(For more Promoting Professional Geekery, see this Roundup of past columns.)
If you want to encourage people to use their hobbies and passions in their careers, start paying them or at least having them do work in kind for you. Or, in short, start fansourcing.
I’ve written about Fansourcing extensively – in my definition it’s using fan/geek connections to get goods and services.
When you fansource things, you perform a great service to professional geeks providing those services – and more:
- You give them a chance to use you as a reference, promoting their career.
- You give them a chance to apply their skills and thus learn more.
- You give them a potential addition to a portfolio or resume.
- You give them a chance for free publicity by being affiliated with you.
- You give them the real experience of applying their skills.
- You pay them or provide some other service for them.
- You promote the idea of fansourcing so others do it (you are doing that, right?)
The result of good fansourcing? Promoting Professional Geekery in a solid, reliable way.
It’s easy to not do this. It’s easy to use a standard business card template or forget that you know the people that provide fansourcing. It takes time to get into the habit, but it’s a worthwhile one.
Do this enough and other people do it. Make sure your fellow geeks get enough time, attetnion, publicity, and money, and their ambitions can be realized.
Sounds worth it to me.
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach for professional and potentially professional geeks, fans, and otaku. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.