A very good analysis of what other factors, apart from piracy, may be responsible for causing the comic market to weaken. On my own site, I did an extended analysis on this argument; I suspect the problem is cyclical throughout all media as our range of options expands across the board. Everything is now becoming that much more competitive with everything else, with each media type becoming a differently-flavored incarnation of that struggle.
-- Serdar Yegulalp
The gang at Comic Book Resources put together this fantastic roundup of the state of digital comics. Go read it anyway or I'll make you watch "The Last Airbender." For those who did, or are undeterred by my threats, big takeaways:
Well, it finally happened - Nintendo is doing its own network. Not clear if it's in time for the Wii U launch or what, but a welcome addition to the company. Well, in short, it's a needed one.
Of course details seem scarce, but let's be honest - Nintendo has to do this to keep up. It's not something new, it's something they have no choice but to do.
Now a few things:
Thanks to our own Tamara Hecht for noting a need for this post - and it's a chance for me to launch an experimental "Ask A Progeek" section (thinking of having it organized both for individuals and in general).
So it happened. You found your perfect job, or come to think of it in this economy, any job. Anyway, you look at the list of requirements, which almost inevitably is some kind of insane wish list, and you realize you don't meet them. Yet, you still want that job and indeed can do it.
What do you do?
First, let me put your mind at ease - if you think that that entire list has to be fulfilled perfectly, you're almost inevitably wrong. Except in the case of certain scientific, engineering, and legal requirements, you don't have to fill the list out perfectly. Chances are that list has been through so many hands no one actually cares that much.
Keeping that in mind, there's three things to do:
Meet The Real Requirements:
First, you have to meet the actual, core requirements of the job - and they're probably buried in the laundry list. So it's up to you to figure out what they are and show that you meet them with your resume, cover letter, and interview. If you can't do that - then you really should not be applying for the job in the first place, sorry.
Now if you've met the real requirements, and managed to demonstrate them in your resume, cover letter, etc. you also have to help people throughout the interview process. You need to focus on what the job entails, what you can do, and even help out the recruiter/HR people to see you're the right person - since chances are they're not exactly thrilled with the insane list of requirements either.
Find you can do the important stuff, show it, and then be the best buddy to the people trying to place you. They probably need a friend anyway.
Substitute:
OK, so there's things on the list of requirements you don't meet, but aren't as vital to the job, are too specific, or just ridiculous. But, be honest here, those items are going to have to be addressed by your future employer, if only for them to say "well, wasn't that important."
So you need to show that you may not meet the requirements, but you have something else in your knowledge and experience that's just as good or better:
You get the idea - go and look for something similar to what they want and either play it up (if it's important), or keep it ready just to counter any concerns. Be ready to answer questions about your gaps.
In general a rule is if you're going to substitute, substitute with more. If you lack 3 years experience in an industry, you don't counter with 3 years experience in a related industry if at all possible - you counter with 4 or 5 or more.
Also, never, ever discount non-professional experience. Your hobbies, etc. can provide substitutes in some cases.
Have An Edge:
Finally - and this applies to almost every job search - find your special edge in the job. Find what makes you uniquely suited for it. Yes, others may have edges and advantages, but stop worrying about them - focus on you.
Finding what makes you best for the job is your secret weapon, your finishing move OR opening salvo (depending on when you need it) to show you are The Best Person for the job despite the laundry list only two people on the planet meet.
Examples:
You get the idea.
Summary:
These three answers are the three weapons to overcoming the laundry list: showing/knowing you can do the job despite it, showing equivalencies in areas you don't meet the list, and having a unique edge no one can deny to set people's minds at ease. If you have these things, and communicate them, you have a much better chance to triumph over a Listzilla of a job request.
As you go on, you'll also find you get better at this. You develop a repertoire of skill mapping and understanding of your unique edges you can employ in your search.
Last time out I suggested a wiki was the single best way, hands down, to organize any project that has its own world. Now comes the thornier question: how exactly do you do that?
The same thing that makes a wiki powerful—the ability to make an article out of absolutely anything—can also be its undoing. When I first created my internal wiki for Flight of the Vajra (the project that inspired this whole series of articles in the first place), I was tempted to treat the wiki like Fibber’s Closet, just throw in everything I could think of first and find a way to sort it out later.
Thing is, this turned out to be a not-half-bad approach. I could stuff things into the wiki as I remembered them—at first as s simple stub article (“Henré Sim is the creator and pilot of the Vajra. [tags: stub]”), and then later as a full-blown piece with internal structure. The hard part is remembering to actually go back and expand on all those provisional entries, lest you end up with nothing but a wiki full of undeveloped stubs and no actual organization.
When the number of entries reached about thirty, I decided to stop stuffing and start organizing, by taking the material I had so far and assigning it to a number of proper categories. The first five that came together were this:
People. Actual characters in the story, divided into major, minor, walk-on, and mentioned-in-passing.
Places. A list of locations where story action takes place—cities, worlds, people’s habitations, etc.—as well as a list of locations that are mentioned and which need some descriptive data attached to them, but are never actually encountered directly.
Things. Devices, vehicles, products, foodstuffs. This also includes technologies; almost no world-building goes on in any story without some discussion of the technologies that are used in it. I was originally tempted to break technologies out into their own subcategory but I left it as-is for the time being.
Universal Background. This one’s a bit tricky. It’s a term I coined to encompass big, overarching topics which fit four basic criteria:
1. They affect the entire setting in some normative way.
2. These are things which if you pull on them, the whole universe falls apart. (Without them, the universe we created doesn’t function.)
3. They are what gives this story its unique flavor. (Without them, the universe we created doesn’t stand out all that much.)
4. They define extremely general concepts that do not easily fit anywhere else.
There can be some overlap here with the Things category, but for the most part I used it for key concepts: money, space travel, law enforcement, information technology, etc.
So far, so good, I told myself. Then things started to get … abstract.
And more on that adventure in the next installment.
-- Serdar Yegulalp
OK they may be still playing juggle-the-rights, but Netflix did pretty well for Q4 (beating expectations), and numbers suggest they might be over that hump of sort of annoying everyone.
They're also abandoning their video game rental plans, which makes total sense.
Frankly this is a bit better than I expected, but as a Netflix booster who got disappointed in some of their activities, I'm not sure I can say "they're back," even though I love the service. It's a positive sign definitely - and it looks like they're aware that Amazon is coming for them.
Oh, and again, where's OnLive in all of this . . .
As someone who works with intellectual properties, and someone who knows a lot of people who also work with intellectual properties, I can safely say that a lot of us like to keep our ideas to ourselves. There is a fear that if your idea is leaked, then there’s a team of coordinated and efficient coding enthusiasts that will take your idea and do it faster than you. Probably better than you too. And they all wear sunglasses and matching black leather uniforms with lightning bolts...
Where was I? Oh, right, the fear of being copied. This fear has a less-paranoid-but-still-paralyzing twin: the fear of someone coincidentally doing the same thing as you, making you look like the copycat nonetheless.
My advice to you is to fight that fear and show off (or at least talk about) your works in progress. There are several reasons why this will help you rather than hurt you.
-Tamara Hecht
Well, not quite, but here's some interesting insights on how some companies are going more non-standard routes with resumes. It's a bit fluffy, I'd have liked more information and statistics.
Now one thing to take away from this is that there's some cool ideas in here you could use no matter how traditional a company may feel about a resume:
Maybe you can get a jump on a trend - or make life more interesting for some poor sot in HR reading the 400th resume.
- Steven Savage
THQ is exiting Kid's titles and focusing more on adult-focused content. This also makes me wonder what the true fate of the WH40K MMO is.
This of course makes sense - THQ seems to be seeking direction, and this focuses them on a given market. We can debate if it's the right or wrong one for the times, but it IS a focus.
Though if you're working there or thinking of it, be aware this is a time of change, and right now some folks are probably expecting pink slips . . .