Skill Portability: Representative Skills and Portability

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(9/17/2016 – These posts have been expanded in a book, Skill Portability: A Guide To Moving Skills Between Jobs)

So we’re discussing how you can port skills from job to job and career to career.  I use the acronym DARE to represent the different kinds of Skill Portability – Direct, Advantageous, Representative, and Enhancing.  I’ve already covered Direct and Advantageous, so it’s time to get to Representative.

There are some skills that really don’t matter to the job.  They may not even provide any advantages.  They could be irrelevant, they could be in your past, they could be from a previous career.

Think of the skills that you leave behind when you move up in the world.  Project Managers that were once Engineers no longer program.

Think of the skills that change when you switch professions.  That old software package you used at one publisher isn’t used at the new one.

Think of the skills that change with time.  Those computer language that no longer are the hip thing to write in, the database no one uses, the vendor long gone and bought out.

These skills and knowledges sound useless, left to the necropolis of past careers and past experiences, but they’re not useless it all.  They speak of what you did, of how you got where you are.  They tell stories of who you were and what you became, and the speak, in a way of what you may be.

In short, they’re Representative of who you are and of your career and life trajectory.  They speak of you – you just don’t use them anymore.

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Employment Search Book Update: Delayed Due To Irony

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OK, my book compiling all my tips from my job search in 2012?  It’s going to be delayed a bit.  It’s nothing with health, or content, or anything else.

I just got laid off.

So, yes, admittedly I could publish it, but I’m going to feel like a bit of a burke publishing a book about a job search when I don’t have a job.  It just wouldn’t be right.

I also view this as a chance to try out the strategies I compiled and expand them.  Admittedly even with two days I’ve found new things to add and validated some others.  But it’ll be delayed for awhile.

I will probably start some of my other projects in the interim, as the book is literally ready to go except for the conversion.  My estimate is it’ll be out 2-3 weeks after I find a new job – so I can do the update, the check, and the conversion.

– 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/.

If The Future Is Cultural Power . . .

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This article on the future of China as a superpower intrigued me, mostly for asking the question of what kind of superpower China could be.  As I analyzed it, I ultimately figured power has to be cultural on one level or another – simply using force of any form is limited and limiting, as well as exhausting and compromising.  So my rough figuring was China will have more power the more it is able to exert positive cultural influence.

Then I began thinking about the world.  Where US films are exported everywhere.  Where anime is a giant cultural export for Japan.  Where India has taken the musical to amazing heights.  Where Gangnam style has raised awareness of Korean music, and probably K-pop as a whole.

The US was also good at leveraging export technologies and economic and political power post WWII.  Anime would not have been nearly as popular in the US without fansubs, streaming, and cheaper delivery technology.  India’s media popularity has gone slow-burn, but seems to be helped by things like Netflix and hip cultural awareness like the Colbert Show.  Gangnam style wouldn’t even be KNOWN without Youtube.

Cultural power is something that China will want and need – and that means media and communications technologies, shows and comics, a real media/world presence.

So that makes me wonder what’s next for China.  Will it try to build a culture engine for commercial, economic, and cultural power?  Will one evolve or be allowed to evolve?  Is it even being thought of?

What will their geeks and geekonomy be like if they seek superpower status and cultural influence in the world?

I’m not sure I have answers.  OK I’m pretty sure I don’t, but it’s going to be interesting to see the Chinese geekonomy and how it works – and evolves – and connects it to the world.  You have to open up to have influence . . .

– 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/.