Fan To Pro - The Blog of Professional Geekery

Let Me Bore You: Geek Your Budget

It's time to geek your budget.

Financial planning is always important (if recent events haven't made that abundantly clear).  That's why you have to make sure that you have budget set aside for the "importantly" geeky things that make you both a geek/fan, AND a progeek.

Consider:

• Are you setting aside money for the technology you use - a new cell phone, computer, etc.?  You're going to use those in the job search, in running your own business, to keep in touch, etc.
• Are you setting aside money for conventions and events that are important to you both as a fan and as a networking tool?
• re you making sure you have your assorted enjoyable pointless spending worked into your budget - so it doesn't sneak up on you?

I actually set aside money once a week for such things, and keep track of it.  That way I'm always prepared for my pro-geek and general fan needs.

For a lot of us our fannishness, geekyness, etc. doesn't fall too far away from our personal and professional ambitions.  Go on and geek your budget ahead of time - you'll be glad.

- Steven Savage

Let Me Bore You: Review of Econompicdata

Review of:http://econompicdata.blogspot.com/

PROS:  A site that explains economics with pretty graphs, actual english, and a good sense of humor.
CONS: Can get a bit too "economist-like".  Subjects chosen can be erratic.

SUMMARY: A colorful, effective site on economic issues that makes economics a bit easier to learn and understand.

I do love a good econoblog.  This is not necessarily because they're easy to understand - they often art - I just value the information I get.  The problem of course is communicating this to other people less inclined to analyze these things in depth or without the background to understand what the people at econoblogs are TALKING about.

Econompicdata is a refreshing change.  With the subheader "Darn Nice Economic Eye Candy" this is a blog that mixes good explanations and good graphs to discuss a variety of issues in a bite-sized way.

Econompicdata's blogger, Jake, picks whatever seems to come to mind or be interesting and discusses it with one or more helpful graphs.  YOu can see info on plane crashes, the housing market,oil, liquidity, and more.  The graphs help you understand what's going on - and Jake's explanations usually (but not always) are easy for non-economics to understand or at least get a grip on the issue.

The blog, the graphics, and the writing are refreshingly clear and easy to read.  No clutter, no fuss, no mess, just the subject, the information, and the analysis so you can get an idea of what's going on.

If there's one real flaw it's that you're never sure what's going to get posted here, so unless you're deeply into economics, you can be pretty sure not all of it is going to be of interest to you.  It's a testimony to Jake's depth that he covers so much, but be aware that the blog isn't always going to be up your alley.

I strongly recommend putting this into your blogfeed of business and economic information.  You can be pretty sure at some point something of use to you is going to pop up - and be understandable to you.

- Steven Savage

Let Me Bore You: Stability and Profit

And let's get down to some more boring career advice!  You know you enjoy it, if only because it saves on sleeping pills!

Today's subject - stability versus profit at work.

Sure we all want high levels of pay, and a lot of us probably deserve them.  However one of the factors to consider in long term career planning, is that just because you get paid a certain amount a year on average, it doesn't mean that's what you'll make in the end.  You will face pay cuts, layoffs, etc.

That has to be taken into account in working on long-term plans and budgets.

What's the average rate of pay in your profession - and the average amount of time someone spends unemployed - and how often does it happen?  If you've found over eight years that you get laid off every 2 years and it takes you 3 months to find a job, that's not eight years of solid employment - that's 12 entire months of unemployment in 8 years - you really only worked 7 years.  In short, you made 7/8 of your pay rate (not counting unemployment and severance of course).

That little bit of math can be a lifesaver in long-term planning because it not only lets you project ahead and tells you about your unemployment prospects (for instance in some professions certain months and quarters are more likely for layoffs), but also lets you do some long-term budgeting.  You can, with just basic math skills, do a bit more planning ahead and calculations to stay on an even keep financially.

So, take an inventory of your past employment and see what you can see in layoffs, hiring, and how it might impact your budget.

- Steven Savage

Let Me Bore You: Insurance

It's been awhile since I embarked on boring our readers, and with some of the major issues of the day affecting your career, let's focus on an issue you need to be following: insurance.  Specifically, health insurance.

Let Me Bore You: Spreadsheets

And it's time for another entry in our practical yet boring columns.  This time I'm going to discuss another exceedingly common and boring thing that's worth knowing how to do in your career.

That thing is Spreadsheets.  Yes, spreadsheets.  Excel.  Columns and rows and sums.  Those things.

And as exciting as they are not to many people (personal note: *I* love spreadsheets), they are something you're going to want to know a lot about, and they're something you're going to want to use.

So.  Let's get boring.

Let Me Bore You: Content Creation

And we're voyaging into the mundanely practical yet again!  This time it's why you're going to want to know content creation in the changing economy.

When I talk content creation I am not talking about simple emails, Tweets, text messages, etc.  I'm talking specifically about the ability to create text entries with the purpose of communicating ideas and experiences - and peripherally other media.

In short, you're going to want to know how to write well in current and future economy at the very least.

Social Media: The Holy Trinity Plus One

Awhile ago I began deliberately working on my personal and professional social media strategy - and began doing readings, querying people, etc.  My goal? What was a good core social media strategy that wouldn't overtake one's life and let me pursue my personal and professional goals.

What I found actually surprised me a bit, and I'll share it here.

Let Me Bore You: Regulation Nation

So there's a firestorm over the AIG bonuses which is at least somewhat understandable, even if the situation itself is more complex than it seems (retention bonuses are a weird animal as is).  Of course let's face it, people are pretty angry right now so if anything, AIG has to be considered guilty of absolutely awful public relations on top of anything else.

Now with AIG managing to look bad and people up in arms, with the bad economy, you can be pretty sure we can expect more regulation of financial industries.  You saw how fast Congress acted on taxing AIG bonuses.  We can expect more regulation due to a mixture of election-oriented populism, and the actual NEED for it.

With regulation targeted not-so-squarely at financial institutions, many people will doubtlessly be happy.  It may not be perfect, populist rage will be a part of it, but it's hard to deny after the economic debacle we've been through, it's needed.  We can always tweak it into shape over the years, and no one is sympathetic to financial institutions right now.

Except that regulation targeted to the financial industry isn't going to be the only regulation you see.

So what will you see?  A lot more.  We've had some bad cases of regulation the last few years, finance merely being an incredibly horrible example.  We've seen cases of the FDA in the US falling down on the job.  We've got plans for carbon emission regulation.  All of this regulation is understandable, but what's important to realize is it is NOT going to be banks.

You may see new regulations affecting your job, your career, your business.  It doesn't matter if it's a good idea (and frankly I'm all for more regulation in many industries), the key is you're going to see it, and it may well affect what you do.

• Stricter pollution controls might affect prices of certain products you work with for a time.
• Who knows what regulation may get rammed through affecting media content (as we've seen in Utah), though that will probably be on a state level.
• Credit may be tough to get now, but stricter regulation certainly means it won't go back to the levels we were used to - a good thing, but still, a factor.
• We know there's some kind of international copyright law discussion going on.  What is up with that . . .

So just keep in mind that this is coming.  As much as it may be well-deserved, as much as it may be important, keep an eye out as it may well affect you.  It doesn't have to be ill-conceived regulation, it may be very sane and rational and needed - but even the sane and rational choices we make have side effects.

Boring you over.

- Steve

Let Me Bore You: Credit and why it matters

As progeeks and future progeeks, let's face it, discussing the intricacies of credit and credit cards is not the most exciting thing on the surface. In fact, once we get below the surface we discover further layers of dullness. However, it is important to note why credit - and thus the credit crunch - are important. As a person who did banking IT, and a dedicated tightwad, I've got a few insights to share. Boring subject matter aside, this is of interest to you.