Opinion

Form Geek Voltron: Might As Well Be The Head

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voltron_screenshotThere’s a valuable lesson in the various incarnations of Voltron. No I’m not talking that giant robots are cool (obvious), that Pidge is creepy when you have him get older (surprising), or that movie adaptions are chaotic and unpredictable (depressingly true). I’m talking about the basic core idea of Being Stronger By Coming Together.

That’s a lesson we usually brush off. Giant robots made from smaller robots, power of love, friendship is magic, fighting spirit of the team, what have you are all common ideas in anime, movies, etc. The idea of Being Stronger By Coming Together is so common we don’t even think about it, and thus don’t learn the lessons. It’s probably not helped by a culture with the delusion that we somehow magically succeed without the help of (even if unappreciated) others.

But it’s a damned valuable lesson. Plus illustrating it through the idea of cool robots coming together to make an even more kickass one is a real inspiring illustration that harmonizes with our half mechanical, half magical geek hearts.

We’re stronger when we come together. Specifically I’d like to focus on the Applied Geek aspect of that – in our careers and our lives.

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This Is Not The Time

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I’d like to write about last week in a way relevant to the blog. I’d like to discuss social media and what it means. I’d like to discuss something relevant to careers from how we viewed the various horrible happenings through the lens of technology.

Honestly, I can’t bring myself to do it. Last week was awful.

I’m sure in the days and weeks to come I and the others here will analyze the technical and cultural side of what went on. But as for me, right now, no.

I’d like us to take a moment here to be thankful instead for all those who worked to save lives, comfort the grieving, aid the injured, and bury the dead. To every EMT, every policeman, every doctor, everyone who just helped, let us be grateful. There’s something stunning and amazing, a light kindled in the darkness, when you see what these people have done.

I’d like us to take a moment here to be thankful for the way people used the technology to help each other. As much as people discuss what went wrong thanks to our social media age, there was much that went right. There were news feeds and warnings, charity drives and advice, web pages and alerts. We have much to learn about the tools at our disposal, but we have much we did right.

I’d like us to take a moment here to be thankful we’re still alive.

I’m thankful for the blog.

I’m thankful for the staff.

I’m thankful for you the reader.

I’ll probably discuss what we can learn from last week. But today is not that day.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers athttp://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Fear Of A Checklist Planet (Or Universe)

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The Fan To Pro gang often chats about various issues, and one issue that came up as Serdar and I discussed the Marvel adaptions that sometimes it felt like Marvel was checking off boxes on what to do.

This isn’t to say that Marvel hasn’t done some good stuff.  I consider “Captain America” to be a fine piece of filmmaking with a great central actor, “Iron Man” to have managed to inject old-school charm into high-tech adventure, and “The Avengers” to have done the seemingly impossible with style and heart.  Frankly, the studios and staff are to be commended for making actual, good, movies.

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