I wrote a post yesterday called “‘Gis a job” where I referred to an article in the Boston Globe that claimed that blogging was good for your employment prospects.
I mentioned that in all the time I have been blogging, I haven’t been offered a job. Thinking about this subsequently, I wondered if this was because a) my blog revealed too much about me (I’m not the most diplomatic of people, for example) or is it simply b) because people assume I am not in the market for a job?
If we assume it is b) - then, what if I now say “I am in the market for a job”? Will the offers come rolling in?
What are my skillsets?
- Well, I’m not too bad at blogging and podcasting
- I know shedloads about social software and how to use it to raise the online profile of a company, product or service as well as how it can be used to improve a company’s internal and external communications.
- I know a considerable amount about search engine optimisation (hence the following, for example)
- I have an impressive and growing network of contacts
- I am a very good communicator - well used to speaking in front of large audiences
- I have led teams of coders in the development of large web applications
- I am a very experienced sysadmin - and I know my way around Win2k and Win2003 Server, SQL Server, Exchange Server, and ISA Server
So what of it - does this blogging for employment thing work?
By the way - the “Gis a job” expression is a reference to the very excellent Boys from the Blackstuff drama which was shown on TV here some time in the 80s.
Unbelievably I won the award for the Best Technical Blog at the Irish Blog Awards on Saturday night. I didn’t think I had much of a chance 1) considering the quality of the competition and 2) the fact that the volume of posting here has decreased since I upped my podcasting output!
Still, those fivers I slipped the judges obviously paid off!!! Thanks to everyone who voted for me and to Damien for organising the event.
Now, if I could find some way to monetise this - anyone need a blog/social software consultant?
I will be interviewing Robert Scoble (Microsoft’s tech evangelist and chief blogger) on this coming Tuesday evening (15th) and podcasting the interview as part of the PR around the IT@Cork conference. Robert will be giving a keynote address on Business Blogging at the opening of the conference and later in the Technical Stream Robert will be giving a talk on the next 5 years in Social Software.
I’m looking for questions to ask Robert - if you have any questions you’d like me to ask him (especially around the two talks he is giving), drop them into the comments and I’ll try to fit them in to the interview.
A curious question, you might say, and you’d be right, obviously!
However, seminal business thinker and social philosopher, Charles Handy has said that new ideas, new products, new kinds of associations and institutions, new initiatives, new art and new designs seldom come from established organisations, they come from individuals – what he terms the New Alchemists.
Handy recently said:
My studies of people who have created something out of nothing with their lives – the new alchemists - have proved for me that you can learn anything if you really want to. Passion is what drives these people, passion for their product or their cause.
“Passion for their product or their cause” could certainly be applied to Robert Scoble - why do I think of him specifically? Well, both Robert Scoble and Charles Handy are keynoting the IT@Cork Annual Conference in Cork on November 30th so whenever I see the one I immediately think of the other (I am involved in the organisation of the IT@Cork conference).
It will be fascinating to see these two individuals together in Cork and I can’t wait to see what Charles Handy will make of Robert Scoble and the whole phenomenon of social software.
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