Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Colleges need to be significantly more involved with Chicago
My dream is to develop an appealing program which provides great value to the savvy CS students at the top Midwestern CS departments, bringing them to Chicago roughly 4 times a year. As of now the students who possess brilliant ideas are usually packing their bags, Silicon Valley bound, by the time it goes viral. We need to bring them to Chicago before it's to late and get them involved with not only the city and its tech community, but other entrepreneurs from all over the Midwest.
The CS students apply one month in advance and are matched up with other cs students from different schools to work in innovation/mastermind type groups. We match prior so they don't have to network with too many people, for it would be to scattered for shy developers in a room of 800 to find like minded counter-parts. The first session will allow them get acquainted and modify their groups aside from our initial matching. From there, they will begin working together for the remainder of the visits and by the fourth trip each group will have developed their own product/service/application.
We will also involve the Chicago business/MBA students allowing the “CEO's to be” an opportunity to work with genius developers. Putting them together will provide more flexibility and balance. Teaching them to innovate and turn ideas into reality is great, but by connecting them with like minded entrepreneurs LOCALLY we set them up to hit the ground running post graduation (the ground being Chicago).
Down the road I would like to work in conjunction with CS departments by incorporating the curriculum into each conference, at the same time allowing students to make money by utilizing what they learn -as they learn it. Now it's either “stay in school to get a good job” or “strike big and dropout”. It needs to be a smooth transition, students shouldn't have to stress so much about internships, their resume, and where they are going to find a job. Students will receive money and/or college credit so there's no need to worry about time spent participating in this conference. Our society and the American dream is solely based around money no matter how you look at it. Why are we forcing brilliant young kids to spend the most creative, innovative, ALIVE, and dreaming phases of their lives in a institution in which they can't even make money? You don't graduate, get a job and continue to work for grades, so why are we training are “professionals to be” to work for a grade when in reality they will be working for money? The current education structure forces students who begin making money to run away. Colleges and Universities need to educate them further, and embrace the fact they can make money. It's too black and white, “College & Learn” or “Work & Money”. If a student can make 100k in a semester through selling ads on his website which he draws traffic to by using social networks, then I think he most definitely deserves an A in his “online marketing” course. Colleges need to incorporate this but its crazy to think you could just put this together and have everyone agree- instead we start with a local conference and act as an example.
For my company, I write tons of creative literature, I do power points, give speeches, do so much research, endless hours.. stuff I really want to learn, and I put so much passion and energy into all of it. I help people re-write their resumes, teach them to utilize social networks and provide personal value, spend endless hours on the phone and at networking events. Why isn't that worth anything? They want me to do similar things at school but for things that really offer no value to me.
I dream to put together not only an umbrella for all technology in Chicago but also for all students interested in pursuing a career there. We will be the start of what other industries can continue to move forward, a movement where students meet at local conferences and form into mastermind groups. By teaching students to innovate and collaborate with other students in their area, prior to graduation, we lay the foundation not only for our youth to easily chase their dreams and reach their goals but also for a booming Chicago tech community.
I have no doubt the Midwestern CS departments are infested with Google's and Microsoft's of tomorrow and I can't stand watching another black swan spread his wings and fly to the west coast.
The CS students apply one month in advance and are matched up with other cs students from different schools to work in innovation/mastermind type groups. We match prior so they don't have to network with too many people, for it would be to scattered for shy developers in a room of 800 to find like minded counter-parts. The first session will allow them get acquainted and modify their groups aside from our initial matching. From there, they will begin working together for the remainder of the visits and by the fourth trip each group will have developed their own product/service/application.
We will also involve the Chicago business/MBA students allowing the “CEO's to be” an opportunity to work with genius developers. Putting them together will provide more flexibility and balance. Teaching them to innovate and turn ideas into reality is great, but by connecting them with like minded entrepreneurs LOCALLY we set them up to hit the ground running post graduation (the ground being Chicago).
Down the road I would like to work in conjunction with CS departments by incorporating the curriculum into each conference, at the same time allowing students to make money by utilizing what they learn -as they learn it. Now it's either “stay in school to get a good job” or “strike big and dropout”. It needs to be a smooth transition, students shouldn't have to stress so much about internships, their resume, and where they are going to find a job. Students will receive money and/or college credit so there's no need to worry about time spent participating in this conference. Our society and the American dream is solely based around money no matter how you look at it. Why are we forcing brilliant young kids to spend the most creative, innovative, ALIVE, and dreaming phases of their lives in a institution in which they can't even make money? You don't graduate, get a job and continue to work for grades, so why are we training are “professionals to be” to work for a grade when in reality they will be working for money? The current education structure forces students who begin making money to run away. Colleges and Universities need to educate them further, and embrace the fact they can make money. It's too black and white, “College & Learn” or “Work & Money”. If a student can make 100k in a semester through selling ads on his website which he draws traffic to by using social networks, then I think he most definitely deserves an A in his “online marketing” course. Colleges need to incorporate this but its crazy to think you could just put this together and have everyone agree- instead we start with a local conference and act as an example.
For my company, I write tons of creative literature, I do power points, give speeches, do so much research, endless hours.. stuff I really want to learn, and I put so much passion and energy into all of it. I help people re-write their resumes, teach them to utilize social networks and provide personal value, spend endless hours on the phone and at networking events. Why isn't that worth anything? They want me to do similar things at school but for things that really offer no value to me.
I dream to put together not only an umbrella for all technology in Chicago but also for all students interested in pursuing a career there. We will be the start of what other industries can continue to move forward, a movement where students meet at local conferences and form into mastermind groups. By teaching students to innovate and collaborate with other students in their area, prior to graduation, we lay the foundation not only for our youth to easily chase their dreams and reach their goals but also for a booming Chicago tech community.
I have no doubt the Midwestern CS departments are infested with Google's and Microsoft's of tomorrow and I can't stand watching another black swan spread his wings and fly to the west coast.
Friday, May 8, 2009
The Essential Trio
There are 3 essential social networks that you MUST be on if you are on the hunt for a job. One for business information, another because its packed with personal information, and one for very relevant, up to date info. As you uncover names and leads you can usually find just about all of them on one of these 3 sites.
*LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) - Social network for business professionals.
- Connect with all of your email contacts, co-workers, ex co-workers and classmates. LinkedIn allows you to display your skill set / work history / and interests for other professionals to view (several of which being recruiters.)
- Search by zip code, city, or state to find certain types of people, or companies within an industry.
*Facebook (www.facebook.com) - Popular social network for the younger crowd.
- Connect to all the same people as LinkedIn, except now you get to see things like their birthday, religion, favorite books, bands, movies, quotes, etc.
- Use the "Profile Search" to look at different companies in your network and find contacts to call regarding a job.
- Check out http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics to see some interesting facts about Facebook.
*Twitter (www.twitter.com) Most popular & most valuable.
- Twitter is "Micro blogging" so basically you find people you either know or want to know and "follow" them. After you begin following them you will start receiving updates like "@JIM IS AT THE WEB CONFERENCE DOWNTOWN CHICAGO" or a lot of times people will post links.
- For you job seekers, Many companies use Twitter for branding and to build a sense of closeness with their customers or client base. I've noticed that several people within companies who are involved in the staffing process will post about job openings and the types of people they are looking for like "@JOE LOOKING FOR JAVA DEVELOPERS FOR CHICAGO OFFICE" you can then click on Joe's profile and In most cases find out his name or get a link to his website.
- So how do you look through all of the Twitter updates and find jobs? I've found a site called www.monitter.com and it monitors every update from every twitter user. It lets you filter the updates by entering a zip code and selecting a mile radius to search within. You then can select 3 keywords and if anyone within in your radius writes on Twitter or (tweets) your keyword, it shows up on your screen. For example, If you're a .NET guy with a lot of back end and SQL experience. You could set up the three columns ".NET" "Back end" "SQL" -- Now anyone within lets say 40 miles of "60606" who writes anything about those 3 things you will see it
immediately as it happens.
*LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) - Social network for business professionals.
- Connect with all of your email contacts, co-workers, ex co-workers and classmates. LinkedIn allows you to display your skill set / work history / and interests for other professionals to view (several of which being recruiters.)
- Search by zip code, city, or state to find certain types of people, or companies within an industry.
*Facebook (www.facebook.com) - Popular social network for the younger crowd.
- Connect to all the same people as LinkedIn, except now you get to see things like their birthday, religion, favorite books, bands, movies, quotes, etc.
- Use the "Profile Search" to look at different companies in your network and find contacts to call regarding a job.
- Check out http://www.facebook.com/press/
*Twitter (www.twitter.com) Most popular & most valuable.
- Twitter is "Micro blogging" so basically you find people you either know or want to know and "follow" them. After you begin following them you will start receiving updates like "@JIM IS AT THE WEB CONFERENCE DOWNTOWN CHICAGO" or a lot of times people will post links.
- For you job seekers, Many companies use Twitter for branding and to build a sense of closeness with their customers or client base. I've noticed that several people within companies who are involved in the staffing process will post about job openings and the types of people they are looking for like "@JOE LOOKING FOR JAVA DEVELOPERS FOR CHICAGO OFFICE" you can then click on Joe's profile and In most cases find out his name or get a link to his website.
- So how do you look through all of the Twitter updates and find jobs? I've found a site called www.monitter.com and it monitors every update from every twitter user. It lets you filter the updates by entering a zip code and selecting a mile radius to search within. You then can select 3 keywords and if anyone within in your radius writes on Twitter or (tweets) your keyword, it shows up on your screen. For example, If you're a .NET guy with a lot of back end and SQL experience. You could set up the three columns ".NET" "Back end" "SQL" -- Now anyone within lets say 40 miles of "60606" who writes anything about those 3 things you will see it
immediately as it happens.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Be Proactive
I have put together some links as well as advice for being proactive in your job search. The links vary from job board search engines, to Chicago related tech news and event sites, and also networking resources for finding the events here in Chicago.
Indeed (www.indeed.com) - Indeed grabs job postings from several job boards and allows you to search them all at the same time. * A great tool for job seekers to use on Indeed is the
"employer/recruiter" filter. By selecting employer you are then just looking at companies that are directly posting the jobs and not using a 3rd party. You can then go deeper searching by date to see the most recent job postings which are yet to be bombarded by dozens of job seekers.
Chicago Tech News (www.chicagotechnews.com) - Todd Allen has put together a great site tracking Chicago's Tech Community.
Chicago Business (www.chicagobusiness.com) - A great source for Chicago business news.
The May Report (www.themayreport.com) - An Inside look at Chicago's Tech Community.
Chicago Tech Report (www.chicagotechreport.com) - Another great source for tech news here in Chicago.
TechCocktail (www.techcocktail.com) - a MUST ATTEND event for any Chicagoans interested in technology!
Windybits (www.windybits.com) - Windybits Rocks! People from all over submit the "WHAT/WHERE/WHEN" for all of the Chicago tech events. (5-15 every day) *Attending the events found on WindyBits gives you a great edge on getting a job. It allows you to be in the same room as several hiring managers from all sorts of companies.
Some advice if you're applying - Don't just submit your resume like every other John Doe. Go on LinkedIn/Facebook and try to find out who over sees the development staff @ XYZ. Then get around 3 names and try to track their emails, allowing you to write them personalized custom emails. Research the company you are applying to, try to get a good understanding of the culture there and also what kind of goals they are striving towards as an organization. You need to be in tune with where a company is going-then describe how you can help get them there. This is something few candidates are doing, and it will provide you with an advantage over everyone who merely submitted a resume. You should separate from that crowd and show not only that you're valuable, but also that you're proactive- Be a hunter not a farmer.
BE PROACTIVE AND LEVERAGE YOUR NETWORK!
We really need to come together and work to help one another! Stop relying on job boards and wasting time with recruiters who think .NET is the ending of a URL.
Indeed (www.indeed.com) - Indeed grabs job postings from several job boards and allows you to search them all at the same time. * A great tool for job seekers to use on Indeed is the
"employer/recruiter" filter. By selecting employer you are then just looking at companies that are directly posting the jobs and not using a 3rd party. You can then go deeper searching by date to see the most recent job postings which are yet to be bombarded by dozens of job seekers.
Chicago Tech News (www.chicagotechnews.com) - Todd Allen has put together a great site tracking Chicago's Tech Community.
Chicago Business (www.chicagobusiness.com) - A great source for Chicago business news.
The May Report (www.themayreport.com) - An Inside look at Chicago's Tech Community.
Chicago Tech Report (www.chicagotechreport.com) - Another great source for tech news here in Chicago.
TechCocktail (www.techcocktail.com) - a MUST ATTEND event for any Chicagoans interested in technology!
Windybits (www.windybits.com) - Windybits Rocks! People from all over submit the "WHAT/WHERE/WHEN" for all of the Chicago tech events. (5-15 every day) *Attending the events found on WindyBits gives you a great edge on getting a job. It allows you to be in the same room as several hiring managers from all sorts of companies.
Some advice if you're applying - Don't just submit your resume like every other John Doe. Go on LinkedIn/Facebook and try to find out who over sees the development staff @ XYZ. Then get around 3 names and try to track their emails, allowing you to write them personalized custom emails. Research the company you are applying to, try to get a good understanding of the culture there and also what kind of goals they are striving towards as an organization. You need to be in tune with where a company is going-then describe how you can help get them there. This is something few candidates are doing, and it will provide you with an advantage over everyone who merely submitted a resume. You should separate from that crowd and show not only that you're valuable, but also that you're proactive- Be a hunter not a farmer.
BE PROACTIVE AND LEVERAGE YOUR NETWORK!
We really need to come together and work to help one another! Stop relying on job boards and wasting time with recruiters who think .NET is the ending of a URL.
Monday, May 4, 2009
"Why Join the Navy If You Could Be a Pirate?" - Steve Jobs
Society has a way of portraying life to be all about money. I am a firm believer that life is all about being happy.
I have a vision of a company where someone could be employed as a full time fisherman -if that's what truly makes them happy.
at the same time...
Another employee at this company is 100% happy chasing his dream of becoming a billionaire.
*The connection between the ambitious billionaire to be and the passionate fisherman is extraordinary.
This company wouldn't fire people, but instead evaluate them and utilize their strengths. I believe there is a way to place someone into something they are honestly, and genuinely happy doing. No matter who they are, or how much money they can make, the employee's will be excited for work everyday. It won't be a corporate structure, instead something similar to the inner-workings of a watch. No power or politics, but everything they do directly effects one another.
I have a vision of a company where someone could be employed as a full time fisherman -if that's what truly makes them happy.
at the same time...
Another employee at this company is 100% happy chasing his dream of becoming a billionaire.
*The connection between the ambitious billionaire to be and the passionate fisherman is extraordinary.
This company wouldn't fire people, but instead evaluate them and utilize their strengths. I believe there is a way to place someone into something they are honestly, and genuinely happy doing. No matter who they are, or how much money they can make, the employee's will be excited for work everyday. It won't be a corporate structure, instead something similar to the inner-workings of a watch. No power or politics, but everything they do directly effects one another.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Service Providers - Proving to be an Investment
How can a company legitimately find out who the best service providers and consultants are? You get a service or hire a consultant to grow your business, in which many cases they do. The problem it that everyone's claiming to have the best service or be the industry expert, but whats the proof? Fancy value propositions, all recommendations no complaints, basically companies harvest all the good data and at the same time discard and attempt to hide the bad information. We need a universal source of legitimate data, both good and bad, or a formula to build profiles on the different niche services. This will provide a way to see all the information and not just the info companies want us to see.
How can you tell if the recruiter you hire is worth the money being payed out?
There are several recruiters who have been major influences in successful companies by either putting together advisory boards, all-star development teams, or record setting sales organizations.
AT THE SAME TIME
Way to many recruiters collect money for semi decent work. The same goes for lawyers, contractors, consultants and subscription/service providers alike.
Everything is changing and its all about data mining, utilizing the information and remaining transparent in the process. Technology is too advanced for all these "below average" services/consultants to still be around providing poor work for premium costs. We need to structure and develop a way to prove that the service provider you choose to work with will indeed be an asset to your company providing long term value. It's funny, but in several cases a company is only as smart as their smartest IT guy. Well how do you even know that the guy is smart? CEO's should be able to know if their tech department is constantly innovating and adapting new technologies necessary to be competitive. Services alike, why subscribe to a service for a year unless you're 100% positive that service will constantly be updated, and the developers are constantly working as hard as they did to develop it? That's why I think many technologies fall off and new ones arise -people work so hard to build an app, service, or product, then move on after releasing it or start a new project maintaining the old one on the side. Any company that stops looking ahead sets themselves up for failure at some point down the road. Services need to be worked on non-stop as if they were still being developed.
In recruiter terms we have all these baby boomers with great track records and all these huge numbers, and impressive accomplishments, but are they still relevant? Are the top IT recruiters from the late 90's and early 2000's still constantly innovating? Well of course they are to a certain degree, they have to. My question is how much? Are the guys who staffed the CAD boom on top of iPhone development or have they merely moved on to basic Microsoft and Java? Do they even know how to work an iPhone?
So what about the big firms? Are they focused on training their recruiters weekly on where technology is going, the future of the cloud, is open source safe and reliable, etc, etc? Are they teaching their recruiters who the industry experts are, or how to track Google, Mozilla labs, Adobe labs, Microsoft MVP's & Evangelists, and other communities to see where technology is going? Have they even heard of those communities? I wonder what percent of "tech" recruiters here in Chicago land know that the founders of Ruby on Rails and Django both live in the area.
These big firms have quotas!
X # of Business Development Calls
X # of Candidate Calls
X # of Subscriptions to job boards
X # of incoming Resumes
A problem I see in Tech-Staffing way to much is the lack of innovation. You need to constantly be responding to the market and making changes to adapt. While this is present and known to many people and industries who do "Constantly Innovate", I see a huge lack here in Chicagoland with its big name IT staffing firms. A wide spread hate across Chicago is spreading in the development communities "I hate recruiters" but why? Because none of them innovate - Okay so a recruiter knows .Net and Java but he can't relate to me, he doesn't know anything about mobile applications or open source. He really doesn't know anything relevant at all, He doesn't know what happened at SXSW recently, or any upcoming events -nothing interesting. What he does know is that it's company policy to make 80 calls a day -which is why he is on the phone with you in the first place - not because he has any sort of valuable information to offer.
Now I want to get back to the topic of constantly innovating. In the past it was come up with a good idea, turn your ideas into a product or service, then hit the market. Now it's more to introduce a product or service and whoever can keep their product/service the most "hip" and "stylish" wins. My analogy for this is a fashionable younger person is constantly looking at Celebrities, Peers, and Icons. With so many sources for media and news the "young hipster" is constantly changing and adapting to new styles. If the "young hipster" wears a new jacket to school and gets made fun of chances are he wont wear that jacket again. The jacket gives you an Idea but its ongoing, they never stop, its a day by day bases who knows what will come out but they are constantly ready for change. Companies should strive to innovate in this same manner, surrounding themselves with people doing the same.
How can you tell if the recruiter you hire is worth the money being payed out?
There are several recruiters who have been major influences in successful companies by either putting together advisory boards, all-star development teams, or record setting sales organizations.
AT THE SAME TIME
Way to many recruiters collect money for semi decent work. The same goes for lawyers, contractors, consultants and subscription/service providers alike.
Everything is changing and its all about data mining, utilizing the information and remaining transparent in the process. Technology is too advanced for all these "below average" services/consultants to still be around providing poor work for premium costs. We need to structure and develop a way to prove that the service provider you choose to work with will indeed be an asset to your company providing long term value. It's funny, but in several cases a company is only as smart as their smartest IT guy. Well how do you even know that the guy is smart? CEO's should be able to know if their tech department is constantly innovating and adapting new technologies necessary to be competitive. Services alike, why subscribe to a service for a year unless you're 100% positive that service will constantly be updated, and the developers are constantly working as hard as they did to develop it? That's why I think many technologies fall off and new ones arise -people work so hard to build an app, service, or product, then move on after releasing it or start a new project maintaining the old one on the side. Any company that stops looking ahead sets themselves up for failure at some point down the road. Services need to be worked on non-stop as if they were still being developed.
In recruiter terms we have all these baby boomers with great track records and all these huge numbers, and impressive accomplishments, but are they still relevant? Are the top IT recruiters from the late 90's and early 2000's still constantly innovating? Well of course they are to a certain degree, they have to. My question is how much? Are the guys who staffed the CAD boom on top of iPhone development or have they merely moved on to basic Microsoft and Java? Do they even know how to work an iPhone?
So what about the big firms? Are they focused on training their recruiters weekly on where technology is going, the future of the cloud, is open source safe and reliable, etc, etc? Are they teaching their recruiters who the industry experts are, or how to track Google, Mozilla labs, Adobe labs, Microsoft MVP's & Evangelists, and other communities to see where technology is going? Have they even heard of those communities? I wonder what percent of "tech" recruiters here in Chicago land know that the founders of Ruby on Rails and Django both live in the area.
These big firms have quotas!
X # of Business Development Calls
X # of Candidate Calls
X # of Subscriptions to job boards
X # of incoming Resumes
A problem I see in Tech-Staffing way to much is the lack of innovation. You need to constantly be responding to the market and making changes to adapt. While this is present and known to many people and industries who do "Constantly Innovate", I see a huge lack here in Chicagoland with its big name IT staffing firms. A wide spread hate across Chicago is spreading in the development communities "I hate recruiters" but why? Because none of them innovate - Okay so a recruiter knows .Net and Java but he can't relate to me, he doesn't know anything about mobile applications or open source. He really doesn't know anything relevant at all, He doesn't know what happened at SXSW recently, or any upcoming events -nothing interesting. What he does know is that it's company policy to make 80 calls a day -which is why he is on the phone with you in the first place - not because he has any sort of valuable information to offer.
Now I want to get back to the topic of constantly innovating. In the past it was come up with a good idea, turn your ideas into a product or service, then hit the market. Now it's more to introduce a product or service and whoever can keep their product/service the most "hip" and "stylish" wins. My analogy for this is a fashionable younger person is constantly looking at Celebrities, Peers, and Icons. With so many sources for media and news the "young hipster" is constantly changing and adapting to new styles. If the "young hipster" wears a new jacket to school and gets made fun of chances are he wont wear that jacket again. The jacket gives you an Idea but its ongoing, they never stop, its a day by day bases who knows what will come out but they are constantly ready for change. Companies should strive to innovate in this same manner, surrounding themselves with people doing the same.
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