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Showing people “what you do and how well you do it” is an important part of every career. You need to be visible so that people can seek you out for opportunities instead of always feeling you have to go begging for a job.
Visibility and Your Career was presented at LaidOffCampLA on May 1, 2009.
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
Resources
*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.
Great #careerchat today about Gen Y. Here is what I had to say.
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.
We have just finalized the date and location for CareerCampLA 2012 — our 3rd CareerCamp for LA and out 6th CareerCamp overall.
CareerCampLA 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
9am – Noon
Los Angeles Southwest College
1600 West Imperial Hwy
Los Angeles, CA 90044
I am working my way through this program on entrepreneurship and think that you might find it it useful, too. It delves into the basic concepts and concerns of being an entrepreneur and might just give you some ideas on how you might create your own business.
I believe that entrepreneurship is one of the driving factors of careers today, regardless of whether you are working for yourself or within a traditional corporate environment. You have to DO for yourself as much as you DO for your company or you risk being left out in the cold when the company no longer needs you or your skills. Don’t be caught off-guard. Start thinking like and entrepreneur today!
The new entrepreneurs by The Open University
Course Description
Whether you’re thinking of starting your own business, looking to improve one you already own, or are simply interested in understanding more about how the business world works, this learning pathway is a storehouse of ideas, techniques and real-life stories to inspire and inform.
It includes resources to help you assess and evaluate an idea using comprehensive, practical techniques, and explore a range of business types – from home-workers and ‘mompreneurs’, to family businesses, social enterprises and ‘lifestyle’ entrepreneurs. It also looks at entrepreneurial psychology. What are the qualities you need to succeed? What are the downsides to being your own boss, and how can you prepare for them?
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.
Douglas speaks at the local Tuesday’s with Transitioners meeting on the topic of “A Year of Action!”.
Action — any action — can help us to get our careers and lives moving forward. Douglas presents a few “action items” you might want to explore or use as jumpstart points for your own ideas.
Learn how action benefits you no matter what your job, current job status or career!
60 mins
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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.
Due to personal family issues with the scheduled speaker, I will be speaking at this weeks’s Tuesday’s with Transitioners meeting on the topic of “A Year of Action!”.
Action — any action — can help us to get our careers and lives moving forward. Douglas presents a few “action items” you might want to explore or use as jumpstart points for your own ideas.
Learn how action benefits you no matter what your job, current job status or career!
Please share this event with anyone you know who might be interested. All are welcome!
What: Douglas speaks on “A Year of Action” at Tuesdays with Transitioners
When: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 – Noon-2pm
Where: Congregational Church of Northridge, 9659 Balboa Blvd, Northridge, CA 91325-1902
CareerCampLA 2012 is in the planning stages.
For more information, visit the CareerCamp blogs CareerCampLA or CareerCamp International.
Are you interested in helping us organize CareerCampLA, speaking or attending? Watch these blogs for further information.
Join us for our next career unconference and Build the Career the You Deserve!
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