Fan To Pro - The Blog of Professional Geekery

For those of you who want to get the Fan To Pro Experience in Person

I'll be speaking at Kin Yoobi Con on August 8th!  It's a fun con in the Bay Area run by a crack group of people.  A 1 day event, very neat.

- Steven Savage

Getting Into Networking

I like to network.  A lot.  Sure Networking is indispensable to your career (we've all heard that beofre), but frankly I consider it indispensable to life.  I enjoy it.  I get into it.

Realizing not everyone gets into it, I wanted to spell out some pointers that may help people get into the "networking rush."

Not geeky enough for your job?

Have you every worried you're not geeky enough for your job?

A weird thing to say when many of us don't want to discuss our extensive addiction to Legend of the Five Rings in a job interview, but it's actually a factor.  Jobs like game programmer, artist, writer, reviewer, etc. are positions where you're expected to have a certain level of geek on display.  Believe it or not, people do worry about it.

Think of your geekiness as a way of displaying certain talents, affiliations, and even knowledges and competencies.  There are expectations people have, and you may find yourself actually being NOT geeky enough - or at least worrying that during that vital interview with the guy who has multiple piercings, your business outfit may have seemed a tad  . . . boring.

I've had to deal with this.  I still do in some cases as I'm a Project Manager in IT - I am PAID to be the dull guy with Gantt charts, spreadsheets, and organizational skill.  I just do it in geeky jobs, and need to communicate my passion about the subject matter before I discuss my love-hate relationship with Team Foundation Server.

Social Media Plus Streaming Video Equals Very Good Idea

Funimation, which now commands a rather sizeable share of the anime market, made a rather interesting announcement as America was preparing to launch its holiday weekend: It's starting a combined social networking and anime stream site called Shojodojo.

What this means to you is that your anime hobby may now be even better for your job prospects than it was before.

News of the Day, July 3, 2009

Job Market

Ten Things to Include in a Resume: How to keep yours from being one of the 75% for a single position that end up in the garbage. (And that statistic is another reason networking is very important). And, related: Ten Smart Tips for Getting the Interview.

How to Manage Your Manager: Tips to keep from being among the micro-managed by "managing upward" - a good skill to master if you're currently having to stick out a bad job situation until the recession ends.

Treat Your Job Search Like a Job Search: Why you shouldn't listen to people who tell you that you should plan your career like you were planning your wedding or running a marathon.

Ways to Find People on Twitter: Definitely useful for networking purposes.

Economics/Geekonomics

Personal Bankrupcy Filings Increase 40% in June: Definitely another sign that we're not out of the woods yet when it comes to the recession.

How the Crash Continues to Reshape America: Certain areas of the country seem to be getting harder-hit by the economy than others, with New York, DC and most college towns weathering the storm fairly well and the Sunbelt, not so much. Interesting reading, especially if you're planning to relocate for your career.

Technology

Must-Read Blogs for Freelance Developers: The selections for web tech types here cover php, jquery, ruby on rails, css and general web development. 

Google has added more features to its Blog Search, including the ability to subscribe to any topic via RSS or Atom, and Hot Queries, which allows you to see most-blogged-about topics. Good news to those of us who feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of tech- and career-related blogs out there.

The charter for the XHTML Working Group, set to expire at the end of this year, will reportedly not be renewed, meaning XHTML 2 XHTML2 will never be a W3C recommendation, so it has been effectively cancelled. If you're looking to learn Web design, HTML is now the only game in town.

Publishing

More details have emerged about the Gannett layoffs: they will cut 1,400 people across 80 newspapers, including 100 in Cincinnatti alone . Interestingly enough, the company's digital properties are being spared the cuts, which shows the company is definitely among those considering the electronic frontier their future (and possible salvation). 

Anime/Manga

Funimation seems to have tossed its hat in the social media arena: the anime company will host Shojodojo, a fusion of streaming video and Facebook-type networking - reminiscent of not only Crunchyroll's move toward social media but also the Hulu/Facebook linkups. Look for these two red-hot arenas of the cyber world to converge more and more in the future - if you know a bit about both, it could go a long way for you.

iTunes will be selling anime music in North America from the Bandai Namco library, including soundtracks from Lucky Star and Haruhi Suzimiya. Apple has been moving toward mainstream recognition of anime music and J-rock for some time - for instance, its Genius system recognizes that my own iTunes includes music by L'arc-en-Ciel and recommends songs by Gackt. If you know J-rock, your knowledge may be in demand by mainstream music marketers and publications soon.

Video Games

To no surprise, Midway has officially been sold to Warner Bros. for 33 million - but two of the game company's studios, in San Diego and the U.K., were shut out of the deal and will be shut down if no other buyer is found. This brings a very long, sad saga to an at least hopeful end for Midway's remaining employees. Midway's story is definitely worth studying as a cautionary tale of what can go wrong in gaming. 

Game download service Steam is offering a half-price discount  on Fallout 3 for the holiday weekend - a promotion designed to give people who are still getting their games the old-fashioned disc way a taste for downloading. We'll see what kind of effect it has - both on the future of downloading, and on their servers!

A nonprofit group called Pros vs. GI Joe has started a military-only gaming network, allowing troops from connected bases and branches to play each other. There's been a link between the military and gaming for some time (some games have been used in training), so they always should be considered a market  for new games and gaming technology.  

- Bonnie

What DO people want from us Progeeks?

Part of a career is figuring out what you can deliver, what people want/need, and then, well, delivering it.

In an age of changing technology, changing media and changing everything, it's hard to KNOW what people want.  As of the last five years or so I think technology's impact has been especially prominent in changing markets, job, and product - but I don't think what people want has exactly changed.  It's actually more obvious - it's just not always want we expect.

So, what is it people are looking for in their products/services/etc.?  Especially things we professional geeks like to work on and deliver?

The Advantage of Double Doing

When it comes to having the career - and hobbies - you like, you'll often find yourself pressed for time, especially if your life is more "in progress" than anything else.  You've got commitments, assignments, friends, conventions, etc. to take care of.

Worst, you often feel like these things conflict - time to work on a fan website conflicts with a class you want to take, hanging with friends means missing a seminar, a chance to travel overseas for work means missing a convention, etc.

An approach I find helps with this is to look for chances for "Double Doing."

By this I mean, look to see what there is in your life, even in the most stressful tasks or situations, that you can get multiple benefits from.  What is there in your demanding schedule that benefits you in many ways and your many sides as a person - or how can you make things benefit you in multiple ways.

That convention you go to may be a chance to do some networking (or slip in an interview at a local company).  If you've got to learn a new web tool at work, can you use it to rebuild your fan site?  Those free reviews you write may also let you hone your skills and be a better technical writer.

You can even take this further by going out of your way to see what you can do that "pays double" for you - classes in technology you use on the job and off, a chance to relocate to a better job can put you near a convention you like and make you look good to management, etc.

You get the idea - a lot of your life can pay off in many ways - personally, professionally, in entertainment, etc.  You have to look for it - and occasionally make it.

- Steven Savage

News of the Day, July 2, 2009

Video Games

Social game Mafia Wars hits 4 million daily users and Playfish installs 100 million games in 18 months : More proof that social media may be one of the most fertile arenas of the gaming industry around today. Another one is sports games: 2K Sports NBA 2K9, which is available on all major gaming platforms except the Nintendo ones, has surpassed 2 million in sales, a figure which probably would be much higher if there were a Wii version.

No More Heroes, a major hit for the Wii, may be moving away from that platform and toward Microsoft's Project Natal - the company behind the game says they've "done all they can" with the Nintendo device. Which raises the question of the future of "hardcore gaming" on the Wii - will other developers follow the lead of Grasshopper Manufacture and take their non-casual games to the motion-enabled Xbox? It's a possible future trend worth watching.  

Job Market

Bad news job-statistics wise: There were 467,000 jobs lost in June, the first time in four months that the number of jobs lost rose from the previous month. The statistic was about 100,000 more jobs than expected, too, and unemployment is at its highest levels since 1983. Definitely a sign we're not out of the woods yet recession-wise.

Publishing

The parent companies of the Chicago Tribune and Dallas Morning News have formed an ad-sharing partnership, hoping to entice national advertisers with the promise of gaining visibility in several major cities with a single ad buy. It means fewer jobs in the ad departments of these papers, but it may save a lot of jobs on the writing end.

Another high-profile magazine has vanished - hip-hop bible Vibe abruptly shut down earlier this week. However, there may be hope for its staffers: Superproducer Quincy Jones, who founded the publication more than 20 years ago, said he is trying to buy it back and reopen it. Seeing any closed magazine get a second chance in this climate is always a good thing, so hopefully, Jones will succeed.  

Technology

Joost has announced it will provide 'white-label' content hosting for video providers, meaning a cable or satellite company can host its content on Joost under its own label. This shifts their focus from content provider to content host, and is probably the only way they can survive after losing the battle with Hulu.

Media

A conference focused on the intersection of the film, comics, video game and television industries, sponsored by ICv2, will be held in San Diego on the eve of Comic-Con. The main focus will be on cross-media opportunities for comics providers, but the very fact that such a conference exists shows how seriously cross-media synergy is being taken by the entertainment industry as a whole. (Of course, sometimes it can be taken too far: Universal has serious plans to produce a game based on Asteroids).  

Social Media

Twitter increases API limit: Tweetdeck users are reporting that their hourly API call limit has been increased from 100 to 150 per hour, even though there's been no official announcement from Twitter yet.

- Bonnie   

Too Big To Fail: The Geeky Version

 companies seem to be veering into their own version of "too big to fail."

That's not to say these companies are economically mismanaged messes, the result of pathetic regulation, or their collapse will destroy the world economy.  In fact, all are more reliable, if not far more reliable than many of these botched institutions.  They're too big to fail in that they're so widespread, and have so much potential (realized and unrealized), that they're not going away - and I suspect they rely on this.

News of the Day 7/1/2009

Economics/Freakonomics/Geekonomics:
Was the US debt problem caused by trying to keep up with the effects of wealth concentration?  An analysis of a much headier read.  If the author's information bears out, some social shifts will be needed.

Anime:
Crunchyroll gets yet another simulcast.  We haven't had any Crunchynews, and they just keep going - and no rivals so far.  I'm wondering when even more VC gets poured into them because they know what they're doing.  I saw this as a user.

Publishing:
Ganett lays off 1400 people - 3% of their workforce.  It's been relatively stable on the news/publishing scene lately, so not sure if this means a new wave or if it's an isolated incident.

Social Media:
A look at how social media maps to communications.  A heady read.  Take it slow, but it makes some good points.

Facebook makes some changes to privacy and settings - and some twitterlike additions.  Facebook seems to be continually evolving, and this appears to be done to make communication - and indexing - easier.  Note that with vanity URLs, etc. Facebook seems more than glad to take cues from other social media, which may explain their success - but also suggests what is the norm in social media . . .

Technology:
In two years iPhone startups have gotten $100 million from Investors.  Exciting, but remember some of this is probably only a few million for some companies.

Television:
SyFy may remake the Alien Nation TV series.  I was a fan of the series before the movies, very well acted and well done.  A remake makes me wonder what else is being considered for remake on the smallscreen - or the internet.  Even more remakes on the way since they're safe?  Is that good or bad for media careers?

Video:
Hulu is working on it's UK launch.  They'll be even more relevant when they get this - so where's the inevitable rival?  Their competition seems to not be doing too hot.  Now where will their jobs be . . .

As Hulu marches on, here's a great analysis of what went wrong with Joost.  A great acutionary tale.

- Steven Savage