SPUG: He's dead, Jim.

Andrew Sweger andrew at sweger.net
Tue Aug 14 02:08:22 CDT 2001


On the subject of job hunting as a SPUG topic: leary at nwlink.com mentioned
inviting hiring managers but didn't say to what end. What would they come
to tell us (I ask because the small handful of hiring managers subscribed
to the list (who wish they were programmers again,
http://www.engelke.com/charles/TPC5/ ) haven't spoken up as far as I'm
aware)? What do we have to offer to make it worth their time? Maybe we
could parade prospective applicants on an auction block. :) "Our next
coder up for bid has a little over two years experience with Perl and can
tell the difference between an array and a list. We'll start the bidding
at $28k..." (What are you gasping at? That's fair.)

Kevin Watt mentioned the co-ops. This is a good example of ESR's
ex-corporation talk at the conference. It's a powerful way to increase the
value of transactions and networking, in a business sense. Ebay was the
example ESR used where the individual buyers and sellers are the external
agents conducting the transactions (Ebay's a catalyst?). But what I've
noticed about these development co-ops is a lack of sufficient interest
and/or too much variation in the interfaces involved (making the "cost" of
entry just high enough to discourage the critical interest needed). I'm
not saying it's a bad idea or wrong. It's the right idea. It just needs to
grow some more. Perhaps there's enough free talent floating around now to
put it over the top.

dancerboy mentions creating a new company formed from all this "free"
talent. leary chimes in with the MLM business model. We could start
producing open source infomercials. "You give a copy of the source to two
friends. And then they give the source to two friends, and they give it to
two friends, ..." Okay, maybe not. So, now we have a new company formed
from all these brilliant people that couldn't manage to keep their jobs
(JUST KIDDING!). But what are you going to build?

Do we really need yet another technology startup? It's all been done to
death. The Internet is dead, Jim. There isn't much more that can be done
with computers other than to put fancy skins on them or other stylistic
toys. This is why folks like Apple and Sony do so well. A good friend
pointed out that this glitzifying marks the end of a product's life cycle.
So, now you've changed the world by bringing everyone closer together with
this really kick ass network and all the marketing and content media
people have turned it into a digital sewer. What do you do? What _do_ you
do? I assume you go to the one place where the telecommunications, product
marketers, and big media aren't looking. Something to think about at
least.

Back to the subject. What do you want out of a job hunting SPUG session?
How to write a resume? Short talks on people's experience moving from job
to job? How about having one or two of our more experienced consultants
talk about how a regular JAPH can get in on the game (we won't crowd you
out, promise).

As another good friend said, it's all about networking and who you know.
As members of SPUG, you are already aligned with some of the most powerful
forces this side of the great black hole. We had only just had the first
ever SPUG meeting (almost 3.5 years ago) and already had Larry Wall
scheduled as a guest speaker. If that's not enough to convince you, we are
also aligned with the most powerful forces from the other side of the
black hole (interpret that as you wish). Damian Conway keeps coming back
to share stories and adventures from afar.

So, let's make the most of it.

-- 
Andrew B. Sweger -- The great thing about multitasking is that several
                                things can go wrong at once.
















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