Avatar photoSteven Savage

News of the Day 7/25/2009

by

Career:
What to do if you have no references or work experience – A good set of suggestions, excellent for fans who excell at DOING things.

Economics/Freakonomics/Geekonimics:
Job losses are higher than expected – Very interesting, from the WSJ. This definitely points to potential persistent unemployment post-recovery.

China's government leveraging its soverign wealth fund to encourage Chinese businesses to expand and acquire overseas – Or more simply, they get cash and support branching out – and you can that may include your country. Didn't see this coming, but I expect that this means the Chinese government thinks its safe to do this and wants to cut any losses or potential losses from other areas affected by the global downturn. Upshot is this could be an economic game changer and put more power in China's hands.

Why companies must get back to venture capital and R&D – Essentially large companies now rely on parterships with startups and smaller companies to innovate. And they're not. A good read to make you think – and wonder where that Chinese money may flow . . .

Multimedia:
Microsoft taps big names in anime for Halo video collection – Sort of what was done with the Animatrix. Good multimedia synergy there (and I imagine that the studios want the money). There's some good story potential with Halo anyway, so I sense a potential success, and further encouraging multimedia synergy. Thought for your career – what companies could benefit from more synergy, and what can you do to encourage it (and get a job or contract . . .).

Publishing:
Amazon will be target of a class-action suit over the book deletion – The argument seems to involve property rights and set expectations. The firm in question specializes in such suits. As usual, watch this space – this can also persist the incident in people's minds and give competitors an advantage, as well as settle (or open) some legal issues. The ethical issues already seem pretty apparent.

Writing:
Geeky things you don't know about romance writers.

Video Games:
Game Developer's free 2009 game career guide available – So, go for it. Warning – lots of ads.

Analysis of video game market – Looking flat overall this year, with some nasty bumps – and some of the big boys may take hits. I disagree casual gamers may pull back significantly as their overall investment is likely less as it is – and much casual gaming is lower priced.

– Steven Savage

Book Review: The Unwritten Rules of the Highly Effective Job Search

by

The Unwritten Rules of the Highly Effective Job Search: The Proven Program Used by the Worlds Leading Career Services Company
by Orville Pierson

ISBN-10: 0071464042
ISBN-13: 978-0071464048

PROS: A sober, thoughtful, organized book that presents a definite plan for a job search, organizing many common elements of a good job search into one process.

CONS: Extremely dry writing style may put some off.  Despite organization, some of the book's organiation is odd.

SUMMARY: A must-buy book for the job search, presenting an organized plan you can use "out of the box" as long as you're willing to do some research.

Read more

Convention Idea: SPECIFIC Career Tracks

by

Continuing my series on ways conventions can provide more career-oriented events for attendees, let's take a look at specific career tracks.  You can find earlier posts on the subject here and here.

I've mentioned career tracks earlier, but want to focus on the idea of the specific career track.

Most implementations I've seen of this take several panels/workshops related to a particular career or skill, and ensure they take place in one location at different times.  This allows people to attend all or most of them, since they don't conflict with each other, and are easy to locate since they're in the same location.

This doesn't work for every event, and is probably best targeted for ones specific audience: a voice acting and/or animation track for an anime con, a writing track for a Science Fiction convention, etc.  Only large conventions could have the time, space, and need to do a large amount of tracks.

Targeting career tracks brings in several advantages and possible techniques:
* You reach a specific audience of interest, and maximize attendance while minimizing cost.
* You can "rank" the events/workshops/panels by experience of attendees – thus do the more introductory panels earlier and the more "senior" panels later.  This allows people to attend events fitting their experience level, or attend events in order, learning things from the basics to deeper knowledge.
* You minimize cleanup and equipment for events – you'll at least know what cleanup to expect, and can leave media equipment in the same room.
* You can "re use" guests/panelists and allow them to speak on multiple panels, leveraging their knowledge better.
* This can easily become a yearly event at the convention, constantly improved and tweaked.
* It's a reputation-builder – you show specific career support.

Specific career tracks are something I'd pay attention to convention-wise.  I think for many conventions they're just the prescription to maximize panels that people will want to attend, and build something long-term to educate attendees.

– Steven Savage