Frustration Friday: Here There Be Dragons

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As  you've noticed I do check political and economic news a lot – a lot of the economic news makes it into this blog, and politics does at times as well.  As I noted previously, it's a bit frustrating since intelligent, sane discussion on politics and economics is rare, and thus I avoid things to keep sanity.

Well, it may be frustration Friday, which gets a little irrational, but there is one thing I want to note – when it comes to jobs, the economy, and so on a lot of people don't know what the hell they're talking about.

We're in unknown territory economically these days.  I kind of wish economists, politicians, and, well, more people would acknowledge it.  Instead, we get a lot of flip answers like:

  • Obvious historical comparisons, such as "oh this is like the Great Depression" or whatever, that, when made, seem to give people the excuse to stop thinking.  For every Richard Florida who can actually make these comparisons, there's a lot of others making them lazily.
  • Moralistic brushing-off.  I'm seeing this a lot lately where politicians and pundits still keep bashing the unemployed.  A massive global socioeconomic and cultural shift is brushed off as people being lazy or needing to take lower-paying jobs (that aren't there).
  • General apocalyptic panic that seems to sounds like the same apocalyptic panic we've heard .  . . well for a long time.

Notice anything in common?  Yep, all of these reactions to the Great Recession are cases of people taking very familiar positions that have nothing to do with realities.

Guess what people, it's not working.  The flip explanations don't work and probably never worked.  We're off the map.  Here there be dragons.

I think if people could just acknowledge the sheer unknownness of everything going on in the Great Recession we'd be better off.  Pretending we know what's going on may comfort us, or others, or sell books, but it's deceptive and keeps us from facing what's going on.

The world is changing.  Stop acting like nothing has changed and everything fits nicely onto the map.

See the dragons before they eat you – and others.

– Steven Savage

Book Review: Getting Things Done by David Allen

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Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
by David Allen
# ISBN-10: 0142000280
# ISBN-13: 978-0142000281

PROS:

  • Presents a serious, workable system for getting organizing.
  • Explores the psychology of organization and planning.
  • Easy to read and very personable.


CONS:

  • The book's hardcore approach to organization may not work for everyone.


SUMMARY: If you're willing to take a shot at re-organizing the way you organize your life, this is a must-read book. 

Read more

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