Careers

Behind Reporting

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Have you ever had a sense that you don’t know what’s going on?

I’m not talking in the general sense (that’s your problem), but on a project, at work, or looking over some report or news article?  Yeah, I’m sure you have.

I’ve often wondered over the years as a psych major, engineer, and manager just how people can be so terribly wrong in keeping track of things.  Bad articles, incoherent software, senseless status reports all keep adding up to “duh” over and over again.  It’s sad enough that whenever I start some new project of any kind, I figure that the reporting involved is going to be wrong as a default.

But there’s something behind every meaningless statistic or confusing game interface.

That is MATH.

Math is what you use to report.  Math is what you use to say what things mean.  If you don’t have good numbers and do the right math, it’s meaningless.

This may or may not seem like a revelation, but to me it is – because having a science background, having built inventory systems, I’m used to math.  I marinate in math.  I have a minty math scent.

But not everyone has that experience.  Or interest.  Or obsession.

So next time you have to communicate data, next time you’re running a status report for a con, remember no matter how good you are at math or how much you like it – not everyone is like you.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Create Space . . . Wow

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Well as I continue my quest to move my Focused Fandom books to print, I’m trying out Create Space.  I just got the draft of “Cosplay, Costuming, and Careers.”  Ahem – WOW.

It’s pretty much as good as any other POD I’ve seen, which is pretty much Lulu.  Paper quality may be slightly higher.  I’ll go through it with a fine-toothed mind later this weekend, but on the surface I’m at least pretty impressed.

It’s not so much easier as it is more powerful.  The cover maker is distinctly less advanced (though theres a 3D visualizer that helps), whereas the internal inspection tool where you can see what the book would look like, which includes formatting warnings, is fantastic.  You are more likely to get a book done right the first time, overall, if you use the tools right.

So if all looks well, time to move a few other books over . . .

Making Progress

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Well I got the print files for the hard copies of Cosplay, Costuming, and Careers and Fanart, Fanartists, and Careers done.  Next step is to set them up and run test copies, which puts us into a very ambigious zone of delivery as those suckers have to arrive for me to go over them.

So hang in there.

Virus is gone, but I’m still not at 100%.  Though you get that after a trip to the dentist, a day of work, and a professional society meeting.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.