Monday, April 07, 2003

Source: Ming the Mechanic; 4/7/2003; 7:08:09 PM Community Straddling and multi-culturalism. George Por says: " What a delight! after writing about multi-membership here and there, I've just discovered Sbastien Paquet's concept of "community straddling" in a brief but germinal essay on Online Communities and the Future of Culture. A "community straddler is someone who participates in several communities, be it simultaneously or sequentially, and who understands the culture of each to a certain extent." Seb also says: These people do not feel irrevocably bound to a particular community. They see themselves as multidimensional: as opposed to saying "I'm a doctor, don't expect me to teach you anything" or "I'm just a programmer, don't bug me with politics", they'll say "Well, right now I'm into this and that and that, and if you have something new to show me I just might take a plunge!" As humankind's collective intellect--reflected to some extent on the web--became the most powerful force of production of our times, multi-community membership and the corresponding multi-dimensional evolution of human faculties, became harbingers of cultural and economic transformation much more profound and broader than we've ever had a chance to experience. George also pointed out in an e-mail today the leverage found in the ability to speak multiple languages, in terms of collective intelligence. American supremacy made the world learn English. But now there probably are more people who speak two or more languages in Europe than in the U.S. More people who are fluent in straddling multiple cultures.This is all important, I think. Will become increasingly important. People who act as neurons between cells that otherwise wouldn't be connected, because they speak different languages or have different world views or specialize in different areas. [Ming the Mechanic] 8:29:01 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Monday, April 7, 2003 How much is enough? I'm entering the 4th month of the job hunt this week, and it's getting a bit tough to keep my head up and shoulders back. That's ok I suppose. It's to be expected, rather an inevitability really. Besides, pride is expensive stuff; a commodity I can't really afford right now. So during the weekend I give myself a break. Because there's nothing a person can do and maintain productivity for 168 hours a week. You need to feed your soul with some unabashed fuck-off time too. But Monday through Friday still take an amazing emotional toll, causing me to wonder how much is enough. My goals for a productive day are to have applications in to 9-12 job recs a day (there really are that many if I hunt them down) and to make a few phone calls to recruiters that I've dealt with in the past (including the basic "keep me on top of the pile" networking refresher calls.) In the end, it will be one call, one email, one serendipitous meeting, particularly well-matched job rec, friend of a friend, or whatever. And aside from that single magic contact, everything else is cruft. I'm playing Battleship with the job market. Of course, the rub is that there's no way of knowing from which direction this silver bullet will come (or, more properly, in which direction I'll shoot it) so until that happens I have to just broadband myself, "play the numbers" as it were. So how much is enough? Of course, the pedantic (and technically accurate) answer is "enough is the amount it takes to get it done." But pragmatically, there are only so many phone calls I can make in a day before the string of consistent rejections become overbearing and I just lose my composure. But I'm really beginning to get the sensation that this just flat-out isn't going to work. I think it's little more than the predictable hopelessness at a long-term fruitless job search (which for me is entirely new territory.) It would be one thing if I was just selling and could "go home" afterwards. But I can't. Sleep is in short supply when the rent for your home isn't paid. I've been asked a couple times "Have you thought about temporarily wearing a different hat?" and yes I have. But flipping burgers at the golden arches achieves nothing if it doesn't pay my basic expenses (which amount to about $3250 a month.) All I would really be doing is taking 40 hours of time out of my week and draining myself emotionally. If I can't hit that base-line take home, then it's a waste of time, right? (Or am I using that as a justification for not wanting to go that route?) There are also a couple independent projects that I'm working on and I've some fantasy that they'll pan out (CRM software and a couple other things.) But realism demands I don't court those as my next source of income, proceeding though I am. I've started putting my books on eBay and they're going (slowly enough, but surely nontheless) but that's not "income", that's $100 a week, tops. How 'bout temping? I've done that, and am not particularly bashful about it. My prediction is that there's an unbelievable glut of highly-skilled professionals (or let's face it "ex-professionals") who are willing to sort mail and fax documents to get by. But I'm going to get into my best suit and go cold-calling at agencies this week. So what else? The panic is setting in and if it weren't for Nytol, I wouldn't have slept last night. Any suggestions? Am I really just whining about what it takes to get myself out there? Are there people out there who shrug this kind of work off as no big deal (high-end sales I guess)? Sorry. I know this is some seriously unstructured repetitive shit. I think you understand. 7:16:48 PM    trackback []     Articulate []