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Crossroads Alpha: Meet Comics Bulletin

January 14, 2014 by Steven Savage

So I promised I’d introduce everyone to the members of Crossroads Alpha, the site alliance where MuseHack is the “career” pillar. Let’s check out Comics Bulletin!

I met Jason of Comics Bulletin years back, and did a professional column, “Mission Professional” for about a year. He’s a great guy to work with, and we’ve often considered collaborating . . . like we are now.

In the case of MuseHack, I see us as providing a place for those interested in comics to get professional advice, and Comics Bulletin as providing comic-specific news and ideas for those of you who are MuseHackers. Plus if you ever want to write for them, let me know, I’ll hook you up!

So enjoy, and get to know a member of the Alliance!

– Steven Savage

Update 1/11/2014

January 11, 2014 by Steven Savage

You may have noticed an affiliate bar at the top. That’s because a group of friends and I decided to work together as an alliance of sites, Crossroads Alpha. The idea is to pool talent and knowledge, network sites, and work together in a way that compliments each other.

We’d been discussing ways we could support each other for awhile. Each of us had our own sites (comics, games, creativity and careers), and we’d also experienced running websites. So the idea is to team up, share knowledge, build an alliance, and help people connect to useful sites.

In the case of MuseHack, of course, this is the career/applied geekery part of our alliance. It’ll be useful for other careerists and hopeful careerists to have a place to come to, and those that can share career advice have a place to post.

As for regular MuseHack users, it means sites that can help with your careers – in this case comics and indie games, but there’s going to be more coming I’m sure. Both Comics Bulletin and Indie Haven have their professional elements – of and they may need people to post and work with too . . . great for your career . . .

It’s actually yielded a lot already – on my end it’s let me dive back into some technical areas and plan to recruit for MuseHack here. So stay tuned . . .

– Steven Savage

Geek Job Guru: News Roundup For December

December 31, 2013 by Steven Savage

Taking a tip from Scott, at the end of each month I’m going to do a roundup of geek career news – somewhat truncated due to the holidays.

Anime and Manga

Why One Piece is Popular. Some things to learn, and it’s not just the fact that you can watch a stretchy pirate fight a butane-powered Tim Curry.

Culture

Viral Stories are probably BS. We knew that. Use this next time you’ve got a good debunking to get to.
TED Talks are missing the point. Unfortunately we all kind of suspected that.
Cartoon execs aren’t interested in girls. Why some shows are dismal – and it also seems they’re dumbing down things for males. Paul Dini dishes.

Economics/Geekonomics

Monetary stimulus explained in coloring book form. A clever use of art, and also kind of sad that this helps explain things.
You may want to move to Wisconsin for an innovative state? Yep, you may.
Worst investment? Corn. Makes some of those questionable startups seem reliable.

Film

Will the “Avenger-izing” of blockbusters kill movies? A persuasive argument that this vast, interlinked film idea could consume attention, lower effective targeting, and in general be a pain in the backside.
Let’s hope the media learned these lessons. io9 does a smart roundup.

Education

Online courses not doing as well as promised. No one is surprised, but this is important due to the value of education, the facts of the failure, an the way this has been overhyped.

Media

How Netflix is winning in a few charts. There will probably be a documentary on this – on Netflix. OK jokes aside, worth reading to understand why.

Green Tech

VC’s are avoiding greentech – which may mean bargains. Bargains may mean an eventual rush into the area. Certainly the opportunity is there, especially in America where other’s are cleaning our clean clocks.
Tesla is making moves into China. So is everyone else. Good for spreading greentech, but I don’t know how stable their economy is.
Climate Resiliency is now in the public lexicon. This is good for human survival – and may mean your next engagement is green tech. Ready to make a difference?

News

The Patch Hyperlocal site is winding down – Remember when Bonnie and I were big on AOL? Yeah. Kind of ashamed of that. Hyperlocal didn’t seem to take off in the way people hoped.

Technology

Microsoft buying Nokia may have been a no-brainer and a survival strategy. Microsoft could use a few good ones right now. Now, does it work . . . there’s the questions. I’m also not sure how much more hiring/buying they may do.
Dell’s going Cloud (like everyone else) Worth seeing if this helps them out and opens up any opportunities.
A look at the hyperevolving world of Open Source. This is a must read because it helps you grasp how these open source solutions come in so fast and change things. There’s tech I haven’t heard of a few years ago I work with constantly now.
Designing for Mobile is messing with good web design? I confess I’ve wondered myself, so give this a read.
Google is taking on Amazon’s dominance in their own way. The author looks at the strategy and why it’s a good idea.

Writing

Print isn’t dying any time soon. Good to know – and important to know for writers.
Booksellers are cautious on Holiday sales – for understandable reasons.
How Demand Media failed. A story of how a content farm failed, that is telling on any numbers of levels.
There’s an open source novel at Github. There’s an interesting project to study.

– Steve