fansourcing

The Joy of Fansourcing

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I talk about Fansourcing quite a bit.  It's because it's important, because it is good for people, and because I'm blatantly trying to get people to use the term to promote the idea.

Now of all the benefits I've talked about, let me note there's one that is important to remember: Peace of mind.

Not peace of mind for the person doing the work – though they may get some from the experience or the pay or the thrill of doing the work.  I'm talking the peace of mind you get from finally Fansourcing something.

  • You know the work is in good hands and don't have to worry about the outcome.
  • You now have freed up time to do other things, and can tackle them.
  • You have the peace of mind of just letting go.
  • You have the peace of mind of knowing you made a decision to not do something.
  • You put the work in the hands of a fellow fan, geek, otaku, etc.

We often fret about things we need to do, we worry where they are in our schedule, we're not sure what to do.  When you Fansource everything becomes clear for you.

So among all the other advantages of Fansourcing, remember the sanity and clarity it can bring you!

– Steven Savage

Go Farther: We Need a Fandom Job Site

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 came up in a recent podcast, but it's something deserving of it's own post.  It's a  a business idea if you will that I welcome some of you out there to try, be it as a hobby or something commercial.  Just let me know – hint, hint.

We need a fandom job site.  By we I mean "us assorted fans, geeks, otaku, nerds" and the like.  Well, and the world, but that's only because the world needs us nerds and fans and technophiles.

I'm not talking a website for jobs applied to fans (though that might be cool, if difficult).  I'm not talking about anything for profit.  I'm talking about a site where people post their needs for people to help with fannish events and projects and endeavors so they can find the right folks.

Consider a few examples of who could be recruited through such a site:

  • People could recruit for convention staff.
  • People could recruit for speaking and doing events at conventions.
  • Fannish websites and similar endeavors could find new staff.
  • People doing nonprofit projects that may look good in a portfolio, could find contributors.

Of course this is a tool to do what I love to emphasize – fansourcing, leveraging your fandom connections to get things done.  In this case, it's a way to help people make new connections, stretch themselves, improve themselves, and maybe get something to put on a resume.

I don't see it being hard to implement:

  • The technology is probably already out there in one form or another anyway.  You could start something in Drupal or even Joomla, or slam together some code modules.
  • The talent base is probably easy to find as well – your basic "LAMP" knowledge would let people run it.
  • There are plenty of fandom people with design skills as well who could make the look just right.
  • A lot of people would probable be on board to do it.  Though,ironically, sourcing a site like this would probably be easier if a site like this existed.
  • The basic job-search metaphor is very familiar to people.

Oddly the main challenges I see would be that promoting it properly would be hard (so people didn't get the wrong idea), and policing it properly would take work to make sure posts are legit, control spam, etc.  You'd need a dedicated core of people to do it . . .

So, got some spare time?  Spare programmers? Spare ambition?  Want to help your fellow otaku, fans, and geeks?  Here's a suggestion right here . . .

. . . plus imagine how this'd look on a resume and what kind of contacts you'd make.  Why if you did this it could lead to full, paying jobs someday . . .

– Steven Savage