The long overdue update

I’m officially nuts.

In the last 6 months, I have moved from Canada to the Bay Area, worked with a great mentorship program, got set up at a rockin’ co-working space in Santa Cruz, networked like crazy…and am now launching a company.

I’ve since moved up to San Francisco and am currently sitting in Dogpatch labs trying to figure out how I can get set up in this space (props to the guys at Polaris for setting this up)

The tech scene in the bay area just blows me away. Anyone wanting to get into the startup world - spend 2 months here and you will see the world a completely different way.

As for what the company will be doing - I’m going to keep that pretty close for now, but with my background in community management, I’ll give you 3 guesses as to the area it’s in.

The ongoing search for employment nirvana.

I currently work three personal or professional contracts, and work about 50 hours a week, and yet I am still applying for work. Why?

Fulfillment.

Term based contract work changes constantly which I enjoy, but I also am always on the look out for more fulfilling work.

My background is in development work - I ran a non-profit in India for two years, did health research in Singapore, wrote a thesis on the impact of computer games on military intervention stretegy in developing areas and have a degree in development studies. My professional background has been in online community management, site administration and user generated content. I love to travel and I work almost entirely remotely.

Some people call me an entrepreneur, others call me an intrapreneur, but either way, I love challenges and solving problems. I love changing what I’m focusing on regularly. I love multi- and inter-disciplinary work. And my independent consulting has accomplished this, so far.

Short term contracts (1-3 years) and working on several projects at once keeps me occupied and thinking with different parts of my brain on different tasks. Different contracts fulfill different desires (I work for an educational non-profit and a crowdsourced non-profit travel website), but I still seek a full time permanent job which allows me to try new things with new challenges in a wide array of disciplines and hits my development background squarely on the head.

Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do, I love the commuities I work with now and will never stop engaging with them. It’s just that mix of new challenges, great people and a meaningful product in a full time, long term contract that seem elusive.

It’s out there. And some day I will find it, or maybe it will find me.

Returns to normalcy

I’ve been working 3 contracts and personal projects for a while now and it’s added up to about 80 hours a week after all was said and done. I loved all of it but I was burning out. I have now moved on from www.ConquerClub.com and passed it on to two more than capable people. I am especially happy to see one of my good friends and team members take on one of the two positions.

For now I am concentrating on www.Earth.org which is a colaborative travel guide with a non-profit approach. I am thorougly enjoying combining my UGC background with my love of travel and have 50% of our net income go to social, cultural and environmental projects around the world. It fits well.

It is good to be back to just 50 hours a week :)

The long tail of the job hunt

It’s been a busy week for me…

I finished my most recent (but probably not my last) round of schooling in December. In January I started applying for jobs. First I applied for non-profit jobs…ones that were way above my head. It’s where I saw myself being - go to school for “Development Studies”, then go back to work in the field doing dev work. I applied to lots and lots and lots of jobs.

Nothing. Not even a peep.

Then I applied for any position in the non-profit world - filling out paperwork, answering phones, internships, anything. And lots and lots of anything.

One whisper for a great job back out in India…that paid $400 a month. I can’t pay my student debt and live off of that very well, even in India. Nothing else.

Then I decided to go to my other passion: online community management.

I started searching, seemed I applied for a job a day (simplyhired.com - fantastic stuff!), through March.

Again, Nothing.

To say that I was starting to worry is an understatement.

Then, last month I approached a small startup (Earth.org) who wasn’t advertising for my position but I thought “heck, might as well, it’s a cool project” and they offered me a position as their Volunteer Coordinator.

In addition to this, I commited to a job working with Class Afloat (classafloat.com) and their non-profit…out in Nova Scotia.

Now, a week before I leave for Canada, I get not one, but three high profile nibbles.

Count them! one, two, three. In a week.

I tell you, I think these recruiters are talking amongst themselves and just playing with me at this point…

Anyhoo, the moral of the story is - 6 months. I started applying 6 months ago and am only now hearing back.

If you are looking to break into the online community management world, either work with the communities you know, be really good and really high profile, or wait 6 months.

Ahhhhh the forks in the road.