iOpener

This past week finished off on Friday with the "iOpener" event, one of the city's biggest annual technology executive events, hosted by ic stars at the Chicago Cultural Center downtown. Among the topics at the event was the need for creativity in technology, especially its value in the new high-tech workforce.

Peter Drucker said there are only two real functions of a business; marketing and innovation. Innovation is the point where creativity stops being a clever idea and starts showing a return on investment. But creativity is where the initial value lies in a world where access to technology resources is becoming increasingly ubiquitous.

Michael Krauss, President of Market Strategy Group and member of the Mayor's Council of Technology Advisors, moderated a collaborative discussion through the audience at Friday's event to create message points on why 18-25 year olds should choose IT as a career. The results of the discussion will be published in an upcoming paper entitled, "Move the Future," in response to the continuing decline in enrollments for technology-related education and the increasing difficulty in finding people for IT positions.

The tools to make the next facebook or a photobucket or a digg are out there for anyone with a laptop, and the value of creativity to see them in a new way is the new trump card. As an executive at Apple said a couple years ago (pre-iPod), "We want to be the ones who come up with new ideas -- not the ones who snap the pieces together..."

Bill Gates Meets Napoleon

Some people hate Microsoft. Some people hate Bill Gates. Some people hate the movie "Napoleon Dynamite." If you're in one or more of those groups, don't watch this video. You'll hate it.

Otherwise, you might think it's pretty funny... maybe even download it to your iPhone.

Marketing Yourself

A friend asked me to review a resume recently and it struck me how much time is sometimes spent on format for a generic resume vs. content for a custom resume. Format is great -- it's good to show attention to detail and the ability to present well.

But for every job you're really serious about, your resume should be different, not changing any of the core components, but emphasizing the strengths that are appropriate to the position. Depending on your versatility and how far along in your career you are, no two of your resumes should be the same and some could look very different. It takes some work to find out just what the job entails and why you are the best qualified candidate -- which is what both sides want to know, right?

An e-mail blast of the same resume to ten or twenty or fifty companies is likely to get a response that is just as generic (if not moreso).

The End of Airline E-mail Blackout

An update on in-flight broadband -- American Airlines just announced they will team up with service provider Aircell to offer the internet on domestic flights early next year, picking up where Boeing left off, using cell towers rather than satellites. Blessing or curse, you'll be able to keep up on e-mail and access the web, rather than just updating spreadsheets and powerpoints.