Start a company... and sell it for a dollar?!?

Or a Pound, Euro or whatever your local currency might be.

Penelope Trunk has an amazing tip for building your career portfolio. Start a company and sell it for next to nothing. Instead of looking at the company as a way to make money look at it as a way to boost your value to the next person that considers hiring you. I will leave it to her to go into the details but it makes sense in a weird sort of way.

Penelope's Post: http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2011/07/28/do-this-for-your-career-right-now-start-a-company-and-sell-it-for-a-dollar/

Aspergers & ASD Careers: Independent Journalist

Journalism is the greatest check on power, aside from guns, ever invented. But it also offers a view into every day life that is hidden from the rest by the scarcity of time, separation of geography and distractions of every day life. Independent journalism can provide both a career path and a way to connect the world around us.

With our interest in learning, observation skills and attention to detail in our obsessions writing news articles on the community around us or the obsessions that make our lives can find an outlet in the independent journalists. These articles can serve as part of your portfolio and get your name out as an able journalist and writer.

Check out these resources:

Handbook of Independent Journalism

Indymedia.org - an outlet for your articles

Independent Media in Canada

Oh My News - another outlet that accepts citizen journalists

ASD & Asperger Strengths at work: self learning and ambition

Employers love people who are self motivated and learn on their own. As an ASD Spectrumite we posses both of these. Sure due to depression or horrible sleep there are times when the ambition is not quite as evident as others but it is there. It is what makes us reach out for help, read everything we can on a subject and even view blogs like this. We are always looking to be better tomorrow than we were today. And if that does not inspire you try this: would anyone willingly go through the myriad of therapies and medications we have without ambition to be in a better place?

You can look on your obsessions two ways... a hindrance or an asset. If you view them as hindrances then you will fight them and try to suppress them. Viewed as an asset you will brag about them and encourage yourself in them. The key thing is to brag about them the right way.

Take this for a concrete example. I love reading about World War II naval ships. I can either say "yeah, I have this thing about WWII naval ships that I waste time on"

-or-

I can say "My grandfather was on a ship in WWII. I am not sure if that spawned my desire to learn more, as a way of connecting with him, or not but I tell you, I have become something of an armchair expert on them."

Which one sounds more impressive? You can do the same with your career portfolio. So what if learning medieval cooking recipes has nothing to do with the job at hand. Working into the conversation that you wanted to be an expert at something and achieved the expertise is a feather in your cap that you should brag about.

Learning and creating your own web applications

I have noticed that some ASD folk think you need special education or a degree in Computer Science to learn programming. In reality there are alternatives. The web is rife with tutorials on how to learn various programming languages and where to go to get free tools to build them. Keep in mind that you will be judged on what you produce as much as how you produce it. Some programming shops are sticklers for knowing and operating with the theoretical frameworks taught in school. These too can be learned and used outside of a classroom environment (start with Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software) and then look for articles and blogs on the web that mention design patterns.

If you are partial towards Microsoft, or looking for a place to start check out this article from Geeks in Phoenix: http://www.geeksinphoenix.com/blog/post/2011/06/25/Creating-web-apps-and-websites-for-free-with-Microsoft-Web-Platform.aspx. It gives a general overview of what is available from Microsoft to give you a leg up in your quest to learn more and show off what you can do.

Add your projects into your career portfolio and mention them on your LinkedIn account, web site and resume. It will show ambition and self learning; two items that are prized by employers everywhere.

Personal Branding: creating content

Jorgen Sundberg posted an article on Personal Branding that I think illustrates a similar point I have made on the Career Portfolio: content is the key. You want to create original works that help illustrate your value.

What I find ironic is that he deplores regurgitation which is precisely what I am doing here.

http://jorgensundberg.net/content/how-grow-your-personal-brand-create-content

Boosting the impact of your resume

I was talking with a friend of mine at lunch about how he stood out when he was at his first job. He was in charge of collecting on delinquent credit card accounts. It was not a good job and he planned on moving up or out fast. There were three ways he could talk about his main duty:

• Collect delinquent debts on open credit cards
• Monitor 30 credit accounts for outstanding debts and recoup money on those accounts
• Protected $1.3 million of at risk money for the company

Guess which one caught his boss's attention and made his resume stand out when he went to interview for a new position? The $1.3 million stands out and is something people in any position can understand. It shows concern for the company and an understanding of the real purpose of the position.

Consider this: as a customer service agent are you answering calls for the company or are you improving customer loyalty? As a blogger are you informing the public or are you drawing visitors to the money making parts of the website? The company and the managers in that company have their view... catering to that view in your writing will make you stand out above your co-workers or the bazillion other candidates applying for the same job.

Personal Branding v Career Portfolio

I talk a lot about building your career portfolio and little about branding... I do this on purpose. A career portfolio is a set of results (projects, accomplishments, valuable products) that you create that should be able to speak for themselves with only a little framing. Personal Branding is creating a coherent story out of your career & life. A strong portfolio is, by its nature, self branding; the worth should be self evident with only a limited amount of words linking them to you (or together).

I actually think personal branding can be quite valuable but it often requires a level of abstract communication that is difficult for those of us on the ASD Spectrum. Marketing is difficult and the casuistry and spin called for by that profession is often beyond us. Producing self explanatory results is not. So build the portfolio and let it do the talking.

Peek-a-boo Princess: an addition to my career portfolio

I just added another item to my Career Portfolio. I created a jQuery based website game for my daughter. She will love it and I can point to it when interviewing.  Check out Princess peek-a-boo

Using Kickstarter to bolster your career portfolio

One way you can put your name out there in a creative forum is via Kickstarter a crowdfunding platform that allows people to donate to creative projects. Among their successes are a RoboCop statue in Detroit, the free personal web server Diaspora and the Coffee Joulies.

If successful then you will have a public item you can point to on your resume or in interviews. even if it is not funded you have the networking and exposure from the attempt as well as a demonstration of your creativity. Four autism/asperger projects were attempted in 2010 with none being funded; not surprising given the 40% funding rate for projects.

Check it out here and if a thought hits you, take a chance and suggest a project: http://www.kickstarter.com/