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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Updates

May Recap 2015

2015 05-28 NPR ThanksI cannot get over how fast this month went. I say that every month, but I honestly have no idea how I have kept myself together in May! From being the midroll on Pop Culture Happy Hour early in the month (direct link) to planning for my rapidly approaching trip to Spain I’m just sort of sitting here looking back and I’m a bit overwhelmed.

I did make a decision on what I’ll be reading this summer and I’ve been inspired by Simon over at Savidge Reads, and my friend from undergrad Carlie who sent me the book section of Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I think I may do a cull late in the summer before I move to another place in Boston. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but that’s definitely a potential possibility.

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Updates

November Recap 2014

2014 11-15 Geoffsgiving!If I thought October was bad, it was nothing compared to November! I feel like this should just all be lists of what I did this month, but that’s boring so instead you’re going to get lists AND pictures.

This month I had my annual friendsgiving with over 20 people at the house two days after the event I talk about below. I demand that we all sit in one big table and thus the ridiculous picture to the right.

The Tuesday before that I had a big event at work that a team of three of us spent most of the year planning (shifting it from every other year to every year) Here are two pictures from the event and the flowers I received for it being so successful! and after we finished it successfully I got flowers from the President of the College, right, I then of course proceeded to forget I got them and not water them for almost a week 🙁 I’m slowly trying to bring them back to life as they were so pretty. I’ll give it another couple of days and if they’re not back to normal I’ll have to say goodbye to them.

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Updates

May Recap 2014

2014 05-30 Reunioni DUCK TOUR!May is always one of the busiest months at work. Between graduation and reunion, it’s just non-stop, but thankfully we’re moving into the quiet months of the summer and I’ll hopefully be able to catch up on blogging and other personal projects!

The major plus side of my job and reunion is I get to do fun things like go on a duck tour, to the right, visit museums and hang out—with alumni at restaurants around the city where they force you to eat food and hang out far longer than you need to, but it’s completely worth it! Add in that we had an awesome turn out for the young alumni event and I’m a happy camper. Now we’ll spend the summer planning our two big events in the fall and then we’ll keep moving forward!

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