ARC, Books

Book 779: Live Life Colorfully – Jason Naylor

Book cover of "Live Life Colorfully" with Amazon Affiliate linkWhen the publicist reached out to me about this one, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to accept it.* It’s been a few years since I reviewed an interactive book like this and even though they’re perennials on my top 10 viewed lists (oh heeeey, Lee Crutchley and Sharon Jones . . . ), I always feel like they’re cheating a little bit, but then again I spent most of last year flying through “trashy romance novels” so . . . yeah.

However, after checking out Naylor’s Instagram and seeing how many of the bright pieces of art made me smile and honestly adoring his love for colorful socks, I said yes.

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Personal Project, Professional Development

Teaching Myself Technology

This is the first of three follow-up pieces to my piece last week about my online presence, concerning hard skills. Posts on people and networking skills and establishing individuality are still forthcoming. Each post will build on the previous posts ultimately highlighting my unique skill set.

Today’s post, if you couldn’t tell by the title, is about my self-taught tech-skills. I’m discussing learning html, graphic design/editing software and podcast editing and how they have helped in my professional life. I’ve learned and refined other skills including copy editing (always a work in progress), mobile design programs and time management to name a few, but I wanted to focus on the bigger skills for this piece.

2015 08-26 HTML SampleLet’s start with the first I learned: html. Sure, most platforms have WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface, but having the ability to go in and fix formatting issues from font size and space to photo alignment is critical. When you add in the ability to build more complex things like lists and tables this has become an invaluable skill in my professional life. I am able to build, design and edit webpages and solve most formatting problems on my own. I can even use this to find out how other webpages are built (by viewing the source code) which allows me to continually expand my html knowledge!

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Personal Project, Professional Development

Will Blogging and Social Media Cost Me a Future Job?

2015 08-19 Google Geoff WhaleyHave you ever googled yourself? There are plenty of articles out there saying you should never do it, or you should do it all the time, but have you done it? You know future employers are going to, so why wouldn’t you?

Wondering what it would be like for a co-worker or future employer to search for me I did a quick search and the screen grab is to the right. It’s mostly me; 75% of it is links directly to something I’ve put online.

Recently, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on my online presence: my blog (geoffwhaley.com), Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and LinkedIn. I have a pretty robust online presence and I made a conscious decision when I started my blog over five years ago to keep that presence public.

I don’t do or write about anything illegal; I don’t do or write about anything too controversial; and I definitely draw a line between my professional time and my personal time. And yet, here I am wondering if all of this openness will hinder future career prospects.

My answer: No. 

Why? I won’t allow it.

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