StinkFight.com

SO….I have a lot of time on my hands, and I also work a lot….on a lot of different projects. I spend many hours a day parked in front of a computer. I turn my laptop on at 2 PM when I wake up and it’s on until 6 AM when I go to sleep. And I’m pretty much on it, on and off, all my waking hours.

It’s sometimes hard to tell which of this time is work, what part of it is just fun, what’s promotion for previous projects and what’s research for future projects. Sometimes it all kinda blends together. I mean who can say that surfing links for three hours on Wikipedia or posting on some blog isn’t work, isn’t part of my job? It’s all good, it’s all learning, and everything I do helps everything else I’ll ever do in the future.

I recently posted some comments on the O’Reilly Digital Media site on David Battino’s post about the new H2 Recorder. (I have an H2 and love it.) David followed some of my links, liked some of my writing on Stink Fight and elsewhere, and contacted me with an offer of work.

I had no idea David was the editor of that site or that they were looking to hire one good, experienced writer with an extensive knowledge of digital audio, digital video and digital still photography, but I guess I fit the bill.

I signed the contract today, and I am now a writer for O’Reilly. The ironic thing is I’ve done work for them before. I edited DV Filmmaking Start To Finish, contributed to Digital Video Hacks and wrote an article for Make Magazine. I also did a presentation at Maker Faire in 2006. And David didn’t know any of this this when he decided to hire me. (O’Reilly is a big company, and there’s far too much going on for everyone to know everyone who’s ever done work for them.)

I really like working for O’Reilly and am psyched about this. They pay well, are respectful of their writers, and have a hip audience. I dig that.

One of the cool perks is that checks from O’Reilly have an etching of a tarsier on them. (Photo of a tarsier below, and also at the top of this post.)

So I guess the way you get a job in Web 2.o is be really good at what you do, but don’t look for a job. Mess around a lot on the Internet, post your thoughts freely, and be at the right place at the right time.

The term “Web 2.0“  was invented by Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media. –Do’h! See comments below)

This entry was posted by Michael W. Dean on Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 5:44 pm and is filed under Gear porn, MWD's Cool Stuff, Other people's cool stuff, Stink Fight, The world is a strange and beautiful place. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.