Education

Convention Ideas: Meet the Teacher

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The summary of the convention ideas series is here.

So you want to add more professional stuff to your convention or conventions.

Do you have any schools, colleges, educational facilities near you?  Then you've got a ton of potential guests right there.  In short, start inviting teachers, trainers, and so forth to your convention.

First, this is an easy way to get guests – odds are that the people in question will have some interest in your convention subject, if only tangentially.  This also means they may be willing to speak for free memberships, or just out of a chance to network.

Secondly, the teachers and educators may have great ideas.  The convention may give them a chance to make new suggestions, do unusual things they don't often speak on or lecture on, or try out new material.  You're going to the experts – who knows what they're going to come up with.

Third, the teachers and educators you invite may already have fantastic materials to use, hand out, or just plain sell (don't begrudge them a bit of cash here).  They'll likely come well-prepared, and may surprise you and your audience – there's nothing like having people attend a simple lecture on, say, writing, and walk out with handouts or a book.

Finally, the educators you invite may be grateful for the attention and publicity.  It gives  them a chance to be recognized, make connections, and try out some new things.

So next time you're asking how to make your convention more professional, go to one of the sources – teachers, trainers, and educators.

– Steven Savage

Convention Idea – Have Business Owners speak

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The roundup of ideas for adding more professional events to conventions is here.

Want someone to speak about careers and opportunities at your convention?  Sure you can hope to get some of the big names to speak, get that oddball guest, arrange seminars . . . but you may be missing a great source of professional panelists.

People who already have fannish businesses.  Take a look at your Dealer's Room or Artists' Alley and youll find there's a huge amount of potential speakers on careers, options, and that often-talked of but hard-to-speak on subject of starting your own business.

Career ambition doesn't have to mean working for someone else.  And, yes, at times I see people with fannish businesses invited to speak on such things at conventions – but I think it could go way farther.

The guy whose been running a comic shop for fifteen years has a lot of insights.  The Artists Alley freelancer who manages to survive on her art is going to have knowledge to share few others will.  The couple who runs an anime memorabilia shop out of a warehouse with a tiny storefront is going to have a lot to speak on.

It doesn't even have to be someone whose living on it full time (though I would certainly make sure to try and get such people).  You may have a lot of budding talent, or people who have managed to mix their fannish and non-fannish work, who can speak and lecture on skills, career issues, experience, etc.  They don't have to have "arrived" at doing full-time fannish work to be people with things to share.

Finally, keep inviting such people back.  As their side businesses and personal businesses evolve, they can share more and more insights.

Your next big career panel may mean raiding your Dealer's room.  Go for it.

– Steven Savage

Fandom, Software, Technology

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You're probably amazingly literate in computer software and the internet.

To some of you reading this, you wonder if I've had my morning Red Bull because you've done a lot of boneheaded things on the computer.  You accidentally erased files, you just had your far more tech-savvy neighbor redo your security settings after the virus incident.  You don't feel too competent, and you STILL don't know where your vacation photos went.

But you're a fan.  You're obviously wired enough to be on-line to read this.  I'm betting you've got a lot more software knowledge than you've realized.  You may geek out more over bishounen than technology, but if you're your average online fan, you have a lot more knowledge than you may realize.

This of course means a few things:
1) you may want to reassess your resume because you have a lot more technical ability than you realized.
2) You may want to rethink some career options as perhaps you like the technology you work with, you just aren't sure you're too good at it – but if you like it, training can make up for ignorance.
3) You may want to reassess what you're doing in your current career as you may be able to do more than you thought, or may be able to improve your skills more quickly than you thought.

So ask yourself just what you know?
* DId your fanfic writing help you get to know a Word Processor?
* Did doing the budget for a convention make you better at Spreadsheets?
* Were you able to use visio to chart out how to get that cosplay done?
* You were editing a fan-wiki,learning all the markups and ins and outs.

You probably know more than you think, software-wise thanks to your fandom.

Keep that in mind.  Maybe give your resume or your career a once-over and ask what you know that you've missed.  Also ask how you can improve it.

– Steven Savage