News of the Day 7/6/2009

Career:
Want to start your own business? The ever-reliable Jason Alba has a book reccomendation that may be up your alley.

Economics/Freakonomics/Geekonomics:
To big to fail is over? I've been seeing this from several sources – that future banking and corporate rules will be stricter, and even require companies to plan for their own failure, and accelerate corporate sell-off and deconstruction. This could obviously make it much better for companies to stay smaller and more focused. I think there will be a lot less adversity to such regulations, so watch what happens – it may affect your company, but it could lead to more economic stability. I'm concerned about a second round of corporate collapses in 3-5 years, and this might head that off (if of course I'm right).

Social Media:
Social Media and class – An informative read on the fact that social media has class divisions in it as well – and often reinforces them. If you're remotely involved in social media, take a read.

Facebook is still on a roll – Yeah, I know, nothing new. More information from the same sources, including a projection Facebook could be making revenue in the billions in 5 years. Pretty sure that's 55% hype.

Video Games:
TV Networks are interested in the mobile game market. Provides some insights of just how many are getting interested. The branding opportunities have to be heady as well. With mobile gaming expanding this fast, it's something to watch – as is good synergy.

Onatrio putting huge amount of cash into new Ubisoft studio over ten years. Anyone still thinking gaming isn't recognized as a legitimate industry anymore?

Yes, the Japanese game market is slumping.

Writing:
Want to break into writing? Michael Stackpoole says you're going to want to go online. A good read for future writers. Stackpoole has a lot of insights I hadn't thought of – how the rapidity of payment changes income, the internet can bring back the serial, etc.


And finally, a robot to make ramen. How many more geeky things can combine here?

– Steven Savage

Fandom: The Project Edge

You're a geek, a fangirl, fanboy, otaku, otariiman, sports nut, etc.  You're in a job search.  You'd like to leverage your fannish interests for your next job, but you're busy trying to get the whole search thing working right.

Good job searches are like projects – organized, measured, evaluated, with goals in mind.  Being a fan, you're probably far better at this than many people – and maybe more than you realize.

If you feel disorganized or aren't sure how to approach your job search, step back for a moment and look at the fannish projects you've done.

  • Did you organize a convention or part of a convention?
  • Do you oversee and run a role-play group?
  • Do you manage a community with events?
  • Do you sit down and reguarly and consistently make AMVs, fanfic, fanart, etc.?

Then guess what – you know how to do a project.  In fact, I'd lay odds that everyone reading this right now is, on average, better at organizing and getting results than they realize.  It's just that this is so often expressed in our hobbies and fannish activities that we never realize, frankly, how good we are at it.

So, if you're trying to organize your job search (and organized job searches are successful job searches), step back for a moment and look at what you organized in your hobbies.  What lessons did you learn?  What skills do you have?  Who can you call on for help?  What resources did you use?

If you want that geeky job, make your job search a project.  To make that project, take a moment and look at your hobbies and the projects you've done there.  You're probably far more organized than you ever realized – leverage that.

– Steven Savage