Ask A Progeek: Name-Dropping

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Been awhile since I’ve published one of these?  Well, we do have a new question for our progeeks: How Do You Name-Drop?

We all wonder – should we mention someone we know in our cover letters?  Should we, in short, shout out we know someone there?

Actually, let’s back up.  Is name-dropping a good idea?  The answer to that is, in general, no.

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Promoting Professional Geekery #38: Raise The Children Well

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(For more Promoting Professional Geekery, see this Roundup of past columns.)

When did you first realize your hardcore geekdom was a possible career?  Me, I think I was about 7 or 8.

I was into science and medicine and such, and already figured that’d be my job.  I got some encouragement from my family, and even more later on in my life.  It probably helped that only a few people even knew what the hell I was talking about, but at least no one tried to derail me.

And, decades later, it worked out pretty good.

So if you want to promote the professional geek ideal start helping out young people.  They’ve got enough challenges to face right now with a failing economy, bad school systems, poor . . . er, wait, I’m depressing myself.

Let’s focus on the positive.  If you’ve got a way with the younger generation, from experience with your own children to recently having been the younger generation, start helping them out.  Bring them into the progeeky fold.

Here’s ways where you can start helping progeeky kids with an early step up:

  • If you do the con scene, do events for young creative, geeky, technical people.  Crafty things, fun events, what have you.
  • Teach, work with, or other wise help at youth events and clubs.
  • Encourage your local schools to start after-school classes or events on careers that you (and your friends) can speak and advise on.
  • If you have kids of your own, younger siblings, or friends with kids, always be supportive of them career-wise.  Even if you don’t have children, the kids and their parents may give you ideas of how you can do more.
  • If you write, then consider books for a younger set on career issues.

Think of what you can do to educate, help, and support.  For that matter, think how many parents may be thrilled that their children are getting some career ideas early that they also enjoy.  That helps a lot when they look at the cost of college.

Come to think of it the parents are someone you should keep in mind, and that’s for next column . . .

– Steven Savage

Greece Leaving The Euro?

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OK I’ll put on my Robe and Economist’s Hat and note we’ve got a nice article here on what happens if Greece leaves the euro – or gets kicked out.  Basic result is it hurts, but also people pull money out of other troubled Euro countries, probably putting it into Germany.  Most of this is due to one of Paul Krugman’s predictions, which people tend to listen to.

I’m feeling Krugman is actually too negative on how this could play out (it’s summarized at the article), but it’s still going to end badly for someone(s).  The real question is how the pain is spread out and which politicians want to watch things go to hell on their watch.  In short, I can see things being drawn out in the hope of a soft landing that pushes these possible scenareos out into the future, it’s just that the question of “can we kick people out of/do we leave the euro” is going to come up eventually.

This is made further complicate by the Greek political situation, which I have had trouble figuring out for years.  I’m not exactly sympathetic to Greece’s situation, let’s put it that way, though I’m anti-Austerity.

What this means for us in the U.S. is that the world economy, at any time, could have some nasty shakeup as the Euro kicks people out, gets left, new austerity measures go into place, politics change, etc.  I’m not sure what role the U.S. is taking, if any, to try and sort this mess out – it’d be very useful to do some digging.

So U.S. recovery aside and other hope, we’ve still got a big chunk of the world having economic problems.  That, in short, could mess things up for everyone else, us included.

Oh, and Canada.  Hey guys.

– Steven Savage