Avatar photoSteven Savage

News Of the Day 7/20/2010

by

The Android Invasion is here – only it's OSes, not humanoid machines. Plus, why you want to be in the business of consumer electronic doodads. If it's weird geeky career news, it's here!

Career:
Do people really know how to use Social Media to evaluate job candidates?

What Eggnog taught one person about getting hired.

Economics/Geekonomics:
China and control of world resources – a paper. The presentation (and title) is sensationalistic. However the analysis is more sober – China's attempts to access and control resources gives them power while opening access.

Publishing:
A roundup of information on the growing e-book market. A good read and some good links – and it helps you get a grasp of how e-publishing is taking off.

How will the Fashion Mag Industry survive? Shopping, localization, and more. A nice review of what they're likely to be doing and doing now – which sounds like turning into a media/shopping fusion.

Technology:
Here come the Android Tablets: Lenovo developing an Android Tablet for late 2010, and Asus' Eee Pad in early 2010. The Asus move, away from Windows CE, though not unexpected is significant, since it's another blow to Microsoft. It appears Android's place is becoming assured – and it always seems to be a counter to Apple, doesn't it? Android is even more important for you developers out there, so get learning.

Skinit raises $60 million. What do they do? They make vinyl skins for laptops, phones, etc., often with branding. So all those cute cell phone covers and laptop skins and the like? One of the companies behind them just raised tons of money. There's a market I never thought of – and one apparently you may want to consider – technology doodads.

Is your career helping Defend the US against cyberattacks? This story has been making the rounds, about how the US isn't up to snuff.

Video Games:
Game streaming service Gaikai raises undisclosed amount of cash. Also a bit more on their strategy – which is more business-to-business and portal support.

Capcom and Namco to make crossover fighters? Sounds like money in the bank to me if done right. And it sounds like several games, which sounds like some opportunities for people in gaming . . .

Social Games to be a $1.5 billion market in 2014.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Who else do you think is going to come out with an Android Tablet?

– Steven Savage

The Lessons Of Fandom: Business Sense

by

This is part of a new series where I'm going to examine specific "general skills" that people learn in fandom and their hobbies.  I talk specific skills quite a bit, but fandom also teaches you general or "metaskills" that can help your career quite a bit.

First up – your fannish and hobby activities teach you good business sense.

Read more

Profan Career Ambiguity

by

There's a peculiar ambiguity to turning your hobby into your career, the life of the progeek, profane, and protaku.

Work and hobby fuse.  What we love to do and what we do for money are fused and seemingly impossible to separate.  What we do at home teaches us lessons to use on the job, what we do on the job gives us new ideas for our hobbies.

Co-workers and friends become hard to define.  You hang out with co-workers because you understand each other's unique experiences.  You introduce friends to your industry due to shared interests.

Casual reading?  What exactly is that when what you read for fun also gives you ideas for work?

You get the idea.

So when we, the profans and progeeks, look at our lives and careers, we ask ourselves "what is hobby, what is job" in that vague quest to figure out just where the division is.  Maybe we're compelled to find the division so we can relax more, or work harder, or just because we figure we ought to know where the division is.

Here's what I've found: stop looking.

The ambiguity between hobby and job is not a problem in the profan lifestyle – it's a feature.  The ambiguity is what makes you a hobbyist-turned pro, a working geek, a protaku.  You can't find a separation point because there isn't one.

When you do what you love as a career, what you're really doing is finding a way to connect the different parts of your life together.  At times things are more "recreational", at times more "professional" but at all times it's about your life – one giant, wriggling, connected mass of you, your past, and your future.

If you could pick it to pieces, then your life would not be unified.  If you could divide it up you probably wouldn't be that working geek or successful fan because then your life would be composed of several separate pieces, and your passions and interests would be constrained.  Sure that's not the case for everyone who turns what they love into a career – but it's true for most I'd wager.

So if you're a profan and you're having trouble finding work/life division, maybe it's time to accept the ambiguity of your situation.  Maybe you need to focus on different issues like "relaxing" or "working harder" or "spending more time with family" as opposed to trying to break your life into convenient chunks.

Chances are, some time ago, you didn't want it broken into chunks anyway.

– Steven Savage