Career Counselling

With winter settling in to it's wet & cold phase for the next several months, and with me pretty much stuck here in Vancouver for the duration (maybe?), it's time to turn my thoughts to using my brain again and doing something that's both challenging and flexible. Earning some cash isn't a bad idea either.

I've started another blog with the intent of commercializing it - but first you've got to get traffic, and the only way get that is with content. I think I'm up for the content creation part of this, but could use some help with some anecdotal stories from any of you reading this - have a look at the blog and you'll know what kind of stories I'd like (maybe a little Q&A is in order as well).

I was somewhat hesitant to jump in this with both feet, not knowing if this was a reasonable idea or not - it was for me, but I hadn't really talked to anyone about it. So yesterday, I had a conversation with John (Alpha), and bounced the ideas off him. He had many suggestions, but on the whole thought that the thinking was clear and the objective was obtainable (traffic and some money). We had dinner last night with another tech/personal friend, and we're going to schedule a lunch in the next week or two to discuss in detail.

John mentioned another idea that I've pondered, but never very seriously - contract technical writing. I don't know if I'd be any good at it (I suspect that I might, though), but he did say that there's a demand for these kinds of people in the Vancouver area and that often it's a career driven by a lifestyle choice - which would describe me perfectly. We'll see how this pans out as I think about it longer. Years ago Dave K said that his ideal job wouldn't be one job, but seven or eight small ones (I doubt he remembers this, but I do). I think that's about as good as you can get, provided that it's not overwhelming.

So back to the blog ... have a read and tell me (honestly) what you think. It's a work in process, so it's not that pretty. The idea is to get content first, traffic second and monitization last.....