Sunday, March 1, 2009

facebook and today's economy

I just spoke to a woman last night who got a job in architecture after being laid off for a bit. I know her through my art studio, and we have stayed in touch since she left the studio a few months ago. She was able to get a job via the architecture network, emailing all the firms in that group, then calling them. She was told in October by this one man firm that he would keep her resume on file. He did and hired her in January. Small company, not much work, but better than nothing. It's in Sausolito but she has a motorcycle so that's not too bad.

We may share my studio in the future so I can save money. Right now I am trying to learn from her example. Also a career development book I have used in the past called Creating a Life Worth Living by Carol Lloyd. It is for artists and rather than assume that I just need to get any old job I am looking at my motivations for working and doing what I do. Whether it's sales or PM I want to be clear on the creativity and motivations that are behind my work, why I do what I do.

I have gotten a few leads from people I know on Facebook, either people I have worked with in the past or someone from High School. I also get a lot of support from friends there, an easy way to stay in touch. And I can see others finding work in this tough economy, which tells me it is possible. I can also get references and see people in the tech industry talk about what they are doing, founders and contributors, via status updates and twitter re-feeds. I can see what is going on via these mini-blogs. These people working away in tech or whatnot, whether I know them super-well or just casually, are just people, the same people I call about jobs and interviews. Super-valuable.

I still have fb more private, but twitter and identica public.

@ck23 twitter
@ck23 identica (just started there)

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