Promoting Professional Geekery

Promoting Professional Geekery #26: Do A Side Project

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Trying to help people see the virtue of professional geekery is often best done by showing results.  So if you want people at work to see the value in your geekery (and maybe get a few more geeks to stand up and wave the nerd flag high), why not start a side project at work that relates to your geekery?  It let’s you show off with a payoff.

Try things such as:

  • Like games?  Maybe you can lead a program to do ramification.
  • Like anime?  Maybe you know enough to suggest some artists, marketing companies, and more your company should work with.
  • Technical geek?  Come on if you can’t think of something to propose at work you’re not even trying!
  • Science geek?  Who knows what additional products, experiments, training, newsletters, etc. you can propose.
  • General pop culture geek?  Maybe it’s time to start a viewing party or movie outing now and then to build morale.

Take your geekery and make it pay off – with a side project.

What does this do?

  • It of course helps the place you work and and the people you work with (as long as it pays off).
  • It helps open some minds about new possibilities.
  • It shows the professional value of your geekiness
  • It reminds others to stand up and make their geekiness heard – and do something with it.

Results speak for themselves.  So remind people of the professional power of your utter full nerdity by making it pay off!

– Steven Savage

 

Promoting Professional Geekery #25: Reviews

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We want to have a world with more fan-to-pro types, more professional geeks, more happy people doing what they like for money within certain legal and ethical boundaries.  Indeed we spend a lot of time trying to improve ourselves professionally to live our dream jobs.

One thing you can do to keep the dream alive is to make sure people get their hands on the right books and resources and that means reviews and more.  In short, all those books and websites you use, you should review so people know about them (or avoid them).

There's a lot of great books out there, a lot of tools, a lot of websites.  If a person wanted to start their dream career what they need is out there now.  It's just concealed by ignorance, a huge amount of choice, and everything else on the internet (basically porn, cats with captions, and ponies).

You are the person that can cut through through the dross, through the confusion, through the LOLCats, and make a difference.  You can set people on the right path.

You do it by reviewing and promoting things that are worth it.

  • If you do any blog whatsoever on your career, make it a point to review good resources on it in lengthy, excruciating detail.  Let me be clear – if you do a career blog, reviews are virtually necessary.
  • Put reviews at amazon.com and other websites.  In fact it can often be the same review as above.
  • If it's a resource that's on Yelp, review it there.
  • If you do a review on a blog or website, tell the author so they know.  It helps the improve, promote, and you may make a new contact, friend, or grateful sycophant.  If your review is bad, well, then use your own discretion.

But what to review?  I mean do you review everything?  Maybe, but for some of us we'd never stop reviewing.  So here's my advice so your reviews target the right resources for progeeks.

Review the very good.  If something is exceptionally awesome, make sure it gets a good review, make sure you tell the author, etc.  Let people know of the best.  This is also helpful if it's a hidden gem.

Review the popular job resources. If something is amazingly popular, and if you're really into reviewing things, then make sure you review it.  It doesn't matter if it's good or bad, you want people to know.

Review the horrible.  If something turns out to be bad, disappointing, and should be avoided, then it's worth a review in order to warn people away.  Yes, you'll want to be civil and mature, but it's worth it as a warning.

What's not in here is the mediocre.  Good reviewing of resources tends to gloss over the unremarkable because it's neither worth promoting or warning off, nor known enough to be of your concern.  Don't feel you have to review every book or website – unless you're into that kind of thing.

Promote Professional Geekery by helping people live their dreams – with the right tools.

Also, if you want some books to recommend, well . . .

– Steven Savage

 

 

 

Promoting Professional Geekery #24: Start a Meetup

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you've got cons, you've got your video viewings, you've got your midnight runs with your gaming group to get pancakes.  You've got a lot of social events, my progeeks.

So if you want to keep promoting professional geekery, why not make an event just for career geeks like you?

It's easy – you take a coffee shop or cafe, coordinate with various geek groups, and/or throw it up on http://www.meetup.com/.  Then keep doing it until you bloody well help people.

There's a variety of things you can do:

  • Have people swap job search tips.
  • Help the unemployed network.
  • Do workshops.
  • Commiserate and drink alcoholic beverages.
  • Have particular themes.
  • Run oddball documentaries on the history of your industries.

Of course whatever benefits these actions have, it also means that people will A) appreciate the potential of professional geekery, and B) They'll be drawn closer together.

Really it just helps for people to have a place to meet with fellow and future pros, whatever you do.  It's outside of other events so people aren't distracted, but formal enough that you can work together to help each other out.

Or do the drinking thing.  Hey, whatever works. 

– Steven Savage