Avatar photoSteven Savage

News of the Day 9/17/2009

by

Career:
Is your resume too long? A few thoughts from an experienced recruiter. I wonder if he has a poaint – and if the 'laundry-list' culture of job hunting encourages this.

Economics/Geekonomics/Freakonomics:
Median income has declined in the last decade, but it hasn't been even across states. A little more thought for relocation.

Publishing:
Two Hollywood trade mags aiming to have most online content pay-to-read . (possible with some single-subscription models). Not surprising, but I feel we've been down this path before. If they succeed it will be a blow for paywalls, but I'm not counting on it. The WSJ is prepared to charge starting next week.

GateHouse Media downgraded by Moody's – Suggests it may seek bankrupcy.

Social Media:
Twitter raises a ton of money, valued at 1 billion. The investor is Insight Venture Partners. Venture Partners seems to be a late-game investor, so I think this means Twitter is close to going public or being sold (my guess is within the next 18 months). Public OR sold, that's a huge social media shift coming so watch out if you're in tech, use the tech, or are in a social-media heavy area (like marketing)

Video Games:
Phone games everywhere – Real Networks' Federation of Studios will push games to a huge amount of phone platforms. Apparently Real takes the phone market very seriously (perhaps the recent Apple announcements helped). A boost to game companies and a welcome ally.

Beatles Rock Band sales beating expectations – Included for historical reference, and because the Beatles' are cool.

Lawsuits. Are. Go! A holding company files lawsuit against multiple MMO companies. As they had a successful lawsuit over patent infringement before, this isn't a throwaway case. What's interesting to me is how the company might regard free-to-play MMOs and those with odd billing models.

-Steven Savage

Convention Idea – Engage your technology

by

The roundup of ideas for providing more career/professional elements at conventions is here.

Most of my "convention suggestions" for professional events have focused on, well, the actual conventions themselves.  So as I brainstorm other ideas, something else has come to mind.

Making job and professional elements part of the convention website and forums.  People are going to be going to the website for information and to network on the convention – so add a professional subsectrion if it fits.

Some ideas:
* Add a career section to your forums.  People can discuss jobs, what they'd like to see, etc.  Have people who regularly speak at the con on careers (or organize those events) moderate it.
* Consider a "going pro" section of the website to have pro-attendees network, see events, etc.
* See what kind of job-oriented newsfeeds, job feeds, etc. may be available for the "pro" part of the site or forums.
* Form a mailing list for career-oriented convention information.

There's plenty of other possibilities I doubtlessly haven't come up with.  But if you're going to add serious pro elements to your convention, why not go further with the website?  It'll keep interest, attention, and help promote your ambitious ideas so people get involved.

– Steven Savage

Stereotype-fu: Choose your stereotype!

by

This is going to be the first in an ongoing series of columns on what I call "Stereotype Fu" – the art of using stereotypes to your advantage in your career.

A lot of us fannish and geeky types end up stereotyped – as we well know.  Trekkies, fanboys, lifeless gamers, nerds, fangirls, etc.  We're use to it, and often a little afraid of it – we're used to being viewed negatively due to simple associations, even when the stereotypes are not totally negative (or negative at all).

BOOKS could be written about why this happens.  My simple summary is that on the neutral side people like to find ways to classify things easy, and on the negative side some people need a group to look down on (and that drags into issues of the culture at large).

However, when we're starting businesses, interviewing for jobs, at work, etc. we have to deal with them.

I want to talk about using them to your advantage.

Read more