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Registration is now open for CareerCampSCV 2012 – July 14, 2012

May 16th, 2012 No comments

REGISTER FOR CAREERCAMPSCV 2012 TODAY TO INSURE YOUR SPOT!

Our third CareerCampSCV (Santa Clarita Valley) is happening on July 14th, 2012 and tickets are available starting today. We hope to see you there!

Unemployed? Underemployed? New college graduate? Considering new career options?

Join us for CareerCampSCV 2012!

When: Saturday, July 14, 2012 9AM to 3:30PM

Where: 26455 Rockwell Canyon Road Santa Clarita, CA 91355

FREE Admission • FREE Parking

Directions

College of the Canyons Career Center presents CareerCampSCV, a FREE hybrid conference/unconference dedicated to helping you build the career you deserve. The day will include scheduled speakers, ad hoc presentations and breakout ses- sions on all aspects of building your career. CareerCamp is FREE for all adults who want to build or improve their career. Space is Limited. Register for FREE today. For more information, a list of scheduled speakers and additional career content

Categories: Announcement, CareerCamp, Events, Special Tags:

Jobs Available – Listings at Jobs.WelchWrite.com

May 11th, 2012 No comments

Looking for a job? There are a host of job listings available on Jobs.WelchWrite.com every day.

Enter the keywords you are searching for and your location to get fresh and focused listings.

Career jobs

Jobs.WelchWrite.com

Categories: Announcement, Jobs Offered, News/Opinion Tags:

My favorite shared career items for April 2012

May 3rd, 2012 No comments
Categories: Announcement, Elsewhere, Shared Tags:

Career Opportunities Course of Suggested Study: Creativity and Innovation

May 2nd, 2012 No comments

A self-directed education is a wonderful and productive thing. Sometimes, though, it can be difficult to know where to aim your educational focus. To offer a bit of help with this, I have put together some resources around a particular topic to get you started. In this first “Career Opportunities Course of Suggested Study” I am focusing on creativity and innovation, two very important topics for any careerist.


Career Opportunities Course of Suggested Study

Creativity and Innovation

We all have in us the ability and the necessity to create. Whether we are working on the next great technology or the next great recipe, creativity allows us to combine old knowledge with our own experience and create something new and wonderful. In order to “build the career you deserve” you need to explore this creativity at every opportunity and in every way. Deny your creativity and you will lose it. Honor your creativity and it will honor you back with great ideas, innovation solutions and idea that no one has thought before.

Questions to Consider

  • Why do we create?
  • How do we create?
  • Is every job a creative job? Why? Why not?
  • Can creativity lead to a better life and career? How?
  • Is creativity the gift of a precious few or is everyone creative?
  • Can you set aside “creative time” in your calendar?
  • What would you create, if you took the time and energy to do it?

Resources

Dive in and dive deep. Many of these sources will lead to other, great, information on creativity. Follow the links where you will. Each book’s bibliography will suggest a host of other books and articles to read and review. Don’t be afraid to follow these paths wherever they lead. This is a large part of a self-direct education.

*Many of these books are available at your local public library. Save yourself some money and look there first.

Share your thoughts!

What did you learn from this Suggest Course of Study? Do you have questions or comments? Would you like to discuss this with your fellow Career Opportunities readers and listeners?

You can create and continue the discussion on Creativity and Innovation here on the blog by posting a comment, or starting a conversation on the Career Opportunities Facebook page or the Career Opportunities page on Google+. You can discuss this topic in real-time on the Career Opportunities Work Room at Hall.com. This includes a chat room and video conferencing capabilities. Contact career@welchwrite.com for an invite.

Want a signed copy of my Kindle eBooks? You can get it!

March 30th, 2012 No comments

A new service has popped up to allow authors to “sign” their Kindle eBooks — Kindlegraph.com.

I have never been a big seeker of autographs, but some people are. This is an attempt to extend the autograph into the digital age. I am always trying out new services to see what they bring to the table, so I figured that I might as well give this one a try.

You can request a “signing page” for any of my 4 eBooks by clicking on the image below. Give it a try and tell me what you think.

eBooks by Douglas E. Welch

I now have 3 career-related books available in the Amazon Kindle Store. I invite to take a look at each one. Free samples are available for download.

The High-Tech Career Handbook: The Best of Career Opportunities 1998-2003

30,000 Words

Navigating the special difficulties of a high-tech career can be troublesome for workers, young and old. Career Opportunities, a weekly column for ComputorEdge Magazine in San Diego, California and Colorado Springs, Colorado, has addressed these issues for almost 13 years.

While simultaneously developing his own high-tech career, author Douglas E. Welch has shared his insights, trials, setbacks and successes with his readers. The High-Tech Career Handbook collects the best columns from 1997-2003 into a book for all high-tech careerists, whether they are just starting out, building their career or looking for a new career in the high-tech world.
Topics covered in the columns include getting your career started, ethics, fairness and the benefits of doing honest business, personal development, professional development, and the tips and tricks for transitioning into a mature career.


Cultivating Your Career Reputations

11,000 Words

While we often talk about one, monolithic, Reputation – with a capital R — I believe that there are a series of reputations that make up the whole. This book will focus on the combination of reputations that make up your one, overarching, Reputation. By examining each of these reputations in detail, I hope you will find specific areas where you can improve your work, your actions and your thoughts so that your overall professional reputation grows.

Why break your Reputation down into its constituent parts? It is often said that you can’t “do” projects, you can only do the individual tasks that make up the project and achieve the desired result. The same can be said for reputation. You don’t build your reputation as a whole, you cultivate the smaller reputations that create it. Each individual action builds your reputation in unique ways and each requires some thought as to how they relate to the whole.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • The Reputations
  • A Reputation for Fairness
  • A Reputation for Honesty
  • A Reputation for Trustworthiness
  • A Reputation for Decision-making
  • A Reputation for Empathy
  • A Reputation for Helpfulness
  • A Reputation for Compromise
  • A Reputation for Clarity
  • A Reputation for the Big Picture…and the small
  • A Reputation for Balancing Work and Self
  • A Reputation for Creativity and Innovation
  • Conclusion
  • About the Author

 


Career Compass: Finding Your Career North

5,100 Words

Imagine if when you were born you were given a magical compass to lead you through your life. It would always show you the way. It would show you the right answers on tests, lead you to the right college and to the right course of study at that college. It would lead to your first job, your first (and maybe last) love and always show the path ahead. This isn’t some idle fantasy. We each have a compass to show us the way, if only we would take it out of our pocket and use it. This compass, of course, is our desire. Instead of a needle, it is a feeling, a pull, a tension — in some cases, an overwhelming flood of feeling that says “Yes, this is the way — this is the one — this is where you need to go!”


 


“I am deeply convinced of the importance and effectiveness of social media. Like the Internet itself, which made social media possible, social media allows you to expose your talents, your products, your creativity to a huge number of people all over the world. The “loose contacts” we make online are the beginning of what I call our own global family.

This isn’t one unwieldy global online community, but rather our own personalized family made up of those that bring value into our lives. Our communities might overlap in some ways, but they will never be the same. They can’t be. We are all unique individuals so therefore our communities will reflect this uniqueness In fact, when our communities are too alike, we might be just following the crowd instead of building our own community.”

Social Media Self Preservation is now available in the Amazon Kindle Bookstore.

*Amazon Prime members can “borrow” the book for free.

An Audio Book version of Social Media Self Preservation is also available

 

* Kindle books can be read on nearly any computer or mobile platform including, Mac, Windows, iPhone/iPod Touch, iPad, and Android phones and tablets. Download Free Kindle Reader Software

Categories: Announcement, Books Tags:

CareerCamp is where you should be! — Join us and start building the career you deserve!

March 8th, 2012 No comments

Careercampintl logo sm

Fair warning.

Over the next 6 weeks I am going to be banging the drum pretty loudly for CareerCampLA (and CareerCampSCV and CareerCampSFV). CareerCamp is a pet project of mine and one that I take great joy and interest in. CareerCampLA 2012 will be our 6th CareerCamp overall and I love what it does for people — employed, underemployed or unemployed.

What is CareerCamp?

CareerCamp is a locally organized and locally sponsored unconference dedicated to “helping you build the career you deserve.” Each CareerCamp hosts a series of presentations and break out sessions hosted by the attendees themselves. There is a huge amount of career knowledge in the local community and CareerCamp is designed to bring out and share that knowledge.

Some people will come to listen. Some will come to teach. Some will come to discuss, but all come with an open desire to build their career and help those around them. Often I see people who promise that they are only there to listen take the reins of a discussion or presentation and share their amazing knowledge in a way, perhaps, that  they have never done before. CareerCamp provides a safe, supportive and positive environment that leaves people feeling energized at the end of the day — ready to go out and make their career the best it can be.

What is an unconference?

Unconferences are self-organizing conferences, similar to many professional conferences, but instead of hiring well-known, professional speakers, they call on the attendees themselves to provide the content and focus for the event. Every person who attends is highly encouraged to present on some topic deeply important to them or, barring that, to facilitate an open breakout session or round table discussion or even just to engage and converse with their fellow attendees between presentations. A few organizers band together to find a venue for the event, recruit sponsors and invite attendees, but the focus of the unconference is driven solely by the attendees.

Some might question the usefulness of presentations by their peers, but we have found that there is an enormous amount of real-world expertise available in each and every local community. CareerCamp utilizes a format that draws out that expertise and benefits everyone. CareerCamp (and other unconferences) provide a structure and an opportunity to share this expertise in ways that traditional conferences do not. Additionaly, CareerCamps also attract career development professionals who can use CareerCamp as a way of introducing themselves to a new audience of potential clients.

Spread the word

It is on of my greatest desires to spread the good that CareerCamp can offer all around the world. The CareerCamp International web site highlights each local CareerCamp and also provide a bit of info on what CareerCamp is and how it works? Even better, join us for CareerCampLA and see how it all works in person. The best way to understand CareerCamp is to experience first hand. it all becomes clear when you become part of the process and energy of a CareerCamp.

A personal invitation

I want to offer each of you a personal invitation to visit a CareerCamp or, even better, organize one of your own in your local area. I am confident you will be amazed at how productive and energizing your day can be. You can find some examples of the talks given at CareerCamp on both the CareerCamp International and the local CareerCamp sites. Take a moment to watch or listen. I think you will like what you find there.

If you would like to know more about CareerCamp, either attending or organizing your own, add a comment here on this web site, on the CareerCampLA or CareerCamp International sites, on the CareerCamp International Facebook page or our Google+ page. I’d love to hear from you. Bring your questions and ideas. Both help make CareerCamp even better.

Categories: Announcement, News/Opinion, Seminar, Speaking Tags:

Douglas at Dodger Stadium Job Fair this Saturday – March 10, 2012 – 10a-1pm

March 8th, 2012 No comments

I have been invited by the folks at Sideskills.com to be part of their booth at the 17th Annual Community Job Fair sponsored by the LA Dodgers.

I will be doing career consulting for the people who stop by the booth as well as chatting up CareerCampLA which is only 6 weeks away. If you attend the event, stop by and say Hello!

(Watch for an announcement soon on some more career consulting work I will be doing for Sideskills.com, too)

Dodgers job fair

Click picture for complete information on the job fair

 

Sideskills

Sideskills.com

“SideSkills is the one-stop-shop to find a full-time, part-time, or contract job, or make extra income. Market yourself, your services, or your products. Now over 1,000 skills to choose from.

Welcome to the easiest way to make extra money, received custom offers, and monetize your skills. No-fees for accepting payments through the site! It’s time to start making some extra income with your talents.”

 

Categories: Announcement, Events, News/Opinion, Speaking Tags:

CareerCampLA 2012 to be held April 20, 2012! — Register Now!

March 6th, 2012 No comments

We have just finalized the date and location for CareerCampLA 2012 — our 3rd CareerCamp for LA and out 6th CareerCamp overall.

careercamp-sq-lg.jpg

CareerCampLA 2012

Friday, April 20, 2012

9am – Noon

Los Angeles Southwest College
1600 West Imperial Hwy
Los Angeles, CA 90044

Register Now!

Categories: Announcement, Events, News/Opinion, Seminar Tags:

Education: iPad and iPhone App Development class from Stanford via iTunes U

January 24th, 2012 No comments

I started watching the class on iPad and iPhone App Development via iTunes U. iTunes U provides lots of great educational opportunities in a wide variety of areas including computer science, history, humanities, language, literature and business. You can check out the entire catalog at the iTunes U information page or directly in iTunes.

I’ll be highlighted other educational opportunities to build your career in the coming weeks.


iPad and iPhone App Development (Fall 2011)

Course Description

Updated for iOS 5. Tools and APIs required to build applications for the iPhone and iPad platform using the iOS SDK. User interface designs for mobile devices and unique user interactions using multi-touch technologies. Object-oriented design using model-view-controller paradigm, memory management, Objective-C programming language. Other topics include: object-oriented database API, animation, multi-threading and performance considerations.

Prerequisites: C language and programming experience at the level of 106B (Programming Abstractions) or X. Recommended: UNIX, object-oriented programming, graphical toolkits

Offered by Stanford’s School of Engineering, the course will last ten weeks and include both the lecture videos and PDF documents. Released with a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.

This is a series of video lectures and accompanying materials in PDF format.

Itunesu

 

Categories: Announcement, Class, Education, Seminar Tags:

Career Opportunities Office Hour – Are you in?

January 23rd, 2012 No comments

Career op logo new lg

I am thinking about a regularly scheduled G+ Hangout office hour to discuss career issues, questions and trends.

Would you be interested in such a thing? I am trying to gauge the interest before blocking out the time each week.

I am thinking of scheduling them for 6pm PST Tuesday, as this is a time I am required to be in my office. I figured I might as well try to make it as productive a time as possible.

Add your comments and thoughts here. I am ready to start as soon as tomorrow night.

Categories: Announcement, News/Opinion, Speaking Tags:
Google+