Writer, Agilist, Elder Geek
In my various readings of econoblogs, I ran into a quote on one of the problems with the American economic downturn was people who consumed, but didn't invest. This idea wasn't explored enough (and as I can't even remember where I read it, I suppose it could have done with more detail), but it got me thinking about investing versus consuming.
I want to explore the difference – and it's relevance to your career as a progeek and profan.
Does the internet allow for us to have more simple/fun/cheesy entertainment. Think of it as "fast food" entertainment.
I reflected on this lately for several reasons – simple but fun online games, LOLcats, available content online I'd never otherwise read or watch, etc. I can spent a lot of time doing enjoyably shallow things, indulging my love of hilariously bad translations, or just surfing.
I've wondered if that's made easier by the internet – and yes, this is relevant to geeky careers since many of us are interested in technology or content.
I often talk about the fact that fandom is great because it lets people do projects and learn from them. However, I want to take a bit of time to define just what a project IS – and its counterpart, the Continuing Effort.
The reason I want to do that is simple – if you can understand what a project is, you can't easily analyze your fannish activities to determine which one's you've done. Without doing that it's harder to assess or build your skills and experiences.