The Question Of Authority

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When I look at American politics, of the many crises we face, I think one of the major ones is the crisis of authority.  Namely – who should be listened to?  Who has the authority.

Despite the political dynasties we do have in our country (which doesn’t please me frankly), family lines are not well-established, authoritative ways to find leaders.  We fall back on that all too often, of course, but as royalty has taught us you don’t want to invest in genetics.

“Making Money” seems to be a popular measure of leadership, or at least “having money.”  There is at least the assumption of business sense if one has/made money.    Then again making money doesn’t mean you can actually do any other jobs, and you may just be a greedy person.

There’s the “anointed by God” idea, but we don’t seem to buy that despite the fact it gets dragged into politics.  Also since everyone is claiming God, it has a kind of dilution effect.  Also down deep, I think most people know they’re BSing about this.

“Expertise” in something should be a recognized reason for leadership, but that’s often a problem as well.  I could probably go into excessive details on that, but roughly I chalk it up to anti-intellectualism and the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Of course, we could actually look to leaders that make things work and measure it.

“When the aged wear silk and eat meat and the masses are neither cold nor hungry, it is impossible for their prince not to be a true King.” – Mencius, Confucian Philosopher

That was 2300 years ago.  Might be something to consider.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

How Blogging Helps Your Career #9 – The Coffee Shop

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(The roundup for the “How Blogging Helps Your Career Series” is here)

So you’re blogging away.  You get feedback and suggestions.  You comment on other posts and others comment on yours.  You even meet people that contribute to your blog and vice versa.

Somewhere in all of this you find your running a small or community or are part of one.  And your mind hearkens back to every single person who ever told you you should network more.  Instead of that rising desire to scream at them “yes, I know everyone tells me that!” you realize you are doing that.

By blogging.

Blogging invites people in, invites them to communicate, creates dialogue.  By blogging you can do a lot of networking without thinking about it (and over-thinking about it).  Sure blogging lets you shout to the world, but it lets people talk back, dialogues begin, and some blogs even become comfortable places to discuss things.

You’re networking.  And that can help your career and ambitions.

Blogging is a coffee shop.

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AODSF 2012: Convention Report And Speculation

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Just finished up my latest visit to AODSF, a con in San Francisco I’ve been doing events at for awhile, and wanted to give my latest report.

Sadly I didn’t get to to do much as my day and life was pretty busy.  Though I did note I was up to my armpits in Homestuck characters.  Not literally.  Much.

The convention was as usual quite fun.  It’s a tight, focused affair that runs in a hotel next to Japantown San Francisco – which cleverly means the con basically triples it’s size.  It’s friendly, crowded, and pretty active.  This year was no different, and as usual, it was a lot of fun – the convention runs smoothly.

In fact it’s an odd convention to review as it’s consistently high quality.  However there’s a trend I’d like to note . . . so let’s get on with that . . .

Anyway, I ran three events there, two progeek, two for fun – and what went on was pretty interesting to observe.

Fanart And Careers:  Based on my Focused Fandom book, this was a panel on my findings about, you guessed it, fan art and careers.  Attendance was a little higher than I expected, and the amount of professional interest was definitely higher.  More on this later.

Fan To Pro: The panel I always do – this one was even more packed and a lot of people were sharing stories and participating.  The stronger attendance was pleasing of course, but as noted, I think there’s a trend . .

Crossover Mania: This is my gameshow of creative crossover creation.  Not professional, and in fact by the end pretty damn unprofessional, but that’s not the point.  Also the phrase “Timey-Wimey Scooby-Doobie” was used.

So what’s the trend I’d been noting all along?  Basically that AODSF in particular seems to be getting more and more of a “professional” orientation in its events, because I certainly wasn’t alone with my panels.  There were other panels on similar subjects, and interest was high.

Lately, the last few years, I think cons and fandom have become more “progeeky” over time.  Things that I once said that were unusual, about how hobbies can affect careers, are now normal and mainstream.  Maybe it’s the economy, the internet, culture changes, but hobby-merged-with-job is a lot more normal in the geekosphere.

This pleases me greatly of course, but at AODSF it’s the first time I’d really felt it viscerally.  I’ve seen them take a lead on organizational techniques and base-broadening, so it fits . . .

I’m quite pleased with that . . .  and it just means I have more to do . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.