Advice

Go Farther: Cosplay Cons

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Cosplay conventions.  If you've ever been to one – and you're not much of cosplayer – it's a surreal, wonderful world.  There's amazing craftsmanships, characters brought to life, characters remade in new genders and genres.  You're not only through the looking glass, but everyone in Wonderland looks fabulous.

Cosplay cons, with their specific focus, may not seem ideal for career events.  I, of course, beg to disagree, since I think any convention is good for a career event.  Obviously I have some suggestions for how you can add career events to Cosplay Cons  or this would be pretty short . . .

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I Have a Job, They Don’t: Research

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The "I Have a Job" Roundup.

You've got your unemployed friends and family and want to help.  One thing you know they've got to do is research -on jobs, on locations, on career options, on education.  You wish you could help them.

Ok, so go do it.

You're a geek, an otaku, a fan.  You live in a world of information and are probably insanely good at researching a few things if not a lot of things.  You probably have a terrifying amount of knowledge about some important subjects.

So, help those looking for work by assisting them with research.

I'm not saying do it all for them – though in some cases it may make sense that they "outsource" to you.  I'm saying help out where you're really good to help them get the information they need.  GO where you're most needed, and most critical.

Don't worry too much about doing their job for them.  In these tough times life's challenging enough as it is.

So go on and find out what technical skills they need, or use your freakish knowledge of demographics to find them an ideal city.  Go and apply your typing skills and ability to network among geeks to find out about good career options.

Go and apply those research skills.  As long as they're willing to listen, helping them out is an option.

– Steven Savage

Life Debt

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In IT there's a concept of "technical debt" which is probably best defined as "all the things we did that were half-baked, dumb, rushed, short-sighted, or became out of date."  Technical Debt is what keeps a lot of companies and software from evolving very well because unless you address it, you keep adding to it.  If you've ever been frustrated by software (and wondered why no one rewrote it), or by an illogical computer system, you've experienced technical debt.

I love this term.  As a Project Manager is great to have two words to sum up the incredibly stupid things we do that seem like a good idea at the time.

I also like it because it extends to life – and it's a good example of extending geeky ideas to the big picture.

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