the last 30 years', (admittedly a meaningless title that I made up). And since this is my meaningless title to bestow, I have created an equally meaningless basketball-themed model to frame the assessment.

So here we go:

Hall of Fame Caliber - the three greatest films for each actor

Cruise - Top Gun, A Few Good Men, Jerry Maguire

Hanks - Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, Cast Away

Advantage - Push. Gump is a legendary film, but over time Cruise's work is holding up well. And all three Cruise films still resonate with quotes, catch phrases, etc. Only Gump registered in the American psyche in that way.

All Star - the next three best films

Cruise - Minority Report, Born on the Fourth of July, Risky Business

Hanks - Philadelphia, BIG, Sleepless in Seattle

Advantage - Cruise, but it is close. Risky Business clearly head and shoulders above anything Hanks did in the first few years of his career as well.

Solid Starter - films that are not necessarily great, but are eminently watchable AND re-watchable

Cruise - The Last Samurai, Mission Impossible, Collateral

Hanks - The Green Mile, A League of Their Own, Apollo 13

Advantage - Hanks, but close. I wanted to go with Cruise mainly on the strength of Collateral, but from top to bottom Hanks' depth and quality rates the edge.

Rotation player - films that will do in a pinch, like if your cable goes out but you find an old DVD lying around

Cruise - Rain Man, The Color of Money, Cocktail

Hanks - Splash, The Money Pit, You've Got Mail

Advantage - Cruise, easily. All three Hanks films are forgettable, while both Rain Man and The Color of Money are very solid, could even be higher on the chart type works.

Rookie - their early films, a sign of future potential

Cruise - Taps, The Outsiders, All The Right Moves

Hanks - Bachelor Party, The Man With One Red Shoe, Volunteers

Advantage - Cruise, and it isn't close. Bachelor Party is a classic, but it is the only memorable film of the bunch. All the Right Moves is very underrated.

Draft busts - the worst or most disappointing films in their catalogue

Cruise - Vanilla Sky, Eyes Wide Shut, Rock of Ages

Hanks - Joe Versus the Volcano, The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Terminal

Advantage - Push. These are all horrible, horrible films. 

The Overall Winner?

CRUISE, in a fairly close contest. 

And sure, I was a little biased coming in. And yes, I did not include 'voice' parts where Toy Story might have factored in Hanks favor. But I think the depth of Cruise's work gives him the decision. Feel free to disagree in the comments.

So that is it. As far as I am concerned this case is closed.  And probably should never have been opened.

Have a great weekend!

Off Topic: The Joker

You know the famous song 'The Joker' by the Steve Miller Band?

The one that goes 'I'm and joker, I'm a smoker, I'm a midnight toker...'

Sure you do.  It is a designated earworm of the first degree. 

Well early last year at the Recruiting Innovation Summit, the great George Anders, while giving a talk about just how difficult we often make our recruiting efforts by virtue of an overbearing list of job 'requirements', showed the following image - a Venn diagram of the classic song to illustrate just the kind of trap we set for ourselves and our organizations:

 

George's point, and one so cleverly depicted in the 'Joker' Venn diagram, was that with every additional requirement (smoker, sinner, etc.), added to the job description, the universe of matching candidates diminishes to the point that only a very few 'hard' requirements are needed to make the candidate pool almost impossibly small.

In the case of the 'Joker', as it turns out, the only matching candidate for the role is Steve Miller himself.

I loved the presentation by George, and this chart is a classic - the next time you feel like you are faced with a hiring manager or executive that has more than what seems reasonable, (or likely to even exist), requirements for an open role, you should think about sharing this diagram with them and then have a frank talk about whether a 'grinner' is really needed for the job.

That's it - I am out for the weekend.

Playin' my music on the run...

Thirteen versions of the same thing

Neat piece on a photography blog called Canonblogger a few days back titled 'Can You Shoot Thirteen Views?' which challenged readers, I'm assuming them all to be fairly serious photography enthusiasts, to pick an object or scene, anything really, and shoot thirteen different photos of the object, adjusting and changing lighting, exposure, etc. to create a collection of similar but slightly different images of said object.Source - Canonblogger

The point of the exercise? That the simple process of creating 13 versions of the original image, or new takes on the existing idea for the image, is likely to produce something much more interesting and valuable than what existed at the starting point.

From the Canonblogger piece:

Go get your camera and pick some random object in your room, office, or wherever you happen to be. Now what?

Take 13 pictures of that object. Make each one different! Change the angle, change the light, change the object itself. It doesn't matter what you do, just do 13 different things. I can guarantee you that at least one of those photos will be something new, unique and even compelling.

Kind of a neat and really simple exercise, particularly given the near-zero cost of digital imaging today, (each additional picture on the camera's memory card costs essentially nothing), and considering the amazingly accessible and powerful tools and apps like Instagram that are available to photographers of all skill levels.  Creating 5 or 10 or even 20 'versions' of an image has never been more possible and approachable.

Why bother? Well as the post suggests, the more images one takes of an object, the numbers do increase the likelihood of creating something new and compelling, that much seems obvious. But for me, there also might be a lesson about our perceived capability to experiment, speculate, and explore in other areas beyond simple digital photography.

Most everything we do, projects, processes, even technology development, seems to start from a fixed place - a given set of assumptions, circumstances, work that has gone on before we get our hands on whatever mess opportunity we are inheriting. That starting point, maybe 'Image 1' in the 13 images example above, often determines a large part of the eventual outcome of the endeavor, sort of the old 'Where you end up depends on where you start' gimmick.

If you buy-in to that theory, or at least suspect it might have some truth to it, then taking perhaps just a bit of extra time at the start, to challenge assumptions, to examine more closely the status quo, to really honestly assess whether constraints are real or just imagined might prove valuable and open up a wider range of possibilities, and eventual outcomes as well.

The 'Take 13 images' example reminds us, even simple things like objects often can tell much different stories when viewed just a little bit differently. If that is true for static objects, it is no doubt true for the more complex ideas and relationships and technologies that you might be working today with as well.

Have a Great Weekend!

Off Topic - The Highlights of the Olympics

I am on record as not caring about the Olympic. I much prefer traditional American team sport where we crown the our champions as 'World Champions', even though all the teams are based in the USA, (or Canada, which I think technically is a part of Michigan).

So that said, and while still trying to remove from my scarred corneas the few minutes of team synchronized swimming I stumbled upon last wee - here are my two (video) highlights from the recently concluded, (are they still going on), Summer Olympics.

In category one, advertising, hands down the winner has to be this Nike spot, reminding us that there just might be greatness in all of us. (email and RSS subscribers click through to check the video).

I dig that kid and the message, (call me a sucker if you like).

And in category two, and just about the coolest thing you'll see this weekend, a dramatic re-enactment of World's Fastest Man Usain Bolt's victory in the 100m dash, rendered in that most evocative and emotional medium - LEGO stop motion, (email and RSS subscribers click through to check the video)

Amazing right?

Anyway, farewell Olympics for now, I can't wait, (kidding), to see you again for the Winter games in a couple of years and pretend I care about Nordic Combined.

Have a fantastic weekend!

Off Topic - A Better Way to Share Your Bio?

Grinding to the end of a long week and was close to bailing on the Friday post, (Shock!), and then late last night I caught this piece on Mashable, 'Turn Your Personal Data Into an Interactive Infographic', and clicked through to Vizifiy, a new service that takes your social footprint, (at least the parts on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Foursquare), and turns it into a neat, interactive, multi-page infographic.

Here is the summary page of my Vizify bio: (click for a larger image)

I've seen a few of these kinds of dynamic, graphical profile builders before, but I think I like Vizify the most of what I have seen so far because it's multi-page design sort of takes the viewer through a bit of a story - from a clickable summary, to professional history, to a set of keywords used frequently on Twitter, and even to a view of the places most frequented as interpreted from Foursquare check-ins.

Most of the individual pages can be edited by the user, as well as the display order and some of the content of the auto-generated pages, that again are pulled from existing information on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. But even with that limited capability to shape or personailze the Vizify infographic, it still does present personal, social network information in a cool and interesting way.

I know, before you get all up in my grill, I know the traditional resume is a long way from being rendered irrelevant by fancy infographic tools like Vizify, or even the more pedestrian and accepted LinkedIn profile.  But one day, eventually, and maybe because this is just me wanting this to be true so I don't ever have to help my 11-year old son write a ridiculous two-page summary of his life one day, I hope that tools like Vizify, and whatever comes next, will eventually serve as a suitable and more complete personal history/bio/reflection and then all the resume coaches can finally find something better to do with their time.

Vizify is still in beta, you can sign up for an invite here, let me know if you get a chance to play with the tool and what you think about the dynamic, infographic profile replacing the traditional resume?

Have a Great Weekend!