The Other Side Of Career Planning

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If it hasn't been apparent from eighteen months of writing about it, I'm very big on career planning.  I'm all for the organized life plan, the schedule, the milestones everything.  I don't think it's because I'm a Project Manager – though the experience probably doesn't hurt.

We all know why we're supposed to plan our careers:

  • It helps us get things done.
  • It helps us set and reach goals.
  • It lets us evaluate and measure progress.
  • Our lack of organization doesn't drive our friends and family nuts.

In that list, and in most of our minds, there is one thing missing about just why we plan our careers and indeed our lives.

That is because our plans also tell us what we're not doing.

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Convention Idea: Call It Out

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The roundup of convention ideas is here.

You want to call out your convention activities for fan-to-pro stuff.  But how to do it?  A lot of things can stand in your way:

  • A minicon might be a bit much.  After all you've got to run a con within a con and you might not have the material – or organizational structure to do it.
  • You have a huge amount of programming, and things can easily get lost.
  • Your convention is so diverse that its easy for anything to get lost in the shuffle.
  • Your introduction of the pro-fan panels is new and you're worried they may get lost in the shuffle.

What you want to do is make your pro-fan panels obvious and easily accessible and recognizable by those who are interested.  Here's a few things to try:

  • Have a separate "pro events" or "career events" sheet or booklet.  Call out the events, what they are, and their times.  You can even add some extra career resources on the sheet.  Include it with the schedule and your usual swag-bag.
  • Change your signs.  Maybe your signs for events can have icons, mascots, colors, etc. that call out just what's going on for panels that are pro-fan
  • Icons in the program book.  This is something I'd like to see done more – program books and schedules could use icons to call out panels of given interest.  From checkboxes to little logos to wingdings, different events could have different icons when listed.
  • Cross-promote.  Make sure people doing your profan panels note there are others.

Call out your profan activities.  It may even give you ideas how to call out other activities of different kinds.

– Steven Savage