Well I guess it’s come to this. I figured that with all the “blog knowledge” going on in the world today, that the world really didn’t have any room for me. They say that most blogs are written by semi-pro/semi-amateur writers looking for an outlet. I thought about that for a while, because I’ve always kind of liked the semi-amateur writing style I have. So I figured I would finally answer all my fans’ requests to start writing a blog. All zero of you should be pretty happy about now.
No really, the real reason I decided to do this was after reading a post on a mailing list I like to read about Linux users in Pittsburgh (WPLUG). The person (he whom must not be named because I’ve become too lazy to switch between windows) mentioned started writing a blog about the projects he was part of, their problems, solutions, etc. It had two goals: provide some insight into their project for others to reference, and (I’d say mostly) to provide a sort of real-world resume for things he has worked on.
I immediately liked the idea - I had just read an article somewhere about more and more companies Googling job applicants to see what they have in their past. If this article sounds familiar - we probably didn’t read the same one. I think I might have read about 5-8 articles with this subject over the past couple years. Anyway, the article was obviously spelling out doom for perspective job-seekers. “Oh my god, look at this - he dressed up as a bunny on Halloween, he might cry if we pressure him too much!” Anyway - that’s not the point. My point is that there are two sides to every story - and my take on this story is that if a company cares so much to read past my resume, that they might actually find out more about my human side and find it to be a better fit.
It’s like my little photo-album on my website. I obviously take WAY more pictures, but I put a few up that I really like. I’m not a professional photographer - I’m obviously a computer geek who takes a million pictures and only shows the one that happened to look like I’m a professional. You should know the type - there are a million of us out there.
Anyway, back to the photo-album. I had a job interview that went pretty well. At the end I met the CEO - who only seemed to look at my website, not much else. He sat there and made guesses as to where each picture was taken. If you haven’t seen my album, it’s brilliantly simple (actually I was lazy, but I’ll take brilliantly simple if you’d let me) . Back to the point - the album did exactly what I wanted; it showed a side of me and instilled conversation.
So it's been a while and I’m thinking of trying the same thing on a sort of journal. Only now these journals are called blogs. Hope you read some more, let me know if you have any comments. Though no promises - I’m not sure if I want to use blog software, or just write a little code.
