Promoting Professional Geekery #29 – Be Accessible

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If you want to promote the professional geek ideal, there’s one thing you have to do.

I’m not talking running cons, doing events, writing books, and so forth.  Those are all fine and you should do them (if not all of them).  One thing you need to do if, like the motley crew here, you want to help people be professional geeks, is to be accessible.

Being accessible is indespensibe if you want to help people in their geeky career endeavors.  It’s not something we think of very often because it’s a “being” as opposed to an “action.”  It’s being someone people can reach and find out about is very important because . . .

  • People need to reach you to call upon your expert knowledge, sublime wisdom, and other things you are, of course, too modest to claim.
  • There are cons, events, chat groups, and  more that you should attend – you need to be accessible to be invited.
  • You need feedback on the things you are doing, both positive and critical.  If people can’t reach you, how can they do it?
  • Those who may want to call upon you may not always know what you do.  You need a way to tell them and show them.

So, you, my fellow progeek, need to be someone people can reach.  Perhaps not overly so, you may value your privacy, but people need to be able to know about you and contact you.  Take control of it – and make it work the way you want.

  • First, as I harp on endlessly, get a web page for yourself.  Find the right domain, get up a page simply (Rapidweaver, WordPress, what have you).  This lets you show who you are, get found in search engines, and funnel people towards a media you control entirely.
  • Make sure you have contact information on your page – or better yet an email form that people can fill out so you can avoid spam.  Those are pretty easy, and many simple apps and web packages come with them (or you can go to http://www.wufoo.com/).
  • Have the right social media profiles that fit your needs – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.  Again, find what fits your personal tastes and need for privacy – though as usual I’ll emphasize LinkedIn is wonderful, useful, restores hair growth, and makes kittens smile.
  • Be sure your web page has links to these social media profiles – it helps tie everything together so people can reach you the way they want.  By choosing what to show and how to connect, you, of course, still keep control.
  • In the web page/social media that “advertises your progeekery” be sure to have a section that covers what you do in that vein.  Perhaps you list panels you do, books you’ve written, etc.  Let people know what you do (it also helps filter out people that really don’t need to talk to you).
  • Review your “accessibility plan” regularly to make sure it works for you.

If you want to change the world (you know in a positive way), in a way to help people find their interests and live their hobbies (you know, in a geeky way), make sure people can reach you.

Just make sure it’s in the way that is something that fits your needs.

– Steven Savage

Really. Yahoo is suing Facebook

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No, I’m not kidding.  I’d heard rumors of this coming, but there you go.

It seems incredibly obvious with the timing (and past history) that this is an attempt to get a settlement out of Facebook to give them some cash.  However reactions I’ve seen across the net are mostly “what a load.”

For Facebook, well, they’ll weather this (they have other problems).  For Yahoo this looks incredibly pathetic (and a repeat of their suit against Google), and breaks a kind of unwritten rule among web companies of “don’t sue over this.”  They’re going to loose a lot of sympathy over this.

Also, frankly, the patents don’t seem to be very defendable because they’re rather general (though the linked analysis seems a bit off) and look like the kind of things Yahoo could sue enormous amounts of companies over.  Some good lawyers could probably take this thing apart fast.

This is humiliating for Yahoo, and smells of desperation to me – they’re resorting to patent trolling.  Sure they might win – or they might get smashed while everyone else looks on and applauds.  But they’re making a lot of people angry.

If they’re resorting to this level of action to raise money, I’m going to say take Yahoo OFF your to-work for list.  I think they may be in worse trouble than we thought.

– Steven Savage

– Steven Savage

Valve Made Money Via Free

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TechDirt has a great analysis of a larger analysis on Valve’s profitability, specifically how TF2 worked when it went free.  The major lessons are research, connecting with customers, make it so pay isn’t needed to play, and give people a good reason to buy (not a negative).  In short, it appears to be a giant  mass of common sense, which of course makes it rare and remarkable.

Well worth reading.

Also, what I’d add here is that Valve’s approaches are not based on adversity, they’re based on building alliances and providing value (as noted “piracy is a service problem.”).  This is a great model that is also common sense, but begs the question why common sense seems so alien today.  I’d argue that once companies get big enough to throw their weight around, and gain enough “age” to feel they’re fixtures, there’s a risk of abuse.

– Steven Savage