Avatar photoSteven Savage

Big News – Join Me At A Webinar

by

webinar_10_2015

OK gang, yes, I know people have asked me to do more than just speak at cons.  Well Lauren Orsini asked me to be part of a webinar and I accepted!  It’s a chance for you to join us and talk . . . careers!  We’re doing a discussion about how people build geek careers realistically, covering seven major steps that you’ll want to follow.

You can read more at Lauren’s blog (which is well worth following), or just go and . . .


Sign up now!

 

It’s free, but seats are limited.  So go on, sign up, and we’ll get a chance to talk careers Sunday, November 8th at 9am Pacific, (12pm Eastern).

And, yes if this works, I may do more with her, on my own, and with other people.  Haven’t tried a webinar before . . .

  • Steve

Activities For The Civic Geek: Teaching And Workshops

by

Chances are any geek has a pretty valuable skillset others would like to learn from or use – so why not get educational and teach people.

If you’re a geek you’re enthused about something, and quite likely you do something with it.  From fanfic to coding games, from cosplaying to running cons, from historical enthusiasms to your extensive film library you have developed quite a set of skills.

Of course you may also be good at stuff that may not seem particularly geeky that’s still valuable.  Your writing skills that forge both fanfic and video game reviews may also be useful for your technical writing career.  You might be well organized which is why you run your club and game clan.  Maybe you just have skills you share in a geeky setting (such as the way I talk job skills in geekdom).

You and your crew are smart and skilled in things both geeky and not. Start sharing it.

  • Teach geeky skills to people who don’t have them – how many folks would like to be a bit better at computers, use your cosplay knowledge to sew better, or enjoy learning about Japanese cooking (that you learned due to your love of anime).
  • Teach geeky skills to your fellow geeks.  I mean, we all have to start somewhere.
  • Teach skills that your fellow geeks need.  Sure there’s many budding authors and artists, but your work in PR could be what they need to know how to sell themselves.

You also have plenty of venues to do this in:

  • You could take your skills to any community center, school, or what have you.  This is great for all those geek skills others may need.
  • You can hold events at conventions or other geek events.  They’re always looking for panels and features.
  • You can do workshops and get people hands-on.  After all hands-on is one of the best ways to learn.

Best of all when you do these things, alone or as part of a team, you learn how to teach and instruct.  As you do more of it, you get better at it.  This can open up new options in lives and careers, just be useful overall – or be something you eventually do panels and training on for others . . .

  • Steve

 

 

 

Activities For the Civic Geek: Fix-It-Ups

by

Rally your geeky friends and cohorts to help others out by applying your technical, creative, and constructive skills for repair.

It’s easy to take for granted how we can buy stuff to replace broken stuff – though it’s a bit wasteful to just throw things away (and some like electronics are a bit hard to recycle).

It’s also easy to take for granted the skills that let us repair things so we don’t have to throw stuff out.  I imagine you’ve got a few friends or even a whole club very good at making and fixing things, from cosplay to computers.

So, hold a Fix-It-Up Event.

Maybe at a convention or a hackerspace or a church or what have you, go and hold an event where you repair things for people.  You don’t just help them save and reuse things, you might teach people valuable skills:

  • Cosplayer?  Do clothes repair for people or charities.
  • Technical?  Computer repair and reuse or repurposing might be your bag.  If nothing else dead systems can yield parts for others.
  • Handy?  Repair appliances, furniture, and more.
  • Gamer?  Help people repair or clean their treasured old systems.

There’s also many ways you can combine this.  A clothing repair shop can reuse cosplay scraps.  Handy geeks who help out with basic repair can also use their skills to do convention setup.  Combine electronic repair with good recycling practices and education.

Plus, when you team up, you can combine tools, though you’ll probably get very territorial about who owns what.

So go ahead and try and do some fix-ups.