Culture

Fame: The Fifteen Minutes Has Changed

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I'm not a big fan of fame for fame's sake.  Fame is vastly overrated if you ask me – and if you don't want to ask me, spend ten minutes online searching for celebrity meltdowns, famous scandals, and the like.  You'll quickly realize fame really is kind of overrated, and is too often transformed into infamy.

On the other hand, fame is a very useful tool – if you pursue it with the intent of actually using it.  Being known gets you jobs, gets you contracts, gets you roles, and so on.  Fame as a tool, where you are it's master not the other way around is quite useful.

So frankly, you're going to have to confront the issue of fame in your life and career – can you use it, how do you want to use it, how do you get the right kind, etc.

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The Subscription Age

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You ever get a magazine subscription – and sometimes read it?  You still renew it you know . . . just in case.

Or maybe you get comics in a pull at a comic store.  You buy them, and might even read them.

Or a book club.

Or . . .

Well you get the idea.  We all have experience with subscriptions one way or another.  However in an age of eMedia, DLC games, and the iPad-ness, think about what kind of subscriptions you're going to see.

I think we're going to see a lot more subscriptions in the future.  Your business models, your publishing models, and your estimates on profitability are going to need to keep this in mind.  If you're writer, an ePublisher, a game developer, this will be a factor.

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The Wall Goes Up

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When my IT career first got really going, way back in 1995-1996, I had applied the "modern" tools of job searching.  These were advanced things like online job ads, fax modems, and so forth.  Yes, there was a time when people not only used faxes a lot, doing it from your computer was impressive.

So as my career progressed in 1996, I was speculating on my career and noting the role of technology in the job search.  I met people who were keeping up with technology in their job searches, and I sensed something happening, a division among people in how they used technology in their careers.  Technology was an "enhancer" and people using it would get more and better connected, and it would produce a cultural shift.

I christened it "The Wall."  As technology advanced, some people would be more on the "inside", connected by technology and social understanding to career opportunities, some would not keep up on the technical changes to the job search and career building and loose out.

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