Weekly Challenge: Time To Move On

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I want you to imagine your ideal job, position, or personal business.  What's it like?  What do you do each day?  Why do you like it?

Now, hold that image in your mind, with as much detail as possible.  Write it down if it helps.

Now, I want you to come up with reasons you'd want to leave that job, position, sell or change the business, or otherwise alter your great, wonderful, perfect situation.  Write down the reasons you'll eventually want something else.

Everything changes, and what we want may not satisfy us as we ourselves change.  So take a moment to ask what will change your mind once you're in an ideal job – that way you can prepare for what's next.

– Steven Savage

Fandom Takes The Edge Off Of Learning

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I'm a big booster on the idea that you can use your hobbies to learn something – practice your accounting helping out a local con, practice your HTML making a website, practice your writing doing anime reviews.  Hobbies are a great way to gain and improve skills.

However there's another thing hobbies do for our skill improvement that makes them even more valuable – they provide a kind of mental and emotional buffer to the stress of learning.  This is very useful if you've got a lot of stress to deal with or had some negative experiences with training or education

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Convention Idea: Cover Part-Time Businesses

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The roundup of convention resources is here.

Plenty of people think about starting a fannish business.  Of course such events rethinks you can try at conventions.  Certainly they're useful and of interest.

Let me suggest that, if you're going to do such an event at a convention, you consider something a little different.

Do a panel or series of panels on starting part-time fannish businesses.  How to run something on the side, on your weekends, along with your regular job, etc.

There are several advantages:

  • It's less daunting to people than panels on starting one's own business without doing it part time.  You'll get better attendance.
  • It is frankly easier to staff – you'll find more people qualified to speak on these issues.
  • It's a nice compliment to more "intense" business and career panels.
  • You'll have more diverse choices of subjects to cover as well, considering the many manifestations of part-time businesses.
  • It's often less formal.  Admittedly if we're talking conventions, some of your attendees will be doing gender-bent Watchmen costly, but you know what I mean.

Next time you want to talk business at a convention, talk part-time.

– Steven Savage