Avatar photoSteven Savage

News Of The Day 11/8/2011

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Banks in trouble, lots of news in games, and more Eva merchandising!

Economics/Geekonomics:
Absolutely savory chart porn: A look at the 2011 IPO market. Plenty of gems here, so enjoy with a nice white wine and some chips.

The Financial Stability Board calls out 29 Systemically DANGEROUS banks. Note this is a lot of big names – hope your money isn't in any of them.

Anime and Manga:
Evangelion energy Drinks? Yes, you can get the rush of Shinji Ikari in a bottle! It just doesn't end . . .

Publishing:
Kindle Cloud Reader comes to Firefox. That's an HTML5 app that is basically a portable Kindle (er, you know what I mean). It's both good placement and an end-run around Apple.

Technology:
Amazon is unsubscribing people from some of its email lists. They cite people may have "deal fatigue." Unsubscribing people deliberately as you may be overdoing it? An honest and interesting move – and it shows savvy on Amazon's part.

Two interesting startups get some sweet funding. Might want to check these guys out.

Video Games:
Just curious: Ubisoft releases a kind of drawing tablet for the Wii. I wonder what this means next for them – Ubisoft innovates in a lot of areas, some not always obvious.

Nexon plans to go public, and let me say first that I'm pretty bullish on them in a gut level. They deliver a lot of good stuff. Now tempering my enthusiasm, I figure they'll be overvalued no matter what – but this could give them a lot of cash to go farther, and that may put the competition (I'm looking at you Gree) on notice.

DC Universe's Free To Play meant huge growth, of 1000%. Now if they can monetize this is the other question, but it may be a good lesson in the short-term advantage of F2P.

I also have to agree the Phoenix Wright movie looks good.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Do you trust your bank?

– Steven Savage

Vocabulary and Professional Geekery

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Vocabulary And Professional Geekery

Ah, the age of Geek Chic.  People are talking wireless and LOLCats, all our base does belong to someone, everything is 20% cooler, and bandwidth is something we all complain about.  Our language is hip, people, and we're cutting-edge.

When we go on the job search, we're even armed with the culture, memeage, and vocabulary to impress people with our geeky cred.  We're ready to go and impress clients and employers with the right phrases and references.

The only problem is that, even in an age of Geek Chic, you have to check your vocabulary:

  1. Your audience might be behind the curve, and what would impress some may just confuse or annoy them.  You might have to back your geek vocab back a few years in interviews – or drop it or translate it.
  2. Your interviewers or clients may be hip and up to date – in a different area of knowledge.  You might find that you're both up to date- and living in different worlds.
  3. Your interviewer may actually be ahead of the game.  Think you're up to date?  Think again.

It's easy to think people think like us or use the same language and culture references.  It's easy to miss the many ways we can be wrong about this; or we only see one or two ways we can be in error.

So if you're going to leverage your Geek Chic – and you're going to, I'm sure, consciously or not – ask yourself about your audience and think ahead.  You'll communicate better and avoid embarrassment – and leverage what makes you special: being a fan, geek, otaku, an enthusiast.

– Steven Savage