title: “Skills = Power”

date: 2013-02-06

Not my words but those of Mr Calacanis. Also, Jason makes an interesting note about how to get noticed in the tech scene. For the record I’ve been blogging/writing since 2002 and it does work. 

“a) post highly intelligent comments – not about yourself – on those blogs 2-5x a day for three years.

b) start your own blog and write one blog post a day about one subject  for three years – not about yourself, about the topic. Don’t ever talk about yourself. 
c) go to any party, meetup or SIG you can find

_You do those three things you will break in. Two hours a day for three years._ 

Anyone who does that is going to not only get a job but might actually build a sustainable business or have a bidding war over them. ”

I don’t think it matters where you get the skills from whether it be learning from Github repositories or sitting a creative technologies degree course.  The mantra for the Northern Ireland tech scene (which I purloined from @cimota) should be recorded on a gregorian chant and played continuously for any founder, funder or developer: 

“Make yourself essential”.  

A degree, masters or PhD alone isn’t going to cut it anymore.  Ken Robinson’s notion of academic inflation has been around for a long time already, we just need to wake up to it.