Summary - WWWA&T Event
Yippee! I created a new acronym, and it's not "Walla Walla Washington." The day wrapped up nicely for the first annual Wild Wild West of Arts & Technology event. I thought the other speakers had great presentations, and personally connected most with the message in Tony & Rick's segment.
If you hadn't already heard, the highlight of the day was--surprise--J. Schuh, who proved once again that one can be entertaining AND educational in a single breath. J capitalized on a moment of awkwardness, and his stumbling Chevy Chase moment proved to be quite the real-time analogy for explaining the 12 precepts for animation.
Rather than continue a rundown of events, I wanted to supplement the information provided by the speaker panel this afternoon. The main idea that came across during that conversation was networking, portfolio, and communication with clients. In keeping with that theme, I wanted to pass along a list of sites that GUILD members should consider that are not necessarily arts based:
LinkedIn - While most folks are familiar with Facebook / MySpace, LinkedIn is one of the more popular sites for professional networking. Like its social networking siblings, you can make "friends" with people you know in the industry. However, I find LinkedIn a little more self-regulating as personally, I'm leary of making everyone I meet a LinkedIn connection. This is a great way to build your own referral network, and reach beyond people you immediately know in the industry.
Twitter - This was the buzz application at the 2007 SXSW festival, and a repeat winner in 2008. If you haven't been using Twitter (or Pownce ), then you should check them out. I like to refer to them as "instant broadcast" as they simply answer the question, "What are you doing right now?"
Del.icio.us - Got Web 2.0? Online life means 24x7 access to the information you need. Doesn't that include websites? Delicious (and FURL ) are online bookmarking services so you can tag items from any browser, and not have to refer constantly to bookmark history.
Photoshop Express - A new product meant to compete with Flickr & Picasa , here is an online resource for posting images. Sure it's great if you have your own domain/website, but don't let the lack of personal space keep you from posting your portfolio online. There are a number of FREE online resources where you can show clients, employers, colleagues, family your creative works.
5min - Another YouTube ? More like, can you find the "next" YouTube. I list 5min not because I think they're the best option, but to illustrate that staying competitive in today's global-highly-technical workplace means staying on top of your industry. You should be reading trade magazines, online web articles, talking with your peers, and more importantly, you should be looking at trends outside your area of expertise.
SNURL - Have you ever sent a website link to someone via email, and the link looked something like this?
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=&saddr=california&daddr=17304+
Preston+Rd,+Dallas+TX+75252-5645&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=33.214763,59.76
5625&ie=UTF8&z=5
Maybe when you pasted it into your email message it wrapped three or four lines, and the other person complained the link didn't work. That's because their email program failed to make the entire text string a hyperlink. That's where SNURL (or TinyURL) come in. Simply paste that long URL, click submit, and out pops a short URL that easily pastes into an email, text message or Twitter post. The ruling is out as to which service is better, but from what I've seen SNURL provides more offerings to save URLs you shorten. In my opinion, TinyURL is more straightforward in its
approach.
Well, that's my time for this evening. I hope everyone felt the conference was a success, and I look forward to bigger things in 2009.
Humbly,
A.J. Wood
Media Cats, Inc.
|
