Avatar photoSteven Savage

News of the Day 8/3/2009

by

Career:
Dan Schwabel on colleges, value, and personal branding – He makes a good and rather disturbing point on how colleges don't prepare people to connect and promote themselves in the career world.

Blogging leads to job opportunities – A NO BS account of how a blogger used his blog and networking to land a job.

Economics/Freakonomics/Geekonomics:
Recent economic number in graphs – Pure graphrotica for econofans. Possibly not so useful for people not into heavy economics, but presented for interest.

Anime and Manga:
How to get your anime/manga proposal rejected – Ten ways to completely screw up.

Social Media:
Nintendo DSi's Facebook connect goes life – It really only posts photos, but it's a further example of social integration – and ahead of the PSP obviously. However this is also another boost for Facebook, further cementing them in the social media space. Between this and phone apps social media/portable/mobile integration is pretty much a given, its just how much companies will do. Jobwise of course, connecting portables to social media is obviously a good area to be-in . . .

Technology:
The Everything Wars continue as Google launches an ad campaign clearly targeted at Microsoft Office. Not a bad idea – and it covers up the embarassment of the Twitter leak issue (even if the person getting into the company's Google apps just used some social engineering). It continues – so what's Microsoft going to do in retaliation the next week or two?

Appropriate to the above, a look at why Microsoft Word should die – This is a must read for technicians, writers, and anyone using a lot of word processing. He makes the simple point that word stopped being ABOUT document delivery awhile ago, while retaining all the features of it and then some.

Who's fault is it Google Voice was rejected off of iPhone? AT&T points the finger at Apple. Thus it continues. Apple is further under the spotlight now, and they handed competitors a marketing opportunity. I want to see what other rejected apps may come out and what ic an mean for Apple.

Video Games:
Zynga is now number one in amount of online gamers using its services – I see nobody is surprised. For those of you in the job market, please note there are a LOT of open jobs there . .

170 Million Americans play games – Part of a larger report. Note that this covers almost all kinds of gamers.

Is it impossible to launch a new IP in the holiday game market? – Michael de Plater of Ubisoft thinks so. Gaming's success has altered it's own market dynamics, and gaming will need to adjust. I think this is a big enough issue that people in gaming need to pay more attention to release schedules than they did even a few years ago – both on development and support. It also suggests to me that new IP really needs to avoid Christmas and find a "killer" time to get put out.

– Steven Savage

Look Into the Soul-Crushing Void of Your Own Failure

by

I'd like to strongly recommend the act of looking at the sheer, horrible, soul-crushing amount of failure in your life.

Really, go ahead, take a look.  See it.  Feel it.  Smell it.  Look at all the things you've done wrong.  Really, really look at the horrible amount of things you've been a total screw-up at.  None of it is going away.  None of it can be undone.  None of it is leaving.  It's all etched in history?

All done?  Good.  Now get back to leading your life.

Read more

Convention Thoughts: Invite recruiters

by

More thoughts on how to make conventions more professional.  You can find my previous suggestions here, here, here, and here.

When I attended Anime North 2009 I saw something odd that I hadn't expected – a youth recruiter was at the convention, running a table that explained government placement services.  It may seem odd to some, depending on the conventions you're used to and your location, but that struck me as an idea worth expanding on.

Conventions, especially medium to larger ones, are really are prime places for some companies, agencies, and employment services to recruit people or promote what they do.  There's a lot of attendees, many are passionate about given subjects, and of course they're always up for new and interesting things.  Besides, in this economy, fans are probably far more open to job opportunities at conventions, so why not help out.

So for conventions you help with here's a suggestion – invite recruiters.

  • Give them a table (they may even pay for it).  Universities might want to target your audience, or temporary agencies, or technical recruiters, or training schools.  I've seen universities have a presence at conventions – why not?
  • Have them speak.  Work them into career tracks.  Have them discuss the economy.  They may have a lot to share.
  • Go the extra mile and, if they're fannish, invite them to judge a contest or something.  Let them be part of the family.
  • Some may even be excellent guests if they're far enough in the profession.

Its a gamble, of course – even I've only seen this done recently, so I'm not sure how well it pays off – but it can't hurt to try.  If nothing else it builds good relations between the convention and other communities/businesses/people, and that's always a good thing.

Part of me thinks that, done right (and at the right events – it won't fit all events), this could work out spectacularly.  I can see larger conventions be especially good for this, and recruiters and so forth really making great contacts and providing more value to convention attendees.

– Steven Savage