Progress: Quest for Employment

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So my rewrite of my “how I found a job fast in 2012” book has been named “Quest for Employment.”  Not sure that’s the best title, but then again I’ve never taken a lot of specific blog posts and made them into a booklet.  I have done general compilations, but not this.  So hey, I’ll take a lame title.

Anyway, I’ve had trouble getting back to it after a series of events, visits, and now illness.  So I plan to get back to it and try and finish it this month or at least early November.  The idea is to do it as a simple, low-priced, effective ebook, probably $1.99

What I want to do with it is take articles from my series and rework them into sort of a “plus” version.  The idea is that after completing a series, I could then improve it, enhance it, and take what I learned to create a coherent book.  So if people liked the series, wanted to get more, or just wanted a low-priced compilation, it’d be a great purchase.

I rather like this idea.  I get to create a great series (and in many cases blaze new trails), and then the lessons learned get applied to producing a great book.  I even validate that the idea is a good one.

Right now the state of the book is mostly re-editied, and I’m also adding useful resources to each section.  I also am adding “To Dos,” my rather famous thing from many of my books – saying what you have to do right after reading.  Always gets people motivated, and helps you feel active.

I’ll keep the updates here – because I ALSO have two other series I want to try this on if it works . . .

– 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/.

Your Ideal Job: Do You Know What You Want?

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The ideal job.  The ideal position.  The ideal career.  We talk about these things, we want these things, we strive for these things.

I do, of course.  I’m big on life/career integration.  I know many other people who strive for these things as well . . . which of course I do because I meet people like myself.

But I hear all these talks about what people are doing to find the perfect job.  I hear pay rates and statistics on what they want.  I hear bits and pieces of abstract discussions.

As we quest for the perfect career I think we can miss an obvious question: what is really going to make us happy in our careers?

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The Debate Died Early

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The Obama/Romney debate was unimpressive (big looser?  Jim Lehrer).  From what I hear about the Stewart/O’Reilly debate it was livlier but uninsipriing.  Everyone’s already talking Twitter, Facebook, and how that impacts the debates.  Big Bird is a meme, the Stewart/O’Reilly debate’s technical glitches are being discussed, and the debates kind of fade away.

I miss the idea of good, substantial debate.  Catchphrases, bumper stickers, and blatant lies aren’t exactly the substance of great historical import.  Neither is statistics diddling or mathematical games.

So I began speculating that perhaps the internet is replacing debates.  There you can post length discussions and link to numbers.  There the dialog is ongoing.  There things happen.

My answer to this is, possibly, yes.  But I don’t think the internet killed the debate.

I think that it died a lot earlier in our media.

Everything is turned into media sound bites, spectacle, and sensationalism, and our supposed politics and policies aren’t much different.  It’s an age of sensationalism and catchphrases, of what makes audiences angry over any kind of discussion, of what sells ad time.  Politics is entertainment – it’s always been, but it’s pretty much merged as far as I’m concerned, accelerated by television, media empires, and 24-hour news cycles people have to fill.

Worse, it’s a mix of advertising and reality television.

To put the final capper on it, it’s been entertainment long enough for people to imitate it.  You’ve heard the catchphrases bubble up in people’s political discussions.  You know the people who ape their favorite media-news pundits.  This reality-TV politics has infected us.

So debates are dead.  We just started killing them early – and I think the internet is replacing the gap.

Even if that gap sometime is using LOLCats as template for political discussions.

– 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/.