Advice

Promoting Professional Geekery #6: Write The Book

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I just spent three months writing a book.  You probably noticed that by the updates.

I know plenty of great writers, who do tons of blog posts, documents and, yes books.  During the time I was working on my latest book, a friend of mine wrote a novel TWICE as long and he's not even finished yet.

You probably have a professionally geeky book in you.  A Geek 2.0 book.  Something on both a career and your likely obsessive love of certain things.  Maybe it's on how you made your video game career into a real one, or your observations of the six kinds of comic book artists, or whatever.

So write the bloody thing and be done with it.  Promote professional geekiness by putting out a book.

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Personal Branding For Progeeks #5 – Some Progeekey Edges

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And we come to the end of another series (Been on a roll with those lately, haven't I) – Personal Branding for Progeeks.

Now I've spent time talking how to do it, ways to do it, and of course, why.  But now that I've put you through the ringer, let's talk about some of the advantages you have as a progeek.

Yes, you, the professional geek, have advantages over non-geeks when it comes to personal branding.

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A Guide To Fansourcing Part 6: Wish List

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So I've talked about how and when to do fansourcing, and how to use it to enhance your career.  I'd like to close out this series by looking at some things I'd like to see to help fansourcing:

  • Convention Events #1 – Let's start talking fansourcing at cons.  Do panels on the opportunities it has, discuss ways to use it on a resume, etc.  Heck, maybe I ought to set one up . . .
  • Convention Events #2 – What about a need-skills networking event for larger cons, where people can find folks that have the skills they need, or people find folks that need fansourced talent.
  • Job Boards and More – Cons, fan groups, etc. can have job boards for fansourcing.  In fact, someone could do a website just on this (this is a huge hint, by the way).
  • More Use Of The Term – As I noted, I've seen it used to mean various things, so let's use it enough to make sure fan-to-fan talent exchange is one of the meanings.  That way more people think about it and it's advantages.
  • Mentorship – If you fansource, take someone under your wing and help them do it.    You'll spread the idea and help them out.
  • Support groups – Building on Mentorship, perhaps in larger areas people who do fansourcing can form a support group (say, via meetup.com) to help people find "fannish" work.
  • Share Ideas – Got ideas for the way to put hobbies on resumes, fansourcing in your skills section?  Let me know and maybe you can write it up and post it here!

So go forth and fansource!

(Oh, series edited as I misnumbered them)

– Steven Savage