News Of The Day 4/6/2011

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Dish gets Blockbuster, Accel buys into Legendary Pictures, and the Haunted Mansion guts upgraded. It's an odd news day, so let's get to the geeky job news!

Economics/Geekonomics:
Some charts to give you an idea of what's up and true in the new federal budget battle. It appears Ryan's plan is, frankly, deceptive and unhelpful, so I'm not sure how useful this is – but it's interesting to get all the details. There's already a mini-scandal brewing over Ryan's data. Pay attention folks, a government shutdown and future policies are gonna affect you.

Demographics:
A look at Ohio. As a former Ohio resident, I feel the state has NOT lived up to its potential, and this gives me hope for it. Ohio also had a lot of advantages – one of the reasons I stayed there for quite some time.

Media:
This is interesting: Accel partners invests in Legendary Pictures. Accel put money into Facebook and other tech – sounds like they see a shift to media as a good idea. Hmm. Wonder what they're trying – or what we should know . . .

Disney is upgrading the Haunted Mansion.

Tablets:
The Xoom's sales are kinda dismal. I'm surprised, and I think the reviews have seemed a bit harsh – though I suspect the iPad 2 sucked the air out of the room. This may get some people to rethink Android/Tablet strategies, so pay attention as that may affect your job if you're in mobile or dev.

Zoho docs will be on the iPad. Zoho has a pretty sweet suite of web apps that do various office features like spreadsheets, word processing, etc. THIS gives the iPad a direct app that competes with Google Apps, which I'm sure is not lost on Apple. This also further "normalizes" SaaS – and continues the CorpTechPocalypse.

Technology:
A startup fund just for designers. This is a great idea in my biased opinion, so keep track of it folks, this might just found your next company.

Looks like Twitter is getting a tax break, producing some snark. The snakiness of the article compares with other comments I'm seeing, and I'm not sure if it's good for Twitter's image, especially these days. The concerns over companies getting breaks, sitting on cash, etc. isn't going to wear well with people in the Great Recession.

Wow. The Commodore 64 is coming back.

Video:
Youtube is going to spend a LOT of money on original content. This may explain a few stirrings I've seen in the Silicon Valley area. They have the cash to burn . . . this could be useful if you make programming, or just want to work at Youtube.

A look at the finances of video streaming which looks promising and does seem to be a trend. I will continue to crush on Netflix now.

Dish Network picked up Blockbuster for $320 million, $228 of that in cash. What do they plan to do with it? My guess is fold in what they can, move into video service, and drop/sell the rest – which means competing against other services (and more "kill your cable"), and maybe some job oppos later. Also, another look at what Blockbuster did wrong

QUESTION OF THE DAY: So what do you think Dish can/should/will do with Blockbuster?

– Steven Savage

I Have a Job, They Don’t: Be Ready For Networking

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(Continuing my series on "I have a job they don't" I wanted to expand a bit on networking – started in my Pro-Active Networking post.  Sorry if some of this is repetitious.)

So you've got friends, family, and fellow fans out of work. One of the best, most obvious ways to help them is to introduce them to your network of contacts, recruiters, and coworkers.  I've talked about that.

It doesn't help if you're not ready.

As I've said in the past, there are a few basic things you can do:

  • *Give them your recruiter list. Hand over that spreadsheet, document, whatever you have that keeps track of the various recruiters you've talked to throughout your career.
  • *Hook up with him on LinkedIn.com. Introduce them to people in your network, or encourage them to use your network to meet useful contacts.
  • *Introduce them to coworkers, and other people you know that may help them get a job. This doesn't even have to be “official.” This can be social as well as professional.

Yes, introducing your unemployed fellows to your recruiters, your network, and so on is a great way to help them get over that unemployment hump and find gainful and interesting work. It's simple, effective, and let's face it, we have networking hammered into our heads over and over again by every other job search book with over read. Networking works.

It doesn't work if you're not prepared–and that's something important to keep in mind.  If you want your contacts and networking to help others you have to work at them.

If you want to help people with your networking, you need to be ready.

Many of us don't even network enough to help support our own careers, let alone help other people. If you don't have a networking strategy for your career, then you are going to lose out, you are going to miss opportunities, and your job searches will be harder. If you're not networking now, you can't help yourself, let alone other people.

When–or if–you are networking effectively, you need to think about networking not just with other people, but for other people. A good networking strategy is always about more than you–it's about helping people in your network and even out of your network. Unfortunately too many of us get hung up on networking for ourselves–don't let that happen to you, think about how your help other people.

Here's what I recommend to make sure your networking is the kind of networking can help your unemployed friends, family, and fans:

Keep a recruiter list–something I've harped on since this blog was founded. Keep a list of good recruiters that you've met in your job searches, talk to them regularly to see how they're doing, and hand this list other people doing job searches. Everybody wins.

Always look for the opportunity to introduce people to each other.  I use a "triading" strategy from "Tribal Leadership" – I look for chances to introduce two people to each other in a group email.  It's a great way to build contacts – and build contacts among everyone you know.

Be selective.  I'm sorry to say, but not everyone should meet everyone or should be introduced to every recruiter.  Some people don't get along, won't get along, or aren't appropriate for whatever industry, temperament, or situation others find themselves in.

Introduce your unemployed friends and family to your network – and make sure you're networking is prepared ahead of time.

– Steven Savage

News of The Day 4/5/2011

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Pretty diverse bunch of news today, so dive on in!

Economics:
Delicious chart porn of Employment data. Enjoy, econogeeks!

Demographics:
State population growth isn't directly correlated with productivity. A nice bit of information next time someone talks simplistic demographics.

Geek Law:
*Sigh* I think this is gonna become a permanent category.

Several studios sued the streaming service Zediva – and its a list of some serious big boys. Zediva lets you watch movies online, but the movies come from an actually playing DVD – yeah, a potential loophole on streaming. This should be interesting to watch.

Google may face a U.S. Antitrust probe. I'm wondering if Google might use this to take on parts of the legal system they don't like as well (lately they seem to be questioning the current use of the patent system)

Anime and Manga:
NEC Biglobe in Japan starts a digital manga publisher in the US and Japan. They've got some ambitious targeting as well – and an interesting "ticket" system. As far as I can tell this is separate from other ventures we've been following. Enough people are going into eComic/eManga space – I can't see them all surviving.

Media:
No, Google's changes didn't seem to affect at least one big content farm. A look at how Demand Media works in handy infographic form is insightful.

Disney Online has management changes and a focus on Innovation. No, literally, there is a team named Innovation. I'm actually somewhat positive on this as good idea incubation can be very effective, so let's see what Innovation comes up with – or if it's just a buzzword and DO keeps meandering.

Music:
Thoughts on why band names are weird.

Technology:
GoDaddy's elephant-shooting stunt seems to have helped its rival Namecheap.

Some changes at Google as the Product Head steps down – and won't be replaced. Sounds like the different Product lines will be a little more independent for awhile – if not for far longer. Not sure what this says about Google strategy – I'd like to give it a few months.

Video Games:
After the jailbreaking lawsuit, it looks like Sony has two Hactivist groups after it, and things sound like they may get not only aggressive, but personal. Speculation – since it seems we're seen an onslaught of legal battles in the Geekonomy, are we going to see more hacktivism in response?

Outspark aims straight at the middle ground of gamers with Divine Souls, a kind of fighting/RPG mix. Their aims are intriguing, walking the fine line between casual and massive games, and looking for the "midcourse" audience. Game looks fun, though they have a lot of rivals. Also can we GET some of these games on Mac? Please?

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Is there room for "middle" games?

– Steven Savage